The College of Richard Collyer

By the late nineteenth century, the population of Horsham had expanded to 10,000 (accelerated by the coming of the railway and its associated employment), the City and Guilds Institute (which the Mercers' Company had helped found) decreed that education needed to be extended to include the new sciences, and money needed to be found to replace the school buildings yet again. Thus after a long campaign against fees, including a petition of 1,100 signatures, the new school charter of 1889 stated that, "Tuition fees might vary between £4 and £10 p.a. and Boarding fees were not to exceed £40 a year." A new and larger site was sorely needed.[2]

The present site in Hurst Road was found, and the current building was designed in 1892 by Arthur Vernon,[4] and built by Joseph Potter in 1893[5] for a contract price of £5,795. It is now grade II listed by English Heritage.[6] Above the entrance is a stone engraved with, "Grammar School, Founded by Richard Collier AD 1532". (Historically the founder's name was often spelled as 'Collier', but from the twentieth century it has always been spelled as it is today.[2]) The 1892 building facing Hurst Road has been extended continually as the school has expanded. This included the addition of science laboratories in 1897, a 'Great Hall' in 1912, and the 'New Block' classrooms in 1932.

In the 1890s Collyer's taught 110 boys from ages 7 to 17, both boarders and day-schoolers, and for the first time included a sixth form to study for university entrance. From 1923 the Rev. W. M. Peacock started to model the school on public school lines, introducing (among other things) four houses (see below), The Horsham Grammar School Magazine (later to become The Collyerian), and a school song. By 1926 it was a single-stream school of 220 boys with a sixth form of "less than a dozen", and ten teaching staff.[2]

Collyer's ceased to accept boarders in 1935, and the dormitories were converted into much-needed library and common-room space. Plans for adding a gymnasium and other facilities were abandoned in 1939, when the school accepted evacuees from the Mercers' School in London, and pupil numbers soared to over 400 in three streams. (The accommodation crisis was solved by building hutted classrooms, but numbers continued to rise because of the post-war 'baby boom', and the huts were not demolished until the 1980s.) In 1944 it became a voluntary-aided grammar school, and its education was again made available free to the scholars. In the 1950s it had around 500 pupils, rising slowly to over 600 during the 1960s.[2]

In the early 1960s an Old Collyerian (OC), Dr. William W. Duckering (1861–1945)[7] bequeathed £22,000 to the school "for its general purposes". The bequest paid for a new laboratory block, gymnasium and changing rooms in 1961, and an assembly and dining hall with theatrical stage facilities, modern kitchens attached, and a 'Small Upper Hall' above the new foyer, all completed in 1963. The new hall was named the 'Duckering Hall', and the smaller hall the 'Duckering Room'. (The final phase of building work, to be a new classroom block replacing the World War Two emergency wooden huts, was never undertaken.) Between 1960 and 1963 the playing fields were also extended, levelled, and new sports facilities were added. In 1964 a headmaster's house was built on the site, replacing the accommodation that was originally included in the 1892 school block.[2]

In the 1960s the then headmaster, Douglas Coulson, left to take up the position of headmaster at Queen Elizabeth School, Blackburn.[8]

It started its transition to become a voluntary-aided sixth form college in 1976.[9] The other three state secondary schools in Horsham (Forest Boys, Forest Girls and Horsham High School for Girls) became comprehensives. Collyer's had taken its last first form intake in the previous September, and started to expand its sixth form. Initially this was done by taking students from the two existing secondary moderns to do O-levels, and girls from Horsham High School who wanted to study A-level choices that were not offered by their previous school.

In the early 2000s, annual reports from the Office for Standards in Education (OFSTED) have deemed the school outstanding. Following the 2021 inspection the 2022 report dropped the headline rating to 'Good'.[10] On the strength of a recent OFSTED Grade One for Science provision, the college was awarded 'Beacon Status' for Science in 2005 by the Department for Education and Skills. In the same year, it achieved the status of Centre of Vocational Excellence (CoVE) for sport and recreation. A new £2 million, three storey Learning Resources Centre was unveiled during this period. In 2006 work began to extend the Sports Hall, or Cowley Building, to provide more teaching and social space.

