العربية
中国
Français
Deutsch
Ελληνική
हिन्दी
Italiano
日本語
Português
Русский
EspañolDERBY SCHOOL
'Derby School' was a school in Derby in the English Midlands. It had an almost continuous history of education of over eight centuries. For most of that time it was a grammar school for boys. The school became co-educational and comprehensive in 1974 and was closed in 1989. In 1994 a new independent school called Derby Grammar School for boys was founded.
Origins
The school was re-founded in the 12th century by a local magnate, Walkelin de Derby (also called Walkelin de Ferrieres, or de Ferrers) and his wife, Goda de Toeni, who gave their own house to an Augustinian priory called Darley Abbey to be used for the school[1]. Local legend has it that it was the second oldest school in England[2]. However, there is no firm information as to the site of the original school[3].
While Derby School was in existence almost continuously for more than eight centuries, it was closed for a few years as a result of the Dissolution of the Monasteries[4].
''Magna Britannia''[5] says of Derby School -
Royal Charter
The former Derby School Building in St Peter's Church Yard, Derby
Following the extinction of Darley Abbey, on 21 May 1554, Queen Mary I by a Royal Charter, and in return for a payment of £260 13s 4d, granted the corporation of Derby several properties and endowments which had belonged to Darley Abbey, the College of All Saints, St Michael's Church, and some other suppressed chantries and gilds, for the foundation of "''a Free Grammar School, for the instruction and education of boys and youths in the said town of Derby for ever to be maintained by the Bailiffs and Burgesses of the same town''."
The new Free Grammar School was established in a purpose-built building next to St Peter's Church, Derby.[6] In the late 20th century, this building was for some time part of the Derby Heritage Centre and is now a hairdresser's. The school remained at this site until it moved to St Helen's House in 1863.[7]
St Helen's House period, 1863-1966
St Helen's House, in King Street, Derby, was built about 1726 for John Gisbourne, an alderman of Yoxall Lodge, Staffordshire[8], and originally stood in eighty acres of parkland [9]. The boys-only grammar school moved here in 1863, after the school's governors had bought the property from Edward Strutt, 1st Baron Belper, the nephew of the philanthropist Joseph Strutt, an old boy of the school[10][11].
Under the Rev. Walter Clark BD (headmaster 1865-1889)[12] the school was expanded from a local grammar school into a nationally known public school. On 14 November 1888, Derby School received a visit by the Prince of Wales, later King Edward VII[13].
Date Stone on the wall in front of 'B'-Block
During World War II, the school was evacuated to Overton Hall, Ashover, a village near Matlock.
In 1944, the School (already owned by Derby Corporation as a result of its 1554 Charter) accepted financial support from Derbyshire County Council and became one of four single-sex grammar schools in Derby within the tripartite system established by the Education Act 1944. The other grammar schools were Bemrose (boys), Homelands (girls) and Parkfield Cedars (girls, see Judith Hann).
After the Second World War, the school returned to St Helen's House.
The St Helen's House complex consisted of the House itself (called 'A'-block), which contained mainly administrative offices; an attached annexe ('B'-block), which held most of the classrooms and (on the first floor) 'Big School', the school's assembly hall; the school chapel, a separate building in red brick; several single-storey prefabricated buildings which contained science laboratories and gym; and another smaller annexe close by which housed the refectory and some classrooms. Games were played at Parker's Piece, a small ground near the school.
St Helen's House was notable for its Fives Court in the grounds in front of 'B'-block, which has since been demolished, and for the fire escape outside Big School. Boys would prove their mettle by sliding down the fire escape supports.
In front of the main House, or 'A'-block, a war memorial to Old Derbeians stands. A statue of Gillard, a notable master, was later moved to Littleover.
The school was divided into four houses: Gateley's, Tanner's, Fuller's, and Grimes'. All boys were allocated to one of the houses prosaically (by Harry Potter standards) in alphabetical order. The houses competed annually for the ''Cock House Trophy'', gained by the house with the greatest number of 'House Points' which were awarded by masters for boys' academic, social and sporting achievements.
Forms for boys up to the age of about sixteen were named by a number and the initial of the form master. The number one was eschewed, so boys started in Form 2. For at least one year, there was a Form 2B, which is the same as the Bash Street Kids. The Fifth and Sixth Forms were divided between lower and upper: the complete form numbering system was Form 2, Form 3, Form 4, Lower Fifth, Upper Fifth, Lower Sixth, Upper Sixth.
Leadership at the school was in the hands of the masters, but, as with most schools, older pupils were given responsibility and were appointed Praepostors (an appellation still used at Uppingham and Rugby) or Monitors. As mentioned above, the title Prefect (Praefectus) was reserved for the Head Master. The Praeposters and Monitors were responsible for the behaviour of younger boys outside lessons in the halls and grounds of the school and were permitted to punish minor breaches of discipline. Such punishment would consist of requiring the boy to report to the Praepostors' or Monitors' room, where the punishment would be handed out. Punishments were many and varied, but usually inventive. One example was to require the boy to put a number of dots - usually four - in each square of an area of a sheet of graph paper - not as violent as the punishments handed out in the Rugby School of Tom Brown's Schooldays.
