Establishment, 1561 The school was founded in 1561 by
Thomas White of the
Merchant Taylors' Company in a manor house in the
parish of
St Lawrence Pountney in the
City of London, where it remained until 1875. A curious account survives of a rent payment ritual in London for the Merchant Taylors School in which
Sir Rowland Hill, the
Lord Mayor of London in 1549 who had coordinated the
Geneva Bible translation, presided shortly before he diedThe xxx day of September my lord mayre and the althermen and the new shreyffes took ther barges at the iij cranes in the Vintre and so to Westmynster, and so into the Cheker, and ther took ther hoythe; and ser Rowland Hyll whent up, and master Hoggys toke ser Rowland Hyll a choppyng kneyf, and one dyd hold a whyt rod, and he with the kneyf cute the rod in sunder a-for all the pepull; and after to London to ther plases to dener, my lord mayre and all the althermen and mony worshiphulle men.Merchant Taylors' was not the first school to be founded by members of the Merchant Taylors' Company. Sir John Percival (Master of the Company in 1485,
Lord Mayor of London in 1498) established a
grammar school at
Macclesfield in 1502, while in 1508 his widow founded one at St. Mary's Wike in
Cornwall (which moved to
Launceston shortly thereafter). Also in 1508, Sir Steven Jenyns (Master in 1490, Lord Mayor in 1508) founded
Wolverhampton Grammar School, which still maintains strong links with the company. The first Head Master,
Richard Mulcaster, took up his post in 1561; one of the houses at Merchant Taylors' is now named after him. His educational philosophy is embodied in two books,
The Positions (1581) and
The Elementarie (1582), the latter an instalment of a larger work and one of the first
dictionaries in English. One of his first pupils was
Edmund Spenser. His goal was that English as a language might claim its place side by side with Latin: Mulcaster's views were ahead of his time: he advocated the importance to children of relaxation and games, and a knowledge of the countryside and world of nature. He "wished that schools were planted in the suburbs of towns near to the fields". He was also "tooth and nail for womankind" in matters of education. He believed that education should fit women for their appropriate station. The successive outbreaks of
plague in 1592, 1603, 1626, 1630, 1637 and 1666, had a damaging effect on the School and its pupils. The School was obliged to break up during these periods, losing pupils and sometimes unable to take on new ones. In 1626 the headmaster Nicholas Gray complained of the loss of pupils and was given £20 to keep the school going; in 1630 he was given £40. Many parents kept their sons away from school, and boarders were summoned home. The School was closed for at least a year in 1636 and 1637, with no new boys admitted until the contagion abated. The outbreak of 1666 was curtailed by the
Great Fire of London, which started on 2 September close to Suffolk Lane and completely destroyed the school buildings. It was rebuilt by 1675, after classes had met in temporary quarters for years.
1606–1633 In 1606 Robert Dow, a member of the company, instigated the process of "probation" or inspection, whereby the Court would visit the school three times each year and observe the school at work. Dow was concerned that the school was not meeting the challenge of being one of the great schools of the time and needed regular inspection to maintain and raise its standards. The Court appointed a committee to investigate and concluded: The probation was imposed without consultation with the schoolmasters. During the probation, the headmaster was required to open his copy of
Cicero at random and read out a passage to the sixth form. The boys had to copy the passage from dictation and then translate it, first into
English, then into
Greek and then into Latin verse. After this, they had to write a passage of Latin and some verses on some topic chosen for the day. This was for the morning; in the afternoon the process was repeated in Greek, based on the Greek Testament, ''
Aesop's Fables'', "or some other very easie Greeke author". The standard in Greek was not as high as in Latin, but
Hebrew was also taught. This form of inspection was the model for teaching every day, as neither mathematics nor science were included in the curriculum. The pattern of teaching seen in the Probations at MTS was described in a popular work published in 1660,
A New Discovery of the Art of Teaching Schoole by
Charles Hoole. Hoole described the nature of education at the time: • 6.00 a.m. was considered the time for children to start their studies but 7.00 a.m. was more common; • Pupils of upper forms were appointed to give lessons to younger ones; • Pupils were required to examine each other in pairs; and • Children frequently went to "Writing-schooles" at the end of the school day; the purpose of this was to "learn a good hand". Good handwriting was supposed to be a condition of entry to a school like MTS but Hayne for one tended to ignore it and was eventually dismissed for, among other things, low standards of hand writing. In
Germany at this time, there were writing schools too and many children attended only these in order to learn sufficient skills for commerce and trade; English businessmen founded schools which encouraged an academic curriculum based on the classics. The Head Master William Hayne (1599–1624) presided over the new methods of examination, but his success did not save him from dismissal for alleged financial misdemeanours. He was said to have sold text books to pupils for profit, and received gifts of money at the end of term and on
Shrove Tuesday, when the "Victory Penny" might be presented by pupils.
