The Blue Coat School Liverpool

The Liverpool Blue Coat School is Liverpool’s oldest school. Founded over three centuries ago, it has provided support and opportunities for countless generations of Liverpool’s children. It has undergone many changes over the years but retains a vision of developing fully rounded individuals – aiming for academic excellence and living up to the school motto non sibi sed omnibus – not for oneself but for all.

The small town of Liverpool was beginning to grow as trade with the new American colonies added to existing trade with Ireland.  Local merchants grew rich, and many poorer people moved to the town seeking work. In 1699 the growing town was granted the right to open its own parish church, which was called St Peter’s. This church would lead to the creation of the Liverpool Blue Coat School.

Robert Styth, the minister of Liverpool’s new parish church, St Peter’s, asked the town council for money to create a charity school for the poor children of the parish.

The first Blue Coat School building was opened. It was a small building in the south-eastern corner of the grounds of St Peter’s on Church Street.  No-one has found any records of what that first building looked like. To begin with the school had one teacher, with forty boys and ten girls as his students. These were amongst the poorest children in the town and they were not only given an education for free but also clothing,in the colour blue – the colour of charity.  They were taught a simple curriculum - literacy, numeracy and the Christian teachings of the Bible. Everything was paid for by charitable donations given by people going to St Peter’s Church.   The most generous donor was Bryan Blundell, a leading sailor who for several years had been giving money to help the poor of the parish.  It was Blundell who paid the entire £35 that it cost to construct the first little school building.  Reverend Robert Styth served as the first Treasurer of the school, making sure there was enough money to pay the teacher and for school equipment.

Reverend Robert Styth of St Peter’s Church died. At first, no-one else seemed able to take responsibility for the school. However, at this point Bryan Blundell, the sailor who had paid for the first school building, decided to retire from his work at sea, and to dedicate himself to the role of Treasurer of the Blue Coat Hospital, as the charity school was then known. It was not long before Blundell felt that his efforts to improve the lives of the students were being undermined by the poverty of their parents and their lives outside school. He saw his students begging in the street, and became determined to increase the impact the school could have by bringing the children of the poor into the school as boarders, giving them food and accommodation as well as education. Blundell undertook a campaign to get the well-to-do of the town to donate money to the charity school to pay for a new building, large enough for the students to live in it and with enough funding to provide clothes and food for the students so that no-one needed to go begging.

The opening of the dock in Liverpool. This was the first commercially successful wet dock in the world. This meant that ships could be loaded and unloaded at any time of day, regardless of the tide, and it ensured that Liverpool soon became the country’s premier port. Liverpool’s merchant class were becoming increasingly prosperous, and donating to a worthy cause such as the Blue Coat Hospital School was a good way to demonstrate their Christian charity and to develop one’s social standing through philanthropy. However, a major source of income for many of these merchants, was the transatlantic trade with the American colonies. In particular, many Liverpool merchants, including Blundell and several donors to the school, were involved directly or indirectly with the trade in enslaved Africans. John Clieveland, Richard Norris, John Parr, Richard Gildart, Foster Cunliffe and William Clayton were just some of the regular donors to the school who are known to have invested in voyages transporting people from Africa to be enslaved in the Americas.

The foundation stone of a new school building in what is now know as School Lane was laid. A brick kiln was set up on site, and work began on what would become one of today’s finest examples of Queen Anne architecture in the country.

The school moved into their new home, with a new headmaster called William Trenton, overseeing the first 50 children to be boarders living at the school, even though the building work was not complete.

The building work on the school site was completed, with a set of 36 almshouses being opened in the rear courtyard of the school buildings so that it could also provide homes for the adults in need within the town.

Bryan Blundell – the man who had overseen the survival and subsequent development of the Blue Coat School – died.  Before his death he had ensured that his sons would continue to dedicate themselves to the school. They also continued to develop the family’s involvement in the transatlantic slave trade.

On 12th February 1838 the Blue Coat Brotherly Society was formed by a group of "Old Blues" who were now successfully established in their careers and wanted to "give something back" to young boys who were leaving the school. The Society had three goals: to promote friendship and brotherly feeling amongst those who had been educated in the school; to be able to grant assistance to students in need, and to increase the funds of the school by encouraging donations and subscriptions from other Old Blues grateful for the opportunities the school had given them.

After nearly 200 years in the city centre, the school decided to move .  When the school had first opened on School Lane, Liverpool was a small town, and the school had been on the outskirts, in an area surrounded by fields.  By the end of the 19th century, a booming industrial metropolis had grown around the old school buildings, and the students found themselves in the polluted heart of the city centre.   Two trustees and their friends offered the school a site of eight acres in Wavertree.  The architectural team of Messrs Briggs, Wolstenholme Hobbes and Thornley (designers of the Port Of Liverpool building, one of the “Three Graces” at the Pier Head) were commissioned to design a new grand building in the late renaissance style.

The foundation stone for the new school building on Church Road in Wavertree  was laid by the Earl of Derby.

Pupils moved into the new school building in Wavertree.

A group of artists – the Sandon Society – moved into the empty school building on School Lane in the town centre. The building would go onto become what it is today – the Bluecoat Arts Centre.

World War One broke out. Over the next four years over 500 former students and staff served in the armed forces. 83 Old Blues who gave their lives are memorialised on the plaque in the school chapel.

The new school was enhanced by the building of the magnificent clock tower paid for by Sir Charles Nall-Cain of the Liverpool brewing firm Cains.

World War II began. On Monday the 4th of September, the whole school departed from Lime Street station at 11:20 bound for Beaumaris in Anglesey in order to escape the bombing that was expected to fall upon the port city of Liverpool. The small Welsh community of Beaumaris demonstrated great kindness and care, with space for 270 children and 30 adults somehow found in private houses. Eventually some larger buildings (Red Hill House, Garth and Bryn) were made available to house the school as the Blue Coat entered a uniquely Welsh phase in its history.

The new Labour government of 1945 offered to increase educational provision for all children, and so the Blue Coat School was able to access new sources of funding by becoming a Voluntary Aided school and receiving financial support from both the Blue Coat Foundation and Liverpool Council. Despite its magnificent buildings, the school had often struggled financially before the war, as the cost of boarding around 300 boys and girls was hard to maintain and charitable donations were not always a steady source of income. 

In May the school returned to Wavertree after the end of the war.   As part of the new arrangement, the school became a grammar school, selecting students on ability rather than social disadvantage, and became a single sex school for boys only.  The school uniform was updated to a more modern look and most students began to attend as day students, although boarders continued, often from military families.

When Liverpool Council planned to reform the school, the school community launched a campaign to maintain its status as a selective grammar school, gaining 44,000 signatures in a successful appeal to the Education Secretary.

Girls were returned to the School in 6th form.

Girls returned to year 7 as well.