Houses
The house system was introduced in 1899 by the then headmaster Frederick Arthur Hillard. Initially six houses were established, and membership of houses was based on the place of residence of each boy. The original houses were: Boarders, Barbourne, City, St. John's, County A, and County B. In 1909 the house system was changed to reflect the increasing number of boys in the school, and the difficulty of allocating pupils on the basis of where they lived. The six houses created in 1909 were: School House, for boarders, (which, due to common usage, changed to Whiteladies, as this was the building in which the boarders lived); Temple (after Henry Temple, headmaster 1850s); Tudor (after Elizabeth I); Woolfe (after Richard Woolfe, benefactor 1877 ); Wylde (after Thomas Wylde, benefactor 1558); and Yewle (after Robert Yewle, Six Master 1561). In 1963 two additional houses were created by the then headmaster Godfrey Brown, namely Langley (after William Langley, Six Master 1561) and Moore (after John Moore, benefactor 1626).
Every pupil in the school is a member of a House, with members of the same family always being in the same house. Pupils wear different ties to represent which house they are in, with the basic tie design being the same for all pupils (a navy blue tie with a repeated crown motif) but with different coloured stripes to represent the house. In house sports events pupils wear different coloured socks to indicate which house they are in (this colour being the same as the colour of the tie stripe).
The school house system changed again in 2009.
The current houses are:
| House | Colour |
|---|---|
| Flagge | |
| Cobham | |
| Britannia | |
| Eld | |
| Butler | |
| Perrins |
The school held a yearly house championship, Decided by events a range of events throughout the school year in which all six houses competed, with the winners of each event being awarded eight points, the second placed house seven, down to the losing house one point. The house championship was traditionally called the 'Cock House' (or Cock House Cup Competition) competition, its name deriving from that of the Cock. The original cup that was competed for is one which was presented to the school in 1902 by the Old Elizabethans' Association; in modern times competition is for a cup which was introduced in 1978.
Read more about this topic: Royal Grammar School Worcester
Famous quotes containing the word houses:
“They shall take some of the blood and put it on the two doorposts and the lintel of the houses in which they eat it.”
—Bible: Hebrew, Exodus 12:7.
“He hung out of the window a long while looking up and down the street. The world’s second metropolis. In the brick houses and the dingy lamplight and the voices of a group of boys kidding and quarreling on the steps of a house opposite, in the regular firm tread of a policeman, he felt a marching like soldiers, like a sidewheeler going up the Hudson under the Palisades, like an election parade, through long streets towards something tall white full of colonnades and stately. Metropolis.”
—John Dos Passos (1896–1970)
“Let those talk of poverty and hard times who will in the towns and cities; cannot the emigrant who can pay his fare to New York or Boston pay five dollars more to get here ... and be as rich as he pleases, where land virtually costs nothing, and houses only the labor of building, and he may begin life as Adam did? If he will still remember the distinction of poor and rich, let him bespeak him a narrower house forthwith.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)