Fairfield Grammar School was a

secondary school A secondary school describes an institution that provides secondary education and also usually includes the building where this takes place. Some secondary schools provide both '' secondary education, lower secondary education'' (ages 11 to 14) ...

Bristol Bristol () is a city, ceremonial county and unitary authority in England. Situated on the River Avon, it is bordered by the ceremonial counties of Gloucestershire to the north and Somerset to the south. Bristol is the most populous city in ...

, England, founded in 1898 as Fairfield Secondary and Higher Grade School. It became a

grammar school A grammar school is one of several different types of school in the history of education in the United Kingdom and other English-speaking countries, originally a school teaching Latin, but more recently an academically oriented secondary school ...

in 1945 and closed in 2000, to be replaced by a new comprehensive, Fairfield High School, at first on the same site, but now located in Stottbury Road, Bristol. BHES (Bristol Hospital Education Service), is now based in half of the old school, the other half is now Fairlawn Primary School.

History

The school began its life under the name of Fairfield Secondary and Higher Grade School, in an imposing new building by the architect

William Larkins Bernard William Larkins Bernard (born Taunton, 1 October 1843, died 22 July 1922) was an English architect, active in Bristol and London member of the FRIBA. Career Bernard was apprenticed to Charles Edward Davis, of Bath, Somerset, between 1863 and 1868 ...

which was described as having a "towering collection of gables". Coeducational from the beginning, it was intended for children who would stay at school until the age of sixteen or seventeen.About Bristol Suburbs Montpelier Fairfield School
at about-bristol.co.uk, accessed 25 November 2008 Its aim was stated as being to give When the Higher Grade School opened in 1898, it had one hundred and eighty pupils. There were fees of £1 per term, but a quarter of the places in the school were available to non-fee-paying students, who were selected by an annual competition. In March 1918, the school's most notable son, Archie Leach, was expelled at the age of fourteen for sneaking into the girls' lavatories.Fight to save Cary Grant's school
dated Tuesday, 23 October 2001, at bbc.co.uk, accessed 25 November 2008 He went on to become the film star

Cary Grant Cary Grant (born Archibald Alec Leach; January 18, 1904November 29, 1986) was an English-American actor. He was known for his Mid-Atlantic accent, debonair demeanor, light-hearted approach to acting, and sense of comic timing. He was one o ...

, and reported that Fairfield had given him "a sketchy education". His contemporary at the school,

Sir Archibald Russell Sir Archibald Russell, CBE, FRS (30 May 1904 – 29 May 1995) was a British aerospace engineer who worked most of his career at the Bristol Aeroplane Company, before becoming managing director of the Filton Division when Bristol merged into Brit ...

, was deputy to the French designer of the

supersonic airliner A supersonic transport (SST) or a supersonic airliner is a civilian supersonic aircraft designed to transport passengers at speeds greater than the speed of sound. To date, the only SSTs to see regular service have been Concorde and the Tupol ...

Concorde The Aérospatiale/BAC Concorde () is a retired Franco-British supersonic airliner jointly developed and manufactured by Sud Aviation (later Aérospatiale) and the British Aircraft Corporation (BAC). Studies started in 1954, and France an ...

.Sir Archibald Russell, Aircraft Engineer (1904-1995)
at rpec.co.uk, accessed 25 November 2008 In 1945, the school became a

. The school occupied a triangular site in Montpelier, Bristol, being bounded by Fairlawn Road to the west, Fairfield Road to the south east, and Falkland Road to the north west. To the north was an area of railway land. There were no on-site playing fields, but there was a hard-surfaced playground to the north of the main school. This building was listed Grade II in January 2002, at a time when the

local education authority Local education authorities (LEAs) were local councils in England that are responsible for education within their jurisdiction. The term was used to identify which council (district or county) is locally responsible for education in a system wit ...

was planning to move the new Fairfield High School to a new site. To mark the school's centenary in 1998, Ross Gilkes, a former Fairfield history master, wrote a school history which was published by the Old Fairfieldians Society.FAIRFIELD - The Life of a School
at oldfairfieldians.org.uk, accessed 25 November 2008 In 2000, against a background of opposition by Bristol City Council to selective education and declining academic results, Fairfield closed as a grammar school and reopened as a comprehensive, being renamed Fairfield High School. In 2006, the new school moved to new purpose-designed buildings at Stottbury Road, Bristol. One reason for the move was that the existing site had room for only some five hundred pupils, a number which was considered to be too low. In 2007, the former Fairfield Grammar School buildings in Fairlawn Road were used by the new Redland Green

comprehensive school A comprehensive school typically describes a secondary school for pupils aged approximately 11–18, that does not select its intake on the basis of academic achievement or aptitude, in contrast to a selective school system where admission is res ...

