Royal Grammar School, High Wycombe
Old School Photos and Memorabilia
Founder: Tony Hare • Webmaster: John Saunders
This is a website set up to feature photos and memorabilia relating to the Royal Grammar School, High Wycombe by two old boys of the school. Tony Hare (RGS 1951-56) was the first to have the idea and set up his own website in 2000 to celebrate his own era at the school. Inspired by Tony's creation, John Saunders (RGS 1963-70) set up his own site in 2003 to do the same for the 1960s. Both websites continued to develop in parallel and in close cooperation until 2020 when Tony decided to retire and handed over his own website to John to amalgamate the two sites into one, featuring photos and memorabilia from the school's foundation up to the recent past.
Artwork from a 1975 Wycombiensian
Tony and I are both indebted to dozens of old boys who have helped by sending in items for scanning and identifications of boys in photos. If you can help with identification or correct errors,
The website has subsequently expanded to feature a lot more besides photos, with scans of school magazines (both official and unofficial), school lists ("grey books"), lists of masters at the school from its foundation to the 1970s, the school honours board, school history, etc. Click on the link to Other Memorabilia, below left, to see the range of items available here. If you have any RGS memorabilia you would like to see included here, please get in touch.
Pre-1957 Material: click here for Tony's Website...
The amalgamation of the two websites happened on 29 June 2020 and there still remains a lot of work to do to integrate the two sites, so please bear with us. Currently, Tony's 1950s-related web content is best accessed via the link above though the year photos already have links via the left-hand panel on this page.
We have no official status vis-a-vis the school itself, nor are we the official old boys' organisation, but we maintain good relations with them. Here are some useful RGS-related links: official school website, Old Boys' blog and RGS on Wikipedia.
Another way to enjoy photos and images connected with the RGS is to join 'Memories: RGS High Wycombe', which is a Flickr group featuring hundreds of photos and images of the school and people connected with it, where you can post your own images and comments directly. This effectively replaces the forum facility which we've quietly laid to rest.
We're both hugely indebted to a long list of people for helping to identify faces in the photos, sending material and generally offering encouragement. Tony's list of contributors can be found here.
Very occasionally, a circular email is sent to contributors to let them know when the site is updated. If anybody else would like to be added to this email list, please get in contact. If you can help identify a few more faces, so much the better (but it is not compulsory).
This website is dedicated to John's late mother - a one-woman grammar school
when it came to educating and motivating her children.