Westminster School

“ THE WESTMINSTER SCHOLARS. The relations between Trinity College and Westminster School have always been of an intimate character. Under the Elizabethan statutes of the two foundations a limited number of boys from the school were entitled, if duly qualified, to election to scholarships at Trinity, and later an attempt was made to extend the privilege to fellowships. ”

“ First come the boys of Westminster School with their masters, and take their places right and left. Then the little chorister boys, walking two and two, the smallest in front—little mites who look as if they would hardly know their letters, but who march gravely to their seats, and sing the long service like sweet-voiced little birds. Then the "singing gentlemen of Westminster Abbey," as the men in the choir are called—many of them well-known professionals, whose names are seen during the week at the best concerts in England. ”

“ A 'school of the highest class' is said, because the connection with Christ Church and Trinity, as well as a universally felt desire among all old Westminsters, which is not unpardonable, seem to point indisputably to its remaining a school mainly preparatory for the Universities. ”

“ While there is no room to extend the boarding-house system further at Westminster, the existence of the present houses is quite compatible with the presence of a large day-boy element, and may satisfy some needs which are felt even in London. To some parents in the country it is an attraction that their sons should be brought up within the neighbourhood of such historic associations. Other parents again, resident in or near London, are attracted by the possibility of having their sons home for the Saturday afternoon and Sunday, which is an especial feature of the School. ”

“ The school is no longer in any sense dependent on the Abbey, and except that the boys attend the services there as "chapel," the old ties are severed. A great feature of the school are the King's (or Queen's) Scholars, founded by Elizabeth; of these there are now forty resident and twenty non-resident. There are three scholarships and three exhibitions yearly at Christ Church, Oxford, for Westminster boys, and three exhibitions at Trinity College, Oxford. There are at present (1902) about two hundred and thirty boys in the school. ”

“ St Peter’s College or Westminster School (see Westminster) is unique among English public schools of the highest rank in maintaining its original situation in London. Other early metropolitan foundations have been moved in accordance with modern tendencies either into the country or to sites aloof from the heart of London. Thus Charterhouse school, part of the foundation of Sir Thomas Sutton (1611) , was moved from Finsbury to Godalming, Surrey; St Paul’s School occupies modern buildings at Hammersmith, and Christ’s Hospital is at Horsham, Sussex. ”

“ In the case of Westminster, there exists, besides a gymnasium and racket-courts in Little Dean's Yard, a playground within less than ten minutes' walk, of considerable size, in Vincent Square. There is nothing to prevent the relation of day-boys to the School conforming rather to the type of the position of day-boys at country schools, who take part in the school games, than to that of boys educated at the above-named schools. ”

“ NORTH OF VICTORIA STREET.
The United Westminster Schools, constituted 1873, stand on the east side of Palace Street. These comprise Emanuel Hospital, Greencoat School (St. Margaret's) , Palmer's (Blackcoat School) , and Hill's Grammar School. The building in Palace Street stands back from the road behind a space of green grass. Over one doorway are medallions of Palmer and Hill, and over the other the Royal arms, and the structure is devoid of any architectural attractiveness. The beauty which belonged to the older buildings has not been revived, but replaced by a hideous utilitarianism. ”

“ But the Maiden Queen was in very deed the last royal person to whom Westminster Abbey owed substantial benefits. She refounded the collegiate church, which finally took the place of the monastery, and established Westminster School; before her reign the only boys taught within the precincts were the few scholars collected in the cloisters by the monks. She is, in fact, the foundress of St. Peter's College, which thus owes its status as a royal foundation to Queen Elizabeth. ”

“ He obtained a king's scholarship at Westminster School in 1682. Dr. Busby, then head-master, 'kept him to the study of Greek and Latin some years longer than usual.' He was grateful for his Westminster training, and afterwards compiled his 'Græcæ Linguæ Dialecti' and 'English Grammar' for the use of Westminster School. ”

“ There are in England, besides the two universities, but few great schools or colleges. In London, there are only St. Paul's and Westminster schools; the rest are almost all private institutions, in which there reigns a kind of family education, which is certainly the most natural, if properly conducted. Some few grammar schools, or Latin schools, are notwithstanding here and there to be met with, where the master receives a fixed salary, besides the ordinary profits of the school paid by the scholars. ”

“ Peter's College, Westminster, as they were elected to Christ Church College, Oxford, and Trinity College, Cambridge, from 1561 to the present time,’ London, 4to. To it he prefixed lists of the deans of Westminster, the deans of Christ Church, Oxford, the masters of Trinity College, Cambridge, and the masters of Westminster school. The work was republished in 1852, under the editorship of Charles Bagot Phillimore, with the addition of the Queen's scholars from 1663, and of copious biographical notes. The work is generally known as ‘Alumni Westmonasterienses.’ Welch died in April 1805. ”

“ Three sons he has bred up well at Westminster, and they are excellent scholars: the eldest has been one of the ushers in Westminster school since the year 1714.
He is a man in years, yet hearty and able to study many hours in a day. ”

“ With the forty Queen's Scholars, the boys in these boarding-houses would form a valuable nucleus, of sufficient permanence in itself, round which might cluster an addition of some 150 or 200 more day-boys, whether half-boarders or 'home-boarders'—the class of boys which it is anticipated the throwing open of the competition for Christ Church and Trinity, the definite liberation of the School from the long-pending uncertainty of removal, and the advantages expected to accrue from the final passing of the Public Schools Bill will draw. ”

