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Byron House School

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Byron House School
Address
North Road, Highgate

,
N6 4BD

England
Information
TypePreparatory day school
Established1897; 127 years ago (1897)
GenderCoeducational
Age5 to 13

Byron House School was an independent preparatory school in Highgate, London.

History

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Byron House was founded in 1897 as a progressive prep school "favoured by London's intelligentsia and famous for its advanced teaching methods".[1][2] Stephen Hawking, while attending the school, complained to his parents that he "wasn't learning anything",[3] and later blamed its teaching methods for his failure to learn to read "until the fairly late age of eight".[4][5] Another former pupil,[6] Sir James Lighthill was the Lucasian Professor of Mathematics directly before Hawking.

In 1939, pupils were evacuated to Cambridge and between 1940 and 1944, 24 children from Byron House were evacuated to Ottawa, Canada.[7][8]

John Betjeman was taught by T. S. Eliot at Byron House, before being sent to the Dragon School in Oxford.[9][10]

Notable former pupils

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References

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  1. ^ "Leonora Hooper". The Times. ISSN 0140-0460. Retrieved 6 July 2020.
  2. ^ "Hornsey, including Highgate: Education | British History Online". www.british-history.ac.uk. Retrieved 6 July 2020.
  3. ^ "Stephen Hawking: "I'm happy if I have added something to our understanding of the universe"". Radio Times. Retrieved 6 July 2020.
  4. ^ "Book Page - Tabbed". Penguin Random House Secondary Education. Retrieved 6 July 2020.
  5. ^ Hawking, Stephen (12 September 2013). My Brief History. Transworld. ISBN 978-1-4481-6991-7.
  6. ^ Crocker, Malcolm J. "SIR JAMES LIGHTHILL AND HIS CONTRIBUTIONS TO SCIENCE" (PDF).
  7. ^ "THE EVACUATION OF BRITISH CHILDREN TO CANADA DURING THE SECOND WORLD WAR". Imperial War Museums. Retrieved 6 July 2020.
  8. ^ Brendon, Vyvyen (12 December 2009). Prep School Children: A Class Apart Over Two Centuries. A&C Black. ISBN 978-1-84706-287-1.
  9. ^ "Byron House Montessori School, Highgate, London | Representative Poetry Online". rpo.library.utoronto.ca. Retrieved 6 July 2020.
  10. ^ "John Betjeman Biography". Britain Unlimited. Retrieved 6 July 2020.
  11. ^ Bullard, Edward Crisp (1 November 1967). "Maurice Neville Hill, 1919-1966". Biographical Memoirs of Fellows of the Royal Society. 13: 192–203. doi:10.1098/rsbm.1967.0009.
  12. ^ Wheeler, Charles Gidley (June 2007). A Good Boy Tomorrow: Memoirs of a Fundamentalist Upbringing. iUniverse. ISBN 978-0-595-43685-9.