Sir Thomas Boteler Church of England High School


Sir Thomas Boteler Church of England High School is a comprehensive school in Warrington, Cheshire.

History

Grammar school

The school was founded in 1526 by Sir Thomas Boteler. He left a legacy to pay for the education of six "poor boyes of the parishe", and this foundation later developed into the Boteler Grammar School for Boys, serving the whole of Warrington. The original school was located in the then town centre located in the area around St Elphin's Church, now included in the Church Street Conservation Area. Its nineteenth century building at School Brow was demolished some years ago.

The life of Sir Thomas Boteler

Thomas Boteler was born at Bewsey Old Hall in 1461. In 1463, his father Sir John FitzJohn le Boteler was murdered and Thomas's elder brother, William, inherited the estates. William died at the age of 22, fighting in the Lancastrian ranks at the Battle of Tewkesbury in 1471 and Thomas inherited the estates.
In November 1480 Thomas married Margaret, daughter of Sir John Delves of Doddington, who also fell at Tewksbury.
Thomas Boteler was present at the Capture of Berwick and in 1483 he was summoned to London to be knighted by Edward V. Unfortunately the king and his brother were murdered in the Tower of London by order of their uncle, the Duke of Gloucester the future Richard III, before Thomas was knighted. In 1485, when he was made a Justice of the Peace for Lancashire, Thomas still bore the title of "esquire".
Thomas, by his marriage, was related to Margaret, Countess of Richmond and when Henry of Richmond, Lady Margaret's son, landed at Milford Haven to regain the Crown of England for the Lancastrians, Thoms was part of the troops who marched south to help in the overthrow of Richard III at the battle of Bosworth Field in 1485. Thomas was either knighted on the battlefield or at the coronation of the new King, Henry VII.
The following years were uneventful. Sir Thomas was re-appointed a Justice of the Peace by Henry VIII and he busied himself with the duties of this office. About 1500 he enlarged his ancestral home at Bewsey. To the old house, built of timber and lath and plaster, he added a brick "great chamber", measuring 42 feet by 21 feet, four smaller chambers and an extra kitchen and buttery. These form the left wing of the building in the illustration by Wilmot Lunt.
In 1504 he was made a knight of the King's bodyguard, chief forester and parker of the forests and chases of Simonswood, Croxteth and Toxteth, and also steward of Liverpool.
In 1520 Sir Thomas headed the list of subscriptions for the building of the steeple at Lymm and in the same year he made his last will, which provided for the foundation of the Boteler Grammar School.
Sir Thomas died at Bewsey on and was buried in the Boteler chapel of the St. Elphin's Church. A fragment of brass which decorated the marble slab of his tomb is preseved in Warrington Museum, together with several fragments of stained glass from the memorial window which was erected by his widow in 1529.

The founder's will (1520) and the foundation deed (1526)

The passage from Sir Thomas Boeler's Will which provides for the school is:
Sir Thomas' wishes were carried into effect by a deed signed on. This deed, after recalling the Founder's intention to establish a school 'whereby mens sons might learn grammar to the Intent that they thereby might the better learn to know Almighty God" proceeds to make full regulations for the establishment and the conduct of the pupils. For example :
The full text of these documents can be found in Marsh

The decline of the house of Boteler

The school's founder was succeeded by his son, also names Thomas, who was knighted in 1533. In 1534 he was made High Sheriff of Lancashire, and in the same year was granted the arms which his father had borne before him.
In 1550 the second Sir Thomas boteler died, and was succeeded by his son who became the third Sir Thomas Boteler. In 1570 he was also made High Sheriff of Lancashire and in 1571 he was one of the two Members of Parliament for the county. He died in 1579.
His son Edward rapidly wasted his inheritance and signed a series of deeds making over the succession of all the Boteler estates to Robert Dudley, 1st Earl of Leicester, who seems to have lent him much money and to have demanded this security. Edward died in 1586 leaving no heirs and the long history of the Boteler family ended.
The new owner soon sold the estates, which eventually passed to the ancestors of Baron Lilford who continued to nominate two members of the Board of Governors of the Grammar School into the twentieth century.

The first two Masters

There are very few records of the School during the first hundred years. The first Head-master was Richard Taylor. He appears in the Bewsey register in 1524, two years before the signing of the foundation deed as "owing 19 d for the school-house". He is last mentioned in 1569, and the name of his successor, John Wakefield, first appears in 1576.
John Wakefield and Edward Boteler were close, for the latter bequeathed to "John Wakefield Scholemr of Warrington fortie pounds in money", and appointed him as one of his executors. John Wakefield died in 1605, and is buried at Warrington.
There is little doubt that Wakefield and Edward Boteler enriched themselves at the expense of the School and nearly ruined the Foundation.

