page_title: Wisbech Grammar School
section_title: Early history
hierarchical_section_title: Wisbech Grammar School / History / Early history
caption_attribution_description: English: Old Grammar School, Wisbech, from the Wisbech Album: a collection of photographs of Wisbech &amp; the surrounding area c.1870-1890 Cambridgeshire Collection C.66.2. In public domain by virtue of its age.
context_page_description: Wisbech Grammar School is an 11–18 mixed, Church of England, independent day school and sixth form in Wisbech, Isle of Ely, Cambridgeshire, England. Founded by the Guild of the Holy Trinity in 1379, it is one of the oldest schools in the country.
  Chartered by Edward VI in 1549 as a grammar school for boys, for much of its history it offered a largely classical curriculum of Greek, Latin and arithmetic under the governance of the Wisbech Corporation. The school has moved premises several times since its foundation, being based in St Peter's Church, the old guildhall in Hill Street and on South Brink before merging with the Wisbech High School for Girls in 1970 at the present site on North Brink.
  For much of the 20th century, it was a non-fee paying voluntary-aided school, but following LEA plans to remove this status and merge the Grammar School with a nearby secondary modern school, the governors took the decision to become fully independent in 1983. Now a fee-paying day school, as at 2018, 518 pupils aged 4 to 18 attend from the three counties of Cambridgeshire, Norfolk and Lincolnshire.
context_section_description: Although the school has moved location on several occasions, each of its former buildings is still in existence. The school was founded by the Guild of the Holy Trinity in 1379 above the south porch of St Peter's Church. The Guild was a powerful force in the later Middle Ages. The historical name "Schola Sanctae Trinitatis De Wysbech" is still used on the school's crest, which is derived from the seal of the Wisbech Corporation (itself based on the former Guild seal) and features the seated figures of St Peter and St Paul. The first record of a schoolmaster dates from 1407 when one Maurice Plank was given leave to study at Cambridge University for two terms on the understanding that he would appoint an usher to teach in his absence.
  Soon after foundation, the school moved to the Guildhall in Hill Street. A record from 1446 details how master Jacob Creffen was granted leave by the Bishop of Ely to collect an "adequate salary" from each scholar according to the "praiseworthy, ancient and approved custom".
  
  Following the English reformation, the Guild of the Holy Trinity was dissolved and replaced by the Wisbech Corporation. The school was renamed and re-established by King Edward VI in 1549, who gave the school a charter "for the instruction of youth in grammatical knowledge and polite literature". The charter is still in existence, and is currently held by the Wisbech Museum. The same year, land was given for the construction of a school house next to the Guildhall building. After the Restoration of Charles II, the school's charter was renewed with the stipulation that the Capital Burgesses be given the choice of schoolmaster and that the Bishop of Ely "forever shall have the right of visitation, reformation, and correction of the schoolmaster, as of the school aforesaid". 
  In 1638 a benefactor, William Holmes, gave £400 to the burgesses of Wisbech to be invested in land, and the rest applied for the maintenance of two scholars at Magdalene College, Cambridge. In his will of 1656 Holmes directed that the whole yearly income of his 46-acre estate in Holbeach, Lincolnshire be paid yearly towards the maintenance of the scholars and the endowment of the school. Other land and property had been donated to the school in the wills of Thomas Parkes in 1628 and John Crane in 1651. Crane's estate included land in Fleet, Lincolnshire and an inn on Market Hill called the Black Bull.
  In 1793, property developer Joseph Medworth purchased the site of Wisbech Castle, including John Thurloe's 1660 mansion and the land surrounding it from the See of Ely, building the Georgian Crescent along the bailey walls. As part of his scheme, in 1811 he tried to persuade the Corporation to purchase the mansion and demolish the Old Grammar School building in Ship Street (now Hill Street) with the intention of building a new street through to the market place. The Corporation refused (it is usually assumed that the other burgesses intended to purchase the mansion for the same purpose after Medworth's death at a reduced price). As a result, in a "fit of pique", Medworth demolished Thurloe's mansion and erected the present Wisbech Castle building in 1816.
  An 1868 inspection by Henry Richmond of the Schools Inquiry Commission notes that the school was in a poor state of repair; the school once had many boarders, but this was no longer possible because the largest dormitory needed extensive repairs. As a result, attendance had fallen from 60 to 22 scholars. Richmond records that the upper boys were reading Cicero, and their knowledge of Latin grammar was "satisfactory". He also records the teaching of Greek, algebra, and English language, noting that French was taught as an extra. The inspector suggests that the reason for its decline may have been a nearby commercial school, and hints that the feeling in the town was that the largely Classical curriculum was "irrelevant". He also implies that the state of the building may have been the result of differences between the headmaster and the Corporation.
  The school continued to use the former guildhall site in
caption: The former guildhall, now known as the Old Grammar School, was the site of the school between 1401 and 1898
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