Westminster School

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Westminster School The Royal College of St Peter in Westminster
Motto	Dat Deus Incrementum
Established	1179 (Refounded in 1560)
Type	Public School
Head Master	Dr M. S. Spurr
Founder	Pope Alexander III (1179) Elizabeth I (1560)
Location	Little Dean's Yard Westminster London SW1P 3PF United Kingdom
Students	742
Gender	Boys; Mixed in Sixth Form
Ages	13 to 18
Former pupils	Old Westminsters
Website	www.westminster.org.uk
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The Royal College of St Peter in Westminster, almost always known as Westminster School, is one of Britain's leading boys' independent schools and one of the nine public schools set out in the Public Schools Act 1868. It is located next to Westminster Abbey in central London, with a history stretching back beyond the 12th century. The school traditionally encourages independent and individual thinking. The Head Master since 2005 is Dr Stephen Spurr, and there are currently 742 boys and girls, of whom around a third are boarders; most go home for the weekends, after Saturday morning school. Boys are admitted to the Under School at age seven or eleven and the main school at age thirteen. Girls are only admitted to the two senior years of the school (ages 16–18).

Previous Head Masters include Tristram Jones-Parry, John Rae, Richard Busby, William Camden, Nicholas Udall, John Freind, and William Gunion Rutherford.

[edit] History

Little Dean's Yard from Liddell's Arch

The School had become a public school (i.e. a school available to members of the public, so long as they could pay their own costs) by 1179, when a decree of Pope Alexander III required the Benedictine monks of the Abbey at Westminster to provide a charity school. It is likely that schoolboys were taught by the monks well before then. Parts of the School's buildings date back to the eleventh century, older than the current Abbey.

This arrangement changed in 1540, when Henry VIII ordered the dissolution of the monasteries in England, but personally ensured the School's survival by his royal charter. The College of St. Peter carried on with forty "King's Scholars" financed from the royal purse. Although during Mary I's brief reign the Abbey was reinstated as a Roman Catholic monastery, it was redissolved on Elizabeth I's accession, and neither of these events had a major impact on the School. The School occupies a number of the buildings vacated by the monks.

Elizabeth I re-founded the School in 1560, with new statutes to select 40 Queen's Scholars from boys who had already attended the school for a year. Queen Elizabeth frequently visited her scholars, although she never signed the statutes nor endowed her scholarships, and 1560 is now generally taken as the date that the school was "founded", although legal separation from the Abbey was only achieved with the Public Schools Act 1868. There followed a scandalous public and parliamentary dispute over a further 25 years, to settle the transfer of the properties from the Canons of the Abbey to the School. Under the Act, the Dean of Westminster Abbey is ex officio the Chairman of the Governors; and school statutes have been made by Order in Council of Queen Elizabeth II.

Camden was the first internationally-famous headmaster, but Dr. Busby, himself an Old Westminster, established the reputation of the school for several hundreds of years, as much by his classical learning as for his ruthless discipline of the birch, immortalised in Pope's Dunciad. Busby prayed publicly Up School^[1] for the safety of the Crown, on the very day of Charles I's execution, and then locked the boys inside to prevent their going to watch the spectacle a few hundred yards away. Regardless of politics, thrashing Royalist and Puritan boys alike without fear or favour, Busby also took part in Oliver Cromwell's funeral procession, when a Westminster schoolboy succeeded in snatching the "Majesty Scutcheon" from the coffin (it was given to the School by his family two hundred years later). Busby remained in office throughout the Civil War and the Commonwealth, when the school was governed by Parliamentary Commissioners, and well into the Restoration.

In 1679, a group of scholars killed a bailiff, ostensibly in defence of the Abbey's traditional right of sanctuary, but probably because the man was trying to arrest a consort of the boys. Dr. Busby obtained a royal pardon for his scholars from Charles II, and added the cost to the school bills. The King's picture in the sealed pardon keeps an eye on the Master of the Queen's Scholars in her sitting room.

