Shrewsbury School is a public school (English private boarding and day school) for pupils aged 13–18, located in the town of Shrewsbury, Shropshire, England.
It was founded in 1552 by Edward VI by royal charter, to replace the town's Anglo-Saxon collegiate foundations which were disestablished in the sixteenth century. It is one of the seven public schools in the UK subject to the Public Schools Act 1868 and one of the nine schools reviewed by the Clarendon Commission between 1861 and 1864. The school is notable for being the education site of renowned scientist Charles Darwin.
It was originally founded as a boarding school for boys. In 2008, however, girls were accepted in the sixth form. Since 2015 Shrewsbury School has been a co-educational school. As at Michaelmas Term 2023, Shrewsbury School had 842 pupils: 522 boys and 320 girls. The school has seven boys', and five girls' houses.Independent Schools Inspectorate report 2007 Retrieved 19 March 2010 Alumni of the school are known as Old Salopians.
The present school site, to which the school moved in 1882, is on the south bank of the River Severn.
History
Circumstances of the foundation Since Saxon times the Collegiate Churches of St Chad (traditionally founded in Shrewsbury when it was known as Pengwern, either by the royal family of the Kingdom of Powys in the 6th century, or by Offa, king of Mercia in the 8th century); St Mary (established by King Edgar in the 10th century); and St Alkmund (founded by Queen Æthelflæd before 918AD; endowed as a college by 975 by King Edgar, though reduced in the mid 12th century) were providing education in the town, complemented by the foundation of Shrewsbury Abbey in the 11th century.
These were broken up by the Reformation, although there is a mention of a grammar school at Shrewsbury in a court case of 1439.
Shrewsbury School was founded in response to those interruptions to the town's ancient traditions in education in the sixteenth century: the disruption caused significant local ill feeling, and by 1542, townspeople were beginning to petition Henry VIII for remedy. They devised a scheme hoping to use the proceeds from the dissolution of Shrewsbury Abbey for a renewed provision of education. They were not immediately successful. The statesman Sir Rowland Hill had the grant of certain of the abbey's holdings and was involved in the founding petitions.Hudson, Richard (ed.) (Summer 2025). The Salopian no. 175, p. 78. Available at: https://www.yumpu.com/en/document/read/70706800/the-salopian-summer-2025 (Accessed 15 August 2025). Also involved in the founding petitions was Reginald Corbet (who married Hill's heiress, Alice Gratewood), a justice of the peace for Shropshire and commissioner for chantries in the county, who was paid ten shillings in 1548 "for a supplication exhibited to the Lord Chancellor to obtain a free school".Corbet, Augusta Elizabeth Brickdale: The family of Corbet; its life and times, Volume 2, pp. 267–269 at Open Library, Internet Archive, accessed July 2013. Significantly, there was also a receipt for 20 pence to bribe the Lord Chancellor's servant to win his ear.
Foundation and early years
Shrewsbury School was founded by charter granted by King Edward VI on 10 February 1552.
The school began operation in a house and land purchased from John Proude in 1551, together with three rented half-timbered buildings, which included Riggs Hall, built in 1450. These are now the only remaining part of the original buildings occupied by the institution. Archaeological excavations of the sites of these first buildings in 1978 revealed finds going back to the Saxon period, along with relics of the school, now in the town collections.
The early curriculum was based on Continental Calvinism under its foundational headmaster, Thomas Ashton (appointed 1562). Prior to his appointment a special license had been obtained from Mathew Parker, Elizabeth I's first Archbishop of Canterbury, on the grounds that Ashton not being available would damage the progress of the school's foundation.The article does not name the parish from which Ashton was absent. Ashton was a contemporary of Roger Ascham at St John's, Cambridge: Ascham was a writer on theories of education and served in the administrations of Edward VI, Mary I, and Elizabeth I, having earlier acted as Elizabeth's tutor in Greek and Latin between 1548 and 1550."Ascham, Roger" in The New Encyclopædia Britannica. Chicago: Encyclopædia Britannica Inc., 15th edn., 1992, Vol. 1, p. 617.
Early pupils were taught the catechism of Calvin. The school attracted large numbers of pupils from Protestant families in Shropshire, North Wales and beyond, with 266 boys on its roll at the end of 1562.Article on Thomas Ashton by Martin R. Speight.
Early pupils lodged with local families. For example, Sir Philip Sidney (who had a well-known correspondence with his father about his schooling) lodged in the castle ward with George Leigh, who had been Member of Parliament for Shrewsbury. In this period Elizabeth I's favourite Robert Dudley, 1st Earl of Leicester also visited the school to see his nephew Thomas Sidney and attended a service at St Mary's Church.
Sidney attended the school along with his lifelong friend Fulke Greville (later Lord Brooke), The literary output of these school-day associations became significant: in 1579 Francis Bacon joined their circle, which also included Mary Sidney (Philip's sister, by then Countess of Pembroke).
