Bryanston School

Bryanston School
Motto	Et nova et vetera (The new and the old)
Established	1928
Type	Independent school
Religion	Anglican
Head	Sarah Thomas
Founder	J. G. Jeffreys
Location	Bryanston Blandford Forum Dorset DT11 0PX England
Staff	c. 80
Students	c. 650
Gender	Mixed
Ages	13 to 18
Colours	Dark blue and yellow
Website	www.bryanston.co.uk
Coordinates: 50°51′58″N 2°11′10″W / 50.866°N 2.186°W / 50.866; -2.186

Bryanston School is a co-educational independent school for both day and boarding pupils in Blandford, north Dorset, England, near the village of Bryanston. It was founded in 1928. It occupies a palatial country house designed in the late nineteenth century by Richard Norman Shaw for Viscount Portman and is set in 400 acres (1.6 km²).

The school opened on 24 January 1928 with 23 pupils and seven members of staff. In 2004, the school had around 650 pupils and 80 teachers.

Bryanston is a member of the Headmasters' and Headmistresses' Conference and the Eton Group. It has a reputation as a liberal and artistic school using some ideas of the Dalton Plan.

In 2005 the school was one of fifty of the country's leading independent schools which were found guilty of running an illegal price-fixing cartel (exposed by The Times newspaper), which allowed them to drive up fees for thousands of parents, although the schools made clear that they had not realised that the change to the law (which had happened only a few months earlier) about the sharing of information had subsequently made it an offence.^[1] Each school was required to pay a nominal penalty of £10,000 and all agreed to make ex-gratia payments totalling three million pounds into a trust designed to benefit pupils who attended the schools during the period in respect of which fee information was shared.^[2]

Heads of Bryanston

• J. G. Jeffreys (1928–1932)
• Thorold Coade (1932–1959)
• Robson Fisher (1959–1974)
• David Jones (1974–1982)
• Bob Allan (acting head, 1982–1983)
• Tom Wheare (1983–2005)
• Sarah Thomas (2005– present) — First female head of Bryanston. Previously, since 1999, she was Deputy Head of Uppingham School and before that taught classics at Sevenoaks School for 13 years before moving to Bryanston.

Notable Old Bryanstonians

• Prince Alastair of Connaught (1914–1943), member of the British Royal Family
• Frederick Sanger (born 1918), biochemist and the fourth person to become a double Nobel Laureate
• Michael Yates (1919–2001), stage and television designer and executive
• Adrian Heath (1920–1992), painter
• Lucian Freud (born 1922), painter
• Sir Tony Durant (born 1928), politician
• Sir Terence Conran (born 1931), designer, restaurateur and retailer
• Drummond Matthews (1931–1997), geologist and marine geophysicist
• Sir Howard Hodgkin (born 1932), painter
• Jonathan Gathorne-Hardy (born 1933), author
• Quinlan Terry (born 1937), architect
• Nicholas Phillips, Baron Phillips of Worth Matravers (born 1938), Master of the Rolls, 2000–2005, and Lord Chief Justice of England and Wales from 2005
• Myles Burnyeat (born 1939), classicist and philosopher
• Simon Napier-Bell (born 1939), pop group manager, writer and journalist
• Kevin Crossley-Holland (born 1941), children's author and poet
• Geoffrey Hoyle (born 1942), science fiction writer (son of Fred Hoyle)
• John Nissen (born 1942), founder of Cloudworld
• John Eliot Gardiner (born 1943), conductor
• Julian Vereker (1945–2000), electronic engineer
• Mark Elder (born 1947), conductor
• Robert Saxton (born 1953), composer
• Kwame Anthony Appiah (born 1954), philosopher and novelist
• Jonathan Bowen (born 1956), computer scientist
• Jasper Morrison (born 1959), designer
• Jasper Conran (born 1960), fashion designer
• Saira Shah (born 1964), journalist and documentary filmmaker
• Tahir Shah (born 1966), writer and television presenter
• Phil De Glanville (born 1968), rugby player for Bath and England, 38 caps, captain of England
• Cerys Matthews (born 1969), singer
• Lara Cazalet (born 1971), actress
• Nigel Barker (born 1972), fashion photographer, judge on America's Next Top Model
• Ben Fogle (born 1973), television presenter
• Emilia Fox (born 1974), actress
• HRH Princess Haya of Jordan (born 1974), daughter of King Hussein I of Jordan
• William Herbert, 18th Earl of Pembroke (born 1978)
• Huw Bennett (born 1983), rugby player for Ospreys and Wales, 18 caps
• Amy Studt (born 1986), singer

The sculptor Sir Anthony Caro was a school parent in the 1970s and exhibited at the school in Sculpture, a spectator sport? to celebrate the school's 75th anniversary in 2003.

Other information

• The school estate has Europe's tallest London Plane tree (48.16m). This tree may also be England's tallest deciduous tree.
• Each year, the JACT Ancient Greek Summer School is held at Bryanston; the school has played host to many of the United Kingdom's classicists, both as teachers and pupils.

See also

• List of independent schools in the United Kingdom
• Don Potter (1902–2004), sculptor, potter and teacher at the school 1940–1984
• R. Norman Shaw (1831–1912), architect of the main building
• The Coade Hall, a theatre at the school

References

1. ^ Independent schools face huge fines over cartel to fix fees - Times Online
2. ^ The Office of Fair Trading: OFT names further trustees as part of the independent schools settlement

1. The Burning Bow, Thorold F. Coade. London: Allen & Unwin (1966). ISBN 0-04-370001-2.
2. Bryanston Reflections: Et nova et vetera, Angela Holdsworth (editor). London: Third Millennium Publishing (2005). ISBN 1-903942-38-1.

External links

• School website
• UK Schools Guide entry
• Independent Schools Inspectorate report, 2007
• Dorset Life article on the history of the school building
• Leading sculptors mark school's 75th birthday, The Guardian, 2 June 2003