Houses
The boys' school has four houses, whose colours are reflected in the colour of the badge and the stripes of the tie on the school uniforms. Three were originally created in 1905 in an attempt to introduce some of the camaraderie of boarding school into the academic and sporting life of a day school.The three houses were:
- Hulme (pronounced hyoom), named after William Hulme, architect of Manchester. Colour: sky blue.
- Kay, named after the Reverend Roger Kay, re-founder of Bury Grammar School, after whom the hall (now in the girls' school) is named. Colour: green.
- Derby, named after the Earl of Derby, donor of the land upon which the School stands. Colour: yellow.
In 1919, a new House was introduced:
- Howlett, named after the much loved former headmaster. Colour: red.
In 1920, following the lead of the Boys' school, the Girls' school introduced a House System. There were five Houses, into which girls were placed depending upon where they lived. The Houses were: Lord Kitchener (Bury), Sir Robert Peel (Walmersley), Lord George Byron (Rochdale), Lord Robert Clive (Prestwich) and Samuel Crompton (Ainsworth and Bolton) – all these once famous men had a particular association with the locality (or localities in the case of Crompton) mentioned in parenthesis, but details of such connection is beyond the scope of this entry. In 1950, the House System was changed due to the fact that somes Houses had many more members that others, which rendered inter-House competitions unfair (even in those days, it wasn't just the "taking part" that counted at BGS!). The new houses were named after then famous women: Elizabeth Garrett Anderson (red badge), Frances Mary Buss (green badge), Edith Cavell (blue and white badge), Elizabeth Fry (orange badge), Octavia Hill (originally turquoise, later purple, badge) and Florence Nightingale (yellow badge).
The girls' school uses four letters for forms: L, K, P and N, which are the initials of the surnames of the first four headmistresses (Lester, Kitchener, Perigo and Neild). Membership of different forms does not change the blazer badge colour, but they wear a circular badge which bears the colour yellow for Lester, blue for Kitchener, green for Perigo and red for Neild. These houses are used to form teams, and interform competitions are often held.
Read more about this topic: Bury Grammar School
Famous quotes containing the word houses:
“In America the taint of sectarianism lies broad upon the land. Not content with acknowledging the supremacy as the Diety, and with erecting temples in his honor, where all can bow down with reverence, the pride and vanity of human reason enter into and pollute our worship, and the houses that should be of God and for God, alone, where he is to be honored with submissive faith, are too often merely schools of metaphysical and useless distinctions. The nation is sectarian, rather than Christian.”
—James Fenimore Cooper (1789–1851)
“And the Harvard students in the brick
hallowed houses studied Sappho in cement rooms.
And this Sappho danced on the grass
and danced and danced and danced.
It was a death dance.”
—Anne Sexton (1928–1974)
“Let those talk of poverty and hard times who will in the towns and cities; cannot the emigrant who can pay his fare to New York or Boston pay five dollars more to get here ... and be as rich as he pleases, where land virtually costs nothing, and houses only the labor of building, and he may begin life as Adam did? If he will still remember the distinction of poor and rich, let him bespeak him a narrower house forthwith.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)