Royds Hall Academy is a mixed secondary school for pupils aged 11 – 16. It is located in

Huddersfield Huddersfield is a town in the Metropolitan Borough of Kirklees in West Yorkshire, England. It is the administrative centre and largest settlement in the Kirklees district. The town is in the foothills of the Pennines. The River Holme's confl ...

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, and on the north side of the Colne Valley towards Milnsbridge.

History

Royds Hall was a large farmhouse in the Paddock and Longwood area of Huddersfield, adjoining Royds Wood. It was rebuilt as a grander mansion (still called Royds Hall, but also known as 'Royds Wood'. It was still referred to on the town plan published in 1890 as Royds Hall), whose philanthropic mill owner served the increasingly industrialised and expanding town. The building was formerly Royds Hall Mansion, built in 1866 by Sir Joseph Crosland, the Conservative MP for the Huddersfield constituency from 1893–95. On his death in 1904 he left the property to his nephew Thomas Pearson Crosland, who sold it to Huddersfield Corporation in 1915 for £17,000. During the First World War, the mansion and extensive grounds opened as The Huddersfield War Hospital. The hospital opened in June 1915 and initially had six hundred beds across a large number of wooden huts, by 1917 this number had increased to two thousand beds. Throughout its time as a hospital, Royds Hall saw around twenty two thousand patients pass through its grounds. It is widely reported that the Huddersfield War Hospital proudly boasted the lowest death rate in the country. Only the mansion and one red brick building to the north of the school drive remain in place. Royds Hall Grammar School opened on 20 September 1921,"Royds Hall School History"
/ref> which became a comprehensive school in 1963. In February 2014, the later Royds Hall High School changed its name to Royds Hall Community School.The school is divided into five houses (known as communities) named after

Marie Curie Maria Salomea Skłodowska-Curie (; ; 7 November 1867 – 4 July 1934), known simply as Marie Curie ( ; ), was a Polish and naturalised-French physicist and chemist who conducted pioneering research on radioactivity. She was List of female ...

, Martin Luther King,

Nelson Mandela Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela ( , ; born Rolihlahla Mandela; 18 July 1918 – 5 December 2013) was a South African Internal resistance to apartheid, anti-apartheid activist and politician who served as the first president of South Africa f ...

, Emily Pankhurst and

Harold Wilson James Harold Wilson, Baron Wilson of Rievaulx (11 March 1916 – 23 May 1995) was a British statesman and Labour Party (UK), Labour Party politician who twice served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, from 1964 to 1970 and again from 197 ...

. Previously a

foundation school In England and Wales, a foundation school is a state-funded school in which the school governor, governing body has greater freedom in the running of the school than in Community school (England and Wales), community schools. Foundation schools ...

administered by Kirklees Metropolitan Borough Council, in 2018 Royds Hall converted to academy status. The school is now sponsored by the SHARE Multi Academy Trust.

Notable alumni

Royds Hall Community School

* Ruben Reuter, actor * Aaron Crosbie, computer scientist

Royds Hall Grammar School

* Robert Baldick,

French literature French literature () generally speaking, is literature written in the French language, particularly by French people, French citizens; it may also refer to literature written by people living in France who speak traditional languages of Franc ...

scholar * Sir Richard Sykes, biochemist, chief executive of Glaxo plc from 1993–97, rector of

Imperial College London Imperial College London, also known as Imperial, is a Public university, public research university in London, England. Its history began with Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, Prince Albert, husband of Queen Victoria, who envisioned a Al ...

from 2001–08, and chancellor since 2013 of

Brunel University London Brunel University of London (BUL) is a Public university, public Research universities, research university located in the Uxbridge area of London, England. It is named after Isambard Kingdom Brunel, a Victorian era, Victorian engineer and pione ...

, Labour Party leader from 1963 to 1976; UK prime minister from 1964 to 1970, and from 1974 to 1976

References

External links