During the sixteenth century the school educated writers including Ben Jonson and Richard Hakluyt; in the seventeenth, the poet John Dryden, philosopher John Locke, scientist Robert Hooke, composer Henry Purcell and architect Christopher Wren were pupils; and in the eighteenth philosopher Jeremy Bentham and several Whig Prime Ministers and other statesmen.

Until the nineteenth century, the curriculum was made up of Latin, Greek, Arabic, and Hebrew, all taught Up School. The Westminster boys were uncontrolled outside school hours, and notoriously unruly about town, but the proximity of the School to the Palace of Westminster meant that politicians were well aware of the boys' exploits. After the Public Schools Act 1868, in response to the Clarendon Report on the financial and other malpractices at nine pre-eminent public schools, the School began to approach its modern form. Unusually among the leading public schools however, Westminster did not submit to most of the broader changes associated with the Victorian ethos of Thomas Arnold, such as the emphasis on team over individual spirit, and the school retained much of its distinctive character. Despite many pressures, including evacuation and destruction of the School roof during the Blitz, the school also refused to move out of central London along with other prominent schools such as Charterhouse and St. Paul's, and remains in its original location close by the centres of church and state.

Westminster Under School was formed in 1943 at the evacuated school, as a distinct preparatory school for day pupils between the ages of 8 to 13 (now 7 to 13). Only the separation is new: for example, in the eighteenth century, Edward Gibbon attended Westminster from the age of 11. The Under School has since moved to Vincent Square, overlooking the School's playing fields. Its current headmaster is Mr. Jeremy Edwards.

In 1967, the first female pupil was admitted to the Upper School, with girls becoming full members in all houses from 1973 onwards. In 1981 a single-sex boarding house, Purcell's, was created again, for girls.

[edit] Location

The School is located primarily in the walled precincts of the former mediæval monastery at Westminster Abbey, its main buildings surrounding its private square Little Dean's Yard (known as 'Yard'), off Dean's Yard, where Church House, the headquarters of the Church of England, is situated, along with some of the Houses, the Common Room, the new humanities building Weston's, and College Hall.

Immediately outside the Abbey precincts on Great College Street is Sutcliff's (named after the tuck shop in the building in the 19th century), where Geography, Art and Classics (Latin and Ancient Greek) are taught. The Robert Hooke Science Centre is further away, just off Smith Square. As part of an expansion programme funded by a legacy from A. A. Milne, the school has added the nearby Millicent Fawcett Hall for Drama and Theatre Studies lessons and dramatic performances; the Manoukian Centre for Music lessons (both timetabled and private) and musical recitals; and the Weston Building (formerly known as '3 and 3A Dean's Yard'), which is situated near the entrance of Dean's Yard from Broad Sanctuary.

College Garden, to the East of Little Dean's Yard, is believed to be the oldest garden in England, under continuous cultivation for around a millennium. Just beyond rises the Victoria Tower of the Houses of Parliament; the Queen's Scholars have special rights of access to the House of Commons. To the North, the Dark Cloister leads straight to the Abbey, which serves as the School Chapel.

The playing fields are half a mile away at Vincent Square, which Dean Vincent created for the School by hiring a horse and plough to carve ten acres out of the open Tothill Fields. The boathouse is now some way from the school at Putney, where it is used for the famous Oxford and Cambridge boat race; although the school's First Eight still returns annually to exercise its traditional right to land at Black Rod Steps of the Palace of Westminster.

[edit] Notable buildings

Westminster, situated in the middle of the UNESCO World Heritage Site of Westminster Abbey, St. Margaret’s, and the Palace of Westminster, has several buildings notable through unique qualities, age, and history.

'College Hall', the 14th century Abbot's state dining hall, is one of the oldest and finest examples of mediæval refectory in existence, and in use for its original purpose every day in term-time; outside of term it reverts to the Dean, as the Abbot's successor. Queen Elizabeth Woodville took sanctuary here in 1483 with 5 daughters and her son Richard, but failed to save him from his fate as one of the Princes in the Tower. In the 1560s, Elizabeth I several times came to see her scholars act their Latin Plays on a stage in front of the attractive Elizabethan gallery, which may have been first erected especially for the purpose.