The £2 million Learning Resources Centre, 2009

From the 1920s the students and some teaching staff in the college have been divided into a number of different houses. All houses names are associated with the history of the college or the town. The current six houses are:

• Denne – after a local area of Horsham;
• Mercers' – after the Mercers' Company, a livery company based in London, a member of which founded the original school;
• Pirie – After William Pirie, a previous headmaster at the college, who served for 46 years and raised standards significantly in the college. There is a small square in the town centre known as Pirie's Place, with a sculpture of Pirie in a horse-drawn cart, commemorating the achievement of the headmaster;
• Richmond – After a road bordering the college;
• St Leonard's – After the forest to the east of Horsham;
• Whittington – After a member of the Mercer's company.

Former house names include Collyer's, Hurst, Garnett, Duckering, and Weald.

Sculpture of William Pirie, Piries Place, Horsham

The following list of the headmasters from the school's opening until 1965 was provided in the history of the school that was published in that year.[2]

• 1541–1546 Richard Brokebanke
• 1546–1548 Nicholas Bayne
• 1549–1562 John Fowler
• 1563–1567 Thomas Hodeles
• 1567–1617 James Alleyn
• 1617–1629 Richard Nye (OC)
• 1629–1631 Edmund Pierson
• 1631–1639 Thomas Robinson
• 1640–1644 Rev. John Sefton
• 1644–1647 Rev. Thomas Smith
• 1647–1648 Rev. Alma Hogglebin
• 1648–1684 John Nisbet
• 1684–1685 Rev. Peregrine Peryham
• 1686–1699 Rev. James Wickliffe
• 1699 Rev. Ralph Grove
• 1700–1706 Rev. Alexander Hay[11]
• 1706–1712 Rev. Thomas Pittis
• 1712 Rev. Peter Stockar
• 1712–1722 Rev. John Reynell
• 1722–1773 Rev. Francis Osgood
• 1773–1806 Rev. William Jameson[12]
• 1806–1821 Rev. Thomas Williams
• 1822–1868 William Pirie[13]
• 1868–1883 Richard Cragg (the younger)
• 1883–1890 James Williams
• 1890–1917 Rev. Dr. George Thompson
• 1917–1922 William Major
• 1922–1926 Rev. Canon Wilfrid Peacock
• 1922–1956 Philip Tharp
• 1956–1964 Douglas Coulson [14]
• 1964–1966 Vernon Davies (acting head) [15]
• 1966–1983 (Eldred) Derek Slynn[16]

In 1976, the title was changed from Headmaster to Principal. Since then the college's principals have been:

• 1983–1999 David Arnold
• 1999–2004 Michael Marchant
• 2004–2014 Dr. Jacqueline Johnston
• 2014–2020 Sally Bromley[17]
• 2020–present Dan Lodge

• Alex Adair, DJ, producer and remixer
• Will Beer, first-class cricketer
• Devon Endersby, first-class cricketer
• Harry Enfield, contemporary British entertainer
• Angie Hobbs, Professor of the Public Understanding of Philosophy at the University of Sheffield
• Chris Nash, Sussex cricketer
• Holly Willoughby, TV presenter

• Chris Aldridge, continuity announcer and newsreader for BBC Radio 4
• Wilfred Brown, tenor
• William Brown, president from 1951 to 1952 of the British Psychological Society, and director from 1936 to 1945 of the Institute of Experimental Psychology at Oxford University
• David Cummings, screenwriter and musician
• Saint Thomas Garnet (c.1575–1608), Jesuit priest and martyr
• Anthony Harnden, Professor of Primary Care at Oxford University, Deputy Chair of the JCVI since 2015, and Ig Nobel Prize-winner in 2020
• Simon Henley, former Royal Navy rear admiral, and former President of the Royal Aeronautical Society 2018–19
• Neil Lyndon, author and journalist[18]
• Simon Nye, writer of Men Behaving Badly
• Paul Parker, Sussex cricketer
• Lt.-Col. George Styles GC, commanded the 28th Commonwealth Brigade's Ordnance Field Park Regiment from 1958 to 1961, and bomb disposal expert in Northern Ireland in the 1970s
• Rajesh Thakker FRS, Professor of Medicine at Oxford University
• Eric Thompson, actor, and voice of The Magic Roundabout
• David Westwood, Chief Constable from 1999 to 2005 of Humberside Police