History of Warwick School
The oldest boys' school in England, Warwick School has been in continuous existence at least from the days of King Edward the Confessor (reigned 1042-1066) when the fledgling town possessed a school under the tutelage of All Saints' Church. The earliest appearance of Warwick Town in history is in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle under the year 914, and this has long been taken as the date of the foundation of Warwick School.
Very little documentary evidence exists before 1545, when King Henry VIII established, i.e. presumably re-founded, the "King's New School of Warwick." The premises were then in the Guild Hall which then became part of the Lord Leycester Hospital.
Between 1697 and 1879 the school was run in the old college of the Vicars Choral in St Mary's churchyard, and was predominantly a day school. The education, typically for the time, emphasised the classics above all.
The move to the open fields site south of the River Avon eventually brought about a steady rise in numbers – in 1878 there were 44 boys in the school, and by 1906, 110. In that year a merger with the Middle School in Warwick esulted in the modern name of Warwick School being adopted, rather than The King’s School.
Numbers in the 1930s reached 350, with 18 staff and a sixth form of about 40.
By the 1960s there were over 750 pupils and 45 staff. This expansion in numbers, together with a broadening of the curriculum, produced a continuous demand for new buildings. The original Science Block of 1905 survives in its third guise as the modern music department. More modern buildings included the Memorial Gymnasium, 1957, the Guy Nelson Hall and Languages Block of the early 1970s.
The developments have continued in more recent years too with the new sports centre and art block of 1994, the Bridge House Theatre of 2000, the new Junior School buildings of 2002 and the state of the art Science Centre of 2007.
For a fuller history of the school please refer to 'Warwick School - A History' written by G Frykman and E Hadley and published in 2004. Copies can be purchased from the School. [img_assist|nid=90|title=|desc=|link=none|align=right|width=300|height=339]
