Heath Grammar School
Coordinates: 53°42′42″N 1°52′41″W / 53.7117°N 1.8781°W
Heath Grammar School, Free School Lane, Halifax, West Yorkshire, England was founded in 1585 by Dr. John Favour. Its full title was The Free Grammar School of Queen Elizabeth at Heath, near Halifax. Henry Farror and his brother gave 2 acres (8,100 m2) of land in Skircoat Green and personally obtained the school charter from Elizabeth I of England at his own expense.
The original governors selected from among the most respectable of the parishioners were responsible for the appointment of the head master and usher the former of whom must have been a student for a period of five years at one of the Universities. The school house with 6 acres (24,000 m2) of land contiguous to it was given by Gilbert Earl of Shrewsbury, Edward Savile Esq and Sir George Savile Knt in 1598 and several benefactions have since been added to the original endowment among which is one by the Rev Thomas Milner who by will in 1722 assigned to the Master and Fellows of Magdalene College, Cambridge, a reversionary grant of £1000 for founding three scholarships for the benefit of the schools at Haversham, Leeds and Halifax and in 1736 his sister added £200 for the same purpose. The head master received £80 per annum, out of which he paid an usher of his own appointment.
Dr Favour became the Vicar of Halifax in 1593.
The seal of Heath Grammar School shows a book with the Latin words:-
"Qui mihi discipulus puer es cupis atque"
translated:
"You who are my pupil and wish to be taught"
In 1985 the school was merged to form The Crossley Heath School.
The main school is now a listed Building.
Notable scholars
- Laurence Sterne
- Sir John Bonser (1859–66)
- Sir Frank Watson Dyson, astronomer who introduced the Greenwich Time Signal (1879–1886)
- Sir Matthew Smith artist (1890–1895)
- Sir Leonard Bairstow, mathematician (1891-8)
- Sir David Wadsworth (1895–1902)
- Sir Eric Coates, engineer (1909–61)
- Sir Walter Stansfield CBE MC, Chief Constable of Denbighshire Constabulary from 1964-7 (1928–35)
- Sir Charles Illingworth CBE, Regius Professor of Surgery, Glasgow from 1939-64 (1910-7)
- Raymond Heron CBE, engineer (1935–42)
- Prof Hugh Dudley CBE (1936–43)
- Professor Oliver Smithies, Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 2007 (1936–43)
- Lindsay Clarke, novelist (1950-7)
- David Cawthra CBE FReng, civil engineer and Chief Executive from 1988-91 of Balfour Beatty (1954–61)
- Barrie Ingham, actor (1945–52)
- Keith Ackroyd CBE, pharmacist and Chairman from 1992-4 of the British Retail Consortium (1945–52)
- Barry Seal Labour MEP for Yorkshire West from 1979-99 (1949–56)
- Prof Andrew Wilkinson, President of the British Association of Perinatal Medicine 1999-2002 (1955–62)
- David Stoker
- Paul Opacic, actor