Ackworth School is a private

day A day is the time rotation period, period of a full Earth's rotation, rotation of the Earth with respect to the Sun. On average, this is 24 hours (86,400 seconds). As a day passes at a given location it experiences morning, afternoon, evening, ...

and

boarding school A boarding school is a school where pupils live within premises while being given formal instruction. The word "boarding" is used in the sense of "room and board", i.e. lodging and meals. They have existed for many centuries, and now extend acr ...

located in the village of High Ackworth, near

Pontefract Pontefract is a historic market town in the City of Wakefield, a metropolitan district in West Yorkshire, England. It lies to the east of Wakefield and south of Castleford. Historically part of the West Riding of Yorkshire, it is one of the ...

West Yorkshire West Yorkshire is a Metropolitan counties of England, metropolitan and Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in the Yorkshire and the Humber region of England. It borders North Yorkshire to the north and east, South Yorkshire and De ...

, England. It is one of seven Quaker schools in England. The school (or more accurately its Head) is a member of the

Headmasters' and Headmistresses' Conference The Headmasters' and Headmistresses' Conference (HMC), formerly known as the Headmasters' Conference and now branded HMC (The Heads' Conference), is an association of the head teachers of 351 private fee-charging schools (both boarding schools ...

and SHMIS. The Head is Martyn Beer, who took over in April 2024. The Senior Deputy Head is Nancy Newlands-Melvin. The school has a nursery that takes children aged 2 1/2 to 4, a Junior School (known as Coram House) that takes children age 5 to 11, and the Senior School for students aged 11 to 18. The boarding facilities cater for pupils from 11 years of age. Originally it was a boarding school for Quaker children. Today most of the school's pupils are day pupils. There are more than 25 different nationalities in the boarding houses. Most of today's pupils are not Quakers, but the school retains a strong Quaker ethos and is able to offer means-tested Bursary awards to children from Quaker and non-Quaker families. There is a very short Quaker-style silence at assembly and before meals. Once a week the School meets for a longer Meeting for Worship.

History

The school was founded by John Fothergill and others in 1779 as a

for

Quaker Quakers are people who belong to the Religious Society of Friends, a historically Protestant Christian set of denominations. Members refer to each other as Friends after in the Bible, and originally, others referred to them as Quakers ...

boys and girls. Prior to the school's foundation, the buildings housed a

foundling hospital The Foundling Hospital (formally the Hospital for the Maintenance and Education of Exposed and Deserted Young Children) was a children's home in London, England, founded in 1739 by the philanthropy, philanthropic Captain (nautical), sea captain ...

created by

Thomas Coram Sea captain, Captain Thomas Coram ( – 29 March 1751) was an English sea captain and philanthropist who created the London Foundling Hospital in Lamb's Conduit Fields, Bloomsbury, to look after abandoned children on the streets of London. It is ...

School life

Houses

The school has four houses: Woolman, Gurney, Penn and Fothergill. Penn, Gurney and Woolman were all famous Quakers, and John Fothergill was the founder of the school. Every pupil is assigned to one of the four houses at the start of their time at the school for inter-house events, which include sport, music, drama, poetry and art. Students are also divided for meals according to their houses.

Uniform

The school uniform consists of grey trousers, grey socks, light blue shirt, navy school tie, and navy-blue blazer for boys, and navy skirt, blue-and-white-striped blouse, and navy blazer for girls. The sixth form students wear their own suitable 'business style' clothing.

Music

The school has a strong musical tradition. In 1995, a purpose-built music facility was built on the site of one of the old boarding houses, comprising a recital hall with seating for 180, 14 practice rooms, 2 classrooms, a music library and a recording studio. Summer schools are sometimes held there during school holidays. In January 2019, Ackworth School became the 15th member of the All-Steinway Group of Schools.

Boarding

Boarders live together in an amalgamated boarding house. Until 1997, the school timetable included Saturday morning lessons, leaving Wednesday afternoons free, providing a more-balanced week for boarders. The changing demographic of the school has led to this being phased out.

Sixth Form

Sixth formers have free periods during which they are encouraged to study.

