Cranleigh School marked the 150th anniversary of its opening with a service in the newly refurbished chapel. The School welcomed its first pupils on September 29, 1865 and to mark the occasion the Bishop of Guildford addressed a congregation of staff and pupils, including the great, great, great, great grandson of the very first Headmaster, Joseph Merriman.
Ollie Pope, a promising cricketer who plays for Surrey, is one of a long line of Merriman’s family who have attended the School. He opened the proceedings by welcoming the visiting dignitaries and said his ancestor would be proud of the School he helped to create: “From what I hear of Merriman he was a great believer in working and playing hard and that is certainly the Cranleigh way,” he said.
Headmaster, Mr Martin Reader, said: “Cranleigh has certainly come a long way in its first 150 years. From the 27 boys we had in 1865 we are now large enough to provide incredible opportunities for our pupils. Yet we have retained the family ethic and Christian principles and we are still small enough for every individual pupil to be known and nurtured; all of which is a continuation of the founding ethos when our distinct boarding community was launched so many years ago.
: “Cranleigh has a remarkable success story in its relatively short history. We are all looking forward to celebrating that history over the coming academic year, and to building the foundations for another 150 years of education here.”
Plans to commemorate the anniversary include a specially commissioned war memorial, a musical production, a book of Cranleigh’s history and a conference on the theme of Culture to explore the wider meaning of Ex Cultu Robur.
A website dedicated to the first 150 years of Cranleigh School launched as well and can be found at www.cranleigh.org/1865