1634–1685 William Staple (Head Master 1634–1644) fell victim to contemporary politics. In October 1643 Parliament ordered "That the
Committee for plundered Ministers shall have power to enquire after malignant School-masters." In March 1644 Staple was ordered to appear before this committee, but as a
royalist, he had no intention of so doing. He was dismissed and the company had to seek a new headmaster. The next Head Master
William Dugard (1644–1661), previously headmaster of
Stamford School, also ran into trouble. In 1649 he acquired a printing press and printed a pamphlet by
Claudius Salmasius, a continental sympathiser with
Charles I, entitled
Defensio Regia pro Carolo Primo. Dugard was arrested and imprisoned, but as the pamphlet had not been distributed, his cousin Sir
James Harrington was able to exert sufficient influence to have him released. In 1647 Dugard had been appointed a member of the
Stationers' Company; he did not declare his interests to the Court, and they were most annoyed at this extracurricular activity. In 1652, during the commonwealth, a time of religious experimentation, Dugard published
Catechesis Ecclesiarum Poloniae et Lithuaniae (Ecclesiastical Catechism of Poland and Lithuania), a work that rejected
Trinitarianism. Though the work had been licensed by Milton, it was seized and publicly burned, yet Dugard survived as headmaster and was simply required to give up his printing enterprise. At this time the school fees were set at 2
s 2
d or 5s per quarter or nothing, but Dugard charged a variety of amounts; the number of pupils was down from the 250 expected by the company. When he left in 1661, he set up a new school in Coleman Street and took a number of MTS pupils with him. The next headmaster,
John Goad (1661–1681), guided the school through rebuilding after the plague in 1666 and the destruction of the
Great Fire of London. His eventual dismissal may have been influenced by the accusations of
Titus Oates, who had been a pupil at MTS for a few months in 1665–66, although Goad survived for years afterward. Oates had brief stays at other schools, being dismissed from each in turn. In 1678 Oates "discovered" the "
Popish Plot", which was supposed to include a threat to kill
Charles II, but it was later found to be a hoax by him. William Smith, a master at MTS and later headmaster at the
Brewers' School in Islington, wrote of his first encounter with Oates: In 1676, Oates confronted Smith and accused him of participating in yet another fabricated plot, forcing Smith to commit perjury to avoid punishment. Initially, the MTS Probation Book described Oates as "The saviour of the nation, first discoverer of ye damnable Popish Plot in 1678." However, by 1685, a postscript had been added, labeling him "Perjurd upon Record and a Scoundrell Fellow." In this atmosphere of suspicion, even a hint of Roman Catholic sympathies was enough to ruin a man's reputation. After his dismissal in 1681, Goad converted to Roman Catholicism.
