:
See Fort Pitt, Kent for the history of the Fort. The present
Fort Pitt site has served as a school since 1929, when the
Chatham Technical Day School for Girls moved there. In 1984 it became a girls’ grammar school, a status it holds to this day. Fort Pitt's history stretches back to the
Napoleonic Wars, when a fort was built on the site as part of the defences overlooking the
River Medway. Not finally used as a fort, it became a military hospital from 1832.
Queen Victoria came to Fort Pitt on three separate occasions in 1855 to visit soldiers wounded in the
Crimean War, and in 1860 it was selected by
Florence Nightingale as the initial site for the new Army Medical School, before this moved to
Netley near Southampton in 1863. Continuing as a garrison hospital, King
George V and
Queen Mary visited servicemen wounded in the
First World War there in October 1914. The hospital finally closed in 1919. The school began as the
Chatham Institute in 1916, to train girls for
office work, being based at Elm House, New Road, Chatham from 1918. It became the
Junior Commercial School in 1919 and the
Commercial and Trades School for Girls in 1923 to reflect a widening curriculum. In 1926 it became the
Technical Day School for Girls, the first girls' technical school in the UK. Entrance was by examination, and the courses more advanced than offered by non-selective
elementary schools, (and
secondary modern schools from 1944). During the
Second World War the school remained at Fort Pitt, although numbers were reduced as many children were evacuated. In 1944 it became the
Medway Technical School for Girls. The
School Certificate (later the
General Certificate of Education) was introduced, until then the preserve of the more academic
grammar schools. In 1973 a fire destroyed part of the school, mobile classrooms being installed until new accommodation was built. 18 year old Michael Ambler of Chatham was jailed for four and a half years, for the deliberate fire on 21 January 1973, which cost £100,000. In 1984 the school was renamed
Fort Pitt Grammar School. The site and school continue to be of national historical significance. The Music House in the school grounds and the 'Crimea Wing' are
listed buildings, with some of the old hospital ward numbers still visible on the Crimea Wing's walls. It houses a small display of period artefacts, which is open to students and members of the public. Many of the original outer fort walls remain, although part of the old hospital building was destroyed in the 1973 fire. ==Selective education==