Oakham School - History

History

Oakham School was founded in 1584 by Archdeacon Robert Johnson. Johnson received an income from four church positions and used this wealth to set up a number of charitable institutions, including the two free grammar schools at Oakham and Uppingham. As someone on the Puritan wing of the Church of England he had a strong belief in the benefits of education.

According to Johnson's statutes for the school, "the schoolmaster shall teach all those grammar scholars that are brought up in Oakham, freely without pay, if their parents be poor and not able to pay, and keep them constantly to school." The master of the school was to teach Hebrew, Latin and Greek. Of course, although the schooling was free, permanent attendance meant the loss to a family of an income, so not many very poor would have attended, or wanted the education. The master could supplement his income of £24 per year by taking in boarders. Johnson was careful to ensure that his schools were sufficiently endowed. This endowment was confirmed by Royal Charter granted by Queen Elizabeth I.

The original school building was restored in the eighteenth century and remained the sole classroom for 300 years. In 1749 a case involving payment of rates recorded that "the school of Uppingham is not nor hath been of equal repute with that of Oakham." The headmastership of Dr John Doncaster (1808-46), himself a previous pupil at the school, saw the school advance academically: "This was the man who returned to his old school at the age of thirty-six, with University honours and university experience, to give it fresh life, and to set a mark on it which it never quite lost". Even so, numbers attending were well below 50, and while Uppingham flourished in the second half of the nineteenth century, Oakham did not to the same extent. Even so, in 1869 Oakham was one of the founding members of the Headmasters' Conference (HMC). In 1875 as a result of the Endowed Schools Act that threatened the continued existence of the school, there were just 2 day boys and 2 boarders in the school. The exhausted headmaster, William Spicer Wood (1846-75), retired and the new headmaster lasted just three years before being dismissed.

All classes were still taught in the one room - the original old school, which still exists next to the Parish Church. The school did see some development. Science and Modern Languages had recently been added to the curriculum. The subjects examined for a scholarship within the school were: English History (1066-1603), Geography of the British Isles, English Grammar, Arithmetic, English Composition and Dictation. A more successful headmaster, the Rev. E.V. Hodge, headmaster from 1879 to 1902, saw numbers increase, to 125 in 1896, with slightly more boarders than day boys. Then followed onto the scene three successful headmasters - Walter Lee Sargant (1902-29) under whom numbers rose to over 200 with consequent new buildings, Francis Cecil Doherty (1929-34), who went on to be headmaster of Lancing), and Grosvenor Talbot Griffith (1935-57) who took the numbers to over three hundred - before the advent of John Buchanan.

The 125 of Hodge's time was a temporary peak - by 1905 numbers had fallen back to 66. Sargant's response to the obvious financial difficulties which accompanied this decline (there were just 80 boys in the school when he commenced his headmastership) was to apply in 1910 for Direct Grant status, and to become in effect the boys' grammar school for Rutland at the same time as continuing as a public school for the boarders. New facilities for Science teaching were created, boarding accommodation was improved with new building and extensions, and then a new school house was built. Pupil numbers rose again, to 105 in 1910, and to 200 in 1923.

The Chapel was built in 1925 as a memorial to the 69 old boys who were killed in the First World War. The Memorial Library was opened in 1955 by HRH The Duke of Gloucester as a memorial to the 82 old boys who were killed in the Second World War.

John David Buchanan took over from Talbot Griffith in 1958, and played himself in quietly until the Circular 10/65 which demanded comprehensivisation of maintained schools, of which Oakham was one as a Direct Grant school for the Rutland dayboys. He and the Rutland Local Education Authority did not see eye to eye on the possibilities of re-organisation of Rutland's schools, and as a result in 1970 the school (then 700 in size, all boys) reverted to full independence from the local authority, and in 1971, Oakham admitted female pupils for the first time, with the intention from the beginning of being co-educational throughout. Now in 2012 the school is fully co-educational throughout the whole age range (10-18), with an approximately 50 : 50 split at all levels (c550 boys and c500 girls in 2011-12). There are an equal number of girls' houses (8) to boys' houses. When Buchanan retired in 1977 the school was 950 in total size (c550 boys and 400 girls), and the next headmaster, Richard Bull (1977-84, before he went on to be headmaster of Rugby) continued the co-education process; but it was not until 1990 that the process was completed during the headmastership of Graham Smallbone (1985-96) and equality of numbers gained. When Tony Little, now headmaster of Eton, took over in 1996 there were 528 boys and 510 girls in a school of 1038, a ratio that is maintained today (548 boys and 507 girls). Furthermore, the school is pretty evenly spread between boarders and day, although there do exist "day boarders" from 13 and "transitional boarders" from 10-13.

In 1984 the Quatercentenary of the school was celebrated by a visit from HM The Queen and HRH The Duke of Edinburgh.

In 2005 Oakham School was one of fifty of the country's leading private schools which were found guilty of unintentionally running an illegal price-fixing cartel which had allowed them, it was alleged, to drive up fees for thousands of parents. Each school was required to pay a nominal penalty of £10,000 and all agreed to make ex-gratia payments totalling three million pounds into a trust designed to benefit pupils who attended the schools during the period in respect of which fee information was shared.