, after more than £20 million was spent on upgrading them, but in September 2007 this was reported to be a "temporary home", and by 2008 the school was no longer on site and was located at Redland.

Notable Old Fairfieldians

* J. W. B. Barns, Professor of Egyptology at the University of Oxford * Sir Norman Frome, ornithologist of

British India The provinces of India, earlier presidencies of British India and still earlier, presidency towns, were the administrative divisions of British governance on the Indian subcontinent. Collectively, they have been called British India. In one ...

( expelled, 1918).Burrell, Ian,
Bristol finally unveils statue to its most famous son: Archie Leach
' in ''

The Independent ''The Independent'' is a British online newspaper. It was established in 1986 as a national morning printed paper. Nicknamed the ''Indy'', it began as a broadsheet and changed to tabloid format in 2003. The last printed edition was publis ...

'' dated 8 December 2001, at independent.co.uk, accessed 25 November 2008 *

Ben J. Green Ben Joseph Green FRS (born 27 February 1977) is a British mathematician, specialising in combinatorics and number theory. He is the Waynflete Professor of Pure Mathematics at the University of Oxford. Early life and education Ben Green was ...

, Cambridge mathematician * Robert Lang, character actor *

Jill Knight, Baroness Knight of Collingtree Joan Christabel Jill Knight, Baroness Knight of Collingtree, (; 9 July 1923 – 6 April 2022) was a British politician. A member of the Conservative Party, she served as Member of Parliament (MP) for Birmingham Edgbaston from 1966 to 1997. S ...

(briefly), Conservative MP for

Birmingham Edgbaston Birmingham Edgbaston is a constituency, represented in the House of Commons of the UK Parliament since 2017 by Preet Gill, a Labour and Co-operative MP. The most high-profile MP for the constituency was former Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain ...

from 1966–97 * Dame

Mary Perkins Dame Mary Lesley Perkins, (born 14 February 1944) is an English billionaire who is the co-founder of Specsavers, the British retail optometry chain. Together with her husband, co-founder and chairman Doug Perkins, Dame Mary has three childre ...

, business woman, co-founder of

Specsavers Specsavers Optical Group Ltd is a British multinational optical retail chain, which operates mainly in the UK, Ireland, Australasia and the Nordic countries. The chain offers optometry and optician services for eyesight testing and sells glasse ...

* Sir

Archibald Russell Sir Archibald Russell, CBE, FRS (30 May 1904 – 29 May 1995) was a British aerospace engineer who worked most of his career at the Bristol Aeroplane Company, before becoming managing director of the Filton Division when Bristol merged into Brit ...

, aeronautical engineer, one of the designers of

, Managing Director of BAC Filton from 1966-7

Bibliography

* Gilkes, Ross, ''Fairfield — The Life of a School (Bristol, Old Fairfieldians Society, ) * Stiles, Sharon, ''Fairfield, the First 100 Years'' (video, Applecart Television Facilities, 1999)Centenary Video
at bristolindex.co.uk, accessed 25 November 2008

References

External links

Old Fairfieldians Society
- official web site
Fairfield School, Montpelier, Bristol
- photograph at bristolindex.co.uk
Main school building in Fairlawn Road
- another photograph at bristolindex.co.uk {{authority control Defunct schools in Bristol Grade II listed buildings in Bristol Defunct grammar schools in England Educational institutions established in 1898 Formerly selective schools in the United Kingdom Educational institutions disestablished in 2000 2000 disestablishments in England 1898 establishments in England

History

Notable Old Fairfieldians

See also

Bibliography

References

External links