Watford Grammar School for Boys 3.93

Watford Grammar School for Boys is a partially selective academy for boys in Watford in Hertfordshire, England. The school and its sister school, Watford Grammar School for Girls, descend from a Free School founded as a charity school for boys and girls by Elizabeth Fuller in 1704. Despite its name, the school accepts boys of all abilities, although approximately a third are selected for academic or musical aptitude, and brothers of existing pupils are also guaranteed places. Its results are among the highest achieved by non-grammar state schools in England.History of the Watford Grammar SchoolsIn 1704, Mrs Elizabeth Fuller of Watford Place built the Watford Free School for forty boys and twenty girls on her land next to the churchyard, with rooms for a Master and a Mistress. The school-house was a fine structure at the south-west corner of St Mary's churchyard, and can still be seen there. In 1708 Mrs Fuller endowed the school with a rent-charge of £52 a year. The boys were taught to read, write and cast accounts, and the girls to read English, to knit and to sew.The £52 a year was augmented with bequests, producing a revenue of £178, but the rent-charges were fixed and lost their value through inflation. Despite the help of endowments and gifts, the original charity school was in a sad state by the 1870s, when an application to the Charity Commissioners to sell part of the endowment to pay for overdue repairs led to an enquiry into the school. In 1878, the Commission forbad the school from admitting any more pupils in its current state, and asked the trustees to choose between turning the school into a public elementary school or amalgamating with a sum of £13,333/6/8d from the Platt Foundation for Aldenham School to form a new middle class school. With some reluctance, the trustees chose the latter, and the free school closed on 10 August 1882. The 13 boys and 2 girls still at the school were placed in local elementary schools.