Ashton resigned his headmastership in 1568. From 1571, Ashton was in the service of Walter Devereux, 1st Earl of Essex, was involved in the education of his son the 2nd Earl,) and was employed in confidential communications with Queen Elizabeth I and the Privy Council.
Having achieved a reputation for excellence under Ashton, in 1571 the school was augmented by Elizabeth I. By 1581, the school had 360 pupils, and it was described by William Camden in 1582 as "the best filled [school] in all England"; the population of the town grew by about 5% when the boarders returned during term time during this period. In 1585 the schoolboys stood in battle array with bows and arrows by the castle gates when the Earl of Essex entered the town.
In 1578 Ashton returned to Shrewsbury, where he had been ordered by an indenture of Elizabeth IShrewsbury Free Grammar School Act 1798, Local Acts of the Parliament of Great Britain, 1798 c. lxviii (Regnal 38 Geo 3) Available from:https://www.legislation.gov.uk/gbla/Geo3/38/68/contents/enacted to set out the ordinances governing the school, which were in force until 1798. Under these regulations, the borough bailiffs (mayors after 1638) had the power to appoint masters, with Ashton's old St John's College, Cambridge having an academic veto. Shrewsbury has retained links with the college, with the continued appointment of Johnian academics to the Governing Body, and the historic awarding of "closed" Shrewsbury Exhibitions.
Scholars from the school were from time to time employed by the local community to draw and witness bonds for illiterate tradesmen in this period; for instance Richard Langley (whose father, a prosperous tailor, had purchased the Shrewsbury Abbey site after the dissolution) could remember being asked by a cooper in 1556 to witness a bond "at what time he was a scholar in the free school of Shrewsbury" aged about fifteen.
1600s In 1608 the town and the school were in fierce dispute about who should be appointed second master. The headmaster, John Meighen, wished to promote the third master, Ralph Gittins; the town wished to appoint Simon Moston on the recommendation of St John's College, whose fellows had a say in the appointment of new masters. When the town's bailiffs came to install their preferred candidate on 31 August 1608, the building had already been occupied by about 60 women from the town (including three spinsters, two widows, the wives of mercers, tailors, weavers, butchers, shoemakers, tanners, glovers, carpenters and coopers) taking the headmaster's side and preferring Gittins on the basis that only the son of a burgess could serve as second master. Jamming the school benches against the doors, they barricaded themselves in the school until the following Saturday, passing a "great hammer" between themselves which had been used to gain entry to the school. The authorities sought to read the Statute on Rebellion, but the women made such a noise nobody could hear it. The incident provoked a mass of litigation in the courts of Chancery and Star Chamber in Westminster.
A house (today called Stone Grange) was built for the school in 1617 in the nearby village of Grinshill as a retreat in times of plague.
The stone buildings on Castle Gates, including a chapel, dormitories, library and classrooms, were completed by 1630, with Ashton's successor, John Meighen, founding a chained library in 1606, though the library had begun making acquisitions by 1596, with a terrestrial globe by the first English globe maker Emery Molineux being its first acquisition. The bookcases in the library (with the books chained to them) projected from the walls between the windows on both sides of the room forming alcoves for study: an arrangement that may still be seen in Duke Humphrey's Library in Oxford. The completion of this room was celebrated by the masters and Bailiffs on 1 October 1612 by taking cake and wine in the new space.
Civil War Shrewsbury was occupied on behalf of the King during the Civil War, who briefly made the town his capital from September 1642. A council of war was appointed for the whole district, of which Lord Capel was president. This council held its meetings in the school library, and some of the school's books were damaged during this time.
Around September 1642 a contentious "Royal Loan" was made to Charles I of £600 (around 75% of the money in the school exchequer at the time); a further £47 was lent to the corporation of the town. The loan was acknowledged under seal by the king in the following terms: Charles Rex
Trusty and well beloved we greet you well. Whereas ye have, out of your good affection to our present service and towards the supply of our extraordinary occasions, lent unto us the sum of £600, being a stock belonging to your school founded by our royal predecessor King Edward the Sixth, in this our Town of Shrewsbury. We do hereby promise that we shall cause the same to be truly repaid unto you whensoever ye shall demand the same, and shall always remember the loan of it as a very acceptable service unto us. Given under our Signet at our Court at Shrewsbury this nth of October, 1642.
To our trusty and well beloved Richard Gibbons, late Mayor of our Town of Shrewsbury, and Thomas Chaloner, Schoolmaster of our Free School there.This was considered a misappropriation of the school's funds. This was litigated in the Court of Chancery and before the Lords Commissioners of the Great Seal by the corporation of the town after the end of the civil war. The record of the royal loan appeared in the school register at the time of the November audit of 1642, but was torn out by the time the matter was before the courts. The borrowed funds were never recovered.
During the Commonwealth period following the execution of Charles I, Richard Baxter suggested the establishment of a university to serve Wales at Shrewsbury, using the school's premises, but due to lack of financial provision it came to nothing. Had that scheme come to fruition the town of Shrewsbury would have the third oldest university in England behind Oxford and Cambridge.
Restoration and 1700s