St Philip's Grammar School, in Hagley Road,

Edgbaston Edgbaston () is a suburb of Birmingham, West Midlands (county), West Midlands, England. It lies immediately south-west of Birmingham city centre, and was historically in Warwickshire. The Ward (electoral subdivision), wards of Edgbaston and Nort ...

Birmingham Birmingham ( ) is a City status in the United Kingdom, city and metropolitan borough in the metropolitan county of West Midlands (county), West Midlands, within the wider West Midlands (region), West Midlands region, in England. It is the Lis ...

, was a Roman Catholic state

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 Latin school, school teaching Latin, but more recently an academically oriented Se ...

for boys. It was closed in 1976, but continued as a Sixth Form College until 1995.

History

St Philip's was founded when two priests of the

Birmingham Oratory The Birmingham Oratory is a Catholic religious community of the Oratory of St. Philip Neri, located in the Edgbaston area of Birmingham. The community was founded in 1849 by John Henry Newman as the first house of that congregation in England. ...

took over an existing Catholic Grammar School in 1887. It should not be confused with the Oratory School founded by

John Henry Newman John Henry Newman (21 February 1801 – 11 August 1890) was an English Catholic theologian, academic, philosopher, historian, writer, and poet. He was previously an Anglican priest and after his conversion became a cardinal. He was an ...

in 1859 and which later moved to

Pangbourne Pangbourne is a village and civil parish on the River Thames in the West Berkshire unitary area of the county of Berkshire, England. Pangbourne has shops, churches, schools and a village hall. Outside its nucleated village, grouped developed are ...

, near

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. The school started in the Little Oratory on 19 September 1887 until the main building was completed on 13 December 1887. The longest-serving teacher in the school's history was Francis Thomas Leighton, who served as "Second Master" (Deputy Head) from 1911 until 1945, having served as Headmaster when the School was evacuated to Ludlow in 1941. His two sons, and later, grandson, also attended the school. FT Leighton finally left to found an independent Preparatory School, Leighton House School, serving as a "feeder" school for St Philip's. The school ceased to accept new entrants as a boys' Grammar School in 1976, while the 1975 cohort progressed through to 1980.

Sixth form college

It became St Philip's Roman Catholic

Sixth Form College A sixth form college (pre-university college in Malaysia) is an educational institution, where students aged 16 to 19 study typically for advanced post-school level qualifications such as GCE Advanced Level, A Levels, Business and Technology Edu ...

in 1976, with around 800 sixth formers. In October 1992, as only 30% of the intake was Catholic, the board of governors unsuccessfully attempted to change it to an 11-16 boys' secondary school, leading to the Hagley Road site's closing in August 1995. It temporarily became a site of South Birmingham College from 1995 but was vacated in 2005. The main school buildings were demolished in the early months of 2012.

Notable alumni

* Eamon Duffy, Professor of the History of Christianity at the

University of Cambridge The University of Cambridge is a Public university, public collegiate university, collegiate research university in Cambridge, England. Founded in 1209, the University of Cambridge is the List of oldest universities in continuous operation, wo ...

* Patrick Gallaher CBE, Chairman of North West Gas from 1974 to 1982, and of Wales Gas Board from 1970 to 1974, and President of the IGasE from 1977 to 1978 *Sir Francis Griffin, Director of the

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from 1970 to 1974, 1976–80 * John Jenkins, Ambassador to Iraq since 2009 * Paul Keenan, composer * Alfred Knight VC, OBE served in WW1 and later at Ministry of Labour *

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Peter Latham, later

Air Vice-Marshal Air vice-marshal (Air Vce Mshl or AVM) is an air officer rank used by some air forces, with origins from the Royal Air Force. The rank is also used by the air forces of many countries which have historical British influence and it is sometime ...

,''A History of St Philips, from Beginning to Beginning'', Margaret Worsley, Wine Press, Tamworth, 1997; Station Commander of RAF Tengah from 1969 to 1971 * Paul Francis Leighton, Broadcaster and

BBC Radio 2 BBC Radio 2 is a British national radio station owned and operated by the BBC. It is the List of most-listened-to radio programs, most popular station in the United Kingdom with over 14 million weekly listeners. Since launching in 1967, the sta ...

Newsreader, 1981–2000.''A History of St Philips, from Beginning to Beginning'' by Margaret Worsley, Wine Press, Tamworth 1997, * Jim McCarthy, CEO of

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* Don Maclean,

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* Acrobat * Actor * Archimime * Barker (occupation), Barker * Beatboxer * Benshi * Bouffon * Cheerleader * Circus arts, Circus perform ...

and presenter of '' Crackerjack''. * Daniel Moylan, banker and Conservative politician * Stephen Nash, swimmer *

Anthony E. Pratt Anthony Ernest Pratt (10 August 1903 – 9 April 1994) was the inventor of the English detective-themed board game ''Cluedo'', currently owned and marketed by American entertainment company Hasbro. In the lead-up to the 150 millionth sale of '' ...

, inventor of the board game

Cluedo ''Cluedo'' (), known as ''Clue'' in North America, is a murder mystery game for three to six players (depending on editions) that was devised in 1943 by British board game designer Anthony E. Pratt. The game was first manufactured by Waddingt ...

* Terence Rigby, actor * Francis Farrell, Musician (Supertramp) * William Slim - Between 1903 and 1910, William Slim attended St Phillip's and King Edward's. As Field Marshal Slim, he served as the British commander-in-chief in Southeast Asia during World War II. * Joseph Spence, Master of Dulwich College *

J. R. R. Tolkien John Ronald Reuel Tolkien (, 3 January 1892 – 2 September 1973) was an English writer and philologist. He was the author of the high fantasy works ''The Hobbit'' and ''The Lord of the Rings''. From 1925 to 1945, Tolkien was the Rawlinson ...

and his brother Hilary Tolkien: In 1902, the Tolkien family moved to a house in Edgbaston next door to the Birmingham Oratory and the school. Tolkien had been attending King Edward's School but was moved to St Philip's. Later, he won a Foundation Scholarship to King Edwards and returned to his former school. * John Warnaby, Actor * Lawrence Holder - CEO of Cathedral Capital and Member of the Council of Lloyds * Gerard Tracey, archivist, writer, editor and scholar. * Paul Crawford, Professor of

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, The University of Nottingham. * Sir Simon Campbell, CBE, FRS, FMedSci, International Director of Research Pfizer, Signatory to patent of Viagra; Past President of the Royal Society of Chemistry; Visiting professor at the Universities of Bristol and São Paulo, board of advisors Universities of Leeds and Kent; Consultant FAO

Choir

The school choir was formed in 1950 and came to have a considerable reputation under the direction of John K Nicholas, who taught music at the school until his retirement in 1984. The choir released a recording of Christmas Carols in 1972 in LP format. In 1974 it toured Brittany, giving a series of concerts in the region. An LP of music performed on the tour was released in the following year. In 1975 the choir travelled to Rome to perform at the opening and closure of a symposium on Cardinal John Henry Newman. While in the city the choir performed in St Peter’s Basilica, as well as three other churches in the region and had an audience with the then Pontiff, Pope Paul VI. A third LP was released later that year, commemorating the tour to Rome. The choir continued to function after the transition to 6th form college, replacing boy trebles with girl sopranos, until Mr Nicholas’s departure.

References

External links