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54°28′19″N 6°20′53″W / 54.47194°N 6.34806°W / 54.47194; -6.34806

Lurgan College is a selective age 14-19 grammar school situated in the town of Lurgan, County Armagh, Northern Ireland.

History

As befitted a growing industrial town, Lurgan had a strong educational establishment from the mid 19th Century. The opening of the Model School in 1863 had been the culmination of a period of sustained growth in the Primary Sector. However, the town had no soundly established secondary school, which must have been regarded as a serious short-coming in a middle-class interest. One of the town's leading citizens at the time, Samuel Watts, joint owner of one of the breweries, provided in his will for the endowment of such a school, which was to provide an English, Classical and Agricultural education for boys.

Watts died in February 1850, and the endowment, when it was established, amounted to some £9000. This was to be invested, and the accrued interest used to build the School. It was not until December 1872 that the Trustees considered they had sufficient money to proceed. The School commenced business in a house in Market Street during March 1873, the first Headmaster being Mr. E. Vaughan Boulger, of Dublin. The School buildings themselves, constructed on a site in the townland of Brownlowsderry, were not completed until August 1873, and were officially opened in October of that year.

Boulger left Lurgan in December 1875, to be replaced by Mr. W. T. Kirkpatrick from R.B.A.I. in Belfast. Under Kirkpatrick the school prospered academically and numerically, although not financially. On Kirkpatrick's retirement in 1899, Mr. James Cowan, of Manchester G.S. took over the principalship. Under Cowan, the school faced problems of declining numbers, although he was responsible for the introduction of Science teaching in 1905. Another major development was the admission of girls in 1918. Cowan retired in 1922, leaving a school of under thirty pupils.

The new Headmaster was Mr. V. M. Harper, from Campbell College. He presided over a major expansion in the school. Two major building projects (in 1925 and 1929) coupled with an amalgamation with the Lurgan High School for Girls (1925) transformed the College from a struggling thirty pupil school to a thriving one hundred and fifty pupil establishment. The 1947 Education Act further increased enrolments and led to an increasing dependence on temporary buildings. In 1952 Harper retired, to be replaced by his vice-principal, Mr. J. Trewsdale. Under Mr. Trewsdale the school ceased to be an independent, endowed school, (the endowments were then inadequate for the needs of the College) and became a County Grammar School. A series of building programmes beginning in 1955 and lasting until 1969 saw the provision of a modern suite of buildings well equipped to meet the needs of the area.

In 1960 the new city of Craigavon was developing and with it a radical reform of education provision in the area. The Dickson Plan introduced a modified two-tier system, based on the Leicestershire Plan. The College became a Senior High School under this scheme. Mr. Trewsdale retired in 1978 and was replaced by Mr. N. Eccles from Campbell College. The school suffered, in common with most other schools in Ulster, from a sharp decline in numbers in the early 80's but this has been reversed in recent years, the present population being 418.

Mr Eccles retired in 1988 and was replaced by Mr W. D. Johnston, the second old boy of Royal School Dungannon to become Headmaster of Lurgan College. The Johnston era was characterised by an increase in pupil and staff numbers and a steady improvement in pupil performance in public examinations. The rise in pupil numbers in the senior school, however, was not reflected unfortunately in the Preparatory Department which closed in 2004. In his years as Headmaster Mr Johnston skillfully oversaw the introduction of GCSEs, Curriculum 2000 (changes in sixth form curriculum), Classroom 2000 (ICT provision) and the Local Management of Schools programme which delegated to the school overall responsibility for the spending of its own budget. Working with his Board of Governors, Mr Johnston played a significant role in planning and bringing to fruition the impressive renovation of the school's reception area which was officially opened in March 2005. His retirement in 2005 coincided with the decision of Mr Cyril Johnston, Chairman of the Board of Governors, to retire from the Board after 35 years of sterling service to the school.

Mr Johnston was succeeded by Mr T. D. Robinson, who had previously been Vice Principal at Banbridge Academy.

Today

Under the previous Headmaster, Mr W.D. Johnston, the school was characterised by an increase in pupil and staff numbers and a steady improvement in pupil performance in public examinations; there were also extensive improvements to the school buildings. Mr Johnston retired in 2005, and was succeeded by Mr T.D. Robinson who faces the challenges of steering the school through the changes to the educational system announced in the Bain Report of 2006.

The school currently enrolls just over 400 pupils. Pupils are required to sit their GCSE examinations in their second year at the school. The school also offers a limited number of places for pupils to return to the school after their second year to sit their AS Level and A2 Level (commonly referred to as A-levels) examinations. The current headmaster of the school is Mr T Robinson, who began his career at the school in September 2005.

The school continues to rank within the top 20 Northern Irish secondary level schools in the Sunday Times Parent Power Survey.

The school has received the necessary funding to proceed with plans to erect a new building, replacing all of the current accommodation except for the listed 1873 portion. Work was to commence in March 2009, but this still has not happened.

Notable alumni

Albert Lewis, father of the author C.S. Lewis (1898–1963), attended the school from 1877-79 under Headmaster W.T. Kirkpatrick. Albert later became Kirkpatrick's solicitor. When Kirkpatrick retired and began to privately tutor pupils he taught both of Albert's sons, first Warnie Lewis whom he prepared for the Royal Military College at Sandhurst, and later C.S. Lewis himself.

William "W.T." Kirkpatrick, headmaster of the school in the late 19th century, was a private tutor to C.S. Lewis in the mid 1910s. He was inspiration for the character Digory Kirke (a professor) who was created by C.S. Lewis for the Narnia books a quarter of a century later.

Dame Jocelyn Bell Burnell, DBE, FRS FRAS, Ph.D (born as Susan Jocelyn Bell, 15 July 1943) is an astrophysicist, who, as a postgraduate student, discovered the first radio pulsars with her thesis advisor Antony Hewish, for which he (but not she) won a Nobel Prize. Some feel Bell Burnell's contribution was deliberately understated. She attended Lurgan College Preparatory Department from 1948–56 and returned to Lurgan College in 2007 while filming the BBC bio-doc 'Northern Star' and then again later that same year as the guest of honour at the school's speech day and prize-giving ceremony.

Clubs & Societies

The School boasts a large number of Clubs and Societies:

• Army Cadets Force,
• Art,
• Chess club
• Community Service,
• Computer,
• Debating,
• Drama,
• Duke of Edinburgh's Award,
• Environmental Club
• First Aid,
• Geographical,
• Historical,
• Modern Languages,
• Public Speaking,
• Rugby club - 1st XV, 2nd XV and medallion XV
• Boys Hockey Club
• Scripture Union
• Skiing

Notes

1. See NI Parent Power Rank
2. See Lurgan Mail
3. See Chronology of the Life of C. S. Lewis
5. See Zuckerman, H. (1977). Deviant Behaviour and Social Control in Science. pp. 87-138 in Sagarin, E. (ed.) Deviance and Social Change. Beverly Hills: Sage Publications.
6. See articles in the Lurgan Mail and Belfast Telegraph.

External links

• School website

• Grammar schools in County Armagh