The Blackheath Proprietary School was an educational establishment founded in 1830. In the 19th century, it had a profound influence on the game of football, in both Association and Rugby codes. In 1863, the school became one of the founders of
The Football Association
The Football Association (also known as The FA) is the governing body of association football in England and the Crown Dependencies of Jersey, Guernsey and the Isle of Man. Formed in 1863, it is the oldest football association in the world a ...
.
History
The Blackheath Proprietary School was established in 1830 to give sound liberal education similar to the
public schools of England. From its inception, it worked towards ensuring it had an educational reputation that would be the equivalent of its public school contemporaries and the school granted an exhibition of £50 per annum every two years to pupils proceeding to
Oxford
Oxford () is a city in England. It is the county town and only city of Oxfordshire. In 2020, its population was estimated at 151,584. It is north-west of London, south-east of Birmingham and north-east of Bristol. The city is home to the ...
,
Cambridge
Cambridge ( ) is a College town, university city and the county town in Cambridgeshire, England. It is located on the River Cam approximately north of London. As of the 2021 United Kingdom census, the population of Cambridge was 145,700. Cam ...
or
Dublin
Dublin (; , or ) is the capital and largest city of Ireland. On a bay at the mouth of the River Liffey, it is in the province of Leinster, bordered on the south by the Dublin Mountains, a part of the Wicklow Mountains range. At the 2016 c ...
universities. Blackheath's population had expanded rapidly in the 1820s, hence the timing of the establishment of the school. The school was founded on joint stock principles and there were originally 100 shares priced at £20 each; proprietorship of a share entitled its owner to send or nominate a boy to the school. From 1831 when it opened it was successful, particularly under Reverend Edward Selwyn, an alumnus of
Trinity College, Cambridge
Trinity College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge. Founded in 1546 by King Henry VIII, Trinity is one of the largest Cambridge colleges, with the largest financial endowment of any college at either Cambridge or Oxford. ...
. He was head from 1849 to 1864 and remarkably in his last three years, when there were more than 200 boys in the school, every boy in the upper sixth won an open scholarship to Oxford or Cambridge. The school also boasted a cadet corps. In 1880 a sister school was opened on Wemyss Road,
Blackheath High School
Blackheath High School is an independent day school for girls in Blackheath Village in southeast London, England. It was founded in 1880 as part of the Girls' Day School Trust; the Senior School occupied a purpose-built site in Wemyss Road fo ...
for girls, to provide a standard of education for the young women of Blackheath, comparable to that of the boys' school. The school was built at the initiative of local residents, but was run by the
Girls Public Day School Company.
Although the Proprietary School flourished for much of the nineteenth century, it was threatened by a number of elements including the diminishing lease on its site, the popularity of boarding schools and the growing availability of day schools nearby. The school closed in 1907.
Buildings
The school buildings were situated near Blackheath Park and in Lee Park and were described as "a handsome building after the model of the
Propylaeum in
Athens
Athens ( ; el, Αθήνα, Athína ; grc, Ἀθῆναι, Athênai (pl.) ) is both the capital and largest city of Greece. With a population close to four million, it is also the seventh largest city in the European Union. Athens dominates ...
". The school's buildings were at the very top of the current Lee Road on its west side. The site was redeveloped in 1937 as Selwyn Court (this building caused much controversy in Blackheath and was a catalyst in the foundation of the Blackheath Society, which continues to campaign for the preservation of the character and quality of the area).
Sport
The school was also famed for its enthusiastic participation in football, which at the time of the school's inception in 1830, had yet to find a uniform code of play, and neither
Association
Association may refer to:
*Club (organization), an association of two or more people united by a common interest or goal
*Trade association, an organization founded and funded by businesses that operate in a specific industry
*Voluntary associatio ...
or
Rugby football
Rugby football is the collective name for the team sports of rugby union and rugby league.
Canadian football and, to a lesser extent, American football were once considered forms of rugby football, but are seldom now referred to as such. The ...
had yet been formalised. The style of football that had become increasingly popular since its inception at
Rugby School
Rugby School is a public school (English independent boarding school for pupils aged 13–18) in Rugby, Warwickshire, England.
