Stowe School is an independent school in Stowe, Buckinghamshire. It was founded on 11 May 1923 by J.F. Roxburgh, initially with 99 male pupils. It is a member of the Rugby Group and Headmasters' and Headmistresses' Conference. The school is also a member of the G20 Schools Group. The headmaster, Dr Anthony Wallersteiner, was recognised as Tatler's Headmaster of the Year in 2007; the school was also shortlisted for the School of the Year award in 2009. The school is currently becoming fully co-educational. As of 2011, there are 550 boys and 220 girls.
The school has been based since its beginnings at Stowe House, formerly the country seat of the Dukes of Buckingham and Chandos. Along with many of the other buildings on the school's estate, the main house is now a Grade 1 Listed Building and is maintained by the Stowe House Preservation Trust.
The school is used as a first class cricket ground by Northamptonshire CCC, and is the home ground of the Northants Second XI.
On 4 April 1963 the Beatles performed at Stowe School, for which they were paid £100. They accepted a personal request from schoolboy David Moores, a fellow Liverpudlian. They promised to appear on a second occasion for £90.
In 2005 the school was one of fifty of the country's leading independent schools which were found guilty of running an illegal price-fixing cartel, exposed by The Times, which had allowed them to drive up fees for thousands of parents. Each school was required to pay a nominal penalty of £10,000 and all agreed to make ex-gratia payments totalling three million pounds into a trust designed to benefit pupils who attended the schools during the period in respect of which fee information was shared. However, Mrs Jean Scott, the head of the Independent Schools Council, said that independent schools had always been exempt from anti-cartel rules applied to business, were following a long-established procedure in sharing the information with each other, and that they were unaware of the change to the law (on which they had not been consulted). She wrote to John Vickers, the OFT director-general, saying, "They are not a group of businessmen meeting behind closed doors to fix the price of their products to the disadvantage of the consumer. They are schools that have quite openly continued to follow a long-established practice because they were unaware that the law had changed."
The Stowe Corner of Silverstone Circuit is named after the school.
Read more about Stowe School: Boarding Houses, Headmasters, Old Stoics, Cricket Ground
Famous quotes containing the words stowe and/or school:
“Whatever offices of life are performed by women of culture and refinement are thenceforth elevated; they cease to be mere servile toils, and become expressions of the ideas of superior beings.”
—Harriet Beecher Stowe (1811–1896)
“The happiest two-job marriages I saw during my research were ones in which men and women shared the housework and parenting. What couples called good communication often meant that they were good at saying thanks to one another for small aspects of taking care of the family. Making it to the school play, helping a child read, cooking dinner in good spirit, remembering the grocery list,... these were silver and gold of the marital exchange.”
—Arlie Hochschild (20th century)