Charity Week

Each year in the week before October half term is Ackworth's Charity Week. Two charities, one national and one international, are chosen for which the school then raises money through a series of events. Included within these events are cake stalls, auctions, concerts and the sale of doughnuts and hot dogs. One event involves putting sixth formers in stocks and allowing younger students to throw water at them. One of the most-popular events of Charity Week is the staff/sixth-form entertainment. The sixth form and certain members of staff are encouraged to prepare a series of sketches to entertain younger students. In the middle of the event, a fund-raising activity occurs, where the sixth form raise money from the other students. On 18 October the school celebrates Founder's Day, the day on which in 1779 the school was founded. The whole school gathers in the Meeting House and sings the Founder's Day Hymn before each year group departs on a day trip, usually a walk.

Union with other Quaker schools

In 2007, the National Quaker Choral Festival was held at the school, where pupils from Quakers schools all over England came to sing in a large choir to

Karl Jenkins Sir Karl William Pamp Jenkins, , Honorary Fellow of the Learned Society of Wales, HonFLSW (born 17 February 1944) is a Welsh multi-instrumentalist and composer. His best known works include the song "Adiemus (song), Adiemus" (1995, from the Adi ...

' " The Armed Man". On 28 March 2009, the Bridge Film Festival — which had been held at Brooklyn Friends School, located in

Brooklyn Brooklyn is a Boroughs of New York City, borough of New York City located at the westernmost end of Long Island in the New York (state), State of New York. Formerly an independent city, the borough is coextensive with Kings County, one of twelv ...

, New York, for the last nine years — was held at the school. It is a Quaker film festival in which students make a film which is judged and prizes are awarded. The school entered the 2008 festival, sending several students to Brooklyn Friends School to witness the festival. For the 2009 festival, student Simon Waldock prepared a film about the history of the school; the film involved an interview with a former scholar from the 1950s. The film did not win but was commended by judges.

Notable alumni

The school's former pupils are called Ackworth Old Scholars. There is an active Old Scholars Association, with an annual Easter gathering in the school. Notable Old Scholars include: * Kweku Adoboli (born 1980), investment banker, convicted in the 2011 UBS rogue trader scandal * Henry Ashby (1846–1908), paediatrician * Henry Ashworth (1794–1880), cotton master *

John Gilbert Baker John Gilbert Baker (13 January 1834 – 16 August 1920) was an England, English botanist. His son was the botanist Edmund Gilbert Baker (1864–1949). Biography Baker was born in Guisborough in North Yorkshire, the son of John and Mary (née ...

(1834–1920), botanist * Geoffrey Barraclough (1908–1984), historian * Sir Henry Binns (1837–1899), prime minister of Natal, 1897–1899 * William Arthur Bone (1871–1938), chemist fuel technologist *

Henry Bowman Brady Henry Bowman Brady (23 February 1835 Gateshead, England – 10 January 1891 Bournemouth) was a British micropalaeontologist. Life He was the second son of Henry Brady, Surgeon of Gateshead, and his wife Hannah Bowman of Derbyshire. Henry and ...

(1835–1891), naturalist and pharmacist * John Bright (1811–1889), politician * Basil Bunting (1900–1985), poet *

Peter Christopherson Peter Martin Christopherson (also known as Sleazy; 27 February 1955 – 25 November 2010) was an English musician, video director, commercial artist, designer and photographer, who was at one time a member of design agency Hipgnosis. He also ...

(1955–2010), musician, video director and designer * Susanna Corder (1787–1864), educationist and Quaker biographer * Ruth Conroy Dalton (born 1970), architect, author and professor of architecture * Alfred Darbyshire (1839–1908), architect * Philip J Day (born 1959), documentary filmmaker * Henry Doubleday (1810–1902), starch manufacturer and

comfrey ''Symphytum'' is a genus of flowering plants in the borage family, Boraginaceae, known by the common name comfrey (pronounced , from the Latin confervere to 'heal' or literally to 'boil together', referring to uses in ancient traditional medicin ...

cultivator * William Farrer Ecroyd (1827–1915),

worsted Worsted ( or ) is a high-quality type of wool yarn, the fabric made from this yarn, and a yarn weight category. The name derives from Worstead (from Old English ''Wurðestede'', "enclosure place"), a village in the English county of Norfolk. T ...

