In the early 1950s the

London County Council London County Council (LCC) was the principal local government body for the County of London throughout its existence from 1889 to 1965, and the first London-wide general municipal authority to be directly elected. It covered the area today kno ...

obtained use of

Woolverstone Hall Woolverstone Hall is a large country house, now in use as a school and available at times as a function venue, located south of the centre of Ipswich, Suffolk, England. It is set in on the banks of the River Orwell. Built in 1776 for William Be ...

near

Ipswich Ipswich () is a port town and borough in Suffolk, England, of which it is the county town. The town is located in East Anglia about away from the mouth of the River Orwell and the North Sea. Ipswich is both on the Great Eastern Main Line r ...

Suffolk Suffolk () is a ceremonial county of England in East Anglia. It borders Norfolk to the north, Cambridgeshire to the west and Essex to the south; the North Sea lies to the east. The county town is Ipswich; other important towns include Lowes ...

, and some of adjoining land for the purpose of establishing a secondary grammar

boarding school A boarding school is a school where pupils live within premises while being given formal instruction. The word "boarding" is used in the sense of "room and board", i.e. lodging and meals. As they have existed for many centuries, and now exten ...

for London boys. The premises were previously occupied by the ''LNS Woolverstone'', a branch of the

London Nautical School The London Nautical School (LNS) is an 11–18 foundation secondary school for boys and mixed sixth form in Blackfriars, Greater London, England. It was established in 1915. History The London Nautical School was established in 1915 in respon ...

, some students of which were permitted to complete their education in the new environment, which commenced experimentally in 1950. In September 1951, the new school formally opened with mostly new teaching staff under a new headmaster, J. S. H. Smitherman. It became comprehensive in 1977, under the auspices of the

Inner London Education Authority The Inner London Education Authority (ILEA) was an ad hoc local education authority for the City of London and the 12 Inner London boroughs from 1965 until its abolition in 1990. The authority was reconstituted as a directly elected body corpor ...

. The school closed in 1990 and the site was sold to the

Girls' Day School Trust The Girls' Day School Trust (GDST) is a group of 25 independent schools, including two academies, in England and Wales, catering for girls aged 3 to 18. It is the largest group of independent schools in the UK, and educates 20,000 girls each ye ...

. In 1992 it became the home of Ipswich High School.

Notable former students

Peter Alexander Peter Alexander may refer to: * Pete Alexander (born Grover Cleveland Alexander; 1887–1950), American baseball player * Peter Alexander (Shakespearean scholar) (1893–1969), professor of English language and literature at the University of Glasgo ...

(actor) *

Graham Barlow Graham Derek Barlow (born 26 March 1950) is a former cricketer and was a middle-order batsman for Middlesex and, briefly, for England. Early life Educated at the former Ealing Grammar School for Boys (now Ealing, Hammersmith and West London Col ...

(cricketer)More info on Graham Barlow from Chris Snuggs
at (historic) Woolverstone Old Boys' site *

Tim Cresswell Tim Cresswell (born 1965) is a British human geographer and poet. Cresswell is the Ogilvie Professor of Human Geography at the University of Edinburgh having formally served as the Dean of the Faculty and Vice President for Academic Affairs at Tri ...

(geographer and poet) * Charles De'Ath (actor) *

Cedric Delves Lieutenant General Sir Cedric Norman George Delves, (born 1 March 1947) is a retired British Army officer and a former commander of the 22nd Special Air Service Regiment. Military career Delves was commissioned from the Royal Military Academ ...

(former commander of the SAS) *

Peter Donaldson Peter Ian Donaldson (23 August 1945 – 2 November 2015) was an English newsreader on BBC Radio 4. Early life Donaldson was born in Cairo, Egypt, and moved to Cyprus in 1952 at the time of the overthrow of King Farouk. He was a frequen ...

(Radio 4 newsreader) *

Alan Gould Alan Gould (born 22 March 1949) is a contemporary Australian novelist, essayist and poet. Life and career Gould was born in London to an English father and an Icelandic mother. His family lived in Northern Ireland, Germany and Singapore before ...

