Parmiter's School

Thomas Parmiter was a wealthy silk merchant in East London, who died in 1681. He left two farms in southwest Suffolk in his will to provide £30 per annum for six almshouses and £100 per annum for "one free school house or room for ten poor children" in Bethnal Green, London. Mrs Elizabeth Carter donated land for the school and an annual income of £10, while William Lee donated £100 for the building of a school house and a further annual £10. The building in St John Street (now Grimsby Street) was completed in 1722. Over the years the Trustees of Thomas Parmiter's Estate looked after its investments carefully. A notably prescient move was the purchase in 1723 of property in Cambridge Heath in Bethnal Green, London, using money lent by Edward Mayhew.[3]

By 1730 the school accommodated 30 boys, growing to 50 in 1809. In 1839 it moved to new premises in Gloucester Street (now Parmiter Street) after the original site was acquired by the Eastern Counties Railway. Unfortunately these buildings were destroyed by bombing during World War II. Peter Renvoize left the foundation the sum of £500 on his death in 1842.[3]

In 1870, the Great Eastern Railway acquired most of the Cambridge Heath property for the sum of £27,000. The Charity Commission, acting under the Endowed Schools Act 1869, forced a new constitution on the foundation, directing one third of the income to the almshouses and two-thirds to the school, which was by this time providing secondary education to 70 boys. Fees were to be introduced, with 40 foundation scholarships for boys from St Matthew's parish, Bethnal Green.

Part of the building occupied by Parmiter's School in Approach Road, Bethnal Green. It is now Raine's Foundation School.

The Gloucester Street school closed in 1885, reopening in new buildings in Approach Road (51.5312°N 0.0511°W / 51.5312; -0.0511) in 1887.[4] In 1913 a revised constitution created separate foundations for the school and the almshouses. The Parmiter phoenix was designed by W.A. Cross for the 40th anniversary of the Approach Road school in 1927. In 1951 the school became a voluntary aided grammar school. In 1966 and 1967 it successfully resisted plans by the Inner London Education Authority to merge it with St Jude's Church of England School to form a comprehensive school. Parmiter's Grammar School had grown to 525 boys by 1976, but the days of the grammar school were numbered.[3]

In that year the Governors placed before the Secretary of State for Education and Science a proposal to build a mixed comprehensive school on a new site in Garston, Hertfordshire, which was approved in February 1977. The first intake of 1st Year students entered the Hertfordshire School in September 1977 and expanded by annual intakes until the full complement of forms from 1st Year (Year 7) to Upper Sixth (Year 13) had been achieved in September 1983. Parmiter's School in Garston was officially opened by Queen Elizabeth II on 11 December 1981, the year of the Tercentenary of Thomas Parmiter's bequest.

The grammar school in Bethnal Green closed in the same year. The school acquired grant maintained status in 1991, and returned to voluntary aided status in September 1999.[3][5]

In April 2010, Parmiter's School hosted Any Questions?, a topical debate on the elections, broadcast on BBC Radio 4.