manufacturer and politician * George Edmondson (1798–1863), headmaster of Queenwood Hall * Thomas Edmondson (1792–1851), inventor of the first railway-ticket printing machine * Sarah Stickney Ellis (1799–1872), writer and educationist * Lindsey Fawcett (born 1979), actress known for her role in ITV's Bad Girls * James Fearnley (born 1954), musician and member of

The Pogues The Pogues are an English Celtic punk band founded in King's Cross, London, in 1982, by Shane MacGowan, Spider Stacy and Jem Finer. Originally named Pogue Mahone—an anglicisation of the Irish language, Irish phrase :wikt:póg mo thóin, ''p� ...

* Arthur Charles Fox-Davies (1871–1928), heraldist * Francis Frith (1822–1898), photographer * Dominic Harrison (born 1997) Musician. Performing as

Yungblud Dominic Richard Harrison (born 5 August 1997), known professionally as Yungblud, is an English singer, songwriter and actor. In 2018, he released his debut EP ''Yungblud'', followed by his first full-length album ''21st Century Liability''. In ...

* Marie Hartley (1905–2006), artist, writer, photographer and historian * William Howitt (1792–1879), writer *Sir Philip Hunter (born 1939), educationist * Sir Joseph Hutchinson (1902–1988), geneticist and professor of agriculture * Samuel Herbert Maw (1881-1952), architect, delineator and cartographer * William Allen Miller (1817–1870), chemist * John Howard Nodal (1831–1909), journalist and dialectologist * Jacob Post (1774–1855), Quaker religious writer * Sir James Reckitt (1833–1924), starch, blue and polish manufacturer * Anna Richardson (1806–1892), philanthropist, abolitionist and pacifist * Elizabeth Robson, (1771–1843), Quaker minister * Sanil Sachar (1992-), Indian author and poet * Jane Smeal (1801-1888), abolitionist * Sir Arthur Snelling (1914–1996), diplomat * Joseph Southall (1861–1944), painter and pacifist * Patric Standford (1939–2014), musical composer * Henry Tennant (1823–1910), general manager of the North Eastern Railway, 1870–1891 * Kathleen Tillotson (1906–2001), literary scholar * Thomas Thomasson (1808–1876), cotton master * Samuel Tuke (1784–1857), philanthropist and asylum reformer * Benjamin Barron Wiffen (1794–1867), biographer * Jeremiah Holmes Wiffen (1792–1836), poet and translator * James Willstrop (born 1983), squash player * James Wilson (1805–1860), economist, founder of ''

The Economist ''The Economist'' is a British newspaper published weekly in printed magazine format and daily on Electronic publishing, digital platforms. It publishes stories on topics that include economics, business, geopolitics, technology and culture. M ...

'', politician, and financial member of the

Council of India The Council of India (1858 – 1935) was an advisory body to the Secretary of State for India, established in 1858 by the Government of India Act 1858. It was based in London and initially consisted of 15 members. The Council of India was dissolve ...

, 1859–1860 *

Rosie Winterton Rosalie Winterton, Baroness Winterton of Doncaster, (born 10 August 1958), is a British Labour Party politician who served as Member of Parliament (MP) for Doncaster Central from 1997 to 2024. She served as a Deputy Speaker in the House of ...

(born 1958), former Labour Chief Whip * Fiona Wood (born 1958), burns-treatment pioneer, Australian of the Year * Sarah Woodhead (born 1851), first ( Girton College) woman to be awarded an Oxbridge degree – the equivalent of Senior Optime in Mathematics (1873) * Thomas William Worsdell (1838–1916), steam-locomotive engineer * Wilson Worsdell (1850–1920), railway engineer

Arms

References

External links

ackworthschool.com
Ackworth School's official website * * Internet archive: List of boys and girls admitted to Ackworth School: during the 100 years from 18th of 10th month, 1779, to the centenary celebration on the 27th of 6th month, 1879, published 1879 {{Authority control People educated at Ackworth School Co-educational boarding schools Educational institutions established in 1779 Private schools in the City of Wakefield Member schools of the Headmasters' and Headmistresses' Conference Organizations established in 1779 Quaker schools in England 1779 establishments in England