Bracondale School

It was established by Daniel Banfield Hickie[1] who had recently relocated from Dublin, following dismissal of his allegations of fraudulent conduct within the Record Tower there,[2] and who advertised that he conducted a system of instruction enabling completion of his pupils’ education “in little more than half the time usually spent in public schools and on a much more solid basis”.

[4] He left Bracondale in 1828 on his appointment as headmaster of Hawkshead Grammar School[5] in succession to Thomas Bowman, who had taught William Wordsworth, and he was made an honorary Doctor of Laws by Glasgow University in the same year.

[6] In 1831 Bracondale was reported to have been purchased by a clergyman-schoolmaster,[7] but by the 1840s the establishment was headed by William Francis Paul whose “kindly and gentle method was combined with high religious principle and unswerving integrity”.

[11] Shakespeare took sole charge in the early 1890s[12] and was briefly succeeded by Frederick Pierpoint prior to Dr Francis Darkins Wheeler acquiring the school in 1896.

He wrote textbooks on entomology (he was President of the Norfolk and Norwich Naturalists’ Society in 1892), had been a partner in a timber business,[18] and while running Paragon House obtained the post-graduate degree of Master of Laws from his old university (by which he was advanced to a doctorate in 1891).

[23] The school's aims and objectives were "To produce happy and decent young gentlemen who do their best, and have consideration for the welfare and feelings of others".