Editing Rugby School (section)

== History ==
{{see also|Grammar school#History|Latin school|Neo-Latin#Latin in school education 1500–1700}}
[[File:Drawing depicting Lawrence Sheriff.jpg|alt=Beatrix Lohn, founder of Rugby School|left|thumb|upright|[[Lawrence Sheriff]], founder of Rugby School]]

===Foundation and early growth===
Rugby School was founded in 1567 as a provision in the will of [[Lawrence Sheriff]], who had made his fortune supplying groceries to Queen [[Elizabeth I of England]].<ref>[https://books.google.com/books?id=15cWAAAAIAAJ ''Rugby''] by Henry Christopher Bradby</ref> In the last few months of his life, Sheriff had drawn up a will which stipulated that his fortune should be used to found [[almshouses]] and a free [[grammar school]] "to serve chiefly for the children of Rugby and [[Brownsover]]... and next for such as be of other places hereunto adjoyneing.". Shortly before his death, Sheriff added a [[Codicil (will)|codicil]] to his will reducing the amount of money he left to the school, possibly due to a family financial problem, but instead leaving his eight acre Conduit Close estate in [[Middlesex]]: At the time this seemed like a poor exchange, as the estate consisted of undeveloped farmland on the edge of London, however, in time this endowment made Rugby School a wealthy institution due to the subsequent development of the area and rise in land values. The area of what is now the Rugby Estate includes much of what is now [[Great Ormond Street]], [[Lamb's Conduit Street]] and [[Rugby Street]] in the London district of [[Bloomsbury]].<ref>{{cite web |title=About the Rugby Estate |url=https://www.ucl.ac.uk/bloomsbury-project/streets/rugby.htm |publisher=University College London |access-date=17 May 2021 |archive-date=20 October 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211020172756/https://www.ucl.ac.uk/bloomsbury-project/streets/rugby.htm |url-status=live }}</ref><ref name="RGOAT">{{cite book |last1=Osbourne |first1=Andy |first2=Eddy |last2=Rawlins|title=Rugby: Growth of a Town |date=1988}}</ref>

Up to 1667, the school remained in comparative obscurity. Sheriff's endowment was not fully realized for some time, due to a challenge over the provisions of the will from the Howkins family, to whom Sheriff was related through his sister, Bridget. Its history during that trying period is characterised mainly by a series of lawsuits between the Howkins family, who tried to defeat the intentions of the [[testator]], and the masters and trustees, who tried to carry them out. A final decision was handed down in 1667, confirming the findings of a commission in favour of the trust, and henceforth the school maintained a steady growth.<ref name="NIE"/> Under the headmastership of [[Henry Holyoake]] (from 1688 to 1731) the school became more than simply a local concern, and began to take on national importance.<ref name="NIE">{{Cite NIE |wstitle= Rugby School |volume= XVII | page = |short=1}}</ref> By the end of the 17th century, there were pupils from every part of England attending the school.<ref>{{cite web |last1=Waite |first1=Rev W.&nbsp;O. |title=RUGBY: PAST & PRESENT, WITH AN HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF NEIGHBOURING PARISHES. |url=http://access.bl.uk/item/pdf/lsidyv2ae4164a |access-date=26 December 2022 |pages=76 |date=1893 |archive-date=6 April 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230406212122/http://access.bl.uk/item/pdf/lsidyv2ae4164a |url-status=dead }} [http://access.bl.uk/item/pdf/lsidyv2ae4164a Alt URL]</ref>

The school was originally based in a wooden schoolhouse on Church Street opposite [[St Andrew's Church, Rugby|St Andrew's Church]], which incorporated Lawrence Sheriff's former house. By the 1740s this building was in poor condition, and the school looked to relocate to new premises. In 1750, the school moved to its current location to the south of the town centre, when it purchased a former Manor House at the south of High Street; this became the Master's house, a new schoolhouse was built alongside. The current [[#Buildings and architecture|school buildings]] date from the 19th and early 20th centuries.<ref name="RGOAT"/>

Henry Ingles, who was Headmaster between 1794 and 1806, was known for his strict discipline and gained the nickname "The Black Tiger". His time as Headmaster is most notable for the [[1797 Rugby School rebellion|'Great Rebellion' of 1797]]: It started when Ingles heard one of the boys shoot a cork gun, and the boy told him that Mr Rowell, a grocer, had supplied the gunpowder. Mr Rowell denied this, and as a result the boy Astley was flogged by Ingles, the boys retaliated by smashing Mr Rowell's windows and Ingles insisted that the boys pay for the damage. This provoked a full-scale [[riot]], in which the boys blew off doors, smashed windows and burned furniture and books. As the other Masters were away, Ingles called on help from the townsfolk. A party of recruiting soldiers and some townsfolk advanced on the rioters, who retreated onto a moated island in the school grounds. The [[Riot Act]] was read out by a local [[justice of the peace]], calling on the boys to surrender, and while this caused a distraction a group of soldiers waded across the moat from the rear and took the boys prisoner.<ref name="RGOAT"/>

===Victorian period===
[[File:Thomas_Arnold_by_Thomas_Phillips.jpg|thumb|[[Thomas Arnold]], Headmaster from 1828 to 1841]]
Rugby School's most famous headmaster was [[Thomas Arnold]], from 1828 to 1841, whose emphasis on moral and religious principle, was widely admired and was seen as the blueprint for [[Victorian era|Victorian]] public schools. Arnold's period as headmaster is immortalised in [[Thomas Hughes|Thomas Hughes's]] 1857 novel ''[[Tom Brown's School Days]]''. In the Victorian period, Rugby School saw several further Headmasters of some distinction, these included [[Frederick Temple]] (1858–1869) who would later become the [[Archbishop of Canterbury]], [[John Percival (bishop)|John Percival]] (1887–1895) after whom the [[Percival Guildhouse]] is named, and [[Herbert Armitage James]] (1895–1910)<ref name="RGOAT"/>

