History of St. Bees School

The History of St. Bees School encompasses more than four hundred years of British history.

It was founded in 1583 as a Free Grammar School by the dying Archbishop of Canterbury, Edmund Grindal, who refused to resign his position until Elizabeth I agreed to sign the school into existence. After extremely modest beginnings, the school gradually expanded over the years despite its remote location in St. Bees, the most westerly point of Northern England. Despite the best attempts of Grindal to give the school a secure financial grounding, the finances have always been characterised by "boom and bust" peaks - for many years the school effectively ran on mining royalties and after these dried up the school had to be rescued from closure by a syndicate of its former pupils. Many Old St. Beghians have served and fought for their country, and the school is extremely proud of the three Victoria Cross winners it educated. During the 1970s St. Bees School became coeducational and until closure had a substantial foreign segment of the pupil population.

The school formally closed in July 2015, though there are plans to reopen the school in the near future.

On 20 March 2017 it was announced that the school will re-open in September 2018 in a partnership with Shenzhen International, a South East Asian education group.

In 1583, the Archbishop of Canterbury, Edmund Grindal, born in the village of St Bees, was ill and blind and was making preparations before his death. Elizabeth I had designated John Whitgift as Grindal's successor, but the former refused to accept the position while Grindal lived (allegedly). Grindal is accredited with having once described Copeland (the area in which St. Bees lies) as the:

In 1559 Grindal had been appointed Master of Pembroke Hall, Cambridge, a post he held for three years before resigning to concentrate on his duties as Bishop of London. Around this time he started planning for an institution of some kind by purchasing the tithes for St Bees from Sir Thomas Chaloner. The period up to his death in 1583 saw a great number of schools being opened in the wake of the Reformation. In the spring of 1583 Grindal applied for Letters Patent to the Queen to build a school in St. Bees whose land would be held in mortmain. On 3 July 1583 he published a number of statutes for the running of the school, to be named the Free Grammar School, which provided for a board of governors of seven men; the Provost of The Queen's College, Oxford, the Parson of the Parish Church in nearby Egremont who in turn chose five others to serve. However, the Queen refused to sign the request for mortmain, and Grindal for his part refused to resign the Archbishopric, though he was fully aware he was incapable of fully carrying out his duties. He finally tendered his resignation on 12 April. The Queen signed the Letters Patent incorporating St. Bees School on 15 June 1583.

...
Wikipedia