WESTMINSTER SCHOOL – This is Little Dean’s Yard, around which the main buildings of London’s most famous public school are grouped. The school (or St Peter”s College, as it is also called) dates back to the 14th century, but was refounded by Queen Elizabeth in 1560. From the early 17th century until 1884 almost all the boys were taught in the one great schoolroom, the upper school being divided from the lower school by a curtain hung over the oak beam, over which the pancake was tossed in the Shrove Tuesday ceremony. Among the headmasters of the school were Nicholas Udall, author of Ralph Roister Doister, Williamj Camden, the antiquary, and Dr Busby, famous both for his library and the floggings he carried out during his long headship from 1638 to 1695. Among the distinguished pupils were Ben Jonson, Hakluyt, Dryden, Wren, Southey, Warren Hastings, Gibbon, Froude, Charles Wesley, Matthew Prior and William Cowper.
From “Country Life Picture Book of London” with photos by G F Allen
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Filed under: British, Facts, The fifties Tagged: 1959, London, Westminster School