The concentration of staff and pupils at St. Helen's House generated an eco-system around the school. Opposite the school, in a group of three shops, was a sweet shop, which served as the school tuck shop. School legend had it that, when the master of the shop was alive, he used to take bets on horse races tick-tacked from the upper floor of the school where the sixth formers had their form rooms. A bakery in between St. Helen's house and the annex supplied half loaves of bread to hungry pupils on their way from one class to another. Also opposite the school, the Seven Stars, a former coaching inn, was popular with staff and older pupils.
In 1966, the St Helen's House building was declared dangerous because of falling tiles and masonry. The school moved to a new site on Moorway Lane, Littleover, in 1967. St Helen's House still stands today and is in the process of being converted into a Hotel.
'List of notable masters'
For a list of the School's masters in the final years at St Helen's House (1945-1966), see the separate article List of Masters of Derby School.
Littleover period, 1966-1989
The first headmaster and deputy headmaster of Derby School at Moorway Lane came from the St Helen's House site: 'Norman' Elliot and 'WOB' Butler. It continued as a single-sex grammar school until 1974, when the School was taken over as a maintained county school by Derbyshire County Council. In doing so, it converted the school into a co-educational comprehensive school and greatly increased its size (in buildings and pupils). At this point, it was still Derby School. However, in 1989 the County Council took the decision to close Derby School and to make the headmaster redundant. A new school called 'Derby Moor Community College', now Derby Moor Community Sports College, was opened in the old school's Moorway Lane buildings, with a new head and governing body but with many of the former school's staff and students. In terms of legal identity, this was not the same school, but in some ways it was its successor.
School motto
Cap badge of the Derby School JTC
The school motto, ''Vita sine litteris mors'', is a quotation from letter number 82 in Seneca the Younger's Epistulae morales ad Lucilium -
:''Vita sine litteris mors est, et hominis vivi sepultura''.
:(Life without learning is death, and the funeral of a living man).
This motto is shared with -
★ Adelphi University in Nassau County, New York
★ Manning's High School, an 18th century foundation in Jamaica
★ The new Derby Grammar School
Adelphi University is a private college in Garden City, New York, founded as the Adelphi Academy in Brooklyn in 1863, and acknowledges that its motto was borrowed from Derby School.
School hymn
The school hymn, ''Lift Up Your Hearts!'', was given a musical setting in 1916 by Walter Greatorex, an old boy of the schoolWords and music of ''Lift Up Your Hearts!'' at The Ames Collection.
School Register
The Derby School Register, 1570-1901
A book called ''The Derby School Register, 1570-1901'', was published in 1902[14], edited by Benjamin Tacchella, a modern languages master at the school, and the following is an extract from its preface:
Old Derbeians
See 'List of notable Old Derbeians'.
List of Headmasters
See 'List of Masters of Derby School'.
St Helen's House gallery
Derby Grammar School
Derby Grammar School, an entirely new school founded in 1994, is an independent school which includes a Junior department. It occupies the 18th century Rykneld Hall at Littleover (previously Rykneld Hospital) and currently has around three hundred pupils[15].
The new school aspires to fill the gap undoubtedly left by Derby School. With the agreement of the Committee of the Old Derbeians' Society, Derby Grammar School has adopted a heraldic badge devised by the Reverend Walter Clark in 1883 for Derby School, which it used until the badge was replaced by a coat of arms granted by the College of Arms in 1952. Of course, the 1952 coat of arms ceased to exist with Derby School in 1989.
References
1. Bishop Durdent and the foundation of Derby School (Derbyshire Archaeological Journal, vol. 33, 1911) by Benjamin Tacchella
2. St Peter's, Derby, home page (accessed April 2007)
3. A History of Derbyshire (1999) by Gladwyn Turbutt
4. ''Derby School: a Short History'' by George Percy Gollin
5. Magna Britannia (volume 5, 1817) by Daniel and Samuel Lysons
6. Grammar school education in Derby: its early history to 1662 (in ''Derbyshire Miscellany'', vol. 15, Part 1, 1998) by Richard Clark
7. A potted history of Derby School, accessed May 2007
8. Derby Gripe Site, Accessed April 2007
9. Derby City home page
10. ''Jedediah Strutt (1726–1797), inventor and cotton manufacturer'' by J. J. Mason in ''Oxford Dictionary of National Biography'' (Oxford University Press, 2003)
11. Distinguished Alumni of Derby School by James Michael John Fletcher (Derby Reporter, 1872)
12. ''Rev. Walter Clark, BD'', headmaster of Derby School, obituary by J. Cook Wilson in ''The Classical Review'', vol. 3, no. 6 (June 1889), pp. 281-282
13. The Times, 16 November 1888, page 4
14. ''The Derby School Register, 1570-1901'', ed. Benjamin Tacchella (London, 1902)
15. Derby Grammar School - official site
External links
★ Web site of the Old Derbeians Society
★ Words and music of ''Lift Up Your Hearts!'' at The Ames Collection
★ Words and music of ''Lift Up Your Hearts!'' at cyberhymnal.org
★ Official site of the new Derby Grammar School
----
----
This article provided by Wikipedia. To edit the contents of this article, click here for original source.
psst.. try this: add to faves
