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21 Aug, 2019
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Latymer Upper School

Latymer Upper School is a public school (now co-educational) in Hammersmith, London, England, between King Street and the River Thames. It derives from a charity school, part of the same Latymer Foundation, founded in 1624 by the English merchant Edward Latymer. There is a junior school on site, but with approximately 1,200 pupils, most students are admitted to the Upper School through examination and interview at the age of eleven, with some entering at 16. The school's academic results place it among the top schools nationally, and it has historically accepted under 10% of applicants.

Having opened on its King Street site in 1895, the school spent a period of time in the mid-20th century as a direct grant grammar school, before becoming independent with the system's abolition in the 1970s. Remaining single-sex until 1996, when Sixth Form admissions were opened to girls, the school transitioned to full co-education in the first decade of the 21st century.

Latymer's alumni include members of both Houses of Parliament, winners of Olympic medals, actors, musicians, and many figures in the arts and sciences.

History

Foundation

Latymer Upper School has its origins in the will of Edward Latymer, a wealthy lawyer and Puritan, who left part of his wealth for the clothing and education of "eight poore boyes" from Hammersmith. This was intended "to keep them from idle and vagrant courses, and also to instruct them in some part of God's true religion". He owned Butterwick Manor and the land round about in Hammersmith. Most of Butterwick Manor House was demolished in 1836, except for one wing of the building, Bradmore House. This had been converted into a separate house in 1736; it survives on Queen Caroline Street, Hammersmith.

Latymer split his Butterwick Manor estate three ways, allocating 6 acres of land to provide charity for the poor of St Dunstan-in-the-West in the City of London; 8½ acres for what became The Latymer School in Edmonton; and 28½ acres for the Latymer Foundation at Hammersmith.

Edward Latymer's deed of conveyance 1627, transferring land of Butterwick Manor to the Latymer Foundation
View of Butterwick House and its south wing, Bradmore House. Watercolour by Robert Blemmell Schnebbelie, 1839.
Bradmore House, Queen Caroline Street, Hammersmith: all that survives of Butterwick Manor. 1904 lithograph by Philip Norman.

Latymer Charity School, St Paul's churchyard, Hammersmith

From 1628 to 1648, with one short interval, the Latymer boys attended a school in Fulham churchyard erected partly at the expense of Dr. Thomas Edwards (died c. 1618), but in 1648 the boys were transferred to another school lately erected in Hammersmith by Mr. Palmer and Mr. Bull. About 1657 a parochial charity school was established, and it was there that the Latymer boys attended for the next hundred years. A girls' school came into existence at some time before 1689, and it is possible that the three schools were conducted under the same roof but with separate finances.

By 1755 the existing building had become dilapidated, and it was replaced by one of two storeys to accommodate 25 girls on the ground floor and 20 boys above. The cost, however, proved a serious drain on the income of the charity and the numbers were reduced to 15 boys and 15 girls. In 1819 two rooms were added and the numbers increased to 80 boys and 50 girls, who were educated on the national system of the day. Later the income of the girls' charity decreased and it was absorbed into the St Paul's parochial school, but the Latymer boys' school flourished, having 100 boys but no room for extension.

Painting of Latymer Charity School (right) in churchyard of St Paul's, Hammersmith, between 1756 and 1862
The Latymer Charity School was in the centre of Hammersmith, beside St Paul's church. The later Latymer Foundation School was to the east; the current school is to the west.

Latymer School, King Street East

In 1863 a new building for 125 boys was erected between King Street East (now Hammersmith Road) and Great Church Lane, a little to the east of Hammersmith Broadway. Sixteen years later a new scheme was drawn up which diverted the bulk of the income to a new Upper School to provide secondary education for 150 boys; clothing was not provided and fees were to be charged. The existing school was to be conducted as a primary school to be known as the Latymer Lower School. It later became a London County Council school, not charging fees, and was renamed the Latymer Foundation School. By 1960 the roll listed over 300 boys aged between nine and seventeen. In 1961 the governors decided that a modern education could not be given in the existing building, that it was impossible to rebuild, and that they must therefore close it. The L.C.C. school closed in July 1963.

Latymer Upper School, King Street

In 1878 it was agreed to build a new school in Hammersmith, with three of the governors to be appointed by the local borough council, and two by the London School Board. The new buildings for the Upper School, erected between King Street and the river, were opened by the Bishop of London in 1895. The school taught boys aged up to 16; the fees were £5, and boys from local schools could apply for scholarships. The range of subjects taught included practical mechanics and experimental chemistry. In less than two years the numbers reached 300; in 1901, accommodation was increased to admit 450 by the addition of five classrooms, laboratories, and a workshop.

