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The Kensington Proprietary Grammar School, colloquially referred to as the Kensington School,〔''William Haig Brown of Charterhouse : a short biographical memoir'' (1908) - London : Macmillan〕 was an educational establishment founded in 1830 that is perhaps best remembered for being one of the founders of the Football Association in 1863. ==History== Kensington School was established in 1830 in union with the Corporation of King's College London for the purpose ''"of providing an efficient course of education for youth, comprising religious and moral instruction in conformity with the principles of the Established Church, the Greek, Latin and Modern languages anc literature, History, Geography, Mathematics and such other branches of knowledge and such accomplishments as it may be practicable and advantageous to introduce."'' It was intended to create a first-grade institution in connection with the Church of England. The Vicar of Kensington was the President the Bishop of London was the Patron.〔 The school opened on 24 January 1831 with twenty pupils. The proprietors had taken a house on a short tenure in Kensington Square, the intention being that if after a trial period of two years the school was a success they would either take a lease or go elsewhere. The school quickly established itself.〔 The system of education to be adopted was prepared a few days before the school opened in 1831 by the Rev. T. S. Evans, the first headmaster. Approximately one third of the boys' time was to be devoted to the study of Latin and Greek, slightly more time to religious instruction, history, mathematics and arithmetic, and slightly less to French, geography and writing. The monitorial system of teaching was employed, whereby the masters taught only the monitors who in turn passed on the instruction they had received to their schoolfellows. By the time the school was about to take possession of the new schoolroom in January 1834, this system was abandoned in favour of the boys being divided into six separate classes. These classes were all held in the one large room, until 1837, when two new classrooms were added to the existing building. In 1838 the school acquired the next-door house at No. 26 and in 1845 another two classrooms were built on top of the original schoolroom. In 1834, dancing and drawing were introduced. The school had immediately established an annual award of an exhibition at the Universities of the value of £50 a year for three years. Additionally it awarded an Indian cadetship, said to have formed the greatest attraction for pupils. In 1841 the school provided special courses to prepare boys for the East India Company's colleges at Haileybury and Addiscombe. As a result, Hindustani, military drawing, fortification, drill and fencing were all gradually introduced.〔 A cadetship was created in 1842 by Sir Henry Willock, a Director of the East India Company, who was also one of the Directors of the School. The cadetship was an annual appointment to Addiscombe. This was to be "for the youth at Kensington School who may surpass his fellow students in merit and learning". The award lasted for nineteen years and not only attracted boys to the school but also directed school studies towards preparation for military life. In 1845, when the number of pupils had reached 130, of whom 85 were boarders, the directors decided to buy No. 28 Kensington Square and use it as a boarding house, in order to relieve pressure on the headmaster's own house.〔 However, only a part of No. 28 was used in this way, the rest being let to the second master at £70 per annum, while his former residence at No. 26 was added to the headmaster's house. In 1849, gas-lighting was installed in the lower rooms at Nos. 26 and 27 and later the school library was in No. 26. More classrooms were built in the back garden of No. 28 in 1853.〔 By 1857, Kensington School held a high position, due to the success of its scholars at the Universities and more especially to the number of boys trained for the military services. It is said that the curriculum of Kensington School supplied a want which the public schools had not yet attempted to meet in that, prior to the mid-nineteenth century, the study of classics was supreme in the public schools, with mathematics, modern languages and science but only tolerated. Although this changed in the latter half of the century, Kensington were already satisfying the requirements of parents and giving also what the Universities and military examiners wanted. Records suggest that by 1857, despite the school's enhanced academic reputation, the headmaster of the time had allowed general discipline in the school to relax, so deeply immersed was he in the study of oriental literature. The indiscipline was not confined to pupils. The second master was allowed to keep as boarders private pupils who did not belong to the school. The formidable Haig Brown joined the school in 1857 instilling a sense of discipline once again and he remained at Kensington till 1863. His departure for Charterhouse was perhaps one of the causes which led eventually to the collapse of Kensington School. It is possible that, had he remained there, his powerful influence might have induced the Directors to oppose the Bill presented in Parliament by the Metropolitan Railway Company for powers to appropriate the playground, and they might thus have obtained sufficient compensation to enable them to remove the school elsewhere.〔 The loss of the playground in 1865 was the chief cause of the final disbandment of the school. A much smaller playground was made in the back garden of No. 25, taken on lease in about 1864 and sub-let as a boarding house to one of the assistant masters.〔 By 1869, there were only 45 pupils left, and the school had accumulated debts of over £2,000. In July 1869, therefore, the proprietors voted to close it down and sold the school buildings to the Rev. Charles Tabor Ackland, one of the assistant masters. His intention to open an Endowed Grammar School did not take place until 1873. In the meantime Ackland assumed the headmastership and carried on the school on his own responsibility as the Kensington Foundation Grammar School, formally established under this name in July 1873.〔 Under Ackland's headship the school flourished and within ten years of re-opening it had 130 pupils. In 1881, Ackland resigned and soon numbers began to fall off, particularly after the opening in 1884 of St. Paul's School in Hammersmith, only one-and-a-quarter miles from Kensington Square. In 1890 the headmaster tried to close the school but the trustees would not allow this, and it struggled on for a few more years until in 1896, When there were only ten or twelve pupils, it did finally close. The trustees, who by then had let all five houses fronting the square to private tenants, still hoped to use the back premises for educational work, and their scheme for the Kensington School of Science and Art received the approval of the Charity Commissioners in 1898 but was abandoned when the trustees found themselves unable to pay off the mortgage debt on the property.〔 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Kensington School」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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