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WESTMINSTER SCHOOL

For other uses, see Westminster School (disambiguation).
Westminster School
Dat Deus Incrementum
Established 1179
School type Boys' Public school (UK meaning), with girls in the sixth form.
Head Master Dr M S Spurr
Location Westminster, London, England
Website www.westminster.org.uk

The Royal College of St. Peter at Westminster (almost always known as Westminster School) is one of Britain's foremost public schools, located next to Westminster Abbey in central London, with a history stretching back to the 12th century. The school traditionally encourages independent and individual thinking. Its A-level results in 2004 and 2005 were the highest in the country, and over the last two decades the school has often occupied one or other of the top two positions in the UK's A-level league tables. Since 2005 the headmaster is Dr. Stephen Spurr , and there are currently 742 boys and girls, of whom around a third are boarders; most go home for the weekends, after Saturday morning school. Boys are admitted to the Under School at age seven and the main school at age thirteen. Girls are only admitted to the two senior years of the school (ages 16-18).

Contents

History

The School originally became a Public School (and so available to all members of the public, provided that they could pay for tuition costs) in 1179, as the educational part of the Roman Catholic Abbey at Westminster, the Benedictine monks being required to provide a small charity school by decree of Pope Alexander III. Parts of the School's buildings date back to the eleventh century, and it is quite likely that the first schoolboys were taught by the monks even before then.

However, this arrangement changed in 1540, when Henry VIII ordered the dissolution of the monasteries of the Catholic Church in England, but personally ensured the School's survival by his royal charter. The College of St. Peter carried on with forty "King's Scholars" funded from the royal purse. Although during Mary I's brief reign the Abbey was reinstated as a Roman Catholic monastery, it was redissolved on Elizabeth I's accession, and neither of these events had a major impact on the School. The School occupies a number of the buildings vacated by the monks.

Elizabeth I refounded the School in 1560, with new statutes to select 40 Queen's Scholars from boys who had already attended the school for a year. Queen Elizabeth frequently visited her scholars, although she never signed the statutes nor endowed her scholarships, and 1560 is now generally taken as the date that the school was "founded", although proper separation from the Abbey was only achieved with the Public Schools Act 1868. (There followed a public and parliamentary dispute over another 25 years, to settle the transfer of the properties.) Under the Act, the Dean is the Chairman of the Governors, and the school statutes have now been made by Order in Council of Queen Elizabeth II.

Camden was the first internationally famous headmaster, but Dr. Busby, himself an Old Westminster, established the reputation of the school for several hundreds of years, as much by his classical learning as for his ruthless discipline of the birch, immortalised in Pope's Dunciad. Busby prayed publicly Up School for the safety of the Crown, on the very day of Charles I's execution, and then locked in the boys to prevent their going to watch the spectacle a few hundred yards away; subsequently he took part in Oliver Cromwell's funeral, when a Westminster schoolboy succeeded in taking the "Majesty Scutcheon" from the coffin. Regardless of politics, Busby remained in office throughout the Civil War and the Commonwealth, when the school was governed by Parliamentary Commissioners, and well into the Restoration.

In 1679, a group of scholars killed a bailiff, ostensibly in defence of the Abbey's traditional right of sanctuary, but more probably because of the man was trying to arrest the mistress of one of the scholars. Dr. Busby obtained a royal pardon for them from Charles II, and added the cost to the school bills.

From the schools's refounding in the sixteenth century it had produced a succession of poets and playwrights including Ben Jonson. Despite retaining a staunch royalism in Elizabeth's wake, of which the Restoration dramatist and pupil of Dr Busby John Dryden was the embodiment , during the seventeenth century the school's rising fame under first Camden and later Busby led it to attract as pupils the influential liberal philosopher of the Enlightenment John Locke and the pioneering Enlightenment scientist Robert Hooke. Others included the architect Sir Christopher Wren and the Baroque composer Henry Purcell. The association of Locke with the school may have left a permanent mark on its development, ; between the beginning of the eighteenth century and the middle of the nineteenth, the school educated a series of Whig , later reformist Whig and finally Liberal statesmen, including seven Whig Prime Ministers, the last of whom was Lord John Russell, ending his prime ministerial career as a Liberal.

