OUR HISTORY

The School has a long and fascinating history and today incorporates four schools, plus a convent, in one. It was founded in 1707 by Thomas Thynne (1640 – 1714), who had been created 1st Viscount Weymouth in 1682, to educate the sons of his Longleat estate workers. In 1789, the 3rd Viscount Weymouth was created the 1st Marquess of Bath. The close links between the School and Longleat are embodied in the Wren Doorway to School House, the original 1707 school building. The doorway is believed to have been designed as the main entrance to Longleat House by Sir Christopher Wren, who was born locally, in 1663 on the occasion of the visit by King Charles II and Queen Catherine. It was then moved to the new school in, or soon after, 1705. The School’s crest remains the arms of the Thynne family.

The foundation of the School was strongly supported by Thomas Ken, Bishop of Bath and Wells between 1685 – 1691, and regarded also by the School as a central figure in the School’s foundation. He had been at Oxford with Thynne; after the Glorious Revolution of 1688, he refused to swear allegiance to the new monarch, William III (William of Orange) because he felt legally bound by his oath to the previous monarch, James II. As a result he was deprived of his benefice. In sympathy he was invited to live at Longleat, where he remained until his death in 1711. He was a strong influence on Lord Weymouth and encouraged him to charitable and benevolent works. His chair, which is Tudor (1485 – 1603) and was presented by him to the School, now sits in the Headmaster’s study. On the back are graffiti – in the form of carved pupils’ names and dates – from the 1820s (pictured above).

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Over the course of the centuries that followed, the School became known as Lord Weymouth’s Grammar School, ‘Grammar’ because the teaching focused on Greek and Latin grammar. The word was dropped from the name only in the mid-1950s. Thomas Arnold, the historian and great educational reformer, was a pupil at the School from 1803 – 1807. He was later headmaster of Rugby School from 1828 – 1841.

The present-day school also incorporates a ‘National School’ dating from 1815. The National Society for Promoting Religious Education was established in 1811 with the aim of providing an elementary education, in accordance with the teachings of the Church of England, to the children of the poor. The building is now the Deputy Headmaster’s house.

St Boniface Missionary College was founded in 1860 by the Vicar of Warminster, James Erasmus Philipps. During his incumbency he also established St Denys Convent and St Monica’s School for girls (1874), run by the Sisters of the Convent of St Denys. The college closed for the duration of World War II and when it reopened in 1948 it was in a different guise, associated with King’s College London, as a post-graduate centre for missionary work. It closed for good in 1969 and the buildings have been leased to Warminster School ever since. St Boniface is now a boarding house for boys and is one of the School’s most striking pieces of architecture, comprising Georgian, neo-Jacobean and neo-Gothic styles.

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Although St Boniface also houses the School’s chapel, it is small, and so the whole school gathers three times a week in the neighbouring Minster Church of St Denys. It is here that the School has a stained-glass window as a memorial to those pupils who died in the First World War. Charles Alcock, headmaster of the School from 1864 – 1895, is buried in the graveyard. St Denys is the oldest church in Warminster and stands near the site of the original Saxon church, dating from the early 10th century. It was extensively rebuilt in the 11th, 15th and 19th centuries.

The School remained single-sex until 1973, when Lord Weymouth’s School amalgamated with St Monica’s, which stood on the site of the current Prep School. Thereafter, the School became known as Warminster School. Since 1996, the St Denys Convent has been a boys’ boarding house and more recently, a junior co-ed boarding house.