1686–1759 When the headmastership fell vacant again in 1686,
King James II tried to force his nominee James Lee on the company. The election was postponed and the Master, Sir William Dodson, persuaded Lee to withdraw his nomination. Lee, formerly second usher at MTS and then headmaster at St Saviour's Free School,
Southwark, stood against Ambrose Bonwicke but lost. Bonwicke, OMT, was a former pupil of Goad and had an acute mind, but he was dismissed for his political sentiments. James abdicated in 1688,
William III and
Mary II acceded, and men were obliged once again to proclaim their loyalties. The majority avoided controversy by swearing allegiance to "the king". Bonwicke delayed for a year before the Court was forced by Act of
Parliament to hear his oath of allegiance. Bonwicke said he supported James and was duly dismissed. Under Matthew Shortyng, Head Master 1691–1707, the top boys of the Sixth began to be called "The Table" and "The Bench", with nine at the Table, the captain and eight monitors; and nine at the Bench, called prompters because they prompted the monitors on election day. In 1710 Ambrose Bonwicke, son of the former Head Master, was captain of the school and refused to read prayers for
King William on
St Barnabas Day. Despite his intellectual prowess, his family's continuing support for James cost Bonwicke his election to
St. John's College, Oxford and he went to
St. John's College, Cambridge instead. At this time, there was a shortage of places at the school, as its reputation for scholarship and consequent chance of a university education attracted parents from all over the country. In 1750 a regulation was passed that boys should not be eligible for election to St. John's Oxford unless they had been at MTS for at least three years. One pupil who would not have qualified for election under this rule was
Robert Clive. He was at MTS from 1738 to 1739 and completed his education at
Shrewsbury in his native
Shropshire. The Head Master was then John Criche, OMT, a man who had occupied every position in the school and was not predisposed to change it. Criche was also a
Jacobite. The school suffered during his tenure because parents were unwilling to send their sons to a school where anti-dynastic sentiments might prevail. Criche died in office at the age of 80, by when the school enrollment numbers had fallen from 244 to 116.
1760–1813 The next Head Master,
James Townley, was in office from 1760 to 1768. Townley wrote a successful play,
High Life Below Stairs, which was staged at
Drury Lane by
David Garrick and proved very popular. The next three headmasters over the period 1778–1819, Green, Bishop and Cherry, were all OMTs. One of Bishop's pupils,
Charles Mathews, went on to become a successful actor and comedian. His memoirs, from the late 18th century, include these observations:
1814–1844 In 1814 Cherry made a detailed proposal for the setting up of an arithmetic and writing school and for the teaching of mathematics and accounts. Again the proposal was first deferred and then dropped. It was to be a further 15 years before mathematics was finally admitted into the school curriculum. In 1811 H.B. Wilson was granted permission to write a history of the school but he was overlooked as Head Master in 1819 on the appointment of James Bellamy, Head Master 1819–45. In 1828 Bellamy advised the Company of the need to modernise to "meet the daily increasing demand for a more general education", by which he meant in particular the founding of
University College and
King's College at the
University of London. In 1830 education was as topical as it is today with writers like
Christopher North advocating its spread, though fearful of the consequences, "from the classes to the masses". The Court voted £200 towards the founding of King's College and in 1829 Bellamy once again pleaded that the school be placed on the same level as other places of education. Beginning in 1830, classics was taught in the morning and mathematics in the afternoon, specialist teachers were appointed and by 1845
French was being considered for two afternoons per week. The last proposal proved too expensive but the further success of the school began to make it clear that the current premises were too small and new ones should be found. Still, in the 1870s,
Sir D'Arcy Power comments on the curriculum he faced: Nor was there much teaching of English. Bishop Samuel Thornton wrote: He adds however: It is likely that many parents cared little what was taught as long as their boys did well enough to attain a
scholarship to
university. The city environment around it included a
brewery which belched smoke and soot and a printing works whose apprentices fought with M.T.S. boys almost daily. According to A. J. Church in 1857: For more than two centuries the only place where teaching was carried on was the Great Schoolroom; its dimensions were about by . It was lighted very imperfectly by windows on either side, large enough, indeed, but obscured by the heavy leading of the diamond panes and by the long-standing accumulations of dirt ... The four classrooms were all more or less recent additions to the school accommodation. Bishop Samuel Thornton remembered the London fogs of his schooldays in the 1840s when "little was done on those dark days, the dreamy and unwonted state of affairs generating an excited condition in the Forms, unfavourable to discipline and work". There was also a constant din from outside the school which interfered greatly with the conduct of lessons. Until the 1860s no provision was made for feeding the boys at lunch time. In 1838 there were 58 boys in the Fourth, being taught in this room and without gas lighting – small wonder that the masters resorted to the stick to keep control.
