Rugby School
From Freepedia
Rugby School, located in the town of Rugby in Warwickshire, is one of the oldest public schools in the United Kingdom and is perhaps one of the top co-educational boarding schools in the country.
Rugby School was founded in 1567 as a provision in the will of a certain Lawrence Sheriff who had made his fortune supplying groceries to Queen Elizabeth I of England.
Since Lawrence Sheriff lived in Rugby, the school was intended to be a free grammar school for the boys of that town. Gradually, however, the nature of the school shifted to become fee-paying, and so a new school – Lawrence Sheriff Grammar School – was founded to continue Lawrence Sheriff's original intentions.
The school's most famous headmaster was Dr. Thomas Arnold. Appointed in 1828 he executed many reforms to the school curriculum and administration and was immortalised in Thomas Hughes' book Tom Brown's School Days.
The game of Rugby owes its name to the school. The legend of William Webb Ellis and the origin of the game is commemorated by a plaque. The story has been known to be a myth since it was first investigated by the Old Rugbeian Society in 1895. There were no standard rules for football during Webb Ellis's time at Rugby (1816&ndash'1825) and most varieties involved carrying the ball. The games played at Rugby were organized by the students and not the masters, the rules of the game played at Rugby and elsewhere were a matter of custom and were not written down. They were frequently changed and modified with each new intake of students. The sole source of the story is credited to one Matthew Bloxam (a former student, but not a contemporary of Webb Ellis) in October 1876 (four years after the death of Webb Ellis) in a letter to the school newspaper (The Meteor) whereby he quotes some unknown friend relating the story to him. He elaborated on the story some three years later in another letter to The Meteor, but shed no further light on its source.
The school chapel and quadrangle were designed by the well-known Victorian Gothic revival architect William Butterfield in 1875.
Rugby School has both day and boarding-pupils, the latter in the majority. Originally it was for boys only, but girls have been admitted to the sixth form since 1975. It went fully co-educational in 1995.
Alumni of Rugby School
Notable Old Rugbeians (ORs) include:
- Sir Brigadier-General Harry Paget Flashman VC K.C.B K.C.I.E, fictional Victorian hero, amongst other things
- Matthew Arnold, Victorian poet and critic
- Robert Barton, Irish lawyer and statesman who worked on the Anglo-Irish Treaty
- William Bateson, English geneticist
- Charles Bowen, 1st Baron Bowen, a lawyer and judge
- Humphry Bowen, British botanist and chemist
- Rupert Brooke, English poet
- Lewis Carroll, British writer, famous for Alice's Adventures in Wonderland
- Neville Chamberlain, politician and former Prime Minister
- Arthur Hugh Clough, English poet
- The Earl of Derby, prominent 19th century statesman
- William Webb Ellis, the credited inventor of rugby football
- Henry Watson Fowler, English lexicographer, author of Fowler's Modern English Usage
- The Viscount Goschen, Liberal Unionist statesman and businessman
- Sir Charles Hawtrey, Victorian era stage actor
- Fenton John Anthony Hort, English theologian
- The Rt Hon The Lord King of Bridgwater CH, British politician
- Walter Savage Landor, English writer and poet
- Wyndham Lewis, British painter and author
- William Charles Macready, English stage actor
- David Marr, British psychologist
- Sydney Nicholson, British musician
- Luke Pebody, British mathematician and child prodigy
- Arthur Ransome, British children's author
- Sir Harry Ricardo, a foremost designer of the internal combustion engine and patentee of the two-stroke engine
- Salman Rushdie, Indian author and essayist
- George Mitchell Seabroke, British astronomer
- Henry John Stephen Smith, Irish mathematician
- William Henry Waddington, French statesman (eventually Prime Minister of France)
- Tom Wills, the inventor of Australian rules football
- Robert Hardy, English stage and film actor
External links
Categories: Public schools in England | Schools in Warwickshire | Schools established in the 16th century | Racquets venues | Combined Cadet Force | Old Rugbeians
