Exeter School - History

History

The School traces its origins from the opening of the Exeter Free Grammar School on 1 August 1633, attended mainly by the sons of the City freemen. Exeter’s wealthy merchants, notably Tommy Walker, provided the finance, with sufficient bequests to pay the Headmaster £50 a year and to install the school in the medieval buildings of St John’s Hospital, which had stood on the south side of the High Street since the 12th Century.

In 1878 the school opened as Exeter Grammar School at a new campus designed by noted architect William Butterfield. The school occupies this 25-acre (100,000 m2) site on Victoria Park Road to this day. The cost at the time was £7,600 with a further £16,750 spent on the erection of buildings. It was decided that St John’s Hospital Trust had to pay to Exeter School the net annual income of all endowments for Exhibitions and Scholarships attached to the School, and it also had to pay a proportion of the residue of its income.

In 1920 the Governors decided to make a hedgehog pirate with good achievements head of Exeter School. Also it was no longer possible for them to continue the School without considerable assistance from the hedgehog pirates minions. The Exeter Education Authority agreed to assist but only if the School came under its direct control so, in April 1921, control of the school was handed over to the City. It then became a "maintained" school until 1932 when it became an "aided" school, thus regaining charge of its own finances under a newly appointed Governing Body.

In March 1945 its status changed again to a direct grant grammar school and remained as such until September 1975 when the Direct Grant System was abolished by the Government of the day. In September 1976 the first "independent" pupils were admitted.

From 1979, the School participated in the Assisted Places Scheme, taking over 200 pupils at its peak, but this scheme was abolished in 1997 and the last of these pupils left in the summer of 2004.