Stamford School | |
---|---|
Address | |
St Paul's Street , , PE9 2BQ England | |
Coordinates | 52°39′19″N0°28′18″W / 52.65520°N 0.47166°W |
Information | |
Type | Public school Private day and boarding |
Motto | Christ Me Spede |
Established | 1532 |
Founder | William Radcliffe |
Headmaster | Mark Steed (Until August 2025) Chris Seal (From August 2025) |
Gender | All Genders |
Age | 11to 18 |
Houses | Day – Beale/Ancaster, Anderson/Brazenose, Exeter/Cavell, Radcliffe/Eliot. Boarding - Browne, Byard, Park, St Paul's, Welland, Wothorpe. |
Colour(s) | Navy, maroon |
Publication | The Stamfordian |
Former pupils | Old Stamfordians |
Website | stamfordschools |
Stamford School is a co-educational independent school in Stamford, Lincolnshire in the English public school tradition. Founded in 1532, it has been a member of the Headmasters' and Headmistresses' Conference since 1920. With the former Stamford High School and the coeducational Stamford Junior School, it is part of the Stamford Endowed Schools (SES). From September 2023, Stamford became co-educational.
This section needs additional citations for verification .(September 2021) |
The school was founded in 1532 [1] by a local merchant and alderman, William Radcliffe, who had been encouraged when younger by Lady Margaret Beaufort, (died 1509) mother of Henry VII, though there is evidence to suggest that a school existed from the beginning of the fourteenth century. Founded as a chantry school, it fell foul of the Protestant reformers and was only saved from destruction under the Chantries Act of Edward VI by the personal intervention of Sir William Cecil (later Lord Burghley) who worked in the service of Edward Seymour, 1st Duke of Somerset and who secured a specific Act of Parliament in 1548 ensuring its survival. Apart from the chantries of the University of Oxford and the University of Cambridge, only those of Eton College, Winchester College, Berkhamsted, St Albans and Stamford schools survived.
Teaching is believed to have begun in the Corpus Christi chapel of Stamford's twelfth-century St Mary's Church, but by 1566 was taking place in the remaining portion of the redundant St Paul's Church, originally built no later than 1152. This building continued in use as a school room until the early twentieth century when it was restored and extended and, in 1930, returned to use as a chapel. In 1961, a nineteenth-century Gray and Davison pipe organ was installed [2] although this was removed in the 1990s and replaced with an electronic substitute. Over its history the school has built or absorbed seventeenth-, eighteenth- and nineteenth-century buildings, besides the site of a further demolished medieval church (Holy Trinity/St Stephen's) and remains of Brazenose College built by the secessionists from the University of Oxford in the fourteenth century. Brasenose College, Oxford bought Brazenose House in 1890 to recover the original medieval brass Brazenose knocker. [3] [4]
The right of appointment of the school's master, a position hotly contested in past centuries on account of the post's disproportionately large salary, was shared between the Mayor of Stamford and the Master of St John's College, Cambridge. Both Stamford Town Council and St John's College still have nominees on the school's governing body. Stamford School had a sister school, Stamford High School which was founded in 1877. It closed in 2023 as part of the co-educational merger with Stamford School. [5] The funds for the foundation of the High School and the further financial endowment of the existing boys' school were appropriated from the endowment of Browne's Hospital by Act of Parliament in 1871. This trust had been established for the relief of poverty by William Browne (died 1489), another wealthy wool merchant and alderman of the town, and his gift is commemorated in the name of a school house.
From 1975, Lincolnshire County Council purchased places at Stamford School and Stamford High School on the basis that Stamford had no LEA grammar school (unlike the county's other towns). This local form of the Assisted Places Scheme provided funding to send children to the two schools that were formerly direct-grant grammars. [6] The national Assisted Places Scheme was ended by the Labour government in 1997 but the Stamford arrangements remained in place as an increasingly protracted transitional arrangement. In 2006, Lincolnshire County Council agreed to taper down from 50 the number of county scholarships to the Stamford Endowed Schools so that there would be no new scholarships from 2012. [7] [8]
In recent years, the two schools were united under the leadership of a single principal as the Stamford Endowed Schools. This organisation comprised Stamford Junior School, a co-educational establishment for pupils aged between 2 and 11 years and Stamford School and Stamford High School for students aged 11–18. Sixth form teaching was carried out jointly between Stamford School and Stamford High School. [9] This was referred to as the diamond school model.
In 2012 the Memorial Sports Centre was opened by Lord Sebastian Coe. The facility contains a 25m swimming pool, replacing the outdoor Memorial Swimming Pool which opened in 1956. This was followed by the opening of the multi-million pound Wothorpe Sports Centre in 2022, built opposite Stamford Junior School on Wothorpe Road. [10]
Stamford Endowed Schools became co-educational from September 2023 and fully co-educational in every year group from 2024. The High School site is now used as the Sixth Form campus, named 'St Martin's'. [5]
Since 1885 The Stamfordian has been the school magazine of Stamford School. [11] Currently published annually in the Autumn term, it provides for current pupils and parents as well as Old Stamfordians and prospective parents an account of a year in the life of the school.
