Bromsgrove School, Worcestershire: The Old School and Master's House: Now celebrating the quarter centenary of its re-organisation under H.R.H. Edward VI

"This drawing of the oldest part of Bromsgrove School with its straw-hatted sixth-formers and bareheaded "douls" (i.e fags, from "doulos" the Greek word for slave), evokes from the buildings it depicts two ages of renaissance in the schools history: the re-founding by Sir Thomas Cookes of Bentley in 1693; and the Victorian resurgence. The school is however far older than that. Like many other famous institutions its origins are wrapped in mystery. there is a reference to it in a valuation of ecclesiastical property made in 1535 by order of King Henry VIII; and it is thought that the unknown founder founded the Free Grammar School in about 1500 and endowed the School with lands which in 1547 (the first year of Edward VI's reign) produced a yearly sun of £7 for the "wages" of the schoolmaster, William Fone, priest. These lands were then confined by the crow; and the endowment remains to this day in the vestigial form of an annual payment by the Ministry of Education of the same £7. For a while thereafter the school was known as the Grammar School of King Edward VI, Bromsgrove until a charter in he following reign gave it the new title of the Free Grammar School of King Philip and Queen Mary. In the 1850s King Edward's name again entered its title, but since 1923 it has reverted to its proper name of "Bromsgrove School". From Tudor times until the Civil War little is known except the list of Headmaster's names, and at the Civil War even this ceases. In fact, by 1693 the school was nearly moribund, and was saved by its founding in that year by Sir Thomas Cookes of Bentley, the founder of Worcester College, Oxford. He built a new School House - now the library - and Master's lodging, and endowed the school with £50 a year, enough to provide a good stipend for the Master, clothing, education and apprenticeship or twelve poor scholars of the town; and he reserved for boys chosen from among this number certain scholarships at Worcester College, Oxford which led automatically to fellowships and College livings. This gave the school new life, and during the eighteenth century the school acquired good reputation. In the time of the Napoleonic Wars, however, the endowment became un-remunerative and the school fell into the doldrums. It was rescued, however, by a succession of great Victorian headmasters - among whom may be mentioned Dr. Jacob, Dr. Collis and Mr. Millington. Under them the school became a boarding school, and grew in size and reputation and scholarship. In the present century, largely owing to the generosity of Old Boys, s growth has continued at an increased pace, indeed many of its finest or most essential building date form 914. Among these may be mentioned Kyteless block of schoolrooms and master's common room; the Whiteley laboratories; a new sanatorium; Routh Hall (a school hall and music school); the War Memorial Chapel; and new workshops, classrooms, laboratories, gymnasium, sports facilities, new gates and a new swimming-bath. The grounds and playing-fields of the school have also been augmented, and as can be seen in the drawings on these pages. .. al these buildings are generously spaced and embowered in noble trees."