History

Biography of John Colet

St Paul's School originally takes its name from St Paul's Cathedral in London. A cathedral school
had existed since around 1103. By the 16th century however, it had declined, and in 1509, a new
school was founded by John Colet, Dean of St Paul's Cathedral, on a plot of land to the north of the
Cathedral.

Statue of John Colet

The eldest son of Sir Henry Colet, a member of the Mercers' Company and twice Lord Mayor of the
City of London, he inherited a substantial fortune and used a great part of it for the endowment of
his school, having no family of his own; his 21 brothers and sisters all died in childhood and he was
a celibate priest. He described himself in the statutes of the school as "desyring nothing more
thanne Educacion and bringing upp chyldren in good Maners and litterature."[3]

City of London blue plaque

Originally, the school provided education for 153 children of "all nacions and countries
indifferently", primarily in literature and etiquette. The number 153 has long been associated with
the miraculous draught of fishes recorded in St John's Gospel, and for several generations
Foundation Scholars have been given the option of wearing an emblem of a silver fish. St Paul's
was the largest school in England at its foundation, and its High Master had a salary of 13 shillings
and sixpence weekly, which was double that of the contemporary Head Master of Eton College.
The scholars were not required to make any payment, although they were required to be literate
and had to pay for their own wax candles, which at that time were an expensive commodity.
[citation needed]

St Paul's School, London; the facade. Engraving by B. Cole

Colet was an outspoken critic of the powerful and worldly Church of his day, a friend of Erasmus
and Sir Thomas More. Erasmus wrote textbooks for the school and St Paul's was the first English
school to teach Greek, reflecting the humanist interests of the founder. Colet distrusted the
Church as a managing body for his school, declaring that he "found the least corruption" in
married laymen.[4] For this reason, Colet assigned the management of the School and its revenues
to the Mercers' Company, the premier livery company in the City of London, with which his father
had been associated. In 1876 the company was legally established as trustee of the Colet estate,
and the management of the school was assigned to a Board of Governors consisting of the Master,
Wardens and nine members of the company, together with three representatives from each of the
Universities of Oxford, Cambridge and London. The Mercers' Company still forms the major part of
the School's governing body, and it continues to administer Colet's trust.[citation needed]

One of St Paul's early headmasters was Richard Mulcaster, famous for writing two influential
treatises on education (Positions, in 1581,[5] and Elementarie in 1582). His description in Positions
of "footeball" as a refereed team sport is the earliest reference to organised modern football. For
this description and his enthusiasm for the sport he is considered the father of modern football.[6]

Between 1861 and 1864, the Clarendon Commission (a Royal Commission) investigated the public
school system in England and its report formed the basis of the Public Schools Act 1868. St Paul's
was one of only nine schools considered by the Clarendon Commission, and one of only two
schools which was not predominantly attended by boarders (the other day school was Merchant
Taylors').

According to Charles Dickens, Jr., writing in 1879[7]

St Paul’s School (founded 1512 by John Colet, DD, Dean of St Paul’s), St Paul’s-churchyard — There
are 153 scholars on the foundation, who are entitled to entire exemption from school fees.
Vacancies are filled up at the commencement of each term according to the results of a
competitive examination. Candidates must be between 12 and 14 years of age. Capitation scholars
pay £20 a year. The governors of this school are appointed by the Mercers' Company and the
Universities of Oxford, Cambridge, and London. The school exhibitions [i.e. scholarships] are
determined as to number and value by the governors from time to time, and the school prizes are
of considerable importance. The following are the university exhibitions. To the University of
Cambridge there are the following exhibitions: Five exhibitions at Trinity, founded by Mr Perry in
1696, of the value of £10 a year; two exhibitions at St John’s, founded by Dr Gower in 1711, of the
value of £10 a year, for the sons of clergymen. An exhibition, founded by Mr Stock in 1780 at
Corpus Christi, of the yearly value of £30, given to a scholar recommended by the high master.
Four exhibitions, in the same college, value £10 a year each, founded by Mr George Sykes in 1766,
consolidated now in one exhibition, value £36 a year.

