History
Emanuel School is one of three schools administered by the United Westminster Schools’ Foundation. It came into being by the will of Anne Sackville, Lady Dacre, dated 1594. Lady Dacre was daughter of Sir Richard Sackville by his wife Winifred, daughter of Sir John Bruges/Brydges/Brugge, Lord Mayor of London in 1520-1. Her brother was Thomas, 1st Earl of Dorset. She married Gregory Fiennes of Herstmonceaux and Chelsea, 10th Baron Dacre, in November 1558. He died on 25 September 1594 and she followed him, dying on 14 May (buried 15 May) 1595.
Her epitaph states:
- Faeminei lux clara chori, pia, casta, pudica, aegis subsidium, pauperibusque decus.
Lady Dacre wrote that one of the main aims of the Foundation should be "for the bringing up of children in virtue and good and laudable arts so that they might better live in time to come by their honest labour." With Lady Dacre's benefaction in 1594, Emanuel Hospital (almshouses and school), as it was first called, began. The children wore long brown tunics, rather similar in cut to those still worn by pupils at Christ's Hospital. Thanks to the interest of Queen Elizabeth I, cousin to Lady Dacre, a charter was drawn up, and the school and almshouses were established on a site at Tothill Fields, Westminster. Mention is made of the Hospital and similar foundations in an undated letter written by Daniel Defoe, entitled A Scheme for a Royal Palace in the Place of White-Hall.
In 1883, the school sought larger, newer buildings for the children; and the boy boarders, as they all then were, moved to the present buildings on the edge of Wandsworth Common.
The school gained national attention in December 1988 after its pupils and teachers were first on the scene of the Clapham Junction rail crash, which occurred just to the west of the main building. Led by Headmaster Peter Thomson, the entire school assisted in the rescue efforts and many of the 130 injured were taken up to the school for treatment. The next day, the Prime Minister praised the pupils as a credit to the nation’s youth at Prime Minister’s Questions in the House of Commons.
In 1994, the school celebrated its 400th anniversary with a visit from Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II which included a special commemorative rugby fixture against Gordonstoun.
In 2008, the school celebrated the 125th Anniversary of its move to its present site on Wandsworth Common with a special commemorative service held in May at Chelsea Old Church, the burial place of Anne Sackville.
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