1845–1865 James Augustus Hessey, Head Master from 1845 to 1870, improved many aspects of the school, increasing the number of masters, introducing school lunches and appointing a 'superior' teacher of mathematics. The rough practices among the boys of 'pulling' on clothes and 'bumping' against the pillars of the cloisters were banned, something which at first caused open rebellion among the younger boys but in which Hessey had his way by his firm insistence on more civilised behaviour. Hessey was also agitating for a change of location. Two Commissions of this time, the Oxford Commission and the
Public Schools Commission (under
Lord Clarendon), threatened the well-being of the school. The Oxford Commission restructured the arrangements for scholarships between the school and St. John's College so there was no longer such an easy path for boys to reach university. There had grown a general feeling that all was not well with Eton and other "public" schools and the commission was appointed to investigate and put this right. The Schools Commission visited M.T.S. in 1862 and published its report in 1864. It was noted that parents were increasingly reluctant to send their sons to school in London due to the overcrowding, the lack of games facilities and increasing accessibility to country schools. It was proposed that
Charterhouse and
Westminster, boarding schools, should move out of London and that Merchant Taylors' and
St. Paul's, day schools, should increase their premises. It was also recommended that, while the classical character of the curriculum should be continued, science,
German, music and more drawing should be introduced.
1866–1907 In 1866, following reasoned argument from Hessey and the report of the commission, the Company bought of estate in Goswell Street for £90,000 from the Governors of the Charterhouse. Charterhouse School vacated the
London Charterhouse in 1872, and it was taken over by Merchant Taylors. New school buildings were begun in 1873 and completed in 1875. Plans for the school on the new site included immediate expansion to 350 boys and later to 500, the development of a more modern curriculum to meet demand for "Modern Languages, Science and
Commerce", and the raising of fees from 10 to 12 guineas for the lower school and 12 guineas to 15 guineas for the upper.
William Baker, OMT, Head Master from 1870 to 1900, wanted to develop the whole of the new site for games, "to foster a corporate and public spirit among the boys of the School, by drawing them together in common amusements and giving them common interests". On the development of playing fields around the school, Baker wrote in 1872: These ideas were in line with the policy of other
public schools, which had placed great emphasis on games and outdoor activities (as they still, for the most part, do) since the time of Thomas Arnold at Rugby School. Baker was conservative in his views, considering the classics as the best means of training the mind, but he was almost equally keen on mathematics and paid much attention to its teaching in the school. In his time,
chemistry and
physics were introduced, and a new science building was finished in 1891. Baker proposed the introduction of
biology, which was first taught as an extra in 1900.
French was still in a precarious position within the school curriculum – from a total of 3900 marks (from 78 scripts worth 50 marks each) in an examination in 1874 only 123 marks were actually scored and 53 boys submitted blank papers. The master in charge of the 'Modern Side' pointed out that boys joined his area not because they showed promise in French but because they had no obvious gift for the classics. On the appointment of John Nairn in 1900 to succeed Baker the new headmaster asked Professor Ernest Weekly to inspect the modern language teaching. He drew attention to the dominant role of Latin in determining a boy's promotion, to the beginning of
Greek at too young an age and to the lack of systematic instruction in English. Meanwhile, Baker recommended the adoption of the newly established Oxford and Cambridge Schools Examination Board for examination of higher work which for the first time provided a means for comparison between schools. Until this point schools could differ considerably in the ways they assessed pupils and conducted their affairs; today we take for granted the existence of national standards and criteria and the use of public examination results to compare one school, however invidiously, against another. In the early 1900s the number of boys at the school began to fall, due in part to the rise of good and not too expensive schools in the country around London such as
Bedford School,
Berkhamsted,
University College School,
King's College School,
St. Dunstan's,
St Olave's and
Latymer Upper School, amongst others. Science and technical subjects were being developed in institutions funded by public money and there was some pressure on the incomes of the class that sent its sons to schools like Merchant Taylors'. It became increasingly apparent that boys were travelling long distances to school each day, from as far as
Hertford,
Guildford and
Leigh-on-Sea, the school needed a
prep. school for boys aged 8–11 and a sports ground nearer than
Bellingham. Nairn began to think that the school might be better placed on the outskirts of London. In 1914 the Oxford and Cambridge School Examination Board inspected the school and, amongst their conclusions, found the hours of the school too short and the homework too long, all of which limited their time for fresh air and recreation. The Board also said that the curriculum was too narrow, that the needs of a few potential classical scholars were dominating the needs of the many. Even at this stage the only education in English teaching was gained from the translation of Latin and Greek. In the 1860s the school had been 'one of the nine' but its position was now threatened by the competition of new schools. In 1925 the matter of the school's location was raised again but any suggestion that it should be moved was vetoed by the School Committee.