The School began to approach its modern form after the Public Schools Act 1868, in response to the Clarendon Report. Prior to this, the curriculum was made up of Latin, Greek, Arabic, and Hebrew, nearly all taught Up School. The report was in response to the many financial and other malpractices across the public schools. For their part some Westminster boys were seen to frequent nearby houses of ill repute, and the proximity of the School to the Palace of Westminster meant that politicians were all too aware of the problems. Unusually amongst the leading public schools however, Westminster did not submit to most of the broader changes associated with the Victorian era ethos of Thomas Arnold, such as the emphasis on team over individual spirit, and the school retained much of its quite distinctive earlier ethos. Despite many pressures, including evacuation during the Blitz, the school also refused to move out of central London along with other prominent schools such as Charterhouse and St Paul's, and remains in its original location at the physical heart of Church and State.

Westminster Under School was formed in 1943, as a semi-separate entity for the teaching of day pupils from the ages of 8 to 13 (now 7 to 13). Only the separation is new: in previous generations, for instance, Gibbon attended Westminster from the age of 11. Originally situated in Little Dean's Yard (the main square of the School, off Dean's Yard), it later took up residence in Vincent Square, overlooking the School's playing fields. The current headmaster of the Under School is Mr. Jeremy Edwards.

In 1967, the first female pupil was admitted to the School, with girls becoming full members of the Upper School from 1973 onwards.

In 1979, the school was the subject of "Public School", an unprecedented BBC documentary by Mary Rose-Richards, Edward Mirzoeff, and Jonathan Gili, still unmatched in its wholly unrestricted access to a public school, and which spawned a series of programmes of the same name on other schools.

In 2003, Westminster was investigated along with another 50 schools by the Office of Fair Trading with respect to allegations of fee-fixing in co-ordination with other public schools, after the long-standing exception for public schools was removed by the Competition Act 1998[1].

Location

The School is located primarily in the former grounds of the mediæval monastery at Westminster Abbey, its main buildings surrounding its private square Little Dean's Yard (known as 'Yard'), off Dean's Yard, where Church House, the headquarters of the Church of England, is sited, along with some of the Houses, the Common Room, the new humanities building Weston's, and College Hall.

The humanities are also taught in Sutcliff's (named after the sweet shop that used to occupy the ground floor of the building in the 19th century) on the neighbouring Great College Street, and the Robert Hooke Science Centre is just off Smith Square. As part of a recent expansion programme funded by a legacy from A A Milne, the school has added the nearby Millicent Fawcett Hall for dramatic performances and the Manoukian Centre for music.

College Garden, to the East of Little Dean's Yard, is believed to be the oldest garden in England, under continuous cultivation for at least the last thousand years. Just beyond rises the Victoria Tower of the Houses of Parliament; the Queen's Scholars have special rights of access to the House of Commons. To the North, the Dark Cloister leads straight to the Abbey, which serves as the School Chapel.

The playing fields are half a mile away at Vincent Square, which Dean Vincent created for the School by hiring a horse and plough to carve ten acres out of the open Tothill Fields. The boathouse is now at Putney, although the school's First Eight still annually returns to exercise its traditional right to land at Black Rod Steps of the Palace of Westminster.

Notable buildings

Westminster, situated in the middle of the UNESCO World Heritage Site of Westminster Abbey, St. Margaret’s, and the Palace of Westminster, has several buildings notable through unique qualities, age, and history.

