page_title: Exeter School
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Exeter School / History
context_page_description: Exeter School is a selective independent co-educational day school for pupils between the ages of 7 and 18 in Exeter, Devon, England. In 2019, there were around 200 pupils in the Junior School and 700 in the Senior School.
context_section_description: 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 Thomas 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 (10 ha) 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 of Exeter School decided that it was no longer possible for the school to continue without considerable assistance.  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 1929 when it became an "aided" school, thus regaining charge of its own finances under a newly appointed Governing Body.
  In March 1945, the status of the school changed again, becoming a direct grant grammar school, and it remained as such until September 1975 when the scheme was abolished.  In September 1976, the first "independent" pupils were admitted to the school.
  From 1979, the School participated in the Assisted Places Scheme, taking over 200 pupils at its peak, but the scheme was abolished by the government in 1997 and the last of those pupils left in the summer of 2004. In 1981, the Sixth Form became coeducational. Following the success of the move, girls were admitted to all years in 1997.
  The school maintains links with its former pupils through the Old Exonian Club which meets annually around the country. There is an Alumni Office which opened in September 2013. It was set up to develop and foster lifelong relationships between the School and its past pupils and staff.
caption: St John's Hospital site of the school from 1633 to 1878
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