(novelist and poet) *

George Hargreaves George Hargreaves (born November 12, 1952) is a landscape architect. Under his design direction, the work of his firm has received numerous national awards and has been published and exhibited nationally and internationally. He was an artist in res ...

(politician) *

Phill Jupitus Phillip Christopher Jupitus (, ''né'' Swan; born 25 June 1962) is an English stand-up and improv comedian, actor, performance poet, cartoonist and podcaster. Jupitus was a team captain on all but one BBC Two-broadcast episode of music quiz ''N ...

(comedian) * Ian McCulloch (actor and writer) *

Ian McEwan Ian Russell McEwan, (born 21 June 1948) is an English novelist and screenwriter. In 2008, ''The Times'' featured him on its list of "The 50 greatest British writers since 1945" and ''The Daily Telegraph'' ranked him number 19 in its list of th ...

(novelist, Booker Prize winner) * Tony Mitton (poet and children's writer) *

Mark Moore Mark Moore (born 12 January 1965) is a British dance music record producer and DJ. He was founder of the dance / Sampling (music), sampling pioneers S'Express, and runs the London nightclubs, 'Electrogogo' and 'Can Can'. Biography Moore began ...

(musician) *

Martin Offiah Martin Nwokocha Offiah MBE ( (''original pronunciation''), (''commonly used'')); born 29 December 1965) is an English former professional rugby league and rugby union footballer who played in the 1980s, 1990s and 2000s. Offiah was inducted i ...

(England and Great Britain rugby league international) *

Ben Onwukwe Benjamin Neil Paddock Onwukwe (born 21 August 1957 in Brixton, London, England) is a British film, radio, television, theatre and voice actor. He is perhaps best known for appearing as Firefighter Stuart 'Recall' MacKenzie from 1991 to 2002 in ...

(actor) *

Neil Pearson Neil John Pearson (born 27 April 1959) is a British actor, known for his work on television. He was nominated for the 1994 BAFTA TV Award for Best Actor for '' Between the Lines'' (1992–1994). His other television roles include ''Drop the D ...

(actor) * Fay Presto (magician) * Ade Sapara (actor) *

Jonathan Sayeed Jonathan Sayeed (born 20 March 1948) is an Anglo-Indian British politician who was a Conservative Member of Parliament in the United Kingdom from 1983 to 1992 and from 1997 to 2005. He was the only member of the Conservative front bench who c ...

(ex-Conservative MP) *

Guy Stevens Guy Stevens (13 April 1943 – 28 August 1981) was a British music industry figure whose roles included DJ, record producer, and band manager. He was influential in promoting R&B music in Britain in the 1960s, gave the rock bands Procol Har ...

(music executive) *

Mark Wing-Davey Mark Wing-Davey (born 30 November 1948) is a British actor and director. He portrayed Zaphod Beeblebrox in the radio and television versions of ''The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy''. Early life and career The son of actor and actress Pete ...

(actor and theatre director) *

Skibadee Alphonso Castro K. Bondzie (1 February 1975 – 27 February 2022), better known as MC Skibadee, was a British recording artist and drum and bass MC. Career Bondzie started on City Sound Radio in 1993 featuring on the Live & Direct show, with ...

(musician) * Ben Volpeliere-Pierrot ( musician) *

Justin Packshaw Justin James Packshaw (born 13 March 1965) is an English entrepreneur, philanthropist and adventurer. Early life Packshaw was born on 13 March 1965 in London. He was raised in Malta where he attended St Edwards College before returning to the ...

(Entrepreneur, philanthropist and adventurer)

References

External links

Woolverstone Hall School online old boys resource

Woolverstone Hall School online photograph and document archive
{{Schools in Suffolk Defunct schools in Suffolk Educational institutions established in 1951 Educational institutions disestablished in 1990 1951 establishments in England 1990 disestablishments in England Woolverstone

Notable former students

References

Further reading

External links