'College Hall', the 14th century Abbot's state dining hall, must be one of the oldest and finest examples of mediæval refectory in existence. The School uses it for its original purpose every day in term-time, whilst outside of term it reverts to the Dean, as the Abbot's successor. Queen Elizabeth Woodville took sanctuary here in 1483 with 5 daughters and her son Richard, but failed to save him from his fate as one of the Princes in the Tower. In the 1560s, Elizabeth I several times came to see her scholars act their Latin Plays on a stage in front of the attractive Elizabethan gallery, which may have been first erected especially for the purpose.

'College', now shared between the three Houses of College, Dryden's and Wren's, is a dressed stone building overlooking College Garden, the former monastery's Infirmary garden, and still the property of the Collegiate Church of Westminster Abbey. It dates from 1729, and was designed by the Earl of Burlington based on earlier designs from Sir Christopher Wren (himself an Old Westminster).

'School', the School's main hall and former monks' dormitory, is used for Latin Prayers (a weekly assembly with prayers spoken in the Westminster-dialect of Latin), exams, and large concerts, plays and the like. From 1599 onwards it was used to teach all the pupils, the Upper and Lower Schools being split by a curtain hung from a 16th century bar made of pig iron, which remains the largest piece of pig iron in the world. The stone steps and entranceway to School have been attributed as the work of Inigo Jones, and are engraved with the names of many pupils who used to hire a stonemason for the purpose. The panelling "up School" is similarly, but officially, painted with the coats of arms of many former pupils. The shell-shaped apse at the North end of School gave its name to the Shell forms taught there and the corresponding classes at many other public schools. The current shell displays a Latin epigram on the rebuilding of School, with the acrostic Semper Eadem, Elizabeth I's motto. The classroom door to the right, as you face the Shell, was recovered from the notorious Star Chamber at its demolition.

Both School and College had their roofs destroyed in The Blitz by an incendiary bomb in 1941. The buildings were re-opened by George VI in 1950.

Ashburnham House, which today houses the library and the Mathematics Department, was built by Inigo Jones or his pupil John Webb around the time of the Restoration, as a London seat for the family which became the Earls of Ashburnham. It incorporates remains of the mediaeval Prior's House, and its garden is the site of some of the earliest sittings of the House of Commons. In 1721 when Ashburnham housed the King's and Cottonian libraries, which form the basis of the British Library, there was a disastrous fire and many of the books and manuscripts still show the marks. After the Public Schools Act 1868 there was a parliamentary and legal battle between the Abbey and the School, until the School eventually obtained Ashburnham under the Act for £4000. In 1881 William Morris conducted a public campaign which succeeded in preventing its demolition along with the neighbouring ruinous mediaeval buildings. During the Second World War, the library was used as a communications station for the Royal Air Force, and the ground floor as an American officers' club. In 1969, it was used as one of the locations for the film The Magic Christian.

Customs

On Shrove Tuesdays since 1753 the 'Greaze' takes place "up School", in which the head cook is required to throw a horsehair-reinforced pancake over the bar that used to separate the parts of the schoolroom, for which elected members of the school fight for one minute whilst being watched over by the Dean of Westminster Abbey (who is Chairman of the Governors) and the Head Master; the pupil with the largest weight after the minute is up being the winner, and awarded a sovereign. Were the cook to fail to get the 'pancake' over the bar within 3 tries, he or she would have been "booked", or pelted with (rather heavy) Latin primers; it is rumoured that this took place on (at least) one occasion. The Greaze is still an extremely popular tradition with some members of the school, although the tradition of booking the cook no longer exists.

The privilege of being the first commoners to acclaim each new sovereign at their coronation in Westminster Abbey is reserved for the current Queen's (or King's) Scholars. Their shouts of "Vivat Regina" ("Long Live the Queen!") are now incorporated into the Coronation Anthem.

A service is given in Latin each year in Westminster Abbey, called 'Little Commem.', in which the Queen's Scholars commemorate the School's benefactors, most notably Elizabeth I. Every third year a much larger service is given in its place, and called 'Big Commem'. Once a week an assembly takes place in the School Hall ('Up School') known as Latin Prayers, which always opens with all members of the school, led by the Headmaster, chanting common prayers in Latin, followed by notices in English. The unique pronunciation of Latin prevalent at the School is known as 'Westminster Latin', and is derived from medieval English pronunciation: Queeen Elizabeth, who spoke fluent Latin, commanded that the Latin was not to be said "in the monkish fashion", a significant warniing upon loyalties between Church and State. The school was expressly exempted from the Act of Uniformity to allow it to continue saying Latin prayers

Since mediaeval times, Latin Plays have been presented by the Scholars, with a prologue and humorous epilogue on contemporary events. Annual plays, "either tragedy or comedy", were required by the school statutes in 1560, and several early plays were acted in College Hall before Elizabeth I and her whole Council. However, in a more prudish age Queen Victoria did not accompany Prince Albert and The Prince of Wales to the Play, and recorded in her diary that it was "very Improper"! No other school in the world can claim to have carried on this ancient yuletide custom to the present day. Today, the play is put on less frequently, any members of the school may take part and the Master of the Queens Scholars (currently a lady historian) gives the prologue in Latin.

The Queen's Scholars have privileged access to the House of Commons gallery, said to be a compromise recorded in the Standing Orders of the House in the nineteenth century, to stop the boys from climbing into the Palace over the rooves.

Entry

There are 4 main points of entry for prospective pupils:

  • For the Under School, at ages 7 and 11, judged by a combination of internal exam and interview.
  • For the Lower School, at age 13, judged by either Common Entrance, a standardised, national set of exams for entrance to independent schools, for standard entry, or the Challenge, an internal set of exams, for scholarship entry, as well as interview.
  • For the Upper School, at age 16, judged by subject-specific exams and interviews and conditional upon GCSE results. This is the only point of entry for girls. A handful of boys join at this point each year.

As well as the Queen's Scholarships, which pay from endowment one half of boarding fees, and of which there are normally eight in each year, pupils applying for entry under the Challenge have available a small number, usually 2, of Honorary Scholarships for boys who could have been scholars but do not want to board. Stephen Hawking was entered for the scholarship in 1952, but fell ill on the day of the Challenge examination.

Those entering the Lower School also have the opportunity to obtain scholarships based on musical talent, and bursaries for those whose parents are not able to fund their tuition. Ignoring scholarships and bursaries, annual fees are as follows: [2]

Pupil type Per term Per year
Boarding £7,682 £23,046
Day £5,321 £15,963
Day (VIth entrants) £5,771 £17,313
Under School £3,697 £11,091

Westminster jargon

Year names

Westminster has an unusual system for naming the school years, which can cause confusion to those not familiar with the system. For this reason the Under School changed to the nationally standard year names in September 1997.

Under School (no longer in use)
  • Year 3: Year not in existence until after years having names was dropped
  • Year 4: Petty B
  • Year 5: Petty A
  • Year 6: Form 1
  • Year 7: Form 2
  • Year 8: Remove
School (still in use)
  • Year 9: Vth Form
  • Year 10: Lower Shell
  • Year 11: Upper Shell
  • Year 12: VIth Form
  • Year 13: Remove

When the above names were phased out, entrance to the Under School was at 'about' 8 (though in practice, many entrants were 7); now the cut-off is precise (pupils must be 7 on the first day of the school year to join Year 3), which means that while direct comparison is not possible, it has been speculated that Year 3 would have been called 'Petty C'.

The Lower and Upper Shell years are named for the shell-like alcove up School where they were originally taught.

