Soham Grammar School reaches the
end of its 286-year history
The curtain fell yesterday on the long
and distinguished history of Soham Grammar School as a
separate establishment with an hour-long service at the
parish church.
As each of the 350 boys filed out of
church, they shook hands with the headmaster, Mr. Edward
Armitage, and the staff lined up under the trees
alongside the churchyard path, and then went on their way
to their summer holidays.
The school dates back to 1686, although
a school had existed at Soham, in some form, for 100
years before that.
When the boys return next term, it will
be to an 11 to 16 comprehensive school made up of their
ex-grammar school and the neighbouring village college.
The new school, keeping the name Soham Village College,
becomes part of the Ely-Soham comprehensive set up - the
Ely Federation of colleges.
|
Mr Edward Armitage, headmaster of Soham Grammar School,
leads the parade of pupils and staff to Soham Church. [Cambridge Evening News 29th July 1972: the cutting used is incomplete] |
Earlier, the boys, headed by Mr. Armitage,
staff and governors had paraded the half mile from the grammar
school to the Church for this last ceremony. And, joined by old
boys, parents and friends, they heard the vice-chairman of the
governors, the Rev. Max Williams, Vicar of Cheveley, say:
"This is not only the end of term, it is the end of an
era."
Mr. Williams said: "We are commemorating a
school which has existed in some form or another for nearly 400
years. Now the pattern is changing and the grammar school as such
ceases to exist. We move into a greater world, a federation of
schools."
He recalled the small group of men who, in
1686, felt there should be some kind of institution whereby
education, which was the privilege of the rich should also become
the right of the poor.
Mr Williams said it was a moment of nostalgia,
but they should be thankful to those who contributed to making
the school what it became.
"Today we leave it perhaps with regret,
but I am sure that the spirit that has been engendered over
nearly three centuries cannot possibly die. I am sure that if the
.... new federation, then we need have no .. [text unreadable in
the original]
Order of
Service