Brewood Grammar School

Brewood Grammar School

Established	c. c. 1450, refounded 1575
Closed	1975
Type	grammar school
Founders	Bishop of Lichfield
Location	Brewood Staffordshire England
Gender	male

Brewood Grammar School was a boys' school in the village of Brewood in South Staffordshire, England.

Founded in the mid 15th century by the Bishop of Lichfield as a chantry school it was closed by the 1547 Act of Dissolution of Chantries. It was re-founded by Matthew Knightley and Sir Thomas Gifford around 1575 and survived as a grammar school until 1975 when its last headmaster, Roy Leafe, retired. It then became a mixed-sex middle school in 1977. As a 20th-century grammar school it took a number of boarders who lived at Wheaton Aston Hall, and taught agricultural science. The school had a small attached farm with cattle and poultry.

The original building does not survive. The earliest part of the remaining buildings, originally two houses donated to the school, dates from 1778. In 1799 these were enclosed in the school grounds by moving the road. They were rebuilt in 1856 as Rushall House (now Grade II listed) and used as a schoolroom and dormitories. In 1863 the headmaster's house was rebuilt, and further extensions to the school were made in 1898, 1926, 1935, and 1952.

The school is commemorated in a recent memorial window in the nearby parish church, St Mary and St Chad.

Notable staff

William Budworth (1699–1745) was headmaster here and failed to employ Samuel Johnson

References

• Brewood, David Horovitz, 1988, ISBN 1-85421-011-4
• Brewood and Penkridge in Old Photographs, Adrienne Whitehouse, 1988, ISBN 0-86299-519-1