Byron House School

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

Byron House School
Address
North Road, Highgate London , N6 4BD England
Information
Type	Preparatory day school
Established	1897
Gender	Coeducational
Age	5 to 13

History

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] Hawking later blamed its "progressive methods" for his failure to learn to read "until the fairly late age of eight".[4][5]

In 1939, pupils were evacuated to Cambridge and between 1940 and 1944, 24 children from Byron House were evacuated to Ottawa, Canada.[6][7]

John Betjeman was taught by T. S. Eliot at Byron House, before being sent to the Dragon School in Oxford.[8][9]

Notable former pupils

• John Betjeman, writer and poet
• Stephen Hawking, physicist
• Maurice Hill, geophysicist attended briefly before Highgate School[10]
• Anne Atkins, broadcaster
• Henry Fairly, journalist
• Gregory Tesser, sports journalist
• Charles Gidley Wheeler, novelist[11]

References

1. "Leonora Hooper". ISSN 0140-0460. Retrieved 2020-07-06.
2. "Hornsey, including Highgate: Education | British History Online". www.british-history.ac.uk. Retrieved 2020-07-06.
3. "Stephen Hawking: "I'm happy if I have added something to our understanding of the universe"". Radio Times. Retrieved 2020-07-06.
4. "Book Page - Tabbed". Penguin Random House Secondary Education. Retrieved 2020-07-06.
5. Hawking, Stephen (2013-09-12). My Brief History. Transworld. ISBN 978-1-4481-6991-7.
6. "THE EVACUATION OF BRITISH CHILDREN TO CANADA DURING THE SECOND WORLD WAR". Imperial War Museums. Retrieved 2020-07-06.
7. Brendon, Vyvyen (2009-12-12). Prep School Children: A Class Apart Over Two Centuries. A&C Black. ISBN 978-1-84706-287-1.
8. "Byron House Montessori School, Highgate, London | Representative Poetry Online". rpo.library.utoronto.ca. Retrieved 2020-07-06.
9. "John Betjeman Biography". Britain Unlimited. Retrieved 2020-07-06.
10. Bullard, Edward Crisp (1967-11-01). "Maurice Neville Hill, 1919-1966". Biographical Memoirs of Fellows of the Royal Society. 13: 192–203. doi:10.1098/rsbm.1967.0009.
11. Wheeler, Charles Gidley (June 2007). A Good Boy Tomorrow: Memoirs of a Fundamentalist Upbringing. iUniverse. ISBN 978-0-595-43685-9.