Heritage

HERITAGE – DEVELOPING SCIENCE

‘…we need a Museum, a Laboratory, with two good Lecture-rooms for Physical Science, a large and well-lighted room for Drawing, and at least four good Class rooms’: alongside a new Speech Room, these were the ‘very pressing’ wants described in a letter sent in May 1871 to ‘the parents of those who are now, or have been previously, members of the school’.

CAMPAIGNS FOR THE NEW SCIENCE BUILDINGS IN 1874 AND 1971

The sum required to complete them was ‘not less than £30,000’, and to raise this money and to celebrate 300 years since the founding of the School, the Lyon Memorial Fund was established. By the Tercentenary Founder’s Day one month later, the Head Master, Dr Butler, was able to announce that ‘up to the previous night £13,000 had been subscribed.’

Although over £30,000 was eventually raised, by the time the new Speech Room was opened in 1874, it had swallowed up a large proportion of the Lyon Memorial Fund. The same year, work started on the new Natural Science Schools, which was to provide accommodation for Physical Science and Chemistry. The design, by architect Charles Forster Hayward, the brother of a Harrow Master, was for a stone building with a basement and ground floor only, to leave the views across London unobstructed. The limited funds left available, however, meant that he had to build in brick, rather than the stone of the original design,

and had to cut out all the ornamental features. When the building was opened in 1874, he had only been able to complete the rooms for Physical Science, at a cost of £6,000. The rooms for Chemistry were not added until 1914.

In 1969, as part of the plans to celebrate the 400th anniversary of the founding of the School, work started on a new building for Physics that would be more appropriate for the study of science in the late 20th century than Hayward’s original Natural Science Schools. Described in The Harrovian of 6 March 1971 as ‘sitting gracefully squat in front of the Music Schools’, the new Physics Schools were opened by HM The Queen in February 1971. Shortly afterwards, the Quatercentenary Appeal was launched to raise £600,000. Part of the money was to go towards the cost of the newly built Physics Schools and the rest towards new form rooms for Mathematics, to be erected above the Physics Schools, as well as a golf course and improvements to various buildings. Despite the economically difficult times, on Speech Day in June 1974, the Head Master announced that the Quatercentenary Appeal had raised £583,000 and that work would start on the new Mathematics Schools.