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Rugby School
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Rugby School, located in the town of Rugby, Warwickshire, is regarded as one of the UK's leading co-educational boarding schools and is one of the oldest public schools in England.
y School was founded in 1567 as a provision in the will of Lawrence Sheriff, who had made his fortune supplying groceries to Queen Elizabeth I of England. It is one of the nine English public schools as defined by the Public Schools Act 1868 and one of a handful of prominent English Public Schools that can be said to have created the ideal of the Victorian gentleman and the importance of public schools as the training ground for service in the Empire in the nineteenth century.
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Encyclopedia
Rugby School, located in the town of Rugby, Warwickshire, is regarded as one of the UK's leading co-educational boarding schools and is one of the oldest public schools in England.
History
Rugby School was founded in 1567 as a provision in the will of Lawrence Sheriff, who had made his fortune supplying groceries to Queen Elizabeth I of England. It is one of the nine English public schools as defined by the Public Schools Act 1868 and one of a handful of prominent English Public Schools that can be said to have created the ideal of the Victorian gentleman and the importance of public schools as the training ground for service in the Empire in the nineteenth century. The influence of Rugby and its pupils and masters in the nineteenth century was enormous and in many ways the stereotype of the English public school is a reworking of Arnold's Rugby. Still today it is one of the best known schools in the country and seen as a leading innovator in education (e.g. see its leading role in developing the Cambridge Pre-U).
Since Lawrence Sheriff lived in Rugby, the school was intended to be a free grammar school for the boys of that town. Gradually, however, as Rugby's fame spread it was no longer desirable to have local boys attending and the nature of the school shifted, and so a new school – Lawrence Sheriff Grammar School – was founded to continue Lawrence Sheriff's original intentions; that school receives a substantial proportion of the endowment income from Lawrence Sheriff's estate every year.
Rugby School continues to offer a large number of scholarship places for outstanding students from the local community, who come from state (maintained) primary schools in the immediate vicinity of Rugby. The school's new Arnold Foundation has been established to enable it to offer similar support to children from outside the Rugby area.
The core of the school (which contains School House, featured in Tom Brown's Schooldays) was completed in 1815 and is built around the Old Quad (quadrangle), with its fine and graceful Georgian architecture. Especially notable rooms are the Upper Bench (an intimate space with a book-lined gallery), the Old Hall of School House, and the Old Big School (which makes up one side of the quadrangle, and was once the location for teaching all junior pupils). Thomas Hughes (like his fictional hero, Tom Brown) once carved his name onto the hands of the school clock, situated on a tower above the Old Quad. The polychromatic school chapel, new quadrangle, Temple Reading Room, Macready Theatre and Gymnasium were designed by the well-known Victorian Gothic revival architect William Butterfield in 1875, and the smaller Memorial Chapel was dedicated in 1922.
Headmastership of Rugby School
Thomas Arnold
The school's most famous headmaster was Dr. Thomas Arnold.
Appointed in 1828 he executed many reforms to the school curriculum and administration and was immortalised in Thomas Hughes' book Tom Brown's School Days. It was Arnold's reforms, with their emphasis on sport, 'fair play' and the system of allocating responsibility to boys, that led the British Public School system towards the 'Muscular Christianity' ethos which drove the British Imperial expansion. Arnold's Rugby can be said to have created what we think of as the English Public School.
Headmasters since 1828
From 1828 to 1966
From 1980 to present
- Brian Rees - to 1985
- Richard Bull - 1985 to 1990
- Michael Mavor - 1990 to 2001
- Patrick Derham - 2001 to present
William Webb Ellis
The game of Rugby owes its name to the school. The legend of William Webb Ellis and the origin of the game is commemorated by a plaque. The story has been known to be a myth since it was first investigated by the Old Rugbeian Society (renamed the Rugbeian Society) in 1895. There were no standard rules for football during Webb Ellis's time at Rugby (1816–1825) and most varieties involved carrying the ball. The games played at Rugby were organised by the students and not the masters, the rules of the game played at Rugby and elsewhere were a matter of custom and were not written down. They were frequently changed and modified with each new intake of students. The sole source of the story is credited to one Matthew Bloxam (a former student, but not a contemporary of Webb Ellis) in October 1876 (four years after the death of Webb Ellis) in a letter to the school newspaper (The Meteor) whereby he quotes some unknown friend relating the story to him. He elaborated on the story some three years later in another letter to The Meteor, but shed no further light on its source. Richard Lindon is credited for the invention of the "Oval" rugby ball, the rubber inflatable bladder and the brass hand pump. a Boot and Shoemaker had premises immediately across the street from the School's main entrance in Lawrence Sheriff Street. No doubt the boys of Rugby School had significant input into their required design.