By comparison, in 2016 the Daily Telegraph reported that families earning up to £120,000 were
being offered bursaries after the headmaster declared that the school had become
"unaffordable."[8]
Between 1886 and 1895, St Paul's boys won 173 entrance awards at Oxford and Cambridge, which
was 26 more than any other school.[citation needed] Over many years its record of Open Awards
at Oxford and Cambridge in all subjects has been equal, or superior, to that of any other school of
comparable size.[citation needed]

School coat of arms

Like many ancient educational foundations, St Paul's School traditionally used the arms of its
founder, John Colet. His arms were Sable on a chevron Argent between three Hinds trippant
Argent three Annulets Sable, and they were originally used by his great-grandfather, Richard Colet.
As Dean of St Paul's, he was entitled to impale them with the arms of the Deanery, and the school
has often used them in this form also. In 2002, the school obtained its own grant of arms from the
College of Arms consisting of the arms of Dean Colet surrounded by a gold bordure, upon which
the crossed swords of the Dean of St Paul's are repeated.[citation needed]

Apposition

Apposition is a traditional ceremony at St Paul's and was originally a way of allowing the Mercers
Company to assess teaching staff and the High Master, with the option of dismissing or
reappointing them. The assessment takes the form of a third-party 'apposer', often a leading
academic, judging the quality of teaching through scrutinising lectures given by boys in their final
year. Today it is primarily a prize giving event, where prizes are awarded to senior boys who have
excelled in particular subjects. The Apposition Dinner is held in the Mercer's Hall in London every
year around May.

Consequences of apposition have led to the dismissal of previous High Masters including Thomas
Freeman, for lack of learning (although more probably for holding the incorrect religious views) in
1559. In 1748, High Master Charles was removed as he had allegedly threatened to "pull the
Surmaster by the nose and kick him about the school."

Since it was re-introduced in 1969,[9] the ceremony today takes place in May and is purely
ceremonial, incorporating prize giving for boys in the final two years of the school.

Buildings

St Paul's, Hammersmith, c. 1900

The original school, which stood in St Paul's Churchyard, was destroyed with the Cathedral in the
Great Fire of London in 1666.[10] The school was twice rebuilt, first in 1670, and again in
Cheapside in 1822; but towards the end of the 19th century, as London expanded and residents
moved away from the City of London and its environs, it was decided that the school should move
to larger premises.

In 1884 a new building designed by the architect Alfred Waterhouse rose to dominate the
countryside of Hammersmith. The terracotta for the Hammersmith school was made by the
famous Gibbs and Canning Limited of Tamworth. At this time the street numbering was changed
locally and so the school address, whether by accident or design, became 153 Hammersmith Road.
[11] The preparatory school, Colet Court, was soon afterwards housed in new premises in a similar
style on the opposite side of the road.

View of St. Paul's from Chiswick

In September 1939 the school was evacuated to Easthampstead Park, near Crowthorne in
Berkshire, where, under the then High Master, W. F. Oakeshott, it became solely a boarding school
for the period of the war. Playing fields and some other facilities were borrowed from nearby
Wellington College, but the boys and the teachers from the two schools remained entirely
separate.

In the meantime, the London buildings became the headquarters of the Home Forces in July
1940[12] and the headquarters of the XXI Army Group under the command of General, later Field-
Marshal, Bernard Montgomery, himself an Old Pauline, in July 1943. There the XXI army part of
the military side of the invasion of Europe was planned, including the D-Day landings.[13] The map
that he used is still present in the modern day site of the school in the Montgomery Room. The
school recovered its buildings in September 1945, and resumed life essentially as a day school,
although it retains a small number of boarders to this day.

The former front entrance of St Paul's School

By 1961 it had become evident that the old school buildings were unsuited to modern educational
needs. By good fortune, the opportunity then came to rebuild the School on a 45-acre (182,000
m²) riverside site at Barnes, adjacent to Hammersmith Bridge. This land had previously been the
site of reservoirs which were filled in with earth excavated during the construction of the Victoria
line.[14] The sports pitches took a long time to settle, and competitive matches were not played
regularly at the Barnes site until summer 1979.
The fifth School buildings were opened in September 1968, to designs by architects Feilden and
Mawson. The new site also includes the preparatory school, St Paul's Juniors (formerly Colet
Court), whose pupils account for roughly one half of the senior school's intake each year. The
Waterhouse building on Hammersmith Road was demolished amid protests to allow building of
flats, apart from the gates and the peripheral walls, the High Master's House, and a toolhut,
though the Colet Court building also survives.

