Lincoln Christ's Hospital School is an English state secondary school with academy status located in Wragby Road in Lincoln. It was established in 1974, taking over the pupils and many of the staff of the older Lincoln Grammar School and Christ's Hospital Girls' High School (established in 1893), and two 20th-century secondary modern schools, St Giles's and Myle Cross.
History
Hospital schools date from the 13th century as boys' schools for parents who could not afford to pay school fees. They were also known as charity schools. The former Lincoln School may have dated from the 11th century, but it was re-founded as a charity school in the 17th century.[citation needed]
The endowment for Christ's Hospital Girls' School was derived from the former Bluecoat School on Christ's Hospital Terrace, Lincoln which was closed in 1883. This school was originally established in 1614 in St. Mary's Guildhall, Lincoln before it was moved to Christ Hospital Terrace in 1623.[1] In September 1893 Lincoln Christ's Hospital Girls' High School was started, with Agnes Body as its headmistress.[2]
Grammar schools
LCHS was formed from the merger of two single-sex grammar schools, both of which had some boarders. From 1906 the boys' school, Lincoln School (probably dating back to 1090),[3] also known as Lincoln Grammar School, occupied a site on Wragby Road. The girls' school, Christ's Hospital Girls' High School, was founded in 1893 and was based at Greestone Place on Lindum Hill.
Lincoln Cathedral choristers were educated at the school until the mid-20th century; the Cathedral School for Boys, now known as Lincoln Minster School, subsequently took over that role.[5]
On 22 July 1941 an RAFHandley Page Hampden crashed into the boarding house of the Girls' High School on Greestone Stairs,[6] killing Miss Edith Catherine Fowle, a languages teacher, as well as the occupants of the aircraft.[7]
The school entered the BBC Young Scientists of the Year in 1972. The team had been noticed by BBC staff at the Lincolnshire Science Fair in November 1971. The team was Chris Dennison, aged 18, of Hawthorn Road; Chris O'Brien, age 18, of Riseholme Road; and Dave Smith, aged 17, of Manor Drive. All three took Physics, Chemistry and Biology A-levels.[8] The team appeared on 13 March 1972.[9] The team got to the final, recorded in Birmingham. Head of science, Ivan Sexton, and biology teacher, Andrew Brylewski, had helped the team.[10]
The final was shown on 27 March 1972,[11] being recorded on Monday 20 March 1972. The team won the final, with 230 points, the other teams, Danum Grammar School from Doncaster and a school from Dorset, received 224 and 223.[12] The team went to a science fair in the Netherlands in May 1972, and received a £350 prize. The topic of the team was about sowing wild oats.
Comprehensive
In December 1971, a new headteacher was appointed for the new combined school, 49 year old Henry Arthur Behenna, the headmaster since 1968 of Grove School, Market Drayton in Shropshire.[13][14] He had difficulties at his previous school in Shropshire, when he sacked the 42 year old head of drama, from his £2,200 job, for not teaching the expected syllabus, as the drama teacher wanted a more 'modern' syllabus, with 'free expression'; 200 children subsequently went on a banner-waving protest throughout the town, to reinstate the drama teacher, but the teacher was not reinstated.[15][16] The dispute lasted until May 1971. At the time, Shropshire county council were more interested in how the school's results had plummeted over five years since becoming a comprehensive
[17] He grew up in Mevagissey,[18] and attended St Austell County Grammar School, taking a Geography degree at Worcester College, Oxford, and had served in the RAF Air Sea Rescue Service (Royal Air Force Marine Branch) in the war, then taught from 1959 at Melbourn Village College, where he became headteacher.[19]
In September 1974 the City of Lincoln was the only part of the county in which Lincolnshire County Council decided to abolish selective education. As a result, the city's two grammar schools merged with two secondary modern schools founded in 1933, St Giles's Secondary Modern School for Boys on Swift Gardens and Myle Cross Secondary Modern School for Girls on Addison Drive, to become a new comprehensive school. The buildings of St Giles's are now a temporary primary school, and those of Myle Cross are the Chad Varah Primary School.
The deputy head, Mrs Bobbie Coxon-Butler, the former last deputy head of the High School for Girls, left the school in 1975 to become head of Hallcroft Secondary Girls School in Retford in September 1975,[20] which merged in 1979 with the Retford High School for Girls to form a coeducational comprehensive, and she became the headteacher.[21][22] She had trained at Warton College of Education in Lancashire, and was headteacher at Retford until 1987.[23]
The present-day school has had Language College status since 2001, and offers lessons in French, Spanish, and German.[24]
Academy
Lincoln Christ's Hospital School became an academy in September 2011. It is now independent of local authority control, and funded directly from central government. However, the school continues to coordinate its admissions with Lincolnshire County Council.
1875-?1883 Rev A Babington. Headmaster of the Classical School
1875-1897 Rev Robert Markham. Headmaster of the Middle School in the Greyfriars
1883-1897 William Weekes Fowler. Headmaster of the Lincoln Classical School on Upper Lindum Terrace.
1898 -?1906 F H Chambers. Head master of Lincoln Grammar School on Upper Lindum Terrace.
Wragby Road
1911–1929: Reginald Moxon
1929–1937: Rev Charles Edgar Young; he became the headmaster of Rossall School, in Lancashire, until 1957
September 1937–1957: George Frederic Franklin; the 39 year old, attended the Roan School in London, followed by King's College, Cambridge, where he read Modern and Medieval Languages, then taught for one year at Merchant Taylors in Merseyside, then at Christ's Hospital in Sussex; he was a friend of the headteacher of the City School[26][27]
1970-74: Mrs Sheila Margaret Wood; the 42 year old was the head of English at Adwick School, in the north of Doncaster, and previously when the school was the Percy Jackson Grammar School, before 1968;[34] Sheila became the head of another comprehensive from September 1974[35]
Academic subjects studied include: English, Maths, Double and Triple Award Sciences, BTEC Science, Forensic and Medical Sciences,* Media, Modern Languages, History, Geography, RE, Psychology,* Sociology, Philosophy and Ethics,* and Citizenship.
Vocational subjects studied include Fine Art, Art Textiles, BTEC Art, Music, Design & Technology, Drama, Drama & Theatre Studies,* Law,* ICT & Business Studies, Resistant Materials, Child Care, Electronics, Product Design,* Production Arts BTEC,* Performance Arts BTE,* Graphic Design, Photography and Engineering.*
(*) 6th form only subject.
Academic performance
When a grammar school, LCHS would have been the best performing school in Lincoln. As a comprehensive, its results place it in the top five most improved language colleges nationally. It gets GCSE results slightly above average, but A level results below average.[citation needed]
Admissions
Pupil population is just under 1,400, including over 300 in the sixth form. Of the school roll, 15 per cent receive free school meals.
Notable former pupils
Allison Pearson (born 1960), novelist and newspaper columnist
^Stocker, D. A., et al (1991).St Mary's Guildhall, Lincoln. The Survey and Excavation of a Medieval Building Complex C.B.A. /City of Lincoln Archaeology Unit:The Archaeology of Lincoln, Vol XII–1, p. 8.
^Margaret A. E. Hammer, "Body, (Mary) Agnes (1866–1952)", Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004 accessed 20 January 2017.