page_title: Westminster School
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Westminster School / History
caption_attribution_description: An image of Liddell's House and the reception of Westminster School
context_page_description: Westminster School is a historic public school in Westminster, London, England, within the precincts of Westminster Abbey and beside the Houses of Parliament. It can be traced to a charity school founded by Westminster Benedictine monks before the Norman Conquest in 1066, documented by the Croyland Chronicle and a charter of King Offa. Its unbroken existence is clear from the early 14th century. Boys are admitted to Under School at the age of seven and by examination to the senior school at 13, girls to the Sixth Form at 16. The school has some 750 pupils; about a quarter are mainly weekday boarders, free to go home after Saturday morning school. The school motto Dat Deus Incrementum refers to 1 Corinthians 3:6: "I planted the seed and Apollos watered it, but God made it grow" The school was one of nine examined by the Clarendon Commission of 1861. and reformed by the Public Schools Acts Westminster is one of the few UK schools to have educated several Nobel laureates: Edgar Adrian, Sir Andrew Huxley and Sir Richard Stone.
context_section_description: The earliest records of a school at Westminster date back to the 1370s and are held in Westminster Abbey's Muniment Room, with parts of the buildings now used by the school dating back to the 10th century Anglo-Saxon Abbey at Westminster. In their annual accounts the school cites their origin as lying in a decree of Pope Alexander III in 1179 though the evidence for this is unclear.
  In 1540, Henry VIII ordered the dissolution of the monasteries in England, including that of the powerful Abbots of Westminster, but personally ensured the School's survival by his royal charter. The Royal College of St. Peter carried on with forty "King's Scholars" financed from the royal purse. By this point Westminster School had certainly become a public school (i.e. a school available to members of the paying public, rather than the private tuition arranged by the nobility). During Mary I's brief reign the Abbey was reinstated as a Roman Catholic monastery, but the school continued.
  Elizabeth I refounded the school in 1560, with new statutes to select 40 Queen's Scholars from boys who had already attended the school for a year. Queen Elizabeth frequently visited her scholars, although she never signed the statutes nor endowed her scholarships, and 1560 is now generally taken as the date that the school was "founded".
  Elizabeth I appointed William Camden as headmaster, and he is the only layman known to have held the position until 1937. It was Dr Busby, himself an Old Westminster, who established the reputation of the school for several hundred years, as much by his classical learning as for his ruthless discipline by the birch, immortalised in Pope's Dunciad. Busby prayed publicly Up School for the safety of the Crown, on the very day of Charles I's execution, and then locked the boys inside to prevent their going to watch the spectacle a few hundred yards away. Regardless of politics, he thrashed Royalist and Puritan boys alike without fear or favour. Busby also took part in Oliver Cromwell's funeral procession in 1658, when a Westminster schoolboy, Robert Uvedale, succeeded in snatching the "Majesty Scutcheon" (white satin banner) draped on the coffin, which is now held in the library (it was given to the school by his family two hundred years later). Busby remained in office throughout the Civil War and the Commonwealth, when the school was governed by Parliamentary Commissioners, and well into the Restoration.
  In 1679, a group of scholars killed a bailiff, ostensibly in defence of the Abbey's traditional right of sanctuary, but possibly because the man was trying to arrest a consort of the boys. Dr Busby obtained a royal pardon for his scholars from Charles II and added the cost to the school bills.
  Until the 19th century, the curriculum was predominantly made up of Latin and Greek, and all taught up School. The Westminster boys were uncontrolled outside school hours and notoriously unruly about town, but the proximity of the school to the Palace of Westminster meant that politicians were well aware of the boys' exploits. After the Public Schools Act 1868, in response to the Clarendon Commission on the financial and other malpractices at nine pre-eminent public schools, the school began to approach its modern form. It was legally separated from the Abbey, although the organisations remain close and the Dean of Westminster Abbey is ex officio the Chairman of the Governors. There followed a scandalous public and parliamentary dispute lasting a further 25 years, to settle the transfer of the properties from the Canons of the Abbey to the school. School statutes have been made by Order in Council of Queen Elizabeth II. The Dean of Christ Church, Oxford, and the Master of Trinity College, Cambridge, are ex officio members of the school's governing body.
  Unusually among public schools, Westminster did not adopt most of the broader changes associated with the Victorian ethos of Thomas Arnold, such as the emphasis on team over individual spirit, and the school retained much of its distinctive character. Despite many pressures, including eva
caption: Liddell's House, and the school reception, taken from Dean's Yard
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