Editing Rugby School (section)

===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>