The Bemrose School

Updated on Dec 26, 2023

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Established 1930 Founded 1930		Phone +44 1332 366711
Type Trust School from 2009, previously mixed comprehensive (1975 to 2009), originally a boys grammar school from 1930 to 1975. Location Uttoxeter New Road Derby Derbyshire DE22 3HU England Houses Chatsworth, Haddon, Hardwick, Kedleston Website www.bemrose.derby.sch.uk Address Uttoxeter New Rd, Derby DE22 3HU, UK Motto Learning together, working together, achieving together Similar Littleover Community School, Derby Moor Communi, Derby High School, Murray Park Communi, Landau Forte College

The bemrose school 2016 levers

The Bemrose School is a foundation trust secondary school situated on Uttoxeter New Road, Derby, England, with an age range of pupils from 3 – 18.

History

A new school called the Derby Municipal Secondary School for Boys was founded in Abbey Street, Derby, and opened on 12 September 1902. In December 1923, a new site for the school was acquired in Uttoxeter Road, Derby, and for some years was used for games. New school buildings designed by the architect Alexander Macpherson were built on the new site in 1928–1930 at a cost of £71,746, and when the school moved into them in 1930 it was renamed Bemrose School, in honour of the services to education of the Bemrose family of Derby, and in particular of Dr Henry Howe Bemrose. The new school was officially opened on 11 July 1930 by Sir Charles Trevelyan, President of the Board of Education.

A memorial to the sixty-eight old boys of the former Derby Municipal Secondary School who died in the First World War was moved to the new school's main corridor where it remains to this day.

The school was originally divided into seven houses, each with its own colour and motto: Burke (Nil nisi bene), Drake (Semper audacter), Gainsborough (Vis unita fortior), Nelson, Newton (Consilio et animis), Sidney (Animo et fide), and Wellington (Pactum serva). In present times, the houses remain but there are now just four named after stately homes in Derbyshire – Chatsworth, Hardwick, Haddon, Kedleston.

The school became a grammar school, until in 1975 it was merged with Rykneld Boys' Secondary Modern School to make a new comprehensive school, when girls were first admitted, named Bemrose Community School.

When Bemrose became a Foundation Trust school the school name was changed to The Bemrose School

In 2015, a new building was built and a Primary Phase was opened making Bemrose an all through school for ages 3-19.

Headteachers

1930–1951: Mr W. A. Macfarlane MA (Oxon.) (previously head of the Derby Municipal Secondary School for Boys, 1923–1930)

1951–1957: Mr Eric G. Bennett MA (Cantab.)

1958–1971: Dr Raymond Chapman PhD (Innsbruck), previously head master of Firth Park Grammar School, Sheffield

1972–1983: Mr W. M. Wearne MA, previously head master of the Anglo-Colombian School, Bogota

1983–1993: Mr Robert Hobson

1993–1997: Mr Robert Kenney

1998–2000: Mr Julian Chartres

2001–2003: Mr Richard Feist

2004–2016: Ms Joanne Ward BSc, MA in Ed, FRSA

2016- : Mr Neil Wilkinson (Executive Headteacher)

Old Bemrosians

Boys' grammar school

Prof F. S. Northedge (1918–85), Professor of International Relations from 1968-85 at the London School of Economics (LSE)

Michael Knowles (born 1937), actor Dad's Army, It Ain't Half Hot Mum, scriptwriter Dad's Army (radio series)

James Bolam (born 1935) actor

Richard Turner (artist) (1940-2013)

Stephen Marley (born 1946), novelist

Sir Nigel Rudd (born 1947), industrialist

Prof Joe Andrew (born 1948), Professor of Russian Literature at Keele University

Prof John Loughhead OBE FREng (born 1948), Chief Scientific Adviser since 2014 of DECC, and President from 2007-08 of the IET

Trevor East (born 1950), presenter from 1973–78 of Tiswas, Deputy Managing Director from 1995-2005 of Sky Sports, and Director of Sport from 2005-09 of Setanta Sports

Steve Powell (born 1955), Derby County F.C. midfielder 1971–1985

Major General Garry Robison CB (born 1958), Commandant-General from 2006–09 of the Royal Marines, and Commandant from 2004-06 of the Commando Training Centre Royal Marines