'College', now shared between the three Houses of College, Dryden's and Wren's, is a dressed stone building overlooking College Garden, the former monastery's Infirmary garden which is still the property of the Collegiate Church of Westminster Abbey. College dates from 1729, and was designed by the Earl of Burlington based on earlier designs from Sir Christopher Wren (himself an Old Westminster).

'School', originally built in the 1090s as the monks' dormitory, is the School's main hall, used for Latin Prayers (a weekly assembly with prayers in the Westminster-dialect of Latin), exams, and large concerts, plays and the like. From 1599 it was used to teach all the pupils, the Upper and Lower Schools being separated by a curtain hung from a 16th century pig iron bar, which remains the largest piece of pig iron in the world. The stone steps and entranceway to School have been attributed as the work of Inigo Jones, and are engraved with the names of many pupils who used to hire a stonemason for the purpose. The panelling "up School" is similarly, but officially, painted with the coats of arms of many former pupils. The shell-shaped apse at the North end of School gave its name to the Shell forms taught there and the corresponding classes at many other public schools. The current shell displays a Latin epigram on the rebuilding of School, with the acrostic Semper Eadem, Elizabeth I's motto. The classroom door to the right of the Shell was recovered from the notorious Star Chamber at its demolition.

Both School and College had their roofs destroyed during the Blitz by incendiary bombs in 1941. The buildings were re-opened by George VI in 1950.

Ashburnham House, which today houses the library and the Mathematics Department, was built by Inigo Jones or his pupil John Webb around the time of the Restoration, as a London seat for the family who became the Earls of Ashburnham. It incorporates remains of the mediaeval Prior's House, and its garden is the site of some of the earliest sittings of the House of Commons. In 1721 when Ashburnham housed the King's and Cottonian libraries, which form the basis of the British Library, there was a disastrous fire and many of the books and manuscripts still show the marks. After the Public Schools Act 1868 there was a scandalous parliamentary and legal battle between the Abbey and the School, until the School eventually obtained Ashburnham under the Act for £4000. In 1881 William Morris conducted a public campaign which succeeded in preventing its demolition but failed to save the neighbouring mediaeval buildings. During the Second World War, the library was used for very senior military purposes, and the ground floor as an American officers' club. In 1969 it was used as one of the locations for the film The Magic Christian.

[edit] Customs

Pupils fight for the pancake (left), watched by the Dean of Westminster Abbey and the Head Master (right). The set of scales will determine the winner.

The 'Greaze' has been held "up School" on Shrove Tuesdays since 1753: the head cook ceremoniously tosses a horsehair-reinforced pancake over a high bar, that was used in the sixteenth-century to curtain off the Under School. Members of the school fight for the pancake for one minute, watched over by the Dean of Westminster Abbey (as Chairman of the Governors), the Head Master, the whole School and distinguished or even occasionally Royal visitors. The pupil who gets the largest weight is awarded a gold sovereign (promptly redeemed for use next year), and the Dean begs a half-holiday for the whole School. A cook who failed to get the 'pancake' over the bar would formerly have been "booked", or stoned to death with Latin primers, although that tradition has long lapsed.

The privilege of being the first commoners to acclaim each new sovereign at their coronation in Westminster Abbey is reserved for the Queen's (or King's) Scholars. Their shouts of "Vivat Regina" ("Long Live the Queen") are nowadays incorporated into the Coronation Anthem.

Despite the split from the Abbey, the school remains an Anglican one, with services in the Abbey attended by the entire school at least twice a week, and many other voluntary-attendance services of worship. The school was expressly exempted by the Act of Uniformity, to allow it to continue saying Latin prayers despite the Reformation. Every Wednesday there is an assembly Up School known as Latin Prayers, which opens with the Headmaster leading all members of the school in chanting prayers in Latin, followed by notices in English. The School's unique pronunciation of formal Latin is known as 'Westminster Latin', and descends from medieval English scholastic pronunciation: Queen Elizabeth I, who spoke fluent Latin, commanded that Latin was not to be said "in the monkish fashion", a significant warning upon loyalties between Church and State. A service called 'Little Commem' is given in Latin each year, in which the Queen's Scholars commemorate the School's benefactors, laying pink roses on the tomb of Elizabeth I in Westminster Abbey. Every third year a much larger service called 'Great Commem' is given in its place.