The school's crest is a stork (the spede bird) with wings displayed on a wool bale over the motto + me spede, that is Christ me spede. The emblem was adopted from medieval wool merchant, William Browne, after the school had been re-endowed from Browne's Charity in 1873. [12] (The stork is supposed to be a rebus on his wife, Margaret's maiden name of Stoke). The current form was designed by Nelson Dawson.[ citation needed ]
This section needs additional citations for verification .(September 2021) |
This section needs additional citations for verification .(September 2021) |
William Cecil, 1st Baron Burghley was an English statesman, the chief adviser of Queen Elizabeth I for most of her reign, twice Secretary of State and Lord High Treasurer from 1572. In his description in the Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition, A.F. Pollard wrote, "From 1558 for forty years the biography of Cecil is almost indistinguishable from that of Elizabeth and from the history of England."
The ancient universities are British and Irish medieval universities and early modern universities founded before the year 1600. Four of these are located in Scotland, two in England, and one in Ireland. The ancient universities in Great Britain and Ireland are amongst the oldest extant universities in the world. The ancient universities in Britain are part of twenty-seven culturally significant institutions recognised by the British monarchy as privileged bodies of the United Kingdom.
Stamford is a town and civil parish in the South Kesteven district of Lincolnshire, England. The population at the 2011 census was 19,701 and estimated at 20,645 in 2019. The town has 17th- and 18th-century stone buildings, older timber-framed buildings and five medieval parish churches. It is a frequent film location. In 2013 it was rated a top place to live in a survey by The Sunday Times. Its name has been passed on to Stamford, Connecticut, founded in 1641.
Thomas Cecil, 1st Earl of Exeter, KG, known as Lord Burghley from 1598 to 1605, was an English politician, courtier and soldier.
Francis Peck (1692–1743) was an English priest of the Church of England and antiquary, best known for his Desiderata Curiosa (1732–1735).
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Lincolnshire is one of the few counties within the UK that still uses the eleven-plus to decide who may attend grammar school, in common with Buckinghamshire and Kent. As a result, many towns in Lincolnshire have both a grammar school and a secondary modern school.
Queen Elizabeth's High School is a co-educational grammar school in Gainsborough, Lincolnshire, England. The school, established in 1983, but with a timeline to 1589, is an amalgamation of the previous Gainsborough High School and Queen Elizabeth's Grammar School.
Wothorpe is a village and civil parish in the Peterborough unitary authority of Cambridgeshire, England. It is in the far north-west of the district, and to the south of Stamford. The parish borders Northamptonshire to the west.
Sir Richard Cecil was an English nobleman, politician, courtier, and Master of Burghley (Burleigh) in the parish of Stamford Baron, Northamptonshire. His father Sir David Cecil, of Welsh ancestry, rose in favour under King Henry VIII of England, becoming High Sheriff of Northamptonshire in 1532 and 1533, and died in 1541.
Willem Wissing, known in England as William Wissing, was a Dutch portrait artist who worked in England.
Stamford High School, founded in 1877, was an independent school for girls in Stamford, Lincolnshire, England. In 2023, it merged with Stamford School to form a co-educational school.
Appleby Grammar School is a co-educational comprehensive secondary school and sixth form in Appleby-in-Westmorland for students aged 11 to 18. Since 2011, it has been an Academy. Until 2013, the school was a registered charity.
The Church of St Paul in Stamford, Lincolnshire, England, was one of the town's fourteen Medieval parish churches until its deconsecration and extensive demolition during the Reformation when the remaining part became used as the schoolroom of Stamford School. It was then restored and extended in 1929-30 for use as the school chapel in commemoration of those old boys and staff who had died in the First World War. The medieval remains were the eastern part of the south aisle and adjacent fragments of the nave of the church.
Sir William Browne was Lord Mayor and Merchant of the Staple of Calais, France; and founder of Browne's Hospital, a medieval almshouse and listed building in Stamford, Lincolnshire, England.
The history of Brasenose College, Oxford, stretches back to 1509, when Brasenose College was founded on the site of Brasenose Hall. Its name is believed to derive from the name of a bronze knocker that adorned the hall's door. The college was associated with Lancashire and Cheshire, the county origins of its two founders – Sir Richard Sutton and the Bishop of Lincoln, William Smyth – a link that was maintained strongly until the latter half of the nineteenth century. The first principals navigated Brasenose, with its Catholic sympathisers, through the reformation and continuing religious reforms. Most of Brasenose favoured the Royalist side during the English Civil War, although it produced notable generals and clergy on both sides. The library and chapel were completed in the mid-seventeenth century, despite Brasenose suffering continuing financial problems.
Marlborough Royal Free Grammar School, previously known as Marlborough Grammar School and King Edward's School, Marlborough, was a grammar school in the town of Marlborough, in Wiltshire, England, founded in 1550.
Edward Browning was an English architect working in Stamford.
The Hulme Trust is an educational trust and charity founded in 1691 by the bequest of the English lawyer and landowner William Hulme (c.1631–91).
The University of Stamford was an academic institution founded in 1333 in Stamford, Lincolnshire, by a group of students and tutors from the University of Oxford, including Merton College and Brasenose Hall.
R. O. M. Bayldon has received an award at Leicester Art College for his design of theatrical costumes and sets.