Main Buildings – 60s CLASP

The 1968 buildings include a 25m, 6 lane swimming pool shared with St Paul's Juniors. Extensive
sports facilities notably include a fencing salle, six rugby fives courts, three squash courts and a
Racquets court. The location next to the River Thames meant that a rowing boathouse was
included in the plans, which itself included both an indoor training tank and housing to
accommodate a boatman, whose primary job was to build and maintain the boats. A striking and
deliberate omission from the new buildings was any provision for a school hall capable of holding
all masters and boys simultaneously, and although the main sports hall is large enough to
accommodate the entire school, the difficulty in setting up enough chairs means that the hall is
used to house the entire school only twice per year. There were originally two boarding houses in
the 1968 buildings (School House and High House) accommodating up to 120 boarders, but the
number of boarders has steadily declined since then and is now only 20. One of the boarding
houses (School House) has been demolished to make way for a new music building, which houses
the Wathen Hall. The other (High House, renamed School House) is in the process of being
demolished, with boarders relocated to the recently renovated Colet House. The only building
which remained from the previous Water Board landowners became the music department for St
Paul's Juniors.

The original buildings were built using a modular system of interlocking concrete slabs, known as
the CLASP system. This allowed for relatively quick and cheap construction, and allowed for the
fact that much of the site was formed from reservoir land which was still settling. The whole
complex is now in need of replacement; the only existing buildings likely to remain are the Music
school, incorporating the Wathen Hall from 1999 and the Rackets Court.

2009–present day

The boys' school numbered 856 boys in 2009, the 500th year of its foundation. A rebuilding of the
school at its present site is planned, to be completed over a 25-year period.[citation needed]
While former High Master, George Martin Stephen, announced an aspiration for the school to be
needs-blind within 25 years – £250 million will need to be raised to accomplish this.
The school day lasts from 8.35 a.m. to 4.15 p.m. and consists of 8 periods, including a one-and-
three-quarter-hour lunch break during which pupils are encouraged to participate in sporting or
extracurricular activities such as music, debating or computing. Pupils of all ages are not allowed to
leave the school premises without permission at any time during the day.

The school still maintains a boarding house. There are strong boarding house traditions including
the annual bonfire and two hours of compulsory study known as "prep" every evening. Newer
traditions include the sponsored all night five-a-side football tournament, a "charity sponging"
event. However, the charity sponging did not take place in 2010 due to, as some boarders claim,
complaints from a boarding student who had been "sponged" particularly often and the future of
the traditional event is unclear.

The school has recently opened its Science wing. The wing is a four-storey building finished in
February 2013, built to give university standard of work spaces and labs. The school now has its
own scanning electron microscope along with the new science building.[15] It has a floor
dedicated to each branch of science, e.g. biology, physics and chemistry. The bottom floor is a
careers and university section to for the older students. Tables with computers and spaces for
students or staff to use as desks are available on all floors.

A large number of music concerts, art exhibitions and plays take place each year, and pupils
regularly receive national recognition for their achievements. The school also has a strong sports
department; St Paul's was a founding member of the Rugby Football Union in 1871 and was pre-
eminent in public school boxing, its first team failing to win only two boxing matches against first
team boxers from other schools over a period of 25 years; however, boxing was discontinued as a
school sport in the 1960s. More recently, the school teams were runners-up in the rugby U15 Daily
Mail Cup in 2005 and in 2007. The school has a strong record in rugby. In 1979, the 1st XV of St
Paul's, nicknamed the 'Invincibles' went twelve matches undefeated.[16] Big rivals for the school
are RGS Guildford, King's College School, Dulwich College, St John's Leatherhead, Merchant
Taylors', Wellington and Eton.[16]

Operation Winthorpe

St Paul's has a poor record of recent press appearances, partially as a consequence of being
investigated by the Metropolitan Police for historic crimes of paedophilia that it was given its own
operational name, Operation Winthorpe. The school has entirely reviewed and majorly revised
their safeguarding procedures since. A major independent report published in January 2020,
revealed 80 complaints against 32 members of staff over a period of six decades, mainly from the
1960s to the 1990s. There were 28 recommendations on how current practice could be improved.
[17]