St.Albans Boys School
Nicholas Carlisle, in 1818, described the school as "of very ancient origin, and of great celebrity"[and the Good Schools Guide describes St Albans as a "traditional public school, with a rich history".
The school also has a long scientific tradition, stretching back to the Norman era, when Alexander Neckam became master of the school. Since the advent of modern science, the school has produced many famous scientists and mathematicians including Professor Colin Cherry, Professor Ian Grant, Professor Stephen Hawking (inspired by Dikran Tahta, a teacher at the school who later worked at the Open University), and Professor Christopher Budd. In the light of its long heritage of nurturing scientific talent, the school was awarded a large sum of money in 2007 by the Wolfson Foundation to rebuild its physics laboratories to university standards.
St Albans School has also had a long tradition of nurturing talent in the study of history and in its associated disciplines. In medieval times, the school and one of its alumni, Matthew Paris, were closely associated with the St Albans school of medieval historiography, and developed one of the first consistent methods of historical writing.This success has continued in modern times; two teachers in the award-winning Ancient History department published a book on Roman sources in 2010 and the school has large numbers of students opting to study history, politics and ancient history at GCSE and A Level.The school has also nurtured a long list of historians including Lord Renfrew of Kaimsthorn, archaeological historian and former Disney Professor of Archaeology at the University of Cambridge, Ernest Gellner, an anthropological historian, Professor Malcolm Schofield of St John's College, Cambridge, and more recently Justin Pollard, a TV historian, and Peter Sarris, a specialist on the Byzantine Empire and a fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge. In 2007, one Lower Sixth Form pupil at the school had his biography of the 2nd Earl de Grey published,making him Britain's youngest published biographer.