Qualla: Hitchin Boys' School

Hitchin Boys' School: Introduction

Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Traveler100, CC BY-SA 3.0. John Mattocke had no children of his own when he founded a school in Hitchin in 1632, on a piece of land at the edge of the medieval market town. He provided for the wages of a master and the education of boys whose families could not afford private tutors. The Old Free School opened on 25 July of that year. Charles I had ten years left on the throne. Within a generation, the boys of Hitchin would interrupt their Latin lessons to watch Oliver Cromwell ride through town on his way to wherever the New Model Army was needed next. Nearly four hundred years later, the school still teaches roughly 1,500 boys, and the present site is mostly built on land that once belonged to John Mattocke.

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Image: Traveler100 | CC BY-SA 3.0

Hitchin Boys' School: The Free and Easy School

Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Jack1956, CC0. Thomas Heyndy was the first headmaster. His successor William Patricke, who took over in 1664, was famous for relaxing the rules. He let the boys read English texts instead of grinding through original Latin, allowed simpler Latin grammars, and called the place the "Free and Easy...

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Image: Jack1956 | CC0

Hitchin Boys' School: Niblock and Discipline

Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Jack1956, CC0. The Reverend Joseph Niblock arrived as headmaster in 1819. He stayed at Hitchin for only eleven of his twenty-five years in teaching, but those eleven years are legendary in the school's records. Niblock was, by reputation, one of the best Greek scholars in England; he wrote a Gr...

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Hitchin Boys' School: The Rebirth of 1889

Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Jack1956, Public domain. By 1872 the Old Free School was failing. The vicar of Hitchin found only four boys studying Latin at the school's twice-yearly examinations. The last Free School headmaster, John Sugars, had a mental breakdown in 1876 and the trustees closed the doors. Twelve years later, the Hit...

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Image: Jack1956 | Public domain

Hitchin Boys' School: Jabez King

Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit RobThinks, CC BY-SA 4.0. Jabez King arrived as headmaster in January 1898 to find a school of twenty-four boys, a balance sheet in the red, and full discretion from the trustees to do whatever was needed. King was a Classics and English graduate of Oxford and a fearless climber, and he is remembered for ...

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Image: RobThinks | CC BY-SA 4.0

Hitchin Boys' School: Twentieth Century, Two World Wars

Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit RobThinks, CC BY-SA 4.0. Letters from old boys at the Front were printed in the school chronicle through 1914 to 1918. A prefect system was introduced in 1915. School allotments were planted for the war effort, and during the 1926 General Strike, automatic detentions were issued for any boy who arrived l...

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Image: RobThinks | CC BY-SA 4.0

Hitchin Boys' School: Old Boys

Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Geni, CC BY-SA 4.0. Walk the corridors of HBS today and the school photographs and honours boards run nearly four centuries deep. The notable old boys are an unusually varied bunch for a market-town secondary school. The publisher Frederic Chapman, the South East Asia historian D.G.E. Hall, and the ...

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Image: Geni | CC BY-SA 4.0