Since the monastic Christmas revels of mediæval times, Latin Plays have been presented by the Scholars, with a prologue and witty epilogue on contemporary events. Annual plays, "either tragedy or comedy", were required by the school statutes in 1560, and some early plays were acted in College Hall before Elizabeth I and her whole Council. However, in a more prudish age Queen Victoria did not accompany Prince Albert and The Prince of Wales to the Play, and recorded in her diary that it was "very Improper". Today, the play is put on less frequently, any members of the school may take part, and the Master of the Queens Scholars (currently a female historian) gives the Latin prologue.

The Queen's Scholars have privileged access to the House of Commons gallery, said to be a compromise recorded in the Standing Orders of the House in the nineteenth century, to stop the boys from climbing into the Palace over the roofs.

[edit] Entry

There are 4 main points of entry for prospective pupils:

• For the Under School, at ages 7 and 11, judged by a combination of internal exam and interview.
• For the Lower School, at age 13, judged by either Common Entrance, a standardised, national set of exams for entrance to independent schools, for standard entry, or the Challenge, an internal set of exams, for scholarship entry, as well as interview.
• For the Upper School, at age 16, judged by subject-specific exams and interviews and conditional upon GCSE results. This is the only point of entry for girls, and only a handful of boys join at this point each year.

As well as the Queen's Scholarships which pay from endowment one half of boarding fees, and of which there are normally eight in each year, there is a small number (usually two) of Honorary Scholarships for boys who pass the Challenge and could have been scholars but do not want to board. Stephen Hawking was entered for the scholarship in 1952, but fell ill on the day of the Challenge examination.

Those entering the Lower School also have the opportunity to obtain scholarships based on musical talent, and bursaries for those whose parents are not able to fund their tuition. Ignoring scholarships and bursaries, annual fees are as follows:^[2]

[edit] University applications

According to a report by the Sutton Trust, Westminster School has the highest Oxbridge acceptance rate of any school at 49.9% (5 year average) with 76 pupils achieving Oxbridge places in 2005. Furthermore, it also has an 85.6% (5 year average) acceptance rate into the Sutton 13 elite list of the top 13 universities for research in the UK. The report claimed that, in general, independent schools achieve 16.3% more places at Sutton 13 universities than would be expected on merely from A-level grades.^[3]

[edit] Westminster jargon

[edit] Year names

Westminster has an unusual system for naming the school years, which can cause confusion to those not familiar with the system.

• Year 9: Vth Form
• Year 10: Lower Shell
• Year 11: Upper Shell (GCSE)
• Year 12: VIth Form (AS)
• Year 13: Remove (A2)

The Lower and Upper Shell years are named for the shell-shaped alcove up School where they were originally taught; the name has been adopted by several other schools with a Westminster connection.

[edit] Houses

Rigaud's House (far right), Grant's House (right), residence of the Master of the Queen's Scholars (centre), College (far left, top floors) and Dryden's House (far left, ground floor)

The School is split into 11 Houses, some of which are 'day Houses' (and only admit day-pupils, those who go home after school), the others having a mix of day-pupils and boarders. The Houses are named after people connected to the house or school in various ways — mainly prominent Old Westminsters but also former Head Masters and House Masters. Other than College, Grant's is the oldest house, not only of Westminster but of any public school.

Houses are a focus for pastoral care and social and sporting activities, as well as accommodation for boarders. All the day houses are mixed-sex, and all houses admit girls; only Busby's and Purcell's provide boarding accommodation for girls - the remainder admit day girls only.

Each House has associated colours, which are worn on ties awarded for various (usually sporting) achievement while representing the House. There are also pink-striped ties awarded for achievement while representing the whole school, with the amount of pink denoting the level of achievement.

At inter-house sporting events, pupils can wear house t-shirts, which are in house colours and feature the name of the house (except the College t-shirt which has no text).

