King Edward VII and Queen Mary School (KEQMS) was an HMC independent co-educational school in

Lytham St Annes Lytham St Annes () is a seaside town in the Borough of Fylde in Lancashire, England. It is on the The Fylde, Fylde coast, directly south of Blackpool on the Ribble Estuary. The population of the built-up area at the 2021 United Kingdom census, ...

Lancashire Lancashire ( , ; abbreviated ''Lancs'') is a ceremonial county in North West England. It is bordered by Cumbria to the north, North Yorkshire and West Yorkshire to the east, Greater Manchester and Merseyside to the south, and the Irish Sea to ...

, England, formed in 2000 by the merger of King Edward VII School and Queen Mary School. It merged with

Arnold School Arnold School was an independent school in Blackpool, Lancashire, England, established on the The Fylde, Fylde coast in 1896 during the Victorian expansion of Public school (UK), public boarding schools in England. The school was in the United ...

, Blackpool, in 2012 to form

AKS Lytham AKS Lytham (AKS), is a Private schools in the United Kingdom, private co-educational day school located on the Fylde, Lancashire, England. It is based on a coastal 35-acre site in Lytham St Annes. AKS Lytham is a member of Headmasters' and Hea ...

. The Lytham Schools Foundation was established in 1719 after a flood disaster in the town. In 1908, one hundred and eighty-nine years after the Foundation's initial formation, King Edward VII School was opened to provide an education for local boys. The opening of the girls' Queen Mary School followed in 1930. It had a reputation of excellence in sports and a thriving history of drama productions and had links with the Czech Republic, France and Germany, with which exchange trips were frequently held (and still are by AKS Lytham).

Merger

The Board of Governors announced that King Edward VII and Queen Mary School would be merging with

, another fee-paying school in the North-West, in September 2012. This happened without consultation inclusive of parents, pupils or staff.
parent group
opposed to the takeover submitted objections to the

Charity Commission The Charity Commission for England and Wales is a non-ministerial department of His Majesty's Government that regulates registered charities in England and Wales and maintains the Central Register of Charities. Its counterparts in Scotland and ...

which prompted a review prior to allowing the merger to proceed. The Charity Commission completed their report and announced on 11 November 2011 that they had approved the new scheme. The parent group immediately announced their intention to appeal against the Charity Commission decision. The appeal was lodged with HM Courts and Tribunal Service – First Tier Tribunal on Friday 9 December 2011. The tribunal's decision was made on 17 May 2012 and stated that the merger could proceed, however the lease agreement put the charity assets at undue risk and needed to be re-written. The parents group then announced that they were not going to appeal and the merger therefore proceeded. In 2011 Fylde M.P.

Mark Menzies Mark Andrew Menzies (born 18 May 1971) is a British politician who served as Member of Parliament (MP) for Fylde in Lancashire from 2010 to 2024. As a member of the Conservative Party, he was the parliamentary private secretary (PPS) to Cha ...

became involved in the heated controversy surrounding the proposed take-over of the school by the

United Church Schools Trust The United Church Schools Trust (UCST) is a large education charity in the United Kingdom which owns and operates a group of 14 private schools. The charity is operating under the name United Learning as of 2012. History UCST was founded in 1883 ...

and its merger with

Motto

King Edward School's motto was 'Sublimis Ab Unda', which is Latin for 'raised from the waves', in reference to the fact the school was funded by the aforementioned flood disaster. Queen Mary School's motto was 'Semper Fidelis, Semper Parata', which translates as 'Always Faithful, Always Prepared'. The two former schools each had a coat of arms, but despite the two schools being separate they shared the same governing body, which itself had a coat of arms, that consisted of the two schools' coats of arms impaled. This coat of arms was used for the combined school since the merger in 1999. The uniforms for both boys and girls were also changed at this time. As of 2008, a new rebrand of the KEQMS brand was launched. A new logo was produced, and the motto was changed to 'Inspiring Personal Excellence'

Amalgamation

After a reduction in student numbers following

New Labour New Labour is the political philosophy that dominated the history of the British Labour Party from the mid-late 1990s to 2010 under the leadership of Tony Blair and Gordon Brown. The term originated in a conference slogan first used by the ...