Founded in 1567 as a free grammar school for local boys, it is one of the oldest independent schools in Britain. ...
was played by the Proprietary School, as well as the style tending towards the dribbling game, represented to an extent by
Eton's code and which would be set down formally in
Cambridge rules in 1848. However, even the apparent acceptance of these rule sets for these two variations in the game did not avert controversy over the rules by which teams should play. With the exception of a rationalised and uniform football culture that was emerging in
Sheffield
Sheffield is a city in South Yorkshire, England, whose name derives from the River Sheaf which runs through it. The city serves as the administrative centre of the City of Sheffield. It is historically part of the West Riding of Yorkshire a ...
in the 1850s, across the
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the European mainland, continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotlan ...
from club to club and school to school there was little agreement over the elements of a football game, be that the time it should take to play, the number of players in a side, or indeed whether running with the ball was illegal or not. Teams had to agree on rules before a match, or had to agree to play the code of each team for one half of the match each.
In order to allow matches to take place without such constraints and problems, a number of captains and representatives from various London clubs met at
Freemasons' Tavern in
Lincoln's Inn Fields
Lincoln's Inn Fields is the largest public square in London. It was laid out in the 1630s under the initiative of the speculative builder and contractor William Newton, "the first in a long series of entrepreneurs who took a hand in develo ...
on 26 October 1863. Blackheath Proprietary School was one of the twelve teams represented (through the person of Mr. W. Gordon), and thus became a founder member of
The Football Association
The Football Association (also known as The FA) is the governing body of association football in England and the Crown Dependencies of Jersey, Guernsey and the Isle of Man. Formed in 1863, it is the oldest football association in the world a ...
.
In that same meeting was represented
Blackheath Football Club, a separate institution to the school but intrinsically linked to it for Blackheath FC was at its inception in 1858 the Old Blackheathens Club, where old boys of the school continued to play football together.
The club in its early days quickly realised that the school was not big enough to support the inflow needed to maintain a team of any quality, especially with so many alumni leaving for work with the Civil Service abroad, and in 1862 changed its name to Blackheath Football Club and in so doing became the first club with open membership. This club was soon populated with men from other schools, notably
Old Rugbeians who were now living and working in London. This club had the distinction of being both a founder member of
The Football Association
The Football Association (also known as The FA) is the governing body of association football in England and the Crown Dependencies of Jersey, Guernsey and the Isle of Man. Formed in 1863, it is the oldest football association in the world a ...
and the
Rugby Football Union (RFU). Very soon after the FA had been established, rules for the football of the association were debated and formalised. A rift appeared between the advocates of the dribbling game and those of the handling game. When the revised Cambridge rules were adopted on 8 December 1863, which effectively prohibited "hacking" and "carrying", Blackheath FC immediately left the FA and were the driving force behind the setting up of the RFU in 1871.
Notable former pupils
*
Alfred William Alcock
Alfred William Alcock (23 June 1859 in Bombay – 24 March 1933 in Belvedere, Kent) was a British physician, naturalist, and carcinologist.
Early life and education
Alcock was the son of a sea-captain, John Alcock in Bombay, India who re ...
(1859–1933), physician naturalist and carcinologist.
*
Charles Edward Beevor (1854–1908), neurologist.
*
Edward Ernest Bowen (1836–1901), educationalist.
*
Francis Maule Campbell
Francis Maule Campbell (c. 1844 – 30 December 1920) was a significant figure in the history of association and rugby football.
Early life
Campbell was born in Blackheath, Kent to Dawson Campbell, a wine merchant, and his wife Jane née Sutt ...
, footballer, present at the founding of both
The Football Association
The Football Association (also known as The FA) is the governing body of association football in England and the Crown Dependencies of Jersey, Guernsey and the Isle of Man. Formed in 1863, it is the oldest football association in the world a ...
and the
Rugby Football Union and pivotal in the latter's creation.