Other jargon and slang

Abbey
When used without an article refers to the compulsory morning service in the Abbey on Mondays and Fridays; "It's time for Abbey".
Begging a Play
Making a request for a Play (qv). The Dean annually begs a play at the Greaze, but other plays may also be begged especially in recognition of notable events in the life of the School.
The Challenge
The exam sat by pupils applying for scholarships; it was wholly oral until 1855.
Chit
A note from a housemaster or registering house tutor, which allows a pupil to buy something (usually uniform or stationery) from the school shop. The cost is added to the school fees.
Dignissima
Latin for "most worthy". An award given to a pupil for an outstanding piece of work, only the very cleverest pupils earn them and they are only given to boys in the lower school (Vth, Lower Shell and Upper Shell). This is now called a Digniora, and the award given is a silver three-penny piece. Once three have been earned they are exchanged for a book voucher.
Election
A year of scholars. The first election are the year 9 scholars, the second election are the year 10 scholars etc.
Election Term
The third term of the academic year, from April to July. The term in which new scholars are elected.
Exeat
A word used mainly by staff when referring to the half term holiday, which lasts two weeks in the Play Term and one in the Lent and Election Terms. It derives from the Latin for "let him go out".
Expedition
A school trip for members of the lower school, which usually involves some sort of outdoor pursuits.
Fields
Vincent Square. One is always "up Fields". See "Up".
Gating
Pupils are gated as the worst form of punishment before expulsion or suspension. A pupil who has been gated must attend detention every day (including SAP), and register at 8.15 usually for a week. This is most often given for smoking, drinking or skipping lessons.
The Greaze
Annual pancake fight. See the section on customs.
Green
Dean's Yard; The lawn in the middle of greater Dean's yard; "They played football on Green" (always without an article).
Lent Term
The second term of the academic year, from January to March.
LO
Excused from Station (owing to illness, for example). It is sometimes assumed that LO stands for "leave off" from the normal station lists. The letters actually stand for "Library Order," as upon receiving an LO pupils often must report to the library for private study.
Occupat
During the annual Anglican confirmation service, non-church goers are confined to their Houses. This is referred to as occupat.
The Pink List
The list of pupils and members of the Common Room of the school. This exists both as a small notebook and as a computer database.
Play
A day's holiday, especially in conjunction with a notable event. Annual plays are the Queen's Play and the Dean's Play. The most recent extraordinary play was the "Pooh Play" in recognition of the School's selling the rights of Winnie the Pooh to the Walt Disney Corporation. The day on which a play occurs is usually a Saturday.
Play Term
The first term of the academic year, from September to December. The term in which Latin Play takes place (see Customs).
Praebendum (plural Praebenda)
Essentially same as a Digniora, but issued to those boys and girls in the Upper School (VIth and Remove) who submit outstanding pieces of work, or attain well-above average test results.
Prep
One of two meanings:
  1. Exact equivalent of "Homework" in most other schools; "Hand in your prep tomorrow".
  2. Period in which boarders are to do their homework or meaning 1. of Prep. This lasts from 1915 (after dinner) until 2100, with a five minute break at 2000. During this period, pupils must be "up house" (see "Up"), in the Library, or in the Computer Room; "You may not leave the school during prep".
SAP (formerly SEP)
Saturday afternoon punishment; detention on a Saturday afternoon. It is usually given for missing Abbey, station, Latin prayers, or being caught smoking. Formerly SEP (Saturday Evening Punishment) which consisted of running around green.
School
The main hall. Used for assemblies, concerts, plays etc. Always referred to as "up School". See "Up".
Shag (Day)
Pupils may attend school wearing clothes not specified by the uniform code, but are expected to give to charity if they do so. This is only permitted on certain days; "It's Shag Day on Friday."
Station
Sports which are compulsory and held on Tuesday and Thursday afternoon from 2:00pm onwards; "He missed Station as he was sick".
Up (house, School, etc.)
"In" or "to". "You should be up house if you don't have a lesson", "Latin prayers take place up School", "Sir John Gielgud was up Grants from 1917 to 1921". Events in Vincent Square are said to be "up Fields", particularly among the Common Room. An exception to the rule is that one is never "up College", only "in College".
Yard
Little Dean's Yard; "He was in Yard" (always without an article). This is also often used to refer to the period after Prep from 9pm to 10pm when boarders are free to entertain themselves in Yard.

