The Portsmouth Grammar School

The Portsmouth Grammar School (PGS) was founded in 1732 under the will of William Smith, a former Mayor of Portsmouth and the garrison physician of the Royal Navy dockyard. Smith bequeathed his estate to Christ Church, Oxford, with instructions to establish a free grammar school in his home city of Portsmouth. The school opened the same year on its current Portsmouth High Street site, in the historic walled part of the city directly adjacent to the dockyard, and has occupied the same group of buildings — augmented over the centuries — ever since. PGS became a girls'-admitting co-educational school in the 1990s and now educates around 1,142 pupils aged 2-18. The Headmaster is David Wickes.

PGS is a member of the HMC. The school's Old Portmuthians (OPs) list is unusually rich for a regional independent. In sport, Sir Wally Hammond — the captain of England, double centurion against Australia and one of the four "Wisden Cricketers of the Century" — was educated at PGS in the 1910s. The Olympic silver medallist 400m sprinter Roger Black MBE attended in the late 1970s. The Formula One race engineer Jock Clear — Lewis Hamilton's race engineer at Mercedes during the 2013-14 season and now driver coach for Charles Leclerc at Ferrari — is a more recent old boy.

In literature: James Clavell, the author of Shōgun, Tai-Pan, King Rat and Noble House, was educated at PGS in the 1930s before military service; he later wrote the screenplay for The Great Escape and directed To Sir, With Love. In music: Paul Jones, the lead singer of Manfred Mann (Do Wah Diddy Diddy, Pretty Flamingo) and the long-running presenter of BBC Radio 2's Blues Show; and Murray Gold, the composer who scored the BBC's Doctor Who revival from 2005 to 2017 and recent series of His Dark Materials. In politics and public life: Mel Stride MP, the current Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer; Ed Richards, former Chief Executive of Ofcom; and Sir Peter Viggers, the Conservative MP whose £1,645 claim for a duck house at his constituency home became one of the defining images of the 2009 parliamentary expenses scandal.

In medical research: Ian Osterloh, the clinical researcher who led the Pfizer team that developed sildenafil (Viagra) after observing the unexpected side-effect of a candidate hypertension drug. PGS operates a substantial bursary programme via Christ Church, Oxford, maintaining William Smith's 1732 intent.