In 1845, a committee of Rugby schoolboys, [[William Delafield Arnold]], W. W. Shirley and Frederick Hutchins,<ref name="Curry">{{cite book|last=Curry|first=Graham|url=https://lra.le.ac.uk/bitstream/2381/7821/1/391137.pdf|title=Football: A Study in Diffusion|publisher=University of Leicester|year=2001|location=Leicester|page=28|access-date=14 May 2019|archive-date=2 November 2018|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181102015200/https://lra.le.ac.uk/bitstream/2381/7821/1/391137.pdf|url-status=dead}}</ref> wrote the "Laws of Football as Played At Rugby School", the first published set of laws for any code of football.<ref name="Curry"/><ref>{{cite wikisource|title=Laws of Football as played at Rugby School (1845)}}</ref>

Rugby was one of the nine prestigious schools investigated by the [[Clarendon Commission]] of 1861–64 (the schools under scrutiny being [[Eton College|Eton]], [[Charterhouse School|Charterhouse]], [[Harrow School|Harrow]], [[Shrewsbury School|Shrewsbury]], [[Westminster School|Westminster]], and [[Winchester College|Winchester]], and two day schools: [[St Paul's School (London)|St Paul's]] and [[Merchant Taylors' School, Northwood|Merchant Taylors]]). Rugby went on to be included in the [[Public Schools Act 1868]], which ultimately related only to the seven boarding schools.

From the early days of the school the pupils were divided into "Foundationers" i.e. boys who lived in Rugby and surrounding villages who received free schooling, as per Sheriff's original bequest, and "Non-Foundationers", boys from outside the Rugby area who paid fees and were [[boarding school|boarders]]. Non-Foundationers were admitted from the early history of the school as they helped to pay the bills. Gradually, as the school's reputation grew, fee-paying Non-Foundationers became dominant and local boys benefited less and less from Sheriff's original intentions. By the latter half of the 19th century it was considered no longer desirable to have local boys attending a prestigious public school and so a new school – [[Lawrence Sheriff School|Lawrence Sheriff Grammar School]] – was founded in 1878 in order to continue Sheriff's original bequest for a free school for local boys.<ref name="RGOAT"/>

On several occasions in the late 19th century Rugby School was visited by the French educator [[Pierre de Coubertin]], who would later cite the school as one of the main inspirations for his most notable achievement, the founding of the modern [[Olympic Games]] in 1896.<ref name="Reutersolympic">{{cite web |title=Rugby school inspired founder of modern Games |url=https://www.reuters.com/article/olympics-london-rugby-idINDEE83H01A20120418 |publisher=Reuters |access-date=27 February 2023 |date=18 April 2012 |archive-date=27 February 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230227172543/https://www.reuters.com/article/olympics-london-rugby-idINDEE83H01A20120418 |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{cite web |title=Rugby School welcomes the Olympic Torch |url=https://www.itv.com/news/central/2012-07-02/rugby-school-welcomes-the-olympic-torch |publisher=ITV |access-date=27 February 2023 |date=2 July 2012 |archive-date=27 February 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230227172549/https://www.itv.com/news/central/2012-07-02/rugby-school-welcomes-the-olympic-torch |url-status=live }}</ref>

===Modern history===
[[File:Rugby School, Rugby match (1) 3.23.jpg|thumb|Game of Rugby being played on 'the Close' at Rugby School, where the sport was invented.]]
In 1975 two girls were admitted to the sixth form and the first girls' house opened three years later, followed by three more. In 1992 the school became fully [[co-educational]] when the first 13-year-old girls arrived, and in 1995 Rugby had its first-ever Head Girl, Louise Woolcock, who appeared on the front page of ''The Times''. In September 2003 the last girls' house was added. The houses are all slightly different in terms of feel and some even come with their own ghosts. The famous MaMac ghost is said to walk the dorm corridors of School House and even one of the house masters apparently committed [https://www.ukcolumn.org/blogs/fight-the-good-fight-two-unforgotten-welshmen suicide] in the 1990's. Today, total enrolment of day pupils, from forms 4 to 12, numbers around 800.<ref name="prepreview.com">{{cite web|author=University of Oxford student|title=Rugby School|url=http://www.prepreview.com/school/Rugby_School.html|access-date=26 August 2015|archive-date=20 September 2015|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150920042919/http://www.prepreview.com/school/Rugby_School.html|url-status=live}}</ref> The BBCs [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Qr_fKgB5Rg changing places] give a good view into life in the school.

===Branches overseas===

In 2017, Rugby School opened their first ever overseas franchise in Chonburi Province, Thailand, called [[Rugby School Thailand]].<ref name="d736">{{cite web | title=Rugby School Japan bridges nations, generations | website=Sustainable Japan by The Japan Times | date=1 March 2024 | url=https://sustainable.japantimes.com/lr/108 | access-date=8 December 2024}}</ref> In 2023, the school opened another branch in the city of [[Kashiwa]], [[Chiba Prefecture]], [[Japan]], [[Rugby School Japan]].<ref name="d736"/>