Lockers Park School
| Motto | bene agere ac laetari (Latin for good work, good manners, good fun (lit. "to do well and to have fun") |
|---|---|
| Type | Prep School |
| Headmaster | Mr Christopher Wilson BA (Cantab), PGCE |
| Chair of Governors | C Lister BSc (Hons) MBA |
| Founder | Henry Montagu Draper |
| Location |
Hemel Hempstead Hertfordshire HP1 1TL England |
| Staff | 40 (approx.) |
| Students | 150 (approx.) |
| Gender | Boys Only (co-ed in Reception and Years 1 & 2) |
| Ages | 4–13 |
| Website |
www |
Lockers Park School is a day and boarding preparatory school for boys and co-educational pre-preparatory school, situated in 23 acres of countryside in Hemel Hempstead, Hertfordshire. Each year it sends boys to public schools in the UK, including Harrow, Eton, Radley, Bradfield, Shrewsbury School and Rugby. Its current headmaster is Christopher Wilson.
History
Lockers Park has a long history. It was founded in 1874 by Henry Montagu Draper to be a foundation school preparing boys for Rugby School, and is thus one of the earliest purpose-built preparatory schools in England.
It is built on the parkland of a significant Georgian house, called The Lockers, which still exists, now divided into apartments. Henry Draper took the opportunity to buy the 23 acres (93,000 m2) of parkland when the owner of The Lockers fell on hard times, and built a school with facilities to house the sons of gentlefolk who intended their sons for Rugby. He was guided in his choice of location by the proximity of the site to Boxmoor (now Hemel Hempstead) station, and its situation on the route from London to Rugby.
In the following years Lockers Park School sent boys to Eton, Harrow, Winchester, Rugby, Bradfield, Uppingham, and Haileybury, among others. Stowe did not appear until later, but also takes boys from Lockers Park.
In the 1940s and 1950s, the veteran England all-round cricketer Frank Woolley (1887–1978) was the school's cricket coach.[1]
Many traditions from the days of Draper still continue, maintained within the updated buildings and alongside the modern curriculum. Tuck and sweets (which Draper did his best to discourage parents from supplying to boys on exeats!) are still known as ‘slatter’, after a Mr Slatter who owned a sweet shop in Boxmoor; boys have ‘Sets’ rather than houses, the names being those of famous soldiers and naval officers, Beatty, Haig, Jellicoe, Kitchener, Mountbatten and Roberts; and the system of effort grades, emphasizing attitude and application as the most important elements of education, is the same today as that instituted by the first Headmaster.
Former pupils
- See also Category:People educated at Lockers Park School
The list of distinguished (or well-known) old boys of Lockers Park includes the following:
- Louis Mountbatten, 1st Earl Mountbatten of Burma, last Viceroy of India[2]
- Prince Maurice of Battenberg
- Basil Hamilton-Temple-Blackwood, 4th Marquess of Dufferin and Ava (1909 –1945), Conservative politician[3]
- Guy Burgess, spy[3]
- Mansoor Ali Khan, Nawab of Pataudi, captain of the Indian cricket team[1]
- Sir Keith Joseph, Conservative politician
- James Lees-Milne, architectural historian[3]
- Tom Mitford, brother of the Mitford Sisters
- Paul Channon, Baron Kelvedon (1935–2007), Conservative politician
- Saif Ali Khan, Indian film actor and titular Nawab of Pataudi
- John Dermot Campbell (1898–1945), Ulster Unionist politician
- Robert Henriques (1905-1967), writer and broadcaster
- Edward James (1907–1984), poet[3]
- Peter Watson (1908–1956), patron of the arts[3]
Notes
- 1 2 Suresh Menon, The Shorter Wisden India Almanack 2013 (2013, ISBN 9382951016), p. lxii
- ↑ "Mountbatten, Louis Francis Albert Victor Nicholas". The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. 2004. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/31480.
- 1 2 3 4 5 Michael Bloch, James Lees-Milne: The Life (John Murray, 2009, ISBN 978-0-7195-6034-7), p. 17