St Saviour's Grammar School

St Saviour’s Grammar School was a free grammar school located in the borough of Southwark, south of the River Thames in London, England. It existed as a separate entity from 1559 until 1896, and from that time lived on in the name of "St Olave's and St Saviour's Schools Foundation" which continues to this day supporting St Olave's Grammar School for boys and St Saviour's and St Olave's Church of England School for Girls.

History

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Example of the silver medal awarded for high academic diligence at St. Saviour's, depicting the building on the Sumner St. siteThe name is from the parish of St Saviour's, which was formed in 1543 from the amalgamation of St Margaret's and St Mary Magdalen’s parishes. The parish adopted the name St Saviour's from the recently dissolved abbey of St. Saviour in nearby Bermondsey. The parish then leased the old Catholic St Mary Overie Priory, thereafter referred to as St Saviour's Church (which was destined to later become Southwark Cathedral after 1905).

In 1559, St Saviour's parish sold a quantity of silver plate to fund a new 60-year lease on the church from Lady Day, dated June 6, 1559. A condition of the lease was that the parish establish within two years a building and employ a schoolmaster for a free grammar school. On August 31, 1559, the parishioners decided in the interim to run the school in the church house of the old St Margaret parish. This was funded by renting out the Lady Chapel of the priory to a baker, as well as selling the vestments and brass vessels of the parish.

On May 16, 1562 the parishioners paid £42 for a thousand-year lease from Matthew Smith on a building associated with the Green Dragon Inn, which previously had been the estate of Lady Cobham. Under the first schoolmaster Christopher Ockland, the school moved into this new site just south of St Saviour's Church (now part of the site of Borough Market, as Green Dragon Court).

The St Saviour's Grammar School received a Charter from Queen Elizabeth I, sealed on June 4, 1562. The event was commemorated on a foundation stone still existing today (although moved from site to site and now situated at St Olave's Grammar School in Orpington, Kent).

The chief figure of the Board of Governors was Thomas Cure, the senior Warden of St Saviour's, a special corporation chartered by Henry VIII to look after both the great priory church and various local charitable bequests. He was the Royal Saddler (haulage contractor) for Edward VI, Mary I and Elizabeth I and lived adjacent to the northwest corner of St Saviour's Church. He was a major local benefactor and his endowments are still administered by the corporation; he is commemorated in the Cathedral. The High Master (headmaster) was paid £20 per year and initially only boys from St. Saviour’s parish could be admitted for a fee of 2s. 6d, while those from St. Olave’s or other parishes could pay a fee to the High Master to arrange for a teacher for their instruction. St Olave's parish established their own Grammar School in 1571, which meant there were two such foundations within 200 metres of each other.

Probably the most famous alumnus from the first hundred years was John Harvard, after whom Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts was named. His father Robert and his brother Thomas were Governors of the school. However, it had an even more illustrious set of Governors and supporters: a page of the Governors Minutes of 1609 include the signatures of John Treyhearn, Philip Henslow and Edward Alleyn. The last named was to become a major local benefactor and his principal endowment for Dulwich College was to ensure the continuance of St Saviour's when it was likely to be dissolved almost three hundred years later.

The great fire of Southwark destroyed the school building in 1676 and damaged part of St Saviour's church (although the church tower was unscathed). The school's foundation stone was saved and a new building was built on the same site. There the school remained until 1839 when the Governors sold the building for £2,250 and relocated (along with the foundation stone) to a third building on Sumner Street to the west. This was actually smaller than its previous building. Canon Edmund Boger was the last headmaster there from 1859 to 1895.

Canon Boger attempted to halt a serious decline in the school's fortunes, which was due partly to the success of St Olave's and partly to the problem of the 1839 Sumner Street building's size and location. The school roll fell to 27 pupils in 1892. However, in 1882 the Charity Commissioners in re-organising Dulwich College's endowment identified the intention of Edward Alleyn towards other institutions he had supported in his life and by his Will; these were to be provided for by the Dulwich Foundation. One of these was St Saviour's and it was this continuing financial contribution that was to make St Saviour's merger with St Olave's more than a merely nominal one.