1908–1927 In 1908 Lord Haldane reorganised the School cadet corps, making them into a single body, the
Officer Training Corps, which provided an essential source of officers for the
First World War. In 1912 the London Rifle Brigade was permitted to billet three companies in the school and when war came the regiment was billeted there. The Old Merchant Taylors held a meeting at the Hall and 200 enlisted forthwith. In 1918 enlistment in the O.T.C. became compulsory and in 1921 a house system was introduced with four houses named Hilles, White, Spenser and Clive.
1927–1961 The next Head Master,
Spencer Leeson, served for just nine years but in that time he proposed and supervised what was probably the greatest single event in the history of the school, the movement from the city of London to the green suburbs of
Ruislip,
Northwood, and
Rickmansworth, an area bounded by branches of the
Metropolitan Railway. Leeson made his mind up quickly and advised a move and the Company fell quickly behind him. He invited an inspection by the Board of Education in 1928 and concluded from their report that the school must move: "At Charterhouse Square we can never rejoin the number of the great schools of England". He attached a letter from Cyril Norwood which included these words: The site at Sandy Lodge was bought in late 1929 and plans were drawn up for the new school by architect WG Newton, in the Neo-Georgian style The cost of the initial proposals was greeted with some dismay, meaning that they had to be revised "at great sacrifice of beauty and efficiency" to bring costs down, and eventually the Court accepted them. The site at Charterhouse Square was sold to
St. Bartholomew's Hospital who had been previous owners, having bought the site in 1349 from the Master of the Spital Croft hospital. The move to Sandy Lodge was completed in March 1933, with a farewell service to the city held at St. Paul's Cathedral on 20 March. The first new term at Sandy Lodge began on 4 May, and the School was formally opened on 12 June. Birley's headmastership was defined by the events of the
Second World War, when many of the masters and students were called up to fight. Before war broke out, Birley proposed to build a chapel which would fit the entire school (about 600 pupils at this time). In addition, reform was creeping into the school at this time, with the privilege of not wearing a cap (which had previously only applied to Monitors), was extended to Prompters and House Prefects, and subsequently to the entire Sixth Form. Around this time, Elder re-introduced the position of Second Master, which had been absent for many years. The school celebrated its 450th anniversary in 2011, and retains close links with other Merchant Taylors' schools through the Merchant Taylors' Educational Trust and with the Merchant Taylors' Company itself. The members of the
Worshipful Company of Merchant Taylors visit the school at least twice a year – notably on St Barnabas' Day and Doctors' Day – and form the school's governing body. Under Simon Everson (2013–present), a new Design and Technology block has been built (2016) and the
Fives courts were demolished and replaced by a modern Geography centre. In 2024 a new cricket centre was opened. In March 2024, the school announced that all 13+ admission would halt after 2025. In March 2025, Simon Everson, the current Head Master, announced he would be stepping down at the end of the 2025–26 school year. He will be succeeded by Sam Baldock, previously Vice Master of
Bedford School, a school founded by
Sir William Harpur, a member of the Merchant Taylors' Company. == Overview ==