's abolition of the

Assisted Places Scheme The Assisted Places Scheme was established in the UK by the Conservative government in 1980. Children who were eligible were provided with free or subsidised places to fee-charging independent schools - based on the child's results in the schoo ...

in 1997, the two single-sex schools merged. Now fully co-educational and housed in and around the old King Edward VII building, it consisted of a Kindergarten, Infant, Junior and Senior School, plus a Sixth Form. The Queen Mary site was sold in order to raise money for the continuing development of the new school. The original Queen Mary building was given listed status and has been adapted into housing. KEQMS

Notable former pupils

Notable former pupils (Lidunians) include: ;King Edward VII School *

Malcolm Archer Malcolm Archer (born 1952) is an English composer, conductor and organist. He was formerly Organist and Director of Music at Bristol Cathedral, at Wells Cathedral and at St Paul's Cathedral and Director of Chapel Music at Winchester College. ...

(born 1952), organist and director of music, St Paul's Cathedral *

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(born 1972), conservative politician *

Lee Blackett Lee Blackett (born 21 November 1982 in Chester, Cheshire, United Kingdom) is an English former rugby union footballer. Educated at King Edward VII and Queen Mary School in Lytham, he played some of his earlier rugby at Fylde Rugby Club. His u ...

(born 1982),

rugby union Rugby union football, commonly known simply as rugby union in English-speaking countries and rugby 15/XV in non-English-speaking world, Anglophone Europe, or often just rugby, is a Contact sport#Terminology, close-contact team sport that orig ...

player/coach *

Simon Brailsford Squadron Leader Simon Brailsford was Equerry to Queen Elizabeth II between 1998 and 2001. He was a career Royal Air Force officer, specialising as a navigator. He was promoted to Squadron Leader 1 January 1997, and was later promoted to Wing Comma ...

, equerry to Her Majesty the Queen * Roy Harper (born 1941), singer songwriter *

Andy Inglis Andrew G. Inglis (born 1960) is a British engineer, corporate executive and CEO of Kosmos Energy. Background Inglis received an MA in engineering from Pembroke College, Cambridge University and joined BP plc in 1980. He is a Chartered Mecha ...

(born 1960), board member, BP *

Michael Mingos David Michael Patrick Mingos (born 6 August 1944) is a British chemist and academic. He was Principal of St Edmund Hall, Oxford from 1999 to 2009, and Professor of Inorganic Chemistry at the University of Oxford. Education Mingos attended the ...

(born 1944), principal of

St Edmund Hall, Oxford St Edmund Hall (also known as The Hall and Teddy Hall) is a constituent college of the University of Oxford. The college claims to be "the oldest surviving academic society to house and educate undergraduates in any university" and was the las ...

* Robert Neill (born 1905), writer * John Sunderland (born 1945), chairman of

Cadbury Schweppes Cadbury, formerly Cadbury's and Cadbury Schweppes, is a British multinational corporation, multinational confectionery company owned by Mondelez International (spun off from Kraft Foods, Inc., Kraft Foods) since 2010. It is the second-largest c ...

and president of the

Confederation of British Industry The Confederation of British Industry (CBI) is a British business interest group, which says it represents 190,000 businesses. The CBI has been described by the ''Financial Times'' as "Britain's biggest business lobby group". Incorporated by roy ...

Frank Duckworth Frank Carter Duckworth MBE (26 December 1939 – 21 June 2024) was an English statistician who co-developed the Duckworth–Lewis method of resetting targets in limited overs cricket matches interrupted by weather or other circumstances. Ear ...

(born 1939), Duckworth-Lewis-Stern method.

References

{{Authority control Schools in the Borough of Fylde Member schools of the Headmasters' and Headmistresses' Conference Educational institutions established in 1719 Defunct schools in Lancashire Educational institutions disestablished in 2013 * 1719 establishments in England