In 1896, St Saviour's Grammar School and St Olave's Grammar School were amalgamated at St Olave's site on Tooley Street and became known as 'St Olave's and St Saviour's Grammar School', thus ending the era of the original St Saviour's and heralding the beginning of a new era. During World War II the old Sumner Street building of the former St Saviour's was damaged by bombing. The historic foundation stone was subsequently moved to 'St Olave's and St Saviour's Grammar School' in 1952; when the school relocated to Orpington in Kent, the stone went with it in 1967.

The Boys school at Orpington has usually been known simply by the shortened name St Olave's Grammar School, but the foundation, which has to provide for many other educational needs locally, has the longer title.

Transformation of St. Saviour's to a Girls School

Near the turn of the 20th century, the Charity Commissioners required that girls in the area should be afforded some equality of education, and the Governors of the joint foundation agreed to use their endowment to provide this. On examination of the separate governing instruments of the two schools, it was pointed out that St Olave's was to educate "boys" but that St Saviour's was to do so for "younglings". St Olave's governors had already set up a 'Girls School Fund' but the Dulwich, St Saviour's endowment was vital to realise this proposal. They therefore proposed that they set up a girls school, to be styled 'St Saviour's and St Olave's Grammar School for Girls' and approached a local landowner, Lord Llangattock for a site. This new part of the foundation was opened in 1903 at the present New Kent Road site, and two small local parish schools and old endowment, for St Thomas (the 'May Feast Society') and St John's girls schools, were combined into it. Although it ceased to be a 'grammar school' in the ILEA reorganisation of the 1960s, it remains as a semi-independent 'Church of England, voluntary aided school'. The similar names for the two schools and the foundation have occasionally led to confusion, but the proposal to rename the girls school as simply 'St Saviour's' has been unwelcome. Nevertheless, the 'old girls' association call themselves the 'Salvatorians' while the 'old boys' of St Olave's are known as 'Old Olavians'.

The girls school's new chapel was consecrated by the Archbishop of Canterbury in 1999. In 2001 Tony Blair as Prime Minister declared the beginning of that year's General Election when he visited the New Kent Road site. For the celebration of the centenary of the girls only school in 2003, HM Queen Elizabeth graciously visited and unveiled a memorial art work.

Both schools hold their annual Commemoration Services at their 'parish' church, Southwark Cathedral.

Distinguished Pupils of St Saviour's prior to amalgamation in 1896

(cf. see List of Old Olavians for a list of alumni including pre- and post-amalgamation Olavians)

*John Harvard (1607-1638) – clergyman and scholar who bequeathed half his estate and his library for the endowment of the educational institution which became Harvard University in Massachusetts.

*William Heberden (1710-1801) – one of the most eminent English physicians of the eighteenth century, studied in Cambridge, personal physician to the Queen in the court of George III, attended to Samuel Johnson when Johnson suffered a stroke, author of Commentaries on the History and Cure of Diseases. In 1777 he donated £500 to St. Saviour’s Grammar School to augment the salary of the headmaster.

*William Van Mildert (1765-1836) – Bishop of Llandaff, founder of the University of Durham, last 'Prince Bishop' of Durham.

*George Tomlinson (1794-1853) – Bishop of Gibraltar from 1842-1863

*Sir Sidney Hedley Waterlow (1822-1906) – Lord Mayor of London, Member of Parliament

*Sir William Rose – Lord Mayor of London in 1862

*Sir William Atherton – Attorney General of England and Wales in 1861-1863

*Henry Hartley Fowler (1830-1911) – Member of Parliament, Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department, Secretary to the Treasury, Secretary of State for India, first Viscount Wolverhampton

References

*Carrington, R.C. "Two Schools: A History of the St Olave's and St Saviour's Grammar School Foundation and its Schools". McCorquodale Printers Ltd., London, 1971.
*The Diocese of Southwark. [http://www.dswark.org/cathedral/tour/history1.htm "Southwark Cathedral: History."] April 28, 2004, (May 2, 2004).
*Sanda Lipton Antique Silver. Source of information on the school medal. [http://www.antique-silver.com/idxa/m_badg_f.htm "Sanda Lipton - Index of Badges, Prizes and Masonic Medals"] May 12, 2006.

Official Web Sites

*School site for St. Olave's Grammar School for Boys [http://www.saintolaves.net/splash.php St. Olave's]
*School site for St. Saviour's and St. Olave's Church of England School for Girls [http://www.stsaviours.inter-base.net/index_text.php?_id=2 St Saviour's and St Olave's School]