John Lyon (school founder)

A monumental brass bearing the effigies