History
The Old
Cholmeleian Sports Club is a club for former students of Highgate School,
organised within the Old Cholmeleian Society.
The Society was established in 1893 and is named after the School's founder, Sir
Roger Cholmeley.
Highgate School was founded in 1565 by Sir Roger Cholmeley and has stood on the same site since then. The oldest existing buildings, date from the time of Dr Dyne (1838-1874) and he also purchased the extensive playing fields and other buildings.
Included amongst Highgate School's former pupils were:
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SPORTS
Douglas Lowe - 800m Double Olympic Champion
Robert "Walter" Vivian Robins - England Cricketer
Phil Tufnell - England cricketer
POLITICS
Bernard Jenkin - MP
Robert Atkins - MP
Lord Ackner - Law Lord
Charles Clarke MP - Secretary of State for Education and Skills
Anthony Crosland - Politician
ARTS
Adrian Lyne - Film Director
Geoffrey Palmer - Actor
Anthony Green - Artist
Robin Ellis - Actor
Barry Norman - Film critic
Sir John Betjeman - British poet, poet laureate
Hussein Chalayan - Designer
Patrick Procktor - Artist
Gerard Manley Hopkins - Poet
Marcus Clarke - Australian author
SCIENCE
Alan Blumlein - Inventor
John Venn - founder of Venn diagrams
Sir Clive Sinclair - Inventor
MUSIC
John Rutter - Composer
John Taverner - Composer
Alan Bush - Composer
Jon Moss - Culture Club drummer
Howard Shelly - Composer
John Leyton - Actor & Singer
OTHER
Martin Gilbert - Churchill author
Michael Mansfield QC - criminal barrister
Daniel Ishag and Seb Bishop - founders of Espotting
Dr Alex Comfort - Author of "The Joy of Sex"
Murray Walker - F1 commentator
Lord Neill of Balden QC - Standards in Public Life
Professor Sir Roy Goode QC - Commercial lawyer
Philip Harben - First TV Chef
The poet
Thomas Stearns ('T. S.') Eliot was once a teacher at Highgate School.
From "The Cholmeleian" Autumn 2003 magazine:
Peter Davies (MG 1958) has been researching into the names under which the
School has worked since 1565. He concludes that down, perhaps, to the 1840s, it
was known as the Highgate Grammar School; Sir Roger Cholmeley's School up to
about 1871; and Highgate School since.
Highgate School is an old and prestigious English public school in Highgate, North London. It is three schools in one known as, the Highgate Foundation, which also manages both a prep and a pre-prep school. The school is formally known as Highgate School as its working name, however when run as a charity it is known from one of its older names Sir Roger Cholmeley's School at Highgate which dates back into the 19th Century. It has been known as the Highgate Grammar School, The Free Grammar School at Highgate and the Cholmeley School. The school probably took on its name, Highgate, in its foundation as a leading Victorian public school thus competing with public schools with area names such as Eton, Harrow and Winchester.
The school was established, in 1565, by a Royal Charter patented by Elizabeth I giving permission for Sir Roger Cholmeley to erect a free grammar school for boys, making it one of the older schools in the United Kingdom. Significant expansion of the school only occurred under the Headmaster John Bradley Dyne (Fellow of Wadham College, Oxford) between 1838-1874. Over this period the current chapel and main buildings were erected, designed by Reginald Blomfield (who had also designed Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford). A fragment of the older school building, a gateway with a rusted bell mechanism above, is still intact between the porter's lodge and the main school building.
During the Second World War the school was appropriated by the government and the pupils evacuated to Westward Ho! in Devon, returning eventually in 1943. This return was maybe slightly premature because one afternoon the following year a V-1 Doodlebug flying bomb landed and exploded in the field behind the Junior School, luckily there were no serious casualties except for a cricket scorebox.
By 1965 the school occupied a large site in Highgate Village, as well as extensive sports fields and several boarding houses in the surrounding area. Recently the school has taken the move to become fully co-educational ending over 400 years of single-sex education.
The school operates a house system like many other public schools, and on entering pupils are placed in a house according to where they live (although the system does appear inaccurate, on occasions). Each house has a Housemaster in charge of the pastoral, as well as academic well-being of house-members, and tutors for each year group. This system was established to create 'house spirit' among the students, allowing for both academic and sporting competitions among the houses. Some of these, like School House, Grindal, and The Lodge used to be boarding houses.
Currently the houses are as follows:
Highgate's Senior School has numerous departments, covering a range of subjects. These are as follows: