Mill Hill School

School House at Mill Hill School

A committee of Nonconformist merchants and ministers, including John Pye-Smith, founded the school[2] for boys on 25 January 1807. They located it outside the boundary of London because of "dangers both physical and moral, awaiting youth while passing through the streets of a large, crowded and corrupt city". The school is in peaceful, secure and rural surroundings, but by today's standards very close to Central London. A boarding school was opened in the house once occupied by Peter Collinson, with about 20 boys. The Rev John Atkinson was the first headmaster and chaplain until 1810.[lower-alpha 1]

Mill Hill School occupies a 120-acre (49 ha) site, part of which formed the gardens of Ridgeway House, the house of the botanist Peter Collinson. He was one of the most important importers of rare and exotic plants into English gardens. Many of the species that he introduced to Mill Hill in the 18th Century continue to flourish today in the grounds of the School. In 1746 Collinson planted Britain's first hydrangea on the grounds, now located adjacent to School House.

The estate was purchased by the botanist Richard Salisbury in 1802, Ridgeway House became the setting for a long-running scientific dispute between the new owner and his guest, James Edward Smith.[4] The flora of Mill Hill was supplemented by the work of the amateur botanist Richard William Bowry Buckland (died 1947), governor of the foundation from 1878 to 1889, who cultivated a garden in the south-west of the school's grounds for the enjoyment of future generations. He wrote in his diary:

In years bygone I pray to thee,
This willow here, my legacy
As I have sat, pray sit thee.
In shaded splendour
Millhillians; rest hither.

— (signed Richard Buckland)

In 1939, Mill Hill School's premises were taken over by the British government and the school was evacuated to St. Bees School in Cumberland for the duration of the Second World War. Collinson House, a school for girls, was named for it. A St Bees Association was founded in commemoration of this period of evacuation in the school's history by Michael Berry OBE and David Smith.[5]

Mill Hill first admitted Sixth Form girls in 1975 and became fully co-educational in 1997. The BBC news website usually uses a picture taken at Mill Hill School for articles about boarding schools.[6][7]

In 2005 the school was one of 50 of the country's leading independent schools which were found guilty of running an illegal price-fixing cartel, exposed by The Times. Together they had driven up fees for thousands of parents.[8] Each school was required to pay a nominal penalty of £10,000, and all agreed to make ex-gratia payments totalling three million pounds into a trust. It is to benefit persons who were students at the schools during the cartel period.[9]

In March 2007, Mill Hill celebrated its bicentenary. To mark the occasion, the school was granted a new coat of arms by Robert Noel, Her Majesty's Lancaster Herald.[10]

In 2018, the school experienced controversy when it was featured in the music video of London rapper Stefflon Don. In it, she was shown nude in the changing room showers, dancing on tables in classrooms, and smoking marijuana in the dormitories.[11] [12] [13]

Mill Hill School is divided into houses. These are:

In January 2016, Frances King became the school's first female Head.[14]

The following people have served as Head:

^1 Evans served as Head from January 1828 to June 1828.

The school is run by the Mill Hill School Foundation,[15] a registered charity under English law.[16] The foundation offers education to boys and girls aged 3 to 18 in three schools. The foundation's other schools are:

• Belmont School – a day school for pupils aged 7–13. Head: Mr Leon Roberts
• Grimsdell – a pre-preparatory day school for pupils aged 3–7. Head: Mrs Kate Simon
• The Mount School – a mixed day and boarding school for international pupils aged 11–16. Head: Ms Sarah Bellotti.

