A look at the history of Bury St Edmunds Grammar School, which was founded in 1550 by King Henry VIII’s only son

A well respected place of learning, Bury St Edmunds Grammar School was founded in 1550 by the only son of Henry VIII, King Edward VI, thus making it one of the oldest in the country.

Its original site was situated at the junction of Eastgate Street and Barn Lane and escaped the ravages of the great fire of Bury in 1608, which started nearby in Randalls the malsters.

A series of statutes or rules on how the school was to be run were laid down. Early on those scholars born in Bury were recognised as ‘Foundation Scholars’ eventually known as Royalists, those not from the town, Foreigners.

The maximum intake of boys was fixed at 100, however at most times only half that number attended.

Your school days lasted five years, though in some circumstances whereby a place at a university or prime occupation would be available, six years would be allowed.

One noticeable statute was that all ‘truants, dullards and those incapable of learning would be expelled’.

The main aim of the school was to teach grammar and the classics, Greek and Latin, with emphasis on strict discipline and honourable behaviour. The governors of the school would appoint a High Master and a Low Master to teach.

Some of these High Masters were quite distinguished, the charismatic Edward Leedes holding his office for nearly 44 years, some notable others were: Benjamin Heath Malkin, Michael Becher and Dr John Donaldson. The latter was responsible for putting up the two Magna Carta plaques on the pillar near the high altar at the Abbey site and organising the Tercentenary celebrations in 1850.

Of course, with any such renowned educational facility you had celebrated alumni, to become known as ‘Old Burians’. Among them Edward Fitzgerald, translator of the Rubaiyat of Omar Kayyan, prominent churchmen William Sancroft and Charles Blomfield, and Sir Thomas Hanmer, House of Commons Speaker.

In 1665 the school transferred to 18 Northgate Street, an empty niche on the front supposedly had a bust of King Edward VI in, a Latin inscription below detailed the move.

Incidentally, from 1883 until 1939 this building was a girls boarding school run by Anglican Nuns; the property now grade two* is known today as St Michael’s Close and contains 11 flats. After selling this second grammar school in 1883 for £2,300, the grammar school moved again to a purpose-built school on the 12-acre Vinefields site to designs by Sir Arthur William Blomfield ARA FRIBA.

Over a period of time the Grammar School Trust had owned a large portion of land amounting to 113 acres known as St Peter’s land. This was sold off to the advantage of the grammar school as follows: A 94-acre farm, known as St Peter’s Barn, held by George Beeton (today Beetons Way) saw him give up the tenancy some of the land sold to the Chesterford and Newmarket Railway Company in 1853 to enable the line to link Bury with Newmarket and consequently Cambridge.

The War Department purchased 16 acres for the Gibraltar Barracks to be built in 1875, followed by the Marquess of Bristol purchasing 20 acres in the 1880s. By the 1920s all of the grammar school land had been sold.

The school on the Vinefields flourished and in 1922 the school became a direct grant school, losing some of its independence and eventually leading to fee-paying boys eligible for a means test, the Ministry of Education taking up the slack.

In 1944, the Education Act (the year the 11+ was brought in) resulted in the school no longer able to retain its position as a charity, thus losing its direct grant status, becoming a voluntary controlled school in 1946.

The eleven-plus was to change so many children’s lives. In 1971 the school finished becoming part of the co-educational system, amalgamating with the two Silver Jubilee schools in Grove Road, with the acronym of KEGS.

The last grammar school headmaster Robert (Bob) Elliott would become the fifth mayor of St Edmundsbury Council in 1978-9.

Within a year that the school finished to become St James Middle School, the historic grammar school library was put into the Cambridge University Library, though the beautiful illuminated Bury Psalter from between 1398-1415, given to the school by a James Harvey in 1706, remained in Bury.

Currently at the Bury Records Office, this very important part of the rich heritage of our town MUST stay here.

As for the grammar school itself, its main building has been converted into flats with the rest of the site awaiting development.

Meanwhile, the Old Burian Association itself is still going, alas numbers dwindling.