TrustNews Mar 2022

Peter Symonds School

This year marks the 125th anniversary of the opening of Peter Symonds’ School. Phil Yates, an old Symondium, tells the story of the school and its founder, Peter Symonds.

 

Peter Symonds was born c.1530 in Winchester, the eldest of four sons raised by John Symonds, the city’s bailiff, and his wife Joan. After school he was apprenticed to a London mercer, and in 1558 he became a full-time member of the Worshipful Company of Mercers. By 1582 he was one of the two richest men in his parish, owning land and property at Chadwell in Essex and Trinity Marsh, West Ham, and a farm at East Shalford in Surrey. Peter died in 1587. In his will, which ran to 50 pages, he directed that after his wife's eath, a group of trustees should secure a licence and an act of parliament for an almshouse to be constructed at Winchester named Christ's Hospital, in the street named after him (now Symonds Street).This was completed by c 1605. The occupants of the almshouse were ‘six poor aged unemployed men’ and ‘four boys’. Today, Christ's Hospital is home to elderly citizens of the city, and is administered by St John's Winchester.

 

The charities established by Peter Symonds provided the funding for the creation of a school, and Peter Symonds’ School for ‘boy students’ was opened on 4 May 1897 at 39 Southgate Street, its temporary premises. Two years later it moved to its permanent home in Owens Road on land acquired from Winchester college.

 

 

The school's first headmaster was Rev Telford Varley, and he was followed in 1926 by Dr PT Freeman, who was headmaster when I was a pupil there. About 300-400 scholars aged 1 1-16 were educated every year until 1972, when the last 11-plus entry for boys took place.

 

An article on the school from 1972 onwards will appear in a future edition of TrustNews, together with Phil's experiences of being at the school during the Second World War.