Westminster School
Westminster School is a public school in Westminster, London, England, in the precincts of Westminster Abbey. It descends from a charity school founded by Westminster Benedictines before the Norman Conquest, as documented by the Croyland Chronicle and a charter of King Offa. Continuous existence is clear from the early 14th century.[8] Its academic results place it among the top schools nationally;[9][10] about half its students go to Oxbridge,[11] giving it the highest national Oxbridge acceptance rate.[12] In the 2023 A-Levels, the school saw 82.3 of its candidates score A*/A.[13]
For other uses, see Westminster School (disambiguation).Westminster School
Latin: Dat Deus Incrementum
(God Gives the Increase)
Earliest records date from the 14th century, refounded in 1560
Henry VIII (1541)
Elizabeth I (1560 – refoundation)
Mark Batten[3]
Gary Savage[2]
105
13 (boys), 16 (girls) to 18
747
Busby's
College
Ashburnham
Dryden's
Grant's
Hakluyt's
Liddell's
Milne's
Purcell's
Rigaud's
Wren's
Pink
The Elizabethan
Boys join the Under School at seven and the Senior School at 13 by examination. Girls join the Sixth Form at 16.[14] About a quarter of the 750 pupils board. Weekly boarders may go home after Saturday morning school.[15] The school motto, Dat Deus Incrementum, quotes 1 Corinthians 3:6: "I planted the seed... but God made it grow."[16] Westminster was one of nine schools examined by the 1861 Clarendon Commission[17] and reformed by the Public Schools Act 1868.
The school has produced three Nobel laureates: Edgar Adrian (Nobel Prize for Physiology in 1932), Sir Andrew Huxley (likewise in 1963) and Sir Richard Stone (Nobel Prize in Economics in 1984). During the mid-17th century, the liberal philosopher of the Enlightenment, John Locke, attended the school, and seven UK prime ministers also then attended, all belonging to the Whig or Liberal factions of British politics: Henry Pelham and his brother Thomas Pelham-Holmes, Charles Watson-Wentworth, James Waldegrave, Augustus Fitzroy, William Cavendish-Bentinck, and John Russell.
Westminster School is included in The Schools Index of the world's 150 best private schools and among top 30 senior schools in the UK.[18]
The Greaze has been held "up School" (in the School Hall) on Shrove Tuesday since at least 1753.[97] The head cook ceremoniously tosses a horsehair-reinforced pancake over a high bar, which was used from the 16th century to curtain off the Under School from the Great School. Members of the school fight for the pancake for one minute, watched over by the Dean of Westminster, the Head Master, and the upper year groups of the school[98] and distinguished or even occasionally royal visitors. The pupil who gets the largest weight is awarded a gold sovereign (promptly redeemed for use next year), and the Dean begs for a half-holiday for the whole school. Weighing scales are on hand in the event of a dispute. A cook who failed to get the pancake over the bar after three attempts would formerly have been "booked" or pelted with Latin primers, but that tradition has long lapsed.[99][100]
The privilege of being the first commoners to acclaim each new sovereign at their coronation in Westminster Abbey is reserved for the King's (or Queen's) Scholars. Their shouts of "Vivat Rex/Regina" ("Long live the king/queen!") are incorporated into the coronation anthem "I was glad".[101] The tradition dates back to the coronation of King James II.[102]
Despite the formal separation from the abbey,[103] the school remains Anglican, with services in the abbey attended by the entire school at least twice a week, and many other voluntary-attendance services of worship. The school was expressly exempted by the Act of Uniformity to allow it to continue saying Latin prayers despite the Reformation. Every Wednesday there is an assembly Up School known as Latin Prayers, which opens with the Head Master leading all members of the school in chanting prayers in Latin, followed by notices in English. The school's unique pronunciation of formal Latin is known as "Westminster Latin",[104][105] and descends from medieval English scholastic pronunciation: Queen Elizabeth I, who spoke fluent Latin, commanded that Latin was not to be said "in the monkish fashion", a significant warning upon loyalties between Church and State. The School commemorates its benefactors every year with a service in Westminster Abbey in Latin in which the Captain of the King's Scholars lays a wreath of pink roses on the tomb of Elizabeth I: the service alternates between Little Commem, held in Henry VII's Chapel and involving just the King's Scholars, and the Big Commem, to which the whole school community is invited.[106]
Since the monastic Christmas revels of medieval times, Latin plays have been presented by Scholars, with a prologue and witty epilogue on contemporary events. Annual plays, "either tragedy or comedy", were required by the school statutes in 1560, and some early plays were acted in College Hall before Elizabeth I and her whole Council. However, in a more prudish age, Queen Victoria did not accompany Prince Albert and the Prince of Wales to the play, and recorded in her diary that it was "very Improper". Today, the play is put on less frequently, any members of the school may take part, and the Master of the King's Scholars gives the Latin prologue. The 1938 play caused a diplomatic incident, with the German ambassador withdrawing offended by the words Magna Germania figuring in extenso on a map of Europe displayed.
The King's Scholars have privileged access to the House of Commons gallery, said to be a compromise recorded in the Standing Orders of the House in the 19th century, to stop the boys from climbing into the Palace over the roofs.
There is a Westminster jargon little known to the general public:
There are four main points of entry for pupils:
As well as the normally eight annual King's Scholarships, which pay 80 per cent of boarding fees, there are Honorary Scholarships for boys who pass the Challenge and could have been scholars but do not want to board, and Exhibitions for a few candidates who were close to scholarship standard – however, neither of these carry any fee reduction or other financial benefits. Notably, Stephen Hawking was entered for the Challenge in 1952, but fell ill on the day of the Challenge examination. His parents could not pay the fees without the financial aid of a scholarship, and so he did not attend school.
Controversies[edit]
Fee fixing[edit]
Between 2001 and 2004, the school was one of fifty independent schools involved in the independent school fee fixing scandal in the United Kingdom. It was subsequently found guilty of operating a fee-fixing cartel by the Office of Fair Trading. The commission argued that until 2000, the practice had been legal and that the commission had not been aware of the change to the law.[125]
Rape culture and racism[edit]
Two independent reviews were commissioned after national campaigns from Everyone's Invited and Black Lives Matter prompted evidence of rape culture and racism at Westminster School.[126] In March 2022, the school issued a "sincere and unreserved" apology for harm caused by racism, sexual harassment and other harmful sexual behaviour.[126][127]