Grey Coat Hospital

London - Pax Britannica

The Grey Coat Hospital is a Church of England secondary school with academy status for girls in Westminster, London, England. In 2013, it had 1064 pupils including 40 boys in the Sixth Form.

History

The school was formally established at the Trustees' first meeting held on St. Andrew's Day in 1698. Eight members of the congregation of St. Margaret's, Westminster donated towards the founding of the school, initially a day school for 50 boys.

Its founding trustees were Robert Maddock, a cheesemonger, John Holmes, a "sope" and candles maker, Thomas Wisdome, a tradesman in leather goods and brooms, Samuel Mitchell, a bookseller, Richard Ffyler, a draper, Charles Webbe, John Wilkins and Simon Boult who "contributed towards the Charges of the School on their own, and subscriptions provided from other substantial persons."

They aimed to educate "40 of the Greatest Objects of Charity (orphans and neglected children) in the principles of the Christian religion, teaching reading and instructing them in the Church catechism, the discipline of the Church of England as by law established, and for teaching writing and cast accounts" and "binding them apprentices to honest trades and employments".

The School opened with only 11 boys. Its first Headmaster was Thomas Ashenden, who was paid a yearly salary of £26.

The school, which opened on 9 January 1698, was initially housed by the "Broad Sanctuary" in front of Westminster Abbey.

Soon, the opportunity arose to take over the old workhouse in "Tuttle-Fields" which had been founded in accordance with the first Poor Law of Queen Elisabeth I in 1601, and which had moved out in 1700.

18th century

The first annual rent for the hospital and all the adjoining ground, all owned by Westminster Abbey, was £5 10s, and the school came into the residence where its principal building is today on 6 January 1701. From that year it was also a mixed school, with both boys and girls attending.[2] The founders' aim was to provide the poor of the parish with an education, so that they could become loyal citizens, useful workers and solid Christians.[1]

Soon, other benefactors signed up, including Mr. Charles Rampayne, Mr. Lionel Herne (an original member of the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge), Mr. Justice Thomas Railton, Madam Mary Bryan, Madam Delahay, Hon. Anne Napier and Lady Mary Carnavon.

Other early benefactors were the Right. Hon. James Vernon, later Secretary of State for War, his son James, Samuel Bray, Justice John Chamberlayne (an S.P.C.K. founder), Dr. George Smallridge, Dean of Christchurch and later Bishop of Bristol, Dr. John Sharp, Dean of Christ Church and Archbishop of York, Lady Jane Hyde and the orator and sermons author Robert South.

The first staff of the school consisted of the Headmaster Mr. Ashenden and his wife, two spinsters, Mrs. Gotobed and Goody Corbet, two nurses and Israel Thomas. By May 1706, the school received Queen Anne's Charter, an act of incorporation which allowed it to formally hold houses, land, grant leases, etc., and which also meant it had to formalize a board. Thus, Queen Anne's Charter was read on the 26 May 1706, in the presence of a board consisting of three esquires (including two Justices of the Peace), five brewers and fifteen tradesmen, who elected as the school's first President, John Moore, Bishop of Norwich. It was also for this very occasion that the school's seal of “The Royal Foundation of Queen Anne in the Parish of St. Margaret’s Westminster”, as the school was titled, was created, agreed among several proposals by the majority, with a figure of one planting and another watering, with the motto of "God giveth the increase". The school's popular name became "The Grey Coat Hospital" after the colour of the clothes provided for the children.

In 1710, the Archbishop of York, the aforementioned Dr. Sharp, succeeded as second President of the school and tried to follow up on an earlier petition by the Bishop of Bristol Dr. Smallridge to Queen Anne for funds, but to no avail, despite her request that the school take in two girls who had been orphaned due to the War of Spanish Succession.

On the occasion of a Thanksgiving Service at St. Paul's Cathedral after the signing of the Treaty of Utrecht, however, the Queen invited the school's children (including the two orphaned girls) to watch the procession on seats erected for them on Fleet Street over against Somerset House. Orders were given for the children to have "small beer and bread and cheese before they started, and buttock of beef and strong beer on their return." Beer, wrote Headmistress Elsie Sarah Day in her history of Grey Coat Hospital School published in 1902,[3] was the only drink provided for the children, for breakfast and supper as well as dinner until the reign of Queen Victoria, when milk and water replaced it, except at dinner.

From 1785, 60 boys and 30 girls were admitted. The girls were taught needlework trades and were mostly placed in domestic service. The boys were employed in a variety of occupations, and a number went to sea, either apprenticed to naval officers or to the trading companies. For this purpose, they were taught mathematical skills, including the art of navigation. Selected Grey Coat Hospital boys attended a mathematical school in Covent Garden for 3 days a week. A mathematical master was appointed to the staff in 1739. One of the boys who benefited from this education was David Thompson, admitted in 1777 and apprenticed to the Hudson’s Bay Company for seven years in 1784, who became a famous explorer. During the late eighteenth century, a study of the school's archives in its first two centuries by Elsie Sarah Day[3] reveals that the management of the school deteriorated and on a number of occasions pupils tried to escape the tyranny of the dishonest and incapable masters and mistresses. 19th century

Between 1870 and 1873, a weary struggle pitched the Governors of the Grey Coat Hospital School, resisting change and arguing for independence, and the Endowment Schools Commission, established by the Education Department, also then housed at 31, Abingdon Street. Eventually, the Governors relented, and the Charities Commissioner for the large Westminster Endowments, including Grey Coat Hospital, Palmer's Hospital, Emery Hill's Hospital and Emanuel Hospital, resolved that the school would become an establishment for girls only. It was agreed that, provisions being made for the boys under other trusts, it was deemed appropriate to intend the Grey Coat Endowments to girls only. In March 1873, a newly constituted body of Governors, chaired by the civil engineer Henry Arthur Hunt undertook to carry out the scheme of the Endowment Schools Commission. One of its first duties was to arrange for the boys: some were received at Emanuel School, then in Westminster, whose girls took their place in the Grey Coat Hospital, and others went to Ashford, then the Welsh School, later also a girls school and today St. David's. As a result, in 1874, when the then 25 years old Elsie Sarah Day joined, she became the first Headmistress of the what had become a girl's only school under church management.[2]

The Governors had pledged to establish a boarding school for girls, so in early in 1894 they purchased Amersham Hall, near Reading, which had been a non-conformist boarding School for boys. It relocated in 1861 to Caversham in Oxfordshire, a suburb in the north of Reading and now in Berkshire, and which currently houses Queen Anne's School. It opened in May 1894 with 39 girls and until now remains connected with "The Grey Coat Hospital" though the shared oversight of the United Westminster & Grey Coat Foundation.

In the first two centuries of its history, Grey Coat Hospital School's charity has had many distinguished benefactors and subscribers, including Lord Hardwicke, Lord Robert Henley (afterwards Earl of Northington), George Granville (afterwards Marquis of Buckingham), the philosopher Jeremy Bentham, Henry Pelham-Clinton and his wife Lady Susan, the Earl and Countess of Lincoln (afterwards Duke and Duchess of Newcastle), Mr. Stephen Hoare, Dr. Richard Jebb (later Sir), the Earl Richard Temple (Duke of Buckingham and Chandos), The Lord Chief Justice Sir John Pratt (afterwards Marquis Camden), Lord Edward Thurlow, 1st Baron Thurlow, Henry Bathurst (Lord Aspley), Robert Grosvenor (Viscount Belgrave, afterwards Earl Grosvenor, Mr. Speaker Henry Addington (afterwards Viscount Sidmouth), Lord Bathurst, Mr. Speaker Charles Abbott (afterwards Lord Colchester), Spencer Perceval M.P. (later P.M.), the Earl of Moire, Francis Edward Rawdon (later Marquess of Hastings), Baroness Angela Burdett-Coutts, Lady Lucy Cavendish, a pioneer of women's education, and Lady Harriett Burrell. Many Bishops have been Governors or Subscribers, among whom Dr. William Markham of York, Dr. John Hinchliffe of Peterborough, Dr. John Butler of Oxford, Dr. John Warren of St. David's, Dr. Samuel Hallifax of Gloucester, Dr. Beilby Porteus of London, Dr. Edward Smallwell of Oxford, Dr. Samuel Horsley of Rochester.

Apart from the two cited above, other Presidents are the Archbishops of Canterbury, Dr. Thomas Secker, Dr. Frederick Cornwallis and Dr. Charles Manners-Sutton. Notable Governors are to be found in an unbroken line of archbishops of Canterbury and Deans of Westminster, including Samuel Wilberforce. In law and political life they also included men such as the aforesaid Right Hon. Spencer Percival, the Vice Chancellor Sir William Page Wood (or Lord Hatherley), and the Right. Hon. John Charles Herries, Chancellor of the Exchequer.

20th century

Until 1894 The Grey Coat Hospital had been self-supporting through its endowments and termly fees. That year grants in aid were received from the London County Council for LCC scholars.

1908, the school was placed on the grant list of the Board of Education and, in 1920, became an LCC assisted school, without relinquishing any of its distinctive characters.

In 1944 Education Act meant the end of the Grey Coat Hospital’s preparatory department after almost 250 years, and the school became entirely non-fee paying. Seven years later the school became a VA school.

WHAT IS HIDDEN

The hospital has been a recruiting tool for the Celestial Chorus. The school was recently assaulted by an organized force that took several students and a couple of Awakened teachers.

Staff

Mother Victorov

Those Taken

• Sarah Anne-Sophie Arbeit
• Rex Gage
• Sasha Volk
• Nola Courtney
• Inga Wendelin
• Brother Foster Summer (Teacher)
• Sister Temperance Carl (Teacher)