Early history . The school originally met in the room above Although the school has moved location on several occasions, each of its former buildings is still in existence. The school was founded by the
Guild of the Holy Trinity in 1379 above the south porch of
St Peter's Church. The Guild was a powerful force in the later Middle Ages. The historical name "Schola Sanctae Trinitatis De Wysbech" is still used on the school's crest, which is derived from the seal of the Wisbech Corporation (itself based on the former Guild seal) and features the seated figures of
St Peter and
St Paul. The first record of a schoolmaster dates from 1407 when one Maurice Plank was given leave to study at Cambridge University for two terms on the understanding that he would appoint an
usher to teach in his absence. Soon after foundation, the school moved to the
Guildhall in Hill Street. A record from 1446 details how master Jacob Creffen was granted leave by the
Bishop of Ely to collect an "adequate salary" from each scholar according to the "praiseworthy, ancient and approved custom". Following the
English reformation, the Guild of the Holy Trinity was
dissolved and replaced by the Wisbech Corporation. The school was renamed and re-established by
King Edward VI in 1549, who gave the school a
charter "for the instruction of youth in
grammatical knowledge and polite literature". The charter is still in existence, and is currently held by the
Wisbech Museum. The same year, land was given for the construction of a school house next to the Guildhall building. After the
Restoration of
Charles II, the school's charter was renewed with the stipulation that the Capital Burgesses be given the choice of schoolmaster and that the Bishop of Ely "forever shall have the right of visitation, reformation, and correction of the schoolmaster, as of the school aforesaid". In 1638 a benefactor, William Holmes, gave £400 to the burgesses of Wisbech to be invested in land, and the rest applied for the maintenance of two scholars at
Magdalene College, Cambridge. In his will of 1656 Holmes directed that the whole yearly income of his 46-acre estate in
Holbeach, Lincolnshire be paid yearly towards the maintenance of the scholars and the endowment of the school. Other land and property had been donated to the school in the wills of Thomas Parkes in 1628 and John Crane in 1651. Crane's estate included land in
Fleet, Lincolnshire and an inn on Market Hill called the Black Bull. In 1793, property developer
Joseph Medworth purchased the site of
Wisbech Castle, including
John Thurloe's 1660 mansion (supposedly in a very poor condition) and the land surrounding it from the See of Ely, building the Georgian Circus along the bailey walls. As part of his scheme, in 1811 he tried to persuade the corporation to purchase the mansion and demolish the Old Grammar School building in Ship Street (now Hill Street) with the intention of building a new street through to the market place. The Corporation refused (it is usually assumed that the other burgesses intended to purchase the mansion for the same purpose after Medworth's death at a reduced price). As a result, Medworth demolished Thurloe's mansion and erected the present Wisbech Castle building in 1816. Richmond records that the upper boys were reading
Cicero, and their knowledge of Latin grammar was "satisfactory". He also records the teaching of Greek, algebra, and English language, noting that French was taught as an extra. The school continued to use the former guildhall site in Hill Street until 1898, by which stage the medieval building was much altered and in a dilapidated condition. The house and its grounds was originally intended to be the headmaster's residence and provide lodgings for a few boarders, but soon expanded to accommodate the entire school with the construction of classrooms and a hall. The central block of the 18th-century town house was used as a panelled library. In his 1939 history of the school, headmaster H. Lawrence White opines that the purchase of this 18th-century house was a "grave mistake", as it was "constantly needing repairs" and was "difficult to warm". He suggests that for the eventual price of conversion, a purpose-built school would have been a more satisfactory decision. Initial plans to build a dormitory for boarding pupils were scrapped, with a physics laboratory being constructed instead, effectively ending the tradition of boarding scholars. The
Education Act 1902 brought the school under the control of the Isle of Ely
local education authority as a
voluntary aided school. By 1917, the boys' Grammar School had 64 pupils attending. Numbers had been swelled by an influx of boys from the Barton House School, a small private school which had closed in 1913.
Modern history The
Education Act 1902 also made it a legal requirement for the county council to provide an equal educational opportunity for girls. A conference was held in October 1903 to discuss the founding of a girls' school, and by January 1905
Wisbech High School for Girls was established in Harecroft House on the North Brink. The house had been donated on a long-term lease for the purpose by
Baron Peckover's family. Harecroft House had been built in 1844 by Algernon Peckover, and his descendants lived in the house until the death of Susannah Peckover in 1903, after which it was left vacant. The first headmistress was Beatrice Sparks, who was the first woman to complete the Oxford degree in mathematics. This hall was, until recently, used as the school dining room and is now the school's library. Originally, the High School was able to take boarders, which continued until after World War II. The boys' school continued to grow throughout the 20th century. 160 former pupils fought in World War I, of whom eleven were decorated and nine "
mentioned in dispatches". Nineteen former pupils were killed in action. During World War II, 272 boys and 26 staff from the
Stationers' Company's School in London were
evacuated to Wisbech, where they were billeted with local families and shared premises with the Grammar School for teaching. From 1936 to 1959, the chairman of the governors of the boys' school was the local Liberal politician Alderman John W. Payne J.P., who was also, concurrently, Chairman of the
Isle of Ely County Council Education Committee. The school came under
Cambridgeshire and Isle of Ely LEA when the two councils merged in 1965. Both the Grammar School and High School co-existed as
voluntary aided schools until 1970 when they merged to become co-educational, with the Grammar School moving into the North Brink High School site under headmaster Dr. D.S. Anderson. Relations between the schools had always been close; the amalgamation had been planned for some time, and a number of new laboratories and classrooms had already been under construction on the North Brink site before the two schools merged. The school magazine
Riverline was first published in 1971. At the time, entry to the co-educational Grammar School was at age 13, meaning that at age 11, all pupils attended the comprehensive single sex Queen's Girls' and Queen's Boys' Schools until an
eleven-plus-style examination was taken by all pupils. At this point, academically able pupils were given the opportunity to move to the selective mixed-sex grammar school, with other children staying within the two
secondary modern schools. The separate Queen's Schools, meanwhile, were merged to become a co-educational comprehensive school; this became the
Thomas Clarkson Academy. Soon after it became independent, the Grammar School lowered its entry age to 11 and joined the
Assisted Places Scheme, a governmental scheme instigated in 1980 which allowed pupils who could not afford to go to fee-paying independent schools a free or subsidised place if they were within the top 10–15% of applicants in the school's entrance examination. By 1994, 53% of the Grammar School's pupils held assisted places, the highest proportion of any school in the scheme. In 1991, a major extension to the school site added 19 classrooms, four laboratories, two computer rooms, a sports hall and library. The former gymnasium was rebuilt and extended to become the Russell Hall, the senior school assembly hall and theatrical stage. A performing arts centre, the Dwight Centre, was completed in April 2003 with facilities for English and music teaching, drama and music technology. and a new refectory. In 2019, the school re-introduced boarding with the opening of two International Boarding Houses. Boarders from China first attended the school from September 2019. In 2020 the school, but not the buildings, were taken on by Access Education, an Anglo/Chinese body which also runs
Thetford Grammar School and
Brighton College amongst other schools. A new charity, under a board of trustees, was proposed in 2020 to oversee the freehold of the school and its associated buildings and land. ==Admission and fees==