Houses

The School is split into 11 Houses, some of which are 'day Houses' (and only admit day-pupils, those who go home after school), the others having a mix of day-pupils and boarders. The Houses are named after people connected to the house or school in various ways - mainly prominent Old Westminsters but also former Head Masters and House Masters. Other than College, Grant's is the oldest house, not only of Westminster but of any public school.

Houses are a focus for pastoral care and social and sporting activities, as well as accommodation for boarders. All the day houses are mixed-sex, and all houses admit day girls, however only Busby's and Purcell's provide boarding accommodation for girls.

This list is incomplete; you can help by expanding it.
House Abbr. Founded Colours Pupils
Boarding Non-boarding
College CC 1560 Dark green Boys Girls
Grant's House GG 1750 ■ Maroon on light blue Boys Mixed
Rigaud's House RR ■ Black on orange Boys Mixed
Busby's House BB ■ Dark blue on maroon Mixed Mixed
Liddell's House LL ■ Blue on yellow Boys Mixed
Purcell's House[3] PP Pink Girls None
Ashburnham AHH 1881 ■ White on dark blue None Mixed
Wren's House WW ■ Pink on black
Dryden's House DD ■ Silver on red
Hakluyt's House HH ■ Yellow on blue
Milne's House MM ■ Yellow on red

College, the House for the Queen's Scholars (all of whom board), has assigned to it some of the non-boarding girls who enter the School in the VIth form.

Sport ("Station")

The School has three of only a few Eton Fives courts in the world, which are located behind Ashburnham House. The school frequently fields pupils as national entries in international competitions in rowing, or "Water", and fencing. In the lead up to the boat race, the annual race between Oxford and Cambridge, the Oxford crew use the Westminster boatclub as HQ. The boatclub was re modelled in 1996, and was nominated for a design award in Putney.

The school's colours are pink, rumoured to be derived from washed-out red shirts worn by rowers, and later adopted by the premier Leander Club at Henley, which was founded in London by a number of Old Westminster rowers. This unusual colour for sportsmen has occasionally provoked violent incidents but usually removes any need for away kit.

Sport facilities at the school itself are however fairly limited, due largely to its location in the centre of London, which cannot provide space for the widest range of sports. The School's main sports ground is nearby at Vincent Square, but it is limited to football, cricket and tennis and not large enough for all the pupils doing these sports to use simultaneously. 'Green' is also used, as is the school gym, located under the Abbey.

Westminster has a surprising and historic joint claim to having founded Association Football, which remains the main sport at the school. During the 1840s at both Westminster and Charterhouse pupils' surroundings meant they were confined to playing their ball game in the cloisters, making the rough and tumble of the handling game that was developing at other schools such as Rugby impossible, and necessitating a new code of rules. The sport of rugby union is no longer played at the school.

Former pupils

Fuller list: List of former pupils of Westminster

The following people were educated at Westminster:

Further reading

  • Tony Trowles (2005). A Guide to the Literature of Westminster Abbey, Westminster School and St. Margaret's Church 1571-2000. Boydell Press.
  • John Rae (1994). Delusions of Grandeur : A Headmaster's Life. HarperCollins.
  • John Field (1987). The King's Nurseries: The Story of Westminster School (2nd edition). James & James. ISBN 0-907-38301-7.
  • Lance Bertelsen (1986). The Nonsense Club: Literature and Popular Culture, 1749-1764. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
  • John Dudley Carleton (1965). Westminster School: A History (revised edition). R. Hart-Davis.
  • Lawrence Edward Tanner (1934). Westminster School: A History. Country Life.
  • Reginald Airy (1902). Handbooks to the great Public Schools: Westminster. George Bell & Sons.
  • John Sargeaunt (1898). Annals of Westminster School. Methuen.

Footnotes

  1. ^ Independent schools face huge fines over cartel to fix fees, The Times, 2005-11-10
  2. ^ School Fees, Westminster School website
  3. ^ Formerly Barton Street, and originally a part of Dryden's

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