Friern Barnet Grammar School

The Friern Barnet Grammar School was a small independent day school for boys located on Friern Barnet Road, North London.

It was later absorbed into the co-educational Woodside Park School foundation which was later renamed The North London International School and is today known as The Dwight School London, notably one of the first schools to offer the International Baccalaureate as an alternative to traditional British A-Level studies.

History

The school was founded in 1884 as St John's High School for Boys by the Reverend Prebendary Frederick Hall MA of Jesus College, Cambridge,Kelly's Directory of Essex, Hertfordshire & Middlesex, 1894: p148 http://www.historicaldirectories.org/hd/pageviewer.asp?fn=0000c7cw.tif&dn=LUL19025tif&zoom=s rector of the Parish of St James and St John, Friern Barnet, to educate boys from middle-class families capable of meeting fee payments, as distinct from his efforts to provide the free schooling – financially supported by parishioners – of infants.

The rector was also the founder of the Friern Barnet Grammar School for Girls (c. 1891) and commissioned the imposing St John's church building opposite the boys' school. This was a late work in the Gothic Revival style by eminent architect John Loughborough Pearson (whose works include Truro Cathedral and St John's Cathedral, Brisbane) begun in 1890 and completed by his son Frank in 1911. Reverend Hall had been curate at Pearson's St. Augustine's, Kilburn.

On the site of the school was the original temporary iron construction known as th
school-church
of St. John, where both classes and church services were held. This was later replaced by a one-storey building enlarged in the 1950s and the existing building, a two-storeyed block, was built in 1973.

After 1890 the establishment was known as Friern Barnet Grammar School for Boys having its own preparatory school from 1904. However the school was never populated by more than two hundred pupils.

The school's charitable arm was the subsidiary group, Friends of Friern Barnet Grammar School. In 1995, Friern Barnet Grammar became the Senior Department of Woodside Park School, rebranded and began admitting girls. Woodside Park School later became what is now Dwight School London.

Over a number of years an intense rivalry developed between pupils of the Grammar School and those from the government maintained Friern Barnet County School (latterly Friern Barnet Secondary School), which in 1961 opened nearby in Hermington Avenue.

Information

Motto: Vita Lux Hominum

Latin: Life and Light of Mankind (from St John 1:4 ''In him was life, and the life was the light of men'')

School Crest: Phoenix

School Houses: ''Formerly'' – Collingwood, Drake, Frobisher, Grenville, Nelson

''Latterly'' – Cook (yellow), Livingstone (green), Scott (red)

Annual Events: Founder's Day, Speech Day (Prize Giving), Sports' Day

In 1961, prizes were presented by the Member of Parliament for Finchley, Mrs Margaret Thatcher who "in an inspiring address spoke to the boys about their vocation in the life of the community for which school days are a preparation".

Headmasters

Headmasters:
* A B McFarlane (1885–1888)
* C D Punchard (1888–1890)
*Edward Hugh Pritchard (1890–1895)
* C E Lacy (1895–1906)
* J Ashley (1906–1908)
*Robert Ames
* Herbert Ames (1908–1941)
*Charles Secker Smith (1943–1948) National Archive File DRO/012/I/G8/3 (Letter from November 1947)
* C P F Alderson (1948–1951)
* Rev P E Thomas (1954–1960)
* Rev. D. Atkinson (1960–1964)
* A Heaps (1964–1981)
* John Pearman (1981–1995)
* Dr Peter Reynolds (Acting) (1995)
* Chris Platford (Acting, prior to selloff to Woodhouse International Park) (1995)

Notable former pupils

* Sir (Walter) Leonard Allinson (1926–) – British diplomat, Oxonian ( Merton College)
* (1904–1989) – Professor of Human Ecology at the University of Cambridge, 1949–71
* Chris Carter (1953–) – Founder band member Throbbing Gristle, Carter Tutti
* Lieutenant William Randolph Cooper (1897–1918) – 2nd Lieutenant, Loyal North Lancashire Regiment, WWI casualty (killed at Givenchy, 1918)
* Thomas Crosbie-Walsh (1880–1954) – Food scientist, editor ''Food Industries Manual'' & ''Food Manufacture'', fellow of the Royal Institute of Chemistry
* Peter Friese-Greene – BBC
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