Friends' School, Saffron Walden
Friends' School (known as Walden School from 2016–17) was a Quaker independent school located in Saffron Walden, Essex,[2] situated approximately 12 miles south of the city of Cambridge, England. The school was co-educational and accommodated children between the ages of three and 18 (boarders and day pupils).
Friends' School
Walden School (2016–17)
Defunct Independent
Per Ardua Ad Alta
1702
2017
Anna Chaudhri (Senior school)
Sally Meyrick (Prep school)
Co-educational
3 to 18
375
3: Tuke, Mennell and Lister
(Lister)
(Tuke)
(Mennell)
Closed as no longer sustainable due to falling pupil numbers, etc.[1]
The school closed at the end of the 2017 summer term.[3]
History[edit]
Friends' School, Saffron Walden was founded as part of the Quakers' Clerkenwell workhouse in Islington in London in 1703, 50 years after George Fox. The workhouse was for children and the elderly and the school moved out as a separate entity in 1786. It was now nearby in Clerkenwell and now known as the Friends' School. However the new building was damp and ill suited to teaching and learning.[4]
In 1825 the school began operation in Croydon. There was initially 120 places for students who began at the age of nine. Children did not have to be members of the Quakers but these children were accepted first.[4] In 1828 the school had a marriage when Elizabeth Hutchinson married Edward Foster Brady. They were both teachers and both former pupils of the school. In 1833 they became joint heads of the school, although Edward was ill and had been consumptive. He died in 1838 and Elizabeth Brady led the school until 1842.[5]
In 1876 the mayor of Saffron Walden offered a new site for the school and in 1879 the school opened in Saffron Walden.[4]
In September 2016 the school changed its name to Walden School.[6]
On 11 May 2017 it was announced that Walden School would close at the end of the 2016–17 school year.[7]
In popular culture[edit]
Carola Dunn's book Anthem for Doomed Youth is set at the school.