Aldenham School

History

The school was established in 1597 by Richard Platt, an alderman and brewer who obtained letters patent from Queen Elizabeth I in 1596 to build a free grammar school and almshouses. Before his death in 1600, Platt placed the school's administration under a covenant with the Worshipful Company of Brewers.

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In the early 19th century an investigation by the Education Charities Commission of the Poor led to the Tudor Grammar School being demolished and replaced by two new schools: a lower school providing an elementary education for the local population, and a grammar school for fee paying boarders.

In the late 1860s, the Platt estate in St Pancras, which provided the endowment of the school, was compulsorily purchased for the construction of St Pancras railway station, and the Midland Railway had to pay compensation of £91,000, equivalent to £9,370,000 in 2025. In a measure described by the headmaster of the time as "a violent act of confiscation", the Endowed Schools Commissioners, acting under the Endowed Schools Act 1869, diverted more than half of this money to other schools. In their scheme approved in 1875, £20,000 went to the North London Collegiate School and Camden School for Girls, £13,333 6s 8d to support secondary education in Watford (see § History), £10,000 to Russell Lane School, Southgate, and £8,000 to two elementary schools: Medburn School, Radlett, and Delrow School, Aldenham.

The school expanded during the 20th century, and in the 1970s girls were admitted, thus paving the way for the school to become fully co-educational.

A new Sixth Form Centre was opened in 2012 providing study and recreation facilities for Sixth Formers under one roof.

In the summer of 2016, restorations were carried out on Beevor's and McGill's House, improving and updating the boarding facilities. Owing to the increasing number of girls in the school, in September 2017 Riding's House became a girls' day house.

Academic results

The 2024 Department for Education figures, which refer to pupils who completed key stage 4, show that the percentage of pupils who achieved "attainment 8" was 42.1%. The percentage for the local authority average was 50.2% and the England average (including state as well as fee-paying schools) was 45.9%

Houses

Aldenham has six senior houses and two junior houses.

Aldenham School operates a house system, with students divided into six senior houses and two junior houses.

Beevor's, senior, boarding boys and day boys

McGill's, senior, boarding boys and day boys

Kennedy's, senior, boarding boys and day boys

Paull's, senior, boarding and day girls

Riding's, senior, formerly day boys, now day girls

Leeman's, senior, day boys

Martineau's, junior boarding and day, boys and girls.

Woodrow's, junior day boys and girls

Arts and culture

Arts

Art: In 1958, a painting titled The Crucifixion by Sir Stanley Spencer was commissioned for the school chapel by the Master of the Brewers Company. The artwork was later auctioned at Sotheby's in 1993 for £1.3 million.

Film and Television

The school's facilities, including its main dining hall, served as filming locations for Lindsay Anderson's 1968 film If...., as well as scenes in Tom Brown's Schooldays (2005 film) and Greed (2019 film).

Quatercentenary

In 1997, Aldenham celebrated its 400th anniversary. The school was visited during the year by The Princess Royal, who came to open the new artificial turf pitch that had been built as a result of money raised by the appeal.

Influence on football

Aldenham School played a significant early role in the formalization of football rules in 19th-century England. In 1825, the school documented its own set of written football rules, placing it among the earliest public schools alongside Eton College to codify the game prior to the establishment of the Football Association in 1863.

Masters

Before the school was rebuilt and enlarged in 1824, the head of the school was known as the Master. The founder, Richard Platt, arranged that when there was a vacancy, St John's College, Cambridge, was to nominate three Masters of Arts, from whom the Brewers' Company would appoint one.

Thomas Neale (1598–1623)

Roland Greenwood (1623–1634)

Christopher Smyth (1634–1643)

Robert Cresswell (1643–1648)

Jeremy Collier (1648–1653)

William Elliot (1653–1663)

Andrew Campion (1663–1673)

William Swayne (1673–1678)

Randolph Nicoll (1678–1703)

John Button (1703–1703)

Francis Thompson (1703–1714)

Allen Allenson (1714–1738)

Gilber Allenson (1738–1757)

William Ellis (1757–1767)

Joseph Cantrell (1767–1774)

Samuel White (1774–1785)

Rice Hughes (1785–1792)

John Griffin (1792–1799)

Methusalem Davies (1800–1823)

Joseph Summersby (1823–1825)

Heads of Aldenham School (later, The Aldenham Foundation)

Jonathan Wilkinson (1824–1833)

Richard Foster (1834–1836)

Thomas Spyers (1836–1842)

Alfred Leeman (1843–1876)

John Kennedy (1877–1899)

Alfred Cooke (1900–1920)

Harvey Beck (1920–1933)

George Riding (1933–1949)

Peter Mason (1949–1961)

Paul Griffin (1962–1974)

Peter Boorman (1974–1983)

Michael Higginbottom (1983–1994)

Stephen Borthwick(1994–2000)

Richard Harman (2000–2006)

James Fowler (2006–2022)

Alex Hems (2022–current)

Notable alumni

Sir Samuel Wilks, FRS, (1824–1911), physician and pathologist.

William Josiah Sumner Hammersley (1826–1886), journalist, sportsman, co-founder of Australian rules football

Colonel Sir Robert Edis (1839–1927), architect

Frank Cowper (1849–1930), yachtsman, writer and illustrator

Sir Alfred Gilbert (1854–1934), sculptor and goldsmith

Sir William Laird Clowes (1856–1905), naval writer

Stanley Owen Buckmaster, 1st Viscount Buckmaster (1861–1934), politician, judge and Lord Chancellor, 1915–1916

Arnold McNair, 1st Baron McNair (1885–1975), legal scholar, judge of the International Court of Justice, 1946–1959, and first President of the European Court of Human Rights (1959–1965)

Sir Wallace Akers (1888–1954), chemist and Director of Research, ICI, 1944–1953

Arthur Jaques (1888–1915), cricketer

Leo Reid (1888–1938), cricketer

Sir Clifford Monmohan Agarwala (1890–1972), Chief Justice of Indian High Court

Sir Kenneth Pickthorn, 1st Baronet (1892–1975), historian, politician, and President of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, 1937–1944

Group Captain Ernest Fawcus (1895–1966), cricketer and military officer