John Ruskin College is a further education college and former school in the London Borough of Croydon, which started life in 1920 as the John Ruskin Boys' Central School. It is situated in Forestdale on the A2022 (Selsdon Park Road), close to the A212 roundabout, on the southern edge of London's conurbation. New Addington is near, as is Gravel Hill tram stop.

History

The original school was founded as a Central school in Scarbrook Road, Croydon, named after John Ruskin. It opened on 12 January 1920. The Lady Edridge School (later to become a grammar school in 1951) opened the same day.

Grammar school

In 1935 the school moved to Tamworth Road, and in April 1945 it was granted grammar school status as the John Ruskin Grammar School for Boys (JRGS). It had been previously the John Ruskin Selective Central School. It moved to Upper Shirley Road, Shirley, in 1955, and was retitled the John Ruskin High School in 1971 before being demolished in 1991. The upper forms transferred to Selsdon to form the present John Ruskin College, utilising the premises previously known as John Newnham Secondary Selective School, named after a 20th century town clerk of the old County Borough of Croydon.

See also

The College should not be confused with John Ruskin Primary School, which is in Southwark, nor the John Ruskin School Technology College in Cumbia, nor Ruskin College, Oxford.

Notable alumni and faculty

• The author and journalist Malcolm Muggeridge briefly taught at the school several times while a student, where his father, Henry Muggeridge, was Chairman of the Governors.
• Feroz Abbasi, a former detainee at Camp X-Ray arrested in Afghanistan, is a former student of the college.
• The actor and playwright Mick Ford was a pupil at John Ruskin Grammar School in the late 1960s, during which time he played Hamlet in an acclaimed school production; he was also a member of the National Youth Theatre.

John Ruskin Grammar School

• Harold Bailey, Chairman of Associated British Foods from 2000–2
• Sir Frank Barlow CBE, Secretary of the Parliamentary Labour Party from 1959–79
• Joseph Barnes, Chairman of Baxters from 1994–8
• Francis Feates CB, Professor of Environmental Engineering at UMIST from 1991-5, Director of the HM Inspectorate of Pollution from 1989-91
• Roy Hodgson, football manager of Fulham since December 2007
• Air Vice-Marshal Richard Lacey CBE, Station Commander of RAF Benson from 1997-9
• Prof Donald Leach CBE, Professor of Maths of Computing and Principal of Queen Margaret College, Edinburgh from 1985-96
• Ralph McTell, wrote Streets of London
• Sir Robert Phillis, Chief Executive of the Guardian Media Group from 1997–2006, and of All3Media since 2004, and of BBC Worldwide from 1994–7, and of ITN from 1991-3
• Prof Terence Rabbitts, Director of the Leeds Institute of Molecular Medicine since 2006
• Jamie Reid, artists who designed the Sex Pistols' album cover for Never Mind the Bollocks, Here's the Sex Pistols, and most of their singles including God Save the Queen
• Stuart Smith, President of the Lawn Tennis Association since 2006

References

1. John Ruskin Primary School, Axcis Education Recruitment.

External links

• John Ruskin College
• EduBase
• Memories of the former school
• History of the former school