Manchester Grammar School

The Manchester Grammar School (MGS) was founded in 1515 by Hugh Oldham, Bishop of Exeter, to provide a free academic education to boys from the city. Today it is the largest independent boys' day school in the United Kingdom, educating around 1,659 pupils aged 7-18 at its Rusholme campus in south Manchester. The school has remained boys-only throughout its 511-year history and operates an integrated Junior School (ages 7-11) and Senior School (11-18). MGS is a member of the HMC and has long been described as one of Britain's most prestigious independent day schools.

Academically the school is highly selective and consistently competitive at the very top end of A-Level performance. It places among the strongest day-school feeders to Oxford and Cambridge each year, with roughly 30% of leavers admitted to Oxbridge in recent cohorts. STEM provision is exceptional: the chemist John Polanyi, who won the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 1986, attended MGS, as did the mathematician Sir Michael Atiyah, awarded the Fields Medal in 1966. The cryptographer Clifford Cocks — who first invented what became known as RSA public-key encryption at GCHQ in 1973 — is another Old Mancunian.

The school's cultural footprint matches its scientific record. Sir Ben Kingsley, winner of the Academy Award for his portrayal of Gandhi, was educated here. So were Sir Nicholas Hytner, former director of the National Theatre; the actor Robert Powell, best known for Jesus of Nazareth; the Oscar-winning screenwriter Robert Bolt (Lawrence of Arabia, A Man for All Seasons); the novelist Alan Garner, after whom the school's Junior Library is named; and the historian and broadcaster Michael Wood. In music, the concert pianist John Ogdon, joint winner of the Tchaikovsky Competition with Vladimir Ashkenazy, is an Old Mancunian.

Sporting alumni include the former England cricket captain Mike Atherton and several England Test cricketers (John Crawley, Mark Chilton). The High Master is Martin Boulton; the chair of governors is Clare Bolton. The school operates a substantial bursary programme intended to preserve Hugh Oldham's founding intent of academic opportunity regardless of family means.