In 1930 the main block was extended southward, and in 1934 further additions were made by the acquisition of existing buildings at the corner of King Street and Weltje Road. These were altered for school use, a biology laboratory was added, and a room on the top floor was converted into a chapel, consecrated in 1938. In 1951 the governors bought Rivercourt House on the river bank, and this made it possible to increase the number of boys to over a thousand. Between 1957 and 1961 new physics laboratories were built, largely as a result of a grant from the Industrial Fund for the Advancement of Science in Schools. The total number of boys in the school in 1964 was approximately 1,150.

In the 1950s, the school was a direct grant grammar school, which took large numbers of state school pupils, whose fees were paid by the local authority, solely on the basis of merit in the school's entrance examination. At the same time, it continued to take some fee-paying pupils. The Direct Grant system was abolished from 1975, and the school became fully independent of government funding. The Sixth Form has been co-educational since 1996, and in 2004 the main school started to become co-educational, with the introduction of girls into Year 7. With that year's entry moving into Year 11, the school became fully co-educational by 2008. Each year, the school gathers in the nearby St. Paul's church for "Founder's Day", an annual reflection upon and celebration of Edward Latymer and other benefactors of the school. As a member of the Headmasters' and Headmistresses' Conference (HMC) it is a public school.

The 1895 building
The north doorway, with Edward Latymer's crest and ornamental stonework

School

Fees

Tuition for 2020 was £21,000 per year, plus other mandatory and optional fees.

Latymer offers a bursary programme, with 176 pupils on means-tested bursaries. For families with incomes unable to pay the fees, Latymer Upper is free. The school has a substantial fund from donations ring-fenced to fund bursaries; in 2017–18 it had a total income of £34.7 million, with a surplus over expenditure of £8.2 million. Of that surplus, £7.9 million was from ring-fenced donations for bursaries; the school added £2.5 million to that to pay for bursaries during that tax year.

Activities

There are over 140 clubs and societies at Latymer, including the J. S. Mill, Literary and Latymer Societies and clubs for bridge, chess, debating, philosophy and photography. The Drama Society holds several productions each year. The school participates in the Duke of Edinburgh Award scheme. The school offers all students a trip every year in 'Activities Week'. Trips range from outward bound camping, mountain walking, and sailing, to the cultural with visits to Barcelona, Paris, and Venice; local activities have included visiting London art galleries, producing a pantomime, and making a documentary film.

The Latymer Upper School Boat Club taught Andy Holmes, Olympic gold medal rower (1984 Games and 1988 Games), and the cox Henry Fieldman, Olympic bronze medal rower (2020 Games). The Boat Club has gone on to win Henley Royal Regatta, most recently with the win of the Diamond Jubilee Challenge Cup in 2019.

Facilities

The Latymer Theatre and Arts Centre, opened in 2000, includes a 300-seat galleried box theatre named the Edward Latymer Theatre and an art gallery. The Latymer Performing Arts Centre, completed in 2009, contains drama studios, rehearsal rooms and a 150-seat recital hall. The Science and Library building, opened in 2010, includes labs for the three sciences and a library with seating for more than 200 pupils which occupies a floor at the base. Van Heyningen and Haward Architects were responsible for constructing these four buildings.

The Sports Centre was opened in March 2016; it has a six-lane swimming pool, basketball hoops, badminton markings, cricket nets, a fitness suite, and a rock climbing wall, and serves as an area for pupils to take their examinations.

The school's playing fields are about a mile and a half away, on Wood Lane. The playing fields are used for training by the England Rugby Team.

Coat of arms

The school for many years used the armorial bearings of the founder, Edward Latymer. This included his motto, Latin: Paulatim ergo certe ("Slowly therefore surely"), which doubled as a pun, including the word "latimer" (spelt thus as there is no letter y in Latin). An intermediate coat of arms was taken from one of the quarters of the original coat of arms which combined that of the Latymer Foundation and of the Latymer School. In 2004, the school crest was simplified and the motto was dropped from the design. The crest was changed again to its current form in September 2020.

Academic performance

Latymer Upper School is rated by the Tatler Schools Guide as one of the highest academically performing schools in the UK. The school's own on-site prep pupils enter the Upper School automatically at the end of Year 6; pupils from other schools sit an examination in English and mathematics. There were 33 Oxbridge places in 2017, and several pupils went to US universities such as Brown, Columbia, Dartmouth, Harvard, Princeton, Stanford, Pennsylvania and Yale. GCSE and A-Level summaries over five years are summarised in the table.