John Hellins Primary School
John Hellins Primary School
George Henry Fitzroy, 4th Duke
of Grafton
The Reverend John Hellins FRS
A School for Potterspury, written by Jack Clamp, a former headteacher of the village school, can be purchased by contacting
Potterspury School was founded in 1817 at the behest of the village vicar, the Reverend John Hellins, and with considerable financial help from the 4th Duke of Grafton. A man of humble origins, John Hellins perhaps remembered how education had changed his life, and wrote to the Duke in 1817, "I do not know a place in which such a school is more wanted than here".
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The Duke provided a room in a building which is on the site of the current primary school and in March 1817, some 50 boys of the village were educated. The Duke was soon persuaded to provide a larger classroom with room for 80 scholars and this schoolroom remains at the heart of the (much-altered) village school today.
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Potterspury School was renamed in honour of its founder to become John Hellins Primary School in 1990.
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