“ The only part of the college buildings which formed part of the original school is the college hall, built by Abbot Litlington in 1380 as the monks' refectory. But by far the oldest part of the buildings at present incorporated in the school is the Norman crypt, approached from the dark cloister, and forming part of the gymnasium made by the Chapter in 1860, by roofing in the walls beyond it, between it and the Chapter-house. A stranger gymnasium, surely, no school can boast.
The name of Dr. Busby, Headmaster from 1638 to 1695, will be for ever held in honour at Westminster. ”

“ Being much interested in the prosperity and well-fare of that our College which is both our immediate Foundation and the fairest in all our kingdoms, and furnished, for the most part with the extracions of our own free-school at Westminster, we cannot but be very sensible of any alteration in the government of the same. ”

“ For a true conception of the history of secondary schools it cannot be repeated too often and too emphatically that to this day the true title of the greatest English “public schools” is grammar school. Winchester and Eton are the grammar schools of the colleges of the Blessed Mary of Winchester and of Eton respectively, and Westminster is the grammar school of the collegiate church of St Peter, Westminster. ”

“ It is inconvenient that so large a College as Trinity should be restrained unto a particular School, and it can be easily shown that other Schools have furnished Trinity with students of much better hope and proof than Westminster hath done or is likely to do, for the whole number of Westminster boys who are eligible to both Universities are but forty, and there are seldom more than eight or nine candidates for the six vacancies at the two Universities. ”

“ The privilege of an almost gratuitous education in 'college' for four years, which will be the case if the Public Schools Bill passes in its present form, is quite sufficient attraction in itself to render it wholly unnecessary to make it imply absolute certainty of further emoluments at the University. ”

“ If, on the other hand, the difficulties are such as to make it unlikely, then it is of the utmost importance for the interests of the School, which have suffered not unnaturally by this long pending possibility, that the idea of removal should be distinctly renounced, and that the question of how best to deal with it on its present site should be deliberately entertained as the only practicable issue. ”

“ Many new schools were created, many old schools obtained an increase of endowment and efficiency. Among the great schools it was during this time that Westminster, with a parliamentary committee of lords and commons substituted for the dean and chapter, under Busby, definitely placed itself in that position of pre-eminence which it retained till the first decade of the 19th century. It is significant that the two oldest extant school-lists are of this period, that for Winchester, which flourished under a Puritan warden and headmaster, for 1653, and that for Westminster for 1655. ”

“ He was full of enthusiasm and energy and he was more anxious that his pupils should become men of action and character than accomplished scholars. His monument, which is near the Poets' Corner shows him, in the words of the inscription, "such as he appeared to human eyes;" and the words which follow tell how he "sowed a plenteous harvest of ingenious men; discovered, managed, and improved the natural genius in every one; formed and nourished the minds of youths, and gave to the school of Westminster the fame of which it boasts." ”

“ The day-boys consist of two classes—half-boarders, who remain in the middle of the day and dine at one or other of the boarding-houses, and home-boarders, as they are called, for whom their parents provide dinner either at their own homes or in the neighbourhood. While the increase of the day-boy element, whether half-boarder or home-boarder, is the result now to be mainly aimed at for the School, the local circumstances of Westminster do not seem to demand that the result should be attained in precisely the same manner as at King's College School, for instance, or the City of London School. ”

“ On each side are the ensigns of his prelatical dignities; and underneath is a Latin inscription, of which the following is a [Pg 86] translation:—“Sacred to the memory of the most Reverend Zachary Pearce, S.T.P., Bishop of Rochester, Dean of this Church, and of the most Honourable Order of the Bath. The seeds of learning, which were early sown at Westminster School, he cultivated to maturity at Cambridge: how rich the produce, both as a critic and divine, his works, already printed and published, will abundantly show. ”

“ Action may be expected soon to be taken upon the Report of the Middle Class Schools Commission, which, while it will set some rich foundations free to compete on equal terms from their existing sites with the above-named schools, may be expected to give rise to a different class of schools, the comparative absence of which hitherto, in any satisfactory form, has tended to increase the numbers who have been glad to avail themselves of schools of the Public School type. ”

“ An Education Fund was established. Government, in 1847, offered grants for the training of elementary school teachers; and in 1851 the Westminster Training College was opened, with room for 130 men students. In 1872, in response to an increased demand for Wesleyan teachers, a separate college for mistresses was opened at Southlands, Battersea. Already four thousand have been trained in these institutions. Many hold positions in Board schools. In 1896 the number in Wesleyan and Board schools was 2,400. ”

“ There is no trace of any grammar school in the abbey of Westminster until the fourteenth century. The Customary of 1259–83 (ed. E. M. Thompson for Henry Bradshaw Soc.) only contemplates education for the novices, and in the earliest almoner’s accounts, which begin with 1282, entries of 1317 ‘in maintaining Nigel at school for the love of God’ (Leach, 80) and 1339–40, ‘pro scholaribus inueniendis ad scolas’ (E. H. Pearce, The Monks of Westminster Abbey, 79) , need only refer to the support of scholars at a University. ”

“ To speak of the other public schools—Harrow, Westminster, Shrewsbury, Marlborough, Wellington, Clifton, Repton, and the rest—would of course be interesting, but I could scarcely hope to illustrate more clearly what a public school really is. At all of them the boys live in "houses," much as men at the universities live in colleges. ”

“ Moreover, it has been the experience of schools less favourably situated, like the City schools, that with the growth of the reputation of the School as a place of efficient teaching has come a demand from parents living at a distance for boarding-house accommodation. ”

“ This almonry school for charity boys is the only school, other than the novices' school, which existed at Westminster Abbey before, on its conversion into a cathedral by Henry VIII., the present school with forty scholars and unlimited town boys was established on the model of the old cathedral grammar schools. ”