College, the House of the Queen's Scholars (all of whom board), has assigned to it some of the non-boarding girls who enter the School in the VIth form.

[edit] Sport ("Station")

Westminster School Boat Club's boathouse in Putney

The School has three of only a few Eton Fives courts in the world, located behind Ashburnham House. The school frequently fields pupils as national entries in international competitions in rowing, or "Water", and fencing at which they do very well.

The Oxford University Boat Club use Westminster's boat house at Putney as their HQ for the annual Oxford and Cambridge boat race on the Thames. The boathouse was remodelled in 1996, and won a Wandsworth design award in 1999. The school's colour is pink and one rumour for this colour is that it was derived from washed-out red shirts worn by rowers. Another rumour is that Westminster rowers raced Eton College for the right to wear pink. The story goes that on one running of the annual Eton-Westminster rowing race both crews arrived wearing the same colour pink, which was fashionable at the time. The Eton crew bought some light-blue ribbon (which later became the standard Eton colours) to differentiate themselves, but the Westminster crew won the race and the right to wear pink in perpetuity. The premier Leander Club at Henley, which was founded in London by a number of Old Westminster rowers, later adopted by although they call the colour cerise. This unusual colour for sportsmen has occasionally provoked violent incidents in recent times- such as stones being thrown at rowers from the bank - but usually removes any need for away kit; the only problems arise when racing against Abingdon School, which also wears pink.

The School's main sports ground is nearby at Vincent Square, but it is limited to football and cricket on the main area and tennis and netball on the courts, it also hosts a playground for Westminster Under School. It is not large enough for all the pupils doing these sports to use simultaneously (the football pitches are made into cricket pitches for the summer). Therefore the school hires and owns other sporting facilities near the school. These include the oldest boating club in the world, an astroturf ground in Battersea, and a fencing centre. 'Green' (Dean's Yard) is also used, as are the 2 school gyms (one in the Abbey Cloisters and one in the Weston's school building) and the three Fives courts, as well as informal "yard cricket", "yard football" and "Scuba Football" played in Little Deans Yard.

Westminster has an historic joint claim to a major role in the development of Association Football, which remains the school's largest sport. During the 1840s at both Westminster and Charterhouse, pupils' surroundings meant they were confined to playing their football in the cloisters, making the rough and tumble of the handling game that was developing at other schools such as Rugby impossible, and necessitating a new code of rules. During the formulation of the rules of Association Football in the 1860s representatives of Westminster School and Charterhouse also pushed for a passing game, in particular rules that allowed forward passing ("passing on"). Other schools (in particular Eton College and Harrow) favoured a dribbling game with a tight off-side rule. By 1867 the Football Association had chosen in favour of the Westminster and Charterhouse game and adopted an off-side rule that permitted forward passing.^[5] The modern forward-passing game was a direct consequence of Westminster and Charterhouse Football.

• See also Old Westminsters F.C.

[edit] Former pupils

See also: List of former pupils of Westminster

The following people were educated at Westminster, amongst about 1000 others listed in the ODNB:

