Abbotsholme School is a co-educational

independent Independent or Independents may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Artist groups * Independents (artist group), a group of modernist painters based in the New Hope, Pennsylvania, area of the United States during the early 1930s * Independ ...

boarding and

day school A day school — as opposed to a boarding school — is an educational institution where children and adolescents are given instructions during the day, after which the students return to their homes. A day school has full-day programs when compa ...

. The school is situated on a 140-acre campus on the banks of the River Dove in

Derbyshire Derbyshire ( ) is a ceremonial county in the East Midlands, England. It includes much of the Peak District National Park, the southern end of the Pennine range of hills and part of the National Forest. It borders Greater Manchester to the nor ...

, England near the county border and the village of Rocester in Staffordshire. It is a member of the SHHIS (Society of Headmasters & Headmistresses of Independent Schools) and is a

Round Square Round Square is an international network of schools, based on the educational concepts of Kurt Hahn, and named after a distinctive building at Gordonstoun. Founded by a group of seven schools in the late 1960s, by 1996 it had grown to 20 member ...

school.

History

Abbotsholme was founded by Scottish academic and educationist Cecil Reddie as an experiment for his progressive educational philosophies and theories. The school, then known "The New School", opened to boys aged 10 to 19 in 1889. From the very beginning, the school departed from the structure of the traditional

public school Public school may refer to: * State school (known as a public school in many countries), a no-fee school, publicly funded and operated by the government * Public school (United Kingdom), certain elite fee-charging independent schools in England an ...

in favour of a less rigid environment and more liberal education.

Top hat A top hat (also called a high hat, a cylinder hat, or, informally, a topper) is a tall, flat-crowned hat for men traditionally associated with formal wear in Western dress codes, meaning white tie, morning dress, or frock coat. Traditionally m ...

s and "

Eton Eton most commonly refers to Eton College, a public school in Eton, Berkshire, England. Eton may also refer to: Places *Eton, Berkshire, a town in Berkshire, England * Eton, Georgia, a town in the United States * Éton, a commune in the Meuse dep ...

collars" were discarded in favour of a more comfortable and practical uniform, and English, French and German were taught in place of

Classics Classics or classical studies is the study of classical antiquity. In the Western world, classics traditionally refers to the study of Classical Greek and Roman literature and their related original languages, Ancient Greek and Latin. Classics ...

(Latin and Greek). The fine arts were introduced as core subjects, considered unusual at that time, since music and art were mostly taught at cathedral schools or specialist art institutes. Practical skills such as animal husbandry and carpentry were integrated into the curriculum. It has been coeducational since 1969; girls now make up over one third of overall pupil numbers. In 2017 the school was bought by Chinese company Achieve Education Ltd, proprietor Mrs Tong Zhou.

Notable former pupils

Roger Altounyan Roger Edward Collingwood Altounyan (1922–1987) was an Anglo-Armenian physician and pharmacologist who pioneered the use of sodium cromoglycate as a remedy for asthma. His family relocated to the United Kingdom where he studied medicine and star ...

– physician and pharmacologist who pioneered the use of

sodium cromoglycate Cromoglicic acid ( INN)—also referred to as cromolyn (USAN), cromoglycate (former BAN), or cromoglicate—is traditionally described as a mast cell stabilizer, and is commonly marketed as the sodium salt sodium cromoglicate or cromolyn sodium. ...

as a preventative for asthma * Sir Samuel Phillips Bedson, FRS Professor of

Bacteriology Bacteriology is the branch and specialty of biology that studies the morphology, ecology, genetics and biochemistry of bacteria as well as many other aspects related to them. This subdivision of microbiology involves the identification, classificat ...

University of London The University of London (UoL; abbreviated as Lond or more rarely Londin in post-nominals) is a federal public research university located in London, England, United Kingdom. The university was established by royal charter in 1836 as a degree ...

* Alan Dower Blumlein, Electronics engineer and inventor *

Peter Crossley-Holland Peter Crossley-Holland (born 28 January 1916, London; died 27 April 2001, London) was a composer and ethnomusicologist. He wrote several books on the music of Tibetan Buddhism and composed music in ethnic styles including Celtic. Early life an ...

, Ethnomusicologist and composer *

Robin Gandy Robin Oliver Gandy (22 September 1919 – 20 November 1995) was a British mathematician and logician. He was a friend, student, and associate of Alan Turing, having been supervised by Turing during his PhD at the University of Cambridge, where ...

, Mathematician * Edward James Martin Koppel, British-born American broadcast journalist, * Alfred Angas Scott (1875-1923), motorcycle designer, inventor and founder of The Scott Motorcycle Company *

Ian Shapiro Ian Shapiro (born September 29, 1956) is a Sterling Professor of Political Science at Yale University. He served as the Henry R. Luce Director of the MacMillan Center at Yale University from 2004 to 2019. He is known primarily for interventio ...

, political scientist *

Olaf Stapledon William Olaf Stapledon (10 May 1886 – 6 September 1950) – known as Olaf Stapledon – was a British philosopher and author of science fiction.Andy Sawyer, " illiamOlaf Stapledon (1886-1950)", in Bould, Mark, et al, eds. ''Fifty Key Figures ...

(1886-1950) Novelist and philosopher; author of Last and First Men, Star Maker, and other works of speculative fiction. *

Lytton Strachey Giles Lytton Strachey (; 1 March 1880 – 21 January 1932) was an English writer and critic. A founding member of the Bloomsbury Group and author of '' Eminent Victorians'', he established a new form of biography in which psychological insight ...

, British writer and critic * Sir Alan Muir Wood, FRS FREng FICE, Civil Engineer

References

External links

School Website

Profile
on the

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website {{authority control Round Square schools Educational institutions established in 1889 Boarding schools in Derbyshire Independent schools in Derbyshire 1889 establishments in England