Highgate School - History

History

The school was established in 1565 by a Royal Charter of Elizabeth I giving permission for Sir Roger Cholmeley to erect a free grammar school for boys.

Cholmeley, a former Chief Justice and local landowner, decided to found a charitable school for poor boys from the local parishes, and acquired from the Bishop of London some land on the site of the old gatehouse to the Bishop’s park and hermit’s chapel (opposite the Gatehouse Inn, which still exists). A new chapel and buildings for the school and the local curate, who was expected to be the teacher, were built. The chapel also served as a chapel of ease for Highgate residents.

However by the early nineteenth century a dispute arose because the charity was spending more money, and the curate more time, on the local chapel rather than the pupils. A House of Commons commission visited in 1819 and found the Master, the Rev Samuel Mence, was paying a sexton to teach the boys. In a long and bitter action brought in the High Court against the Trustees it was contended that this was contrary to its founding charitable deed. Lord Chancellor Eldon, in his 1827 judgment, agreed, finding "the charity is for the sustenance and maintenance of a free Grammar school". The trustees were forced to comply and a separate local church for Highgate, St Michael’s, was built in South Grove after a successful local appeal. Mence struggled on at the school until 1838 when there were only 19 pupils.

A significant expansion of the school occurred under the next Headmaster The Revd Dr John Bradley Dyne (Fellow of Wadham College, Oxford) between 1838-1874. Under Dyne the school became a boarding school; fees were introduced and academic standards improved. Like other leading public schools, Highgate followed Dr Arnold at Rugby School in introducing the house system. Also like other public schools, Dyne mercilessly flogged the pupils with a birch rod.

During this period the current chapel and main buildings were erected, designed by Reginald Blomfield (who had also designed Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford). A fragment of the older school building, a gateway with a rusted bell mechanism above between the porter's lodge and the main school building, remained intact until 2006 when the bell was refurbished and the old entrance itself rebuilt in a more modern style.

During the Second World War the school's buildings were commandeered by the British government and the school was evacuated to Westward Ho! in Devon, returning to Highgate in 1943. This return was maybe slightly premature because one afternoon in 1944 a V‑1 Doodlebug flying bomb landed and exploded in the field behind the Junior School. Luckily, the only serious casualty was a cricket scorebox.

By 1965 the school occupied a large site in Highgate Village, as well as extensive sports fields and several boarding houses in the surrounding area.

The poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge was buried in the school chapel, his grandson an Old Cholmeleian. However, in 1965 after a row with the council there was a ceremonial disinterring of Coleridge at which the then Poet Laureate John Masefield spoke and the remains were reburied at St Michael's parish church just a few hundred yards away. There are currently weekly services for pupils and staff in the Chapel, and monthly celebrations of Evensong, which are open to the general public. There are also twice-termly Communion services, which is a relatively new innovation.

Highgate School also has the oldest Public School freemasons lodge, Cholmeley Lodge No 1731, formed in 1878, part of the Public Schools Lodges Council.

In 2003 the school took the decision to become fully co-educational ending over four hundred years of single sex education.