Merchant Taylors' School

The school was founded in 1561 by Thomas White of the Merchant Taylors' Company in a manor house in the parish of St Lawrence Pountney in the City of London, where it remained until 1875. A curious account survives of a rent payment ritual in London for the Merchant Taylors School in which Sir Rowland Hill, the Lord Mayor of London in 1549 who had coordinated the Geneva Bible translation, presided shortly before he died<blockquote>The xxx day of September my lord mayre and the althermen and the new shreyffes took ther barges at the iij cranes in the Vintre and so to Westmynster, and so into the Cheker, and ther took ther hoythe; and ser Rowland Hyll whent up, and master Hoggys toke ser…

The Merchant Taylors' remains a school for boys only, and accepts pupils based upon an entrance examination, which the boys sit when they are either 11 or 16 years old. The school has a close relationship with its "sister school" St Helen's School, Northwood and the boys also work on occasion with girls from other schools, notably the Royal Masonic School for Girls. The school's old boys, called Old Merchant Taylors (OMTs), include naturalists, poets, actors, academics, politicians, authors, sportsmen, and military figures, including three winners of the Victoria Cross award. OMTs include Lancelot Andrewes, who oversaw the translation of the King James' Bible; John Walter, founding editor…