The re-foundation in 1608

When Edward Boteler died in 1586, he left two sisters : Elizabeth, married to Sir Peter Warburton and Margaret, married to John Manwaringe. With the connivance of John Wakefield, John Manwaringe had secured possession of nearly all the School lands, so that the Foundation was "in greate ruyne and decay".
In 1602, Sir Peter Warburton, a lawyer and bencher of Staples Inn, took upon himself the task of recovering the lost estates of the School. To this end he filed a Bill of Complaint in the Court of the Duchy of Lancaster.
The court issued its decree in 1607, the full text of which can be found in Gray and a summary in Marsh. The re-foundation deed were based upon this decree and were confirmed by the Commission of Charitable Uses on.
Sir Peter added to the benefactions by granting to the School a rent charge of £5 per annum issuing out of a messuage in Chester. Thomas Tildisley, who assisted Sir Peter in helping to save the School, contributed to the repair of the School.

The Boteler Grammar School in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries

The seventeenth century was fairly uneventful. The School-house and premises were rebuilt by the Head-master, Samuel Shaw in 1688. The commemorative plaque was later conserved in the Victorian building of 1863. Shaw became Rector of Warrington in 1691 and he did much for the Church : in 1697 he built the square tower, which was demolished in 1859 when the spire was built.
The eighteenth century was equally uneventful. A sundial was put up in 1736 and was later transferred to the Victorian building in 1863. Notable pupils were : Thomas Percival, who can be said to have invented medical ethics ; Thomas Alcock, a clergyman in the Church of England, a pluralist and an author.
The last Headmaster of the century was Edward Owen, famous for his Latin translations and an excellent teacher. It was said of him that he was "a man of most elegant learning, unimpeachable veracity, and peculiar benevolence of heart".
The silhouettes of Owen and his curate, Edward Lloyd are from Warrington Worthies.

The Boteler Grammar School in the nineteenth century

The first quarter of the 19th century was marked by two unfortunate choices of Head-master : Robert Atherton Rawstorne and William Bordman. The former had no intention of teaching and appointed as his "usher" the Rev. William Bordman. The new Master left the entire management of the school to Bordman, who also occupied the School-house, thus converting the mastership into a sinecure. In 1810 several leading Warrington citezens took upon themselves the duty, and expense, of filing an information in the Court of Chancery. The judgement was issued in 1814 and Rawstorne was obliged to vacate the Mastership; he was replaced by Bordman. Unfortunately the behaviour of Bordman was such that constant complaints were made against him, and in 1828 the Trustees of the School agreed to pay him to retire !
The Chancery suit of 1810 had resulted in a fund, paid into Court and in 1829, after the departure of Bordman, this fund was used to built a new school, capable of accommodating 120 boys. The new Head-master, Thomas Vere Bayne, took a very keen interest in the education of his pupils. His interest was not only confined to his own school ; at that time thoughtful people were beginning to realise that no provision at all was made for the elementary education of the masses. The State had left this responsibility to voluntary societies, the chief among them being the National Society. Bayne and the Rector of Warrington raised the money for building and maintaining the National Schools in Church street, which were opened in 1833.
In 1861 the school's Trustees decided to remodel the buildings. The master's house, parts of which dated from before 1526 was pulled down, as was the new school of 1829. They were replaced by a building of Victorian Gothic style. The school re-opended in 1863 and the building was used until the late 1940s.

The Boteler Grammar School in the twentieth century

During the first quarter of the 20th century the number of pupils doubled and the building on School Brow became encircled by local industries making an expansion of the school difficult. The Governors decided to remove the school to more commodious buildings in a more desirable neighbourhood. In 1924 sixteen acres of land were purchased at Latchford and the architects S.P. Silcock and H.S. Silcock designed the New School.
By the 1930s, the Boteler school educated girls as well as boys. The new boys' school buildings opened officially the on the school's current site, while the girls remained at the town centre site. They were later moved to a new High School for Girls, on a site now occupied by Priestley College.
The opening of the new school 1940 was not marked by a commemorative plaque, due to the war conditions. However, twenty years later, the, this was rectified and the plaque in the wall of the entrance hall was unveiled by Canon E. Downham.
From the school at Latchford was administered by Cheshire County Council's Education Committee.

Head-masters of Boteler Grammar School

Comprehensive

The school became a mixed comprehensive in 1983, as Victoria Park High School. In 2002 it became Warrington's only Church of England school, coinciding with the introduction of school blazers as part of the uniform.
The sixth form moved all the pupils to the new Priestley College in the autumn of 1979. This was the same term that the first mixed comprehensive pupils started to be admitted. The remaining 4 years of grammar school pupils continued until they left after their 5th year at the school. Autumn 1983 was the first term with no more of the original grammar school pupils remaining and so the school was fully comprehensive from then on.

Admissions

The present-day school is for both sexes between the ages of 11 and 16, with no sixth form. It has a Christian ethos and serves the local area of Latchford. It lies just off the A5061 in Knutsford Road, near the railway and the Manchester Ship Canal.

Academic performance

Sir Thomas Boteler celebrated its best ever GCSE exam results in 2011, with 67% of pupils gaining 5A*-C grades and 47% gaining 5A*-C grades including English and Maths.

Notable former pupils