Enfield Grammar School

Enfield Grammar Academy
Motto Tant Que Je Puis
(As Much As I Can)
Established 1558 (incorporating earlier foundation approx. 1398 - 1418)
Type Academy
Headmaster John Kerr
Founder Trustees of Poynants, (or Poynetts)
Location Market Place
Enfield
London
EN2 6LN
England
Coordinates: 51°39′11″N 0°04′59″W / 51.6531°N 0.0831°W / 51.6531; -0.0831
Local authority London Borough of Enfield
DfE number 308/5404
DfE URN 137094 Tables
Ofsted Reports
Students 1100~
Gender Boys
Ages 11–18
Houses Forty -F
Myddelton -M
Poynetts -P
Raleigh -R
St. Andrew's -S
Uvedale -U
Website www.enfieldgrammar.com
The old Enfield Grammar School building.

Enfield Grammar School is a boys' secondary school with academy status in Enfield Town in the London Borough of Enfield in north London.

History

Enfield Grammar School was founded on 25 May 1558. The school's first known headmaster was William Bradshawe who was head until 1600.

At its foundation, the school inherited part of a charitable endowment called Poynetts, originally established at South Benfleet in the will of Robert Blossom (d. 1418). This property had become the endowment of an earlier Enfield chantry-school which precedes and is incorporated into the Grammar School. As Dr. Birkett Marshall points out, there is evidence a schoolmaster existed in Enfield prior to 1524, based on an account of the funeral of a Sir Thomas Lovell. An older school-house which certainly still existed east of the churchyard in 1572 seems likely to have housed the grammar school established in 1558 until the erection in the 1580s of the Tudor building sometimes referred to as the Old Hall. This was built in the grounds adjacent to Prounces house, bought by the parish in 1516 and originally occupied by John Prouns in 1399. The Tudor school building is still currently in use. There were reportedly boarders in this building for part of its history, as reputedly there were much later at Enfield Court (the Lower School).

On the dissolution of the chantries in 1547 the rights to the charitable property passed to the Crown. However, the Court of Augmentations questioned and challenged the King's title so that in 1550 the property was restored. In 1553 Queen Mary relinquished all claims and in 1558 an attempt was made to endow a school with the Poynetts estate. Unfortunately, a proposed trustee died before execution of the deed, which meant a second deed granted only £6 13s. 4d. just sufficient for the salary of the former chantry priest who established a school, the remainder being used for the relief of the poor. Thus from 1558 a schoolmaster began teaching the children of Enfield's poor Latin and English 'according to the trade and use of grammar schools'. In 1586 William Garrett left £50 to build a schoolhouse, and this money is presumed to have been used to erect the Tudor building which is still in use and stands adjacent to the west of St. Andrew's Church.

In 1623, when the Prounces estate property was settled in trust, Prounces house became the schoolmaster’s residence. One headmaster, Robert Uvedale, while continuing in his post at EGS much to the consternation of the trustees and some parishioners opened another rival private (fee-paying) boarding-school, the Palace School, in about 1660, which survived until 1896.

Until 1967 EGS remained a grammar school. In that year, it was amalgamated with Chace Boys School to form a comprehensive school which retained the name Enfield Grammar School. The two schools were separated again in 1970, but both remained comprehensive. Chace Boys School has since become co-educational and has changed its name to Chace Community School.

Location

The upper school buildings are next to the Enfield Town Market Place and St. Andrew's Church, and have been extended several times since 1586. A new hall and further extensions were completed shortly before World War II.[1]

Originally Enfield Town where the school is situated was of some historical significance, being near Edward VI's palace where Elizabeth I lived for a while a princess, including during the final illness of Henry VIII. Edward was taken there to join her, so that in the company of his sister Edward Seymour, 1st Earl of Hertford, could break the news to Edward, formally announcing the death of their royal father in the presence chamber at Enfield, on his knees to make formal obeisance to the boy as King.[2] Later Elizabeth held court there when she was queen (this was remembered in the name Palace Gardens that was a street running behind Pearsons department store and is still recalled in the name of Enfield's shopping centre).[3][4] In 1924, Enfield Court in Baker Street was purchased to accommodate the lower school. For some years, the first year pupils of the grammar school shared it with the first year pupils of Enfield County School, but it is now used for Enfield Grammar School students in years 7 and 8, and its former gardens provide the school with playing fields. The Enfield Loop of the New River passes through the playing fields, and this is the only stretch of the loop without a public footpath on at least one side of it.