• Ben Jonson (1573 – 1637), poet and dramatist
• George Herbert (1593 – 1633), public orator and poet
• John Dryden (1631 – 1700), poet and playwright
• John Locke (1632 – 1704), philosopher
• Sir Christopher Wren (1632 – 1723), architect and scientist, co-founder of the Royal Society
• Robert Hooke FRS (1635 – 1703), British scientist
• Henry Purcell (1659 – 1695), composer
• Charles Wesley (1707 – 1788), Methodist preacher and writer of over 6,000 hymns
• Edward Gibbon FRS (1737 – 1794), historian
• Jeremy Bentham (1748 – 1832), lawyer, eccentric and philosopher
• Thomas Pinckney (1750 – 1828), American soldier, politician, and diplomat.
• A. A. Milne (1882 – 1956), author and journalist
• Robert Southey (1774 – 1843), poet, historian and biographer
• Sir Adrian Boult (1889 – 1983), conductor
• Sir John Gielgud (1904 – 2000), actor and director
• Sir Andrew Huxley (b. 1917), Nobel prizewinning physiologist
• Sir Peter Ustinov (1921 – 2004), actor, writer, director and raconteur
• Tony Benn (born 1925), politician
• Peter Brook (born 1925, LL 1937-1938), theatre director
• Nigel Lawson (born 1932, WW 1945-1950), former Chancellor of the Exchequer, father of Nigella Lawson
• Simon Gray (born 1936, WW 1949-1954), playwright and diarist
• Andrew Lloyd Webber (born 1948, QS 1960-1965), composer and producer
• Martin Amis (born 1949), novelist
• Stephen Poliakoff (born 1952, WW 1966-1970), director, playwright and television dramatist
• Timothy Winter (born 1960), Shaykh Zayed Lecturer in Islamic Studies, Faculty of Divinity, Cambridge University
• James Robbins (GG 1968-1972), BBC Diplomatic Correspondent
• Shane MacGowan (born 1957, AHH 1972-1973), musician
• Matt Frei (born 1963, RR 1978-1981), BBC Washington Correspondent
• Helena Bonham Carter (born 1966, LL 1982-84), actress
• Noreena Hertz (born 1967, CC 1983-85), economist and campaigner
• Nick Clegg (born 1967), Liberal Democrat leader
• Joe Cornish (born 1968), comedian
• Ruth Kelly (born 1968, DD 1984-86), Cabinet minister
• Marcel Theroux (born 1968), novelist and broadcaster
• Adam Buxton (born 1969), comedian
• Tobias Hill, (born 1970), poet and novelist
• Louis Theroux (born 1970), broadcaster
• Jonathan Yeo (born 1970), artist
• Dido Armstrong (born 1971, WW, 1987-89), British musician under the name "Dido"
• Martha Lane Fox (born 1973), internet entrepreneur
• James Reynolds (born 1974), BBC Beijing Correspondent
• Conrad Shawcross (born 1977), artist
• Pinny Grylls (born 1978), documentary film-maker
• Benjamin Yeoh (born 1978), playwright

[edit] Victoria Cross holders

Six former pupils of Westminster have won the Victoria Cross:

• Edmund Henry Lenon VC (1830 - 1893) (at Westminster June 1851-1855).
• William George Hawtry Bankes VC (1836 - 1858) (at Westminster April 1850-1856)
• Nevill Maskelyne Smyth VC (1868 - 1941) (at Westminster June 1882-1885). He served in the First World War, later Sir Nevill Maskelyne Smyth VC, KCB, (Croix de Guerre (Belgium), Legion d'Honneur (France))
• Arthur Martin-Leake VC and Bar (1874 - 1953) (at Westminster June 1888-1891), one of only three to receive twice.^[6]
• William Hew Clark-Kennedy VC, CMG, DSO & Bar (1879 - 1961) (at Westminster June 1893-1896).
• Richard Wakeford VC. (1921 - 1972) (at Westminster June 1934-1940).

[edit] References

[edit] Further reading

• Tony Trowles (2005). A Guide to the Literature of Westminster Abbey, Westminster School and St. Margaret's Church 1571-2000. Boydell Press. 
• John Rae (1994). Delusions of Grandeur: A Headmaster's Life. HarperCollins. 
• John Field (1986). The King's Nurseries: The Story of Westminster School (2nd edition). James & James. ISBN 0-907383-01-7. 
• Lance Bertelsen (1987). The Nonsense Club: Literature and Popular Culture, 1749-1764. Oxford: Clarendon Press. 
• John Dudley Carleton (1965). Westminster School: A History (revised edition). R. Hart-Davis. 
• Lawrence Edward Tanner (1934). Westminster School: A History. Country Life. 
• Reginald Airy (1902). Handbooks to the great Public Schools: Westminster. George Bell & Sons. 
• John Sargeaunt (1898). Annals of Westminster School. Methuen. 
• Westminster School Almanack (http://intranet.westminster.org.uk/almanack/index.asp)

[edit] See also

• List of the oldest schools in the world
• List of Victoria Crosses by School

[edit] External links

• Westminster School website
• Westminster School Boat Club website