• Michael Bishop, Baron Glendonbrook, businessman
• Jasper Britton, actor
• Russell Brain, 1st Baron Brain, neurologist
• David Buck, actor
• Richard Berengarten, poet
• Francis Cammaerts
• James Challis, astronomer
• Ernest Cook, English philanthropist and businessman (grandson of Thomas Cook)
• Chris Corner, producer and songwriter
• Francis Crick, A sculpted bust of Francis Crick by John Sherrill Houser, which incorporates a single 'Golden' Helix, was cast in bronze in the artist's studio in New Mexico, US. The bronze was first displayed at the Francis Crick Memorial Conference (on Consciousness) at the University of Cambridge's Churchill College on 7 July 2012; it was bought by Mill Hill School in May 2013, and was displayed at their inaugural Crick Dinner on 8 June 2013.
• Richard Dimbleby, broadcaster
• John Richard Easonsmith, officer
• Ivor Malcolm Haddon Etherington, mathematician
• David Dayan Fisher, actor
• Seb Fontaine, house music DJ
• Felix Francis, author of the 'Dick Francis' novels
• Nicholas Franks, Professor of Biophysics and Anaesthetics at Imperial College London
• Inglis Gundry, composer, novelist, musicologist, music pedagogue and writer
• Tanika Gupta, playwright and scriptwriter
• Joseph Hardcastle, Liberal Member of Parliament
• Sir Norman Hartnell, fashion designer
• Hartley Heard, cricketer
• Thomas Helmore, choirmaster and choral historian and writer
• Francis Heron, England footballer and FA Cup winner
• Hubert Heron, England footballer and FA Cup winner
• Peter Youngblood Hills, actor
• Stanislav Ianevski, actor
• Chaz Jankel, musician
• Simon Jenkins, newspaper columnist, editor and author
• Robert Evan Kendell, psychiatrist
• Evgeny Lebedev, owner of Independent and Evening Standard newspapers
• Keith Levene, musician, Public Image Limited
• Nick Leslau, businessman
• Tom Lindsay, Rugby Union Player
• Malcolm Mackintosh, Special Operations Executive operative and intelligence analyst
• Norman Macrae, British journalist, former Deputy Editor of The Economist
• Ernest Maddox, eye surgeon and inventor of numerous optical instruments such as Maddox rod and Maddox wing
• Bob Marshall-Andrews, politician
• Harry Melling, actor
• Thanos Papalexis, businessman
• Sajith Premadasa, Sri Lankan politician
• Adam Rossington, Middlesex cricketer
• Paul Sandifer, neurologist
• Vir Sanghvi, journalist, columnist, and talk show host
• Ernest Satow, British scholar, diplomat and Japanologist
• Daniel Sharman, actor
• Henry Shaw, botanist
• Tulip Siddiq, Labour Member of Parliament [17]
• George Spencer-Brown, mathematician
• Roger Spong, international rugby union footballer, England and Great Britain
• Mitchell Symons, journalist and writer
• Sir Denis Thatcher Bart., husband of the former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher
• David Tinker, Royal Navy officer killed in the Falklands War
• Lord Toulson, Justice of the Supreme Court
• Patrick Troughton, actor
• Austin Vince, long distance adventure motorcyclist
• Eric A. Walker, Professor Emeritus of Imperial History at the University of Cambridge
• Herbert Ward, explorer, writer and sculptor, whose statue Grief was presented to the school by the artist[18]
• Sir Frank William Wills Kt., architect, surveyor & Lord Mayor of Bristol. He was also a member of the Wills tobacco family.
• Sir George Alfred Wills Bt. businessman & chairman of Imperial Tobacco
• William Wills, 1st Baron Winterstoke, businessman, Liberal politician, High Sheriff of Bristol & 1st chairman of Imperial Tobacco

In honour of Patrick Troughton the Mill Hill theatre was dedicated to the actor and named the Patrick Troughton Theatre in 2007.

Notes

Citations

• Braithwaite, Roderick (2006). 'Strikingly Alive', The History of the Mill Hill School Foundation 1807–2007. Chichister: Phillimore & Co. ISBN 978-1-86077-330-3.

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Mill Hill School.

• Official website
• Profile on ISC website
• Old Millhillians Club
• Mill Hill at War, 1914–1919 at the Wayback Machine (archived 16 May 2014)
• Institute of Historical Research and the History of Parliament Trust's early history of Mill Hill School