Motto

The school motto, which is incorporated in the school badge (apart from that signifying the sixth form), is 'Tant Que Je Puis', which is Old French, and means 'As much as I can'. It was taken from the Uvedale family, because Dr. Robert Uvedale was master from 1664 to 1676.

Houses

The school has a house system, at least for some internal sporting activities. The names of the houses are: Forty, Myddelton, Poynetts, Raleigh, St. Andrew's and Uvedale.

For a significant period, when the school was a selective one up to the end of the 1960s, the houses above were the basis of a wide range of other competitive internal activities such as drama, debating, competitive sports and so forth.

Notable alumni

Bibliography

References

  1. Dalling, Graham (2005-12-30). "Secondary Schools a history". History & Heritage. London Borough of Enfield. Archived from the original on 2007-11-08. Retrieved 2007-11-15.
  2. Edward VI, Jorge H. Castelli
  3. Palace Gardens Shopping Centre Retrieved 2007-11-15
  4. Enfield Town - London Borough of Enfield Retrieved 2007-11-15
  5. Jarrett, Hugh. "Band, John Morrell (1902 - 1943)". Australian Dictionary of Biography, Volume 13. Australian National University. Retrieved 2008-08-14.
  6. Szreter, Simon (14 December 2005). "Obituary - Joe Banks". Guardian Unlimited. Guardian News and Media Limited. Retrieved 2007-10-21.
  7. Dunstan, David. "Biggs, Leonard Vivian (1873 - 1944)". Australian Dictionary of Biography. Australian National University. Retrieved 2007-11-15.
  8. obituaries Jesus College, Cambridge Annual Report 2005
  9. "Jack Howe". Telegraph.co.uk - Obituaries. Telegraph Media Group. 16 December 2003. Retrieved 2010-03-01.
  10. Powers, Alan (10 December 2003). "Jack Howe - Assistant to Walter Gropius and Maxwell Fry who moved from architecture to industrial design". The Independent - Obituaries. Independent News and Media. Retrieved 2010-03-01.
  11. Professor Jeffrey A Jupp MA FRAeS FREng Professional biography, Aerospace Research Institute, The University of Manchester
  12. Times Obituary
  13. The Independent Obituary 2005-01-26 Retrieved 2007-10-11
  14. 1 2 Chilton, John. Who's who of British Jazz. Continuum International Publishing Group. Retrieved 2008-06-02.
  15. Smith, Samuel. (ed.) Enfield Grammar School Book of Remembrance: The Great War, 1914–1919. Enfield: Meyer Brooks, nd.
  16. Catalogues of the papers and correspondence of Sir Alec (Alexander Walter) Merrison, physicist, 1924-1989 Administrative/Biographical History, The Archives Hub
  17. Robin Millar
  18. Pike, Oliver G (Winter 1951). "Early Bird Photography". Bird Notes. Royal Society for the Protection of Birds. XXV (1): 21–22, 25.
  19. Murphy, H.H. (February 1953). "Dr. Harold Edward Ridgewood". Obituaries. Canad. M.A.J. 68 (2): 184. PMC 1822987Freely accessible.
  20. Hilton, Eric J.; Forey, Peter L. (1 July 2004). "Contributions of Walter G. Ridewood to systematic comparative anatomy, especially of the osteology of lower vertebrates" (pdf). Journal of Natural History. Virginia Institute of Marine Science. Retrieved 2010-11-16.

'Private Education from the Sixteenth Century: Developments from the 16th to the early 19th century', A History of the County of Middlesex: Volume 1: Physique, Archaeology, Domesday, Ecclesiastical Organization, The Jews, Religious Houses, Education of Working Classes to 1870, Private Education from Sixteenth Century (1969), pp. 241–255. URL: http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.aspx?compid=22124. Date accessed: Friday, 5 October 2007.

Media related to Enfield Grammar School at Wikimedia Commons

This article is issued from Wikipedia - version of the 9/23/2016. The text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike but additional terms may apply for the media files.