William Ellis, his schools and our history
William Ellis School and the Trust are part of a rich and radical educational heritage that remains as relevant today as it was when the school was founded in the 1860s. Here you can learn a little more about the school, the origins of the Trust and the role we continue to play in the life of the school today.
It is over 160 years since what is now William Ellis School was established as a co-educational elementary school in Gospel Oak. William Ellis was in many ways a traditional Victorian gentleman, often walking the nine miles from his suburban family home in Croydon to the City, where he managed a successful marine insurance business.
But he was also a remarkable citizen and an innovator, committed to using his commercial success to advance social reform. An acquaintance and disciple of the early Victorian philosophers Jeremy Bentham, James and John Stuart Mill, Ellis Believed that education was more than a personal good. He saw it as the means to advancing the well-being of humanity and used his personal resources to pioneer a secular, progressive, knowledge rich education for children of all backgrounds.
The Birkbeck School
William Ellis’ ideas about education, that young people should have the chance to acquire knowledge and develop the power of reasoning while schools should nurture personal wellbeing, were radical at a time when elementary education was patchy and secondary schooling was largely based on the Christian faith, mostly available to the sons of wealthy families and revolved around what one contemporary of Ellis’ described as the instruction of “dead languages”.
He started to trial his methods in existing London elementary schools in the 1840s and by the end of the decade had been given permission to use the theatre of the Mechanics Institute in Chancery Lane as a school during the day. This became the first “Birkbeck” School in memory of Dr Birkbeck, the founder of the Mechanics Institute. The school was partly funded by a grant from the City of London Corporation, but the main costs were born by William Ellis himself.
Other London schools followed quickly including the Gospel Oak Schools, established in 1862 in Allcroft Road near what is now Queen’s Crescent in Kentish Town. A typical curriculum would include reading, writing, arithmetic, English grammar and composition, history, geography, drawing, music and the natural sciences. Children were instructed in the laws of health and the principles of the “social economy” which Ellis believed would help them improve their own well -being, their position in society and their duties towards that society.
Many of Ellis’s methods were taken up by other schools around the country and in 1865, four of the Birkbeck schools (in Bethnal Green, Hackney, Peckham and Gospel Oak) were vested in a trust which was chaired by William Ellis himself. Eventually a board of management was established by the trust, and these two bodies were the origins of the Birkbeck and William Ellis Schools Trust, and the William Ellis School governing body, as we know them today.
The success of the first Birkbeck school and Ellis’ methods of teaching were even applauded by Florence Nightingale who observed his lessons and wrote:
“It was the best and more effective teaching I have ever heard, bringing what are called the most difficult subjects in an absolutely clear and most living way to the understanding of a child to make them practical and practicable”.
Nightingale concluded:
“Had I not been called to other work, I should probably have pursued education”
William Ellis School
Social and political change was rapid in the late 19th Century, and the 1870 Education Act led to the introduction of state funded Board schools which provided steep competition for the Birkbeck Schools, two of which were closed in the early 1880s when the trustees decided that if Ellis’ legacy was to be kept alive resources need to be concentrated on fewer institutions.
Happily, the Gospel Oak Schools survived although a falling roll meant that their long-term future was in doubt. The trustees agreed with the London School Board that they should be converted into a single sex secondary school. A resolution was passed by the Trust that the this should be a school strong in art, science, technical and commercial subjects and that the social economy (Ellis’s great passion) should be taught. Fees would be around five guineas a term, a headmaster would be appointed, entry would be by examination, and this school would be called William Ellis School.
Today we still celebrate the founding of the school in 1862, when the Gospel Oak Schools first came into being, but William Ellis School didn’t open as a public secondary school for boys until the autumn term of 1889. It continued to flourish on the Allcroft Road site for the next thirty-five years, withstanding the social pressures of the First World War while maintaining academic standards and a steady role of 375 pupils, of whom 250 still paid fees. Free state education for all was still several decades away.
But the next century brought more changes. The first came in 1926 when school inspectors judged that while the education provided by the school was good, its buildings were inadequate. Rebuilding the existing site was thought too expensive and after negotiations with the London County Council, the current Highgate Road site was made available. Building was completed in 1936 and the foundation stone, which still greets visitors to the school today, was laid on June 18, 1936.
When pupils finally moved into the school in 1937, they were able to enjoy one of the first secondary schools to be designed to what were then modern standards. The building was well-lit, ventilated and heated, with a hall, a permanent stage, a gymnasium, science labs, an art room and a library as well as sports facilities and direct access to Hampstead Heath.
The outbreak of the Second World War meant the pupils didn’t fully settle into the site until after the war, during which many were evacuated, and the school opened its doors to other London children who remained in the capital.
By then the 1944 Education Act had introduced free compulsory state education for all children, with a tripartite system of grammar, secondary modern and technical schools at secondary level. William Ellis School remained a grammar school until the mid 1970s when a heated debate over the transition to comprehensive education took place in the local community. The governors and trustees eventually bowed to the inevitable and by 1980 William Ellis was a flourishing boys’ state comprehensive school which went on to form a joint co-educational sixth form with neighbouring Parliament Hill School. Eventually the joint sixth form joined in with two other local schools, Acland Burghley and La Sainte Union, to form the La Swap sixth form consortium which continues to thrive today.
The Birkbeck and William Ellis Schools Trust
Until the 1944 Education Act, William Ellis School, like many others, had considered itself an “independent” school, operating under a grant from the London County Council and subsidised by the Trust. Retaining this independent status was not possible under the new system of universal state education, so the trustees and governors decided that William Ellis School should become a Voluntary Aided school, a new category of school created under the 1944 Act and a status it still enjoys today.
Voluntary Aided means the school is “maintained” by the local authority with government funding but enjoys a degree of autonomy that other maintained community schools don’t have, with extra powers vested in the Trust. The Trust’s full title is the Birkbeck and William Ellis Schools Trust, dating back to the original Birkbeck Schools, and it still appoints the majority of the governing body, including one representative from what is now Birkbeck University. Our public facing name is now the William Ellis Trust.
The Trust also holds the lease to the school, is responsible for 10% of all capital investment in the building and facilities and maintains an investment fund consisting of inherited assets and generous donations from some ex-pupils. The ethos and values of the Birkbeck Schools and Ellis’ desire to innovate are central to William Ellis School today and to the vision which this Trust is committed to upholding.
The school continues to offer a broad academic curriculum with an emphasis on traditional subjects, academic qualifications and personal development. Trustees, governors and senior leaders remain committed to the idea that William Ellis pupils can and should become fulfilled, useful members of society
The school’s motto “Rather Use Than Fame” has never seemed more relevant and in the last year, trustees have agreed a new set of objectives to ensure that the values espoused by William Ellis are as embedded in the life of the school as they were a century ago. You can read more about the work of the Trust and our plans for the future here.