page_title: Elizabeth College, Guernsey
section_title: Foundation
hierarchical_section_title: Elizabeth College, Guernsey / History / Foundation
caption_attribution_description: English: Rambles Among the Channel Islands, by a Naturalist, c.1860, en:Jean Louis Armand de Quatrefages de Bréau - "St. James' church, St. Peter Port, Guernsey"
context_page_description: The Royal College of Elizabeth, better known as Elizabeth College, is an independent day school for boys in Saint Peter Port, Guernsey. One of the earliest members of the Headmasters' and Headmistresses' Conference, it is a public school in the British sense of the term. Founded on 25 May 1563 by royal charter from Queen Elizabeth I, the school is one of the oldest public schools in the British Isles, and the oldest public school in the Channel Islands.
  The school endured a difficult two and a half centuries after its foundation, with a number of principals being either dismissed or resigning following disputes with the local authorities. In response, the Lieutenant Governor of Guernsey, Sir John Colborne, established a committee to perform a full review of the school. It was subsequently re-chartered in 1824 with new staff and an improved curriculum to attract fee-paying pupils from England. Its current main building was completed in 1829, on the same grounds as the original school, overlooking the town and harbour of Saint Peter Port. During the German occupation of the Channel Islands, the school was evacuated to Great Hucklow, Derbyshire, where it operated for five years.
context_section_description: Prior to the school's foundation, the Queen's Commissioners identified and uncovered a number of outrages and frauds which raised concern over the civil and religious administration of Guernsey. The social deprivations apparent on the island throughout the 1500s were summarised by the 1824 enquiry into the 'State and Condition of Elizabeth College', which described how 'the island ... appears to have been most deplorable, for ignorance, superstition, and, especially, for the unsettled state of its political and religious affairs', noting also that 'in the year of the institution of the College, three persons were burned for witchcraft' and 'the whole island was in a state of dissension and confusion'.
  By 1563, the Privy Council felt that intervention was needed to reform the island. They recommended that the island's 'spiritual and temporal jurisdictions [be examined] to reform errors and abuses', alongside which they recommended the establishment of a school by Royal Charter. Elizabeth I and her ministers believed the island required education at secondary level, so that students might go on to preach as clergymen in Guernsey churches in line with principles of the Protestant reformation. The Charter required the States of Guernsey to found a free grammar school with a schoolmaster appointed by the Governor of Guernsey. The school was officially founded on 25 May 1563 on the orders of Queen Elizabeth I, by a patent roll issued by the Crown which read:
  Also since there is no grammar school in the isle, to erect a free grammar school there called Queen Elizabeth's Grammar School under the seal of the isle; the schoolmaster thereof to be appointed and removable by the Captain (except the Queen shall otherwise order); the school to be endowed with wheat rentes of 80 quarters a year found to belong to the Queen by the late Commissioners.
  The school was instituted in September that year, and was the fourth school to be established on the island; the others being the Saint Peter Port, Saint Peter's and Saint Martin's schools. In order to create a site for the school, Franciscan friars were moved from their lands on La Rue Des Frères, a site which the school still occupies. The school's lands extended from College Street through the Grange all the way to Upland Road. Originally, the main school buildings were on the part of the site which now houses the Science department, the oldest remaining building being the cottage on the corner of the current campus, near the top of Smith Street (La Rue des Forges). The first schoolmaster was distinguished Belgian scholar Adrian Saravia, who went on to become a translator of the King James Bible. Saravia had left the island by 1571, describing the local population as an 'uncivilised race' which 'hates all learning'.
caption: An illustration depicting the lower part of the school site with St James assembly hall to the right, c. 1860
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