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[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stowe_School]
Stowe School is an independent school in Stowe, Buckinghamshire. It was opened on 11 May 1923 by J. F. Roxburgh, initially with 99 schoolboys. It is a member of the Rugby Group and Headmasters' and Headmistresses' Conference. The school is also a member of the G20 Schools' Group. The headmaster, Dr Anthony Wallersteiner, was recognised as Tatler's Headmaster of the Year in 2007. The school was shortlisted for the School of the Year award in 2009 and was listed as outstanding in several categories by The Week magazine in 2013. The school is now fully co-educational and there are 550 boys and 220 girls. Stowe is recognized for its academic value added, it is placed in the top 1% in the UK for its value added results. For the last three years, the school has celebrated a 100% success rate for students applying to medical school. The Good Schools Guide says that Stowe mixes the erudite with the sporty and the studious, with space reserved for the eclectic and maverick. Ideal for those keen to learn within, and beyond, the bounds of the classroom.
The school has been based since its beginnings at Stowe House, formerly the country seat of the Dukes of Buckingham and Chandos. Along with many of the other buildings on the school's estate, the main house is now a Grade 1 Listed Building and is maintained by the Stowe House Preservation Trust.
The school's cricket ground is used as a first class ground by Northamptonshire CCC.
The Stowe Corner of Silverstone Circuit is named after the school.[
Stowe School opened with its first 99 pupils, mainly aged 13, on 11 May 1923. There were two boarding Houses, Bruce and Temple, then both in the western part of the mansion. The following term Grenville and Chandos Houses were formed in the eastern wing, with Cobham and Grafton following soon afterwards as further parts of the house were converted into accommodation and classrooms. Chatham was the first purpose-built house, designed by the school’s first architect, Sir Clough Williams-Ellis. He had been instrumental in developing a vision for saving Stowe as a new centre of learning to match its crucial role in national culture and politics of the 18th Century. He had personally bought Stowe Avenue in 1922 before old Etonians presented it as birthday gift to the new School in 1924.[citation needed]
Helped by Harry Shaw, who had bought the estate the previous year, the new School succeeded in saving Stowe House and landscape gardens from demolition at their sale in October 1922. The School boasted a double foundation. Edward Montauban chaired the preparatory school committee seeking to found a new leading public school after the First World War and was the first to envisage the new school at Stowe. The finance came later through the Rev. Percy Warrington and the Martyrs Memorial Trust, giving rise to the group of Allied Schools.[citation needed]
Stowe School J.F. Roxburgh was Stowe’s founding Headmaster. His aim was to produce a modern public school concentrating on the individual, without the unpleasantness of fagging or arcane names then common in other schools. Instead he sought to instil a new ethos enthused with the beauty of Stowe’s unique environment where the best of traditional education would be tempered by liberal learning and every pupil would “know beauty when he sees it all his life”. Pupils and staff would relate in a civilized and open way, showing confidence and respect based on Christian values. Such was Roxburgh’s success in developing this vision that he was recognized as a formative figure in 20th Century English education, “greater than Arnold” in Gavin Maxwell’s words.[citation needed]
Stowe’s early success led to its rapid expansion. Walpole House was added in 1934 and the School reached 500 pupils by 1935. The art school, sports pavilion, and staff housing date from this period too, when the Legal & General Company provided financial support during the recession. Stowe made rapid progress academically too; in 1939 Charles Graves commented in the Daily Mail that “nearly 60% of the boys go to Oxford or Cambridge, which is said to be a higher percentage than that of any other public school”. Teachers included T.H. White, author of The Once and Future King. Among sporting feats Old Stoic Bernard Gadney captained England’s rugby team to take the triple crown in 1936, while in the early 1930s Laddie Lucas and John Langley were both national boy golf champions while still in Grenville House, helped by the golf course originally laid out in 1924. Sir Robert Lorimer’s magnificent Chapel was opened in 1929 by Prince George, while in 1933, on the school’s 10th anniversary, the Prince of Wales launched the repair of the garden buildings with the restoration of the Queen’s Temple as a Music School.[citation needed]
The Second World War saw 270 Old Stoics killed in active service. There were also 242 decorations. These included the Victoria Cross for two former contemporaries in Chatham House, Major Jack Anderson and Wing Commander Leonard Cheshire, the later founder of the Cheshire Homes