*Sir
Bryan Donkin
Bryan Donkin FRS FRAS
(22 March 1768 – 27 February 1855) developed the first paper making machine and created the world's first commercial canning factory. These were the basis for large industries that continue to flourish today. Bryan D ...
, physician and criminologist.
*Sir
Henry Mortimer Durand (1850–1924), diplomat and civil servant of colonial British India.
*
John Fegan (1868–1949), Blackheath and England rugby union player.
*
George Joachim Goschen, First Viscount Goschen (1831–1907)
*
Marshall Hall (1862–1915), English-born musician, conductor and poet.
*
Campbell Richard Hone (1873–1967),
Bishop of Wakefield
The Bishop of Wakefield is an Episcopal polity, episcopal title which takes its name after the City status in the United Kingdom, city of Wakefield in West Yorkshire, England. The title was first created for a Diocese, diocesan Anglican minist ...
in the first half of the 20th century.
*
Frederick Schomberg Ireland (1860–1937), lawyer and cricketer.
*
Sir Stuart Knill (1824–1898), Lord Mayor of London.
*
James Leith (1826–1869), recipient of the
Victoria Cross
The Victoria Cross (VC) is the highest and most prestigious award of the British honours system. It is awarded for valour "in the presence of the enemy" to members of the British Armed Forces and may be awarded posthumously. It was previously ...
.
*
Gerald Lightfoot (1877–1966), public servant and secretary of the
Council for Scientific and Industrial Research.
*Surgeon-General
William Manley,
VC,
CB (1831–1901), recipient of the
Victoria Cross
The Victoria Cross (VC) is the highest and most prestigious award of the British honours system. It is awarded for valour "in the presence of the enemy" to members of the British Armed Forces and may be awarded posthumously. It was previously ...
and
Iron Cross
The Iron Cross (german: link=no, Eisernes Kreuz, , abbreviated EK) was a military decoration in the Kingdom of Prussia, and later in the German Empire (1871–1918) and Nazi Germany (1933–1945). King Frederick William III of Prussia es ...
.
*
Francis Cornwallis Maude
Colonel Francis Cornwallis Maude (28 October 1828 – 19 October 1900) was an English recipient of the Victoria Cross (VC), the highest and most prestigious award for gallantry in the face of the enemy that can be awarded to British and Commo ...
, VC, CB (1828–1900), recipient of the
Victoria Cross
The Victoria Cross (VC) is the highest and most prestigious award of the British honours system. It is awarded for valour "in the presence of the enemy" to members of the British Armed Forces and may be awarded posthumously. It was previously ...
.
*
Donald McGill
Donald is a masculine given name derived from the Gaelic name ''Dòmhnall''.. This comes from the Proto-Celtic *''Dumno-ualos'' ("world-ruler" or "world-wielder"). The final -''d'' in ''Donald'' is partly derived from a misinterpretation of the ...
(1875–1962), English graphic artist.
*
Alexander William Pearson (1854–1930), rugby union international for England from 1875-1878.
*Major Gen Sir
Ernest Swinton
Major-General Sir Ernest Dunlop Swinton, (21 October 1868 – 15 January 1951) was a British Army officer who played a part in the development and adoption of the tank during the First World War. He was also a war correspondent and author of sev ...
(1868–1951), soldier, writer, military historian. Coined the use of the word "tank" to describe the first tracked armoured fighting vehicles.
*
George Wrottesley (1827–1909), military Historian and second of son of
John Wrottesley, 2nd Baron Wrottesley.
[''Dictionary of National Biography''. Edited by Sidney Lee. Second Supplement. Volume 3, p. 714.]
References
Further reading
*''The history of the Blackheath Proprietary School'' - J. W. Kirby. (Blackheath Press), 1933.
{{authority control
Defunct schools in the Royal Borough of Greenwich
Educational institutions established in 1830
Educational institutions disestablished in 1907
History of the Royal Borough of Greenwich
Independent boys' schools in London
1830 establishments in England
1907 disestablishments in England
Blackheath, London