It is also fair to say that cross country running began at Rugby School. The Crick Run was the first such event of its type in the world, and is still a major annual event in the School's calendar.
Houses
Rugby School has both day and boarding-pupils, the latter in the majority. Originally it was for boys only, but girls have been admitted to the sixth form since 1975. It went fully co-educational in 1995.
The school community is divided into houses:
Boys:
- Cotton House
- Kilbracken
- Michell House
- School Field
- School House
- Sheriff House
- Town House (Day House)
- Whitelaw House
Girls:
- Bradley House (ex boys' house)
- Dean House
- Griffin House
- Rupert Brooke House
- Southfield House (Day House)
- Stanley House (ex boys' house: 6th form)
- Tudor House (ex boys' house)
Junior School:
Information
*Age range: 11 - 18
- Day pupils: 77 boys, 64 girls
- Annual day fees: £15,120 - £15,120
- Full boarding pupils: 369 boys, 296 girls
- Annual full boarding fees: approx £27,000
- Total pupils: 446 boys, 360 girls
- Including 6th form/FE: 194 boys, 168 girls
- Staff numbers: 100 full time - 9 part time
- Method of entry: Common Entrance, Interview, Scholarship or bursary exam
- Professional affiliations: HMC
- Religious affiliation: Church of England
Alumni
There have been a number of notable Old Rugbeians including the purported father of the sport of Rugby William Webb Ellis, the war poets Rupert Brooke and John Gillespie Magee, Jr., Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain, author and mathematician Lewis Carroll, poet and cultural critic Matthew Arnold, the author and social critic Salman Rushdie, the Irish writer and republican Francis Stuart and the well known songwriter, Luke Howard. Matthew Arnold's father Thomas Arnold, was a headmaster of the school.
The Rugbeian Society
The Rugbeian Society is for former pupils at the School. An Old Rugbeian is sometimes referred to as an OR.
The purposes of the Society are to encourage and help Rugbeians in interacting with each other and to strengthen the ties between ORs and the School.
Rugby School slang
In common with most English public schools, Rugby has its own argot, a few words of which are listed below. Also, the Oxford "-er" abbreviation (e.g. Johnners, rugger, footer etc), prevalent at Oxford University from about 1875, is thought to have been borrowed from the slang of Rugby School.
- Bags: Sporting colours (particularly 'The Holder of Bigside Bags', the Captain of the Running Eight)
- Bodger: The current headmaster (After Dr. H. A. James - former headmaster (1895-1909). He gained this nickname whilst headmaster at Rossall School.)
- Boomer: Chapel Bell (not actually functional, on the premise the tower may collapse)
- Bug: Library
- Copy: Award for exceptional work
- Dics: House prayers or talks on useful information
- Distinction: Award for slightly less exceptional work than a Copy
- F-Block: Year 9
- E-Block: Year 10
- D-Block: Year 11
- Levee or Pig: School prefect
- Hall: The table below that of the Sixth. Members of Hall have or had certain privileges, such as that of carrying an umbrella, or making toast.
- New Turf: Hockey Astro Pitches
- Old Guard: Sports team of teachers
- Pig Hut run: Physical punishment of running to Levee hut
- Pontines: 2nd XV rugby pitch
- Sixth: House prefect
- Speckle: To sack someone from being a House Sixth (the Sixth tie is speckled)
- Stodge: School tuck shop
- Stripe: To sack someone from being a Levee (the Levee tie is striped)
- Tanner: Day-boy (from 'Town House')
- Tick: The obligatory salutation of a Beak in the street, by lifting an index finger to shoulder level
- Topos: Lavatory (from Greek t?p??, meaning 'a place')
- Tosh: The old 66 2/3 yard open-air swimming pool, also used as a skating rink in winter, demolished by the School Governors in 1989 and replaced with a basket-ball court and a smaller indoor swimming pool. In some houses a name given to a large communal shower room. Also, a bath (sb.) or to take a bath
- Wagger: Waste paper basket (abbreviation of "wagger pagger bagger" - see Oxford "-er")
- Lacque (pronounced 'Lake'): Room for the sixth in Sheriff House
School Song
"Floreat Rugbeia" is the traditional school song.
See also
External links
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