Motto |
Latin: Intus Si Recte Ne Labora (If Right Within, Trouble Not) |
---|---|
Established | 1552 |
Type | Independent day and boarding school |
Headmaster | Mark Turner |
Chairman of Governing Body | Matthew Collins |
Founder | King Edward VI |
Location |
Kingsland Shrewsbury Shropshire SY3 7BA England Coordinates: 52°42′14″N 2°45′44″W / 52.7038°N 2.7622°W |
DfE URN | 123608 Tables |
Staff | ca. 100 (full-time teachers) |
Students | ca. 770 students |
Gender | Coeducational |
Ages | 13–18 |
Colours | Royal blue & white |
Publication | The Salopian |
Former pupils | Old Salopians |
School Song | Floreat Salopia |
Website | www |
Shrewsbury School is an English co-educational independent school for pupils aged 13 to 18 in Shrewsbury, Shropshire, founded by Royal Charter in 1552. The present campus, to which the school moved in 1882, is on the banks of the River Severn.
Shrewsbury school is one of the original seven public schools as defined by the Public Schools Act 1868. It was originally a boarding school for boys; girls have been admitted into the Sixth Form since 2008 and there are approximately 130 day pupils. Since 2014 Shrewsbury School has been fully co-educational. Pupils are admitted at the age of 13 by selective examination. For approximately ten per cent of the pupils, English is a second or additional language.
The school's old boys – or "Old Salopians" – include naturalist Charles Darwin; poet Sir Philip Sidney; Sidney's biographer, Fulke Greville, whose virtues extolled the chivalrous code of his era; Astronomer Royal Martin Rees; authors Samuel Butler and Nevil Shute; and broadcasters John Peel and Michael Palin.
Following a petition in 1542 to Henry VIII from the townspeople of Shrewsbury for a free grammar school, Shrewsbury School was founded by charter in 1552 under King Edward VI by Adam Jones in three rented wooden buildings, which included Riggs Hall, built in 1450, and now the only remaining part of the original foundation. Originally, the curriculum was based on Continental Calvinism, under its first headmaster, Thomas Ashton (appointed 1561) and boys were taught the catechism of Calvin. The school attracted large numbers of pupils from Protestant families in Shrewsbury, Shropshire and North Wales, with 266 boys on its roll at the end of 1562. It had few facilities so early pupils lodged with local families. Philip Sidney, who attended Shrewsbury between the ages of nine and thirteen, lodged with the family of George Leigh, Member of Parliament for Shrewsbury. Having achieved a reputation for excellence under Ashton, in 1571 the school was augmented by Queen Elizabeth I. Although Ashton had resigned from his headmastership in 1568, he returned to Shrewsbury in 1578 to help draw up the ordinances governing the school, which were in force until 1798; under them, the borough bailiffs (mayors after 1638) had power to appoint masters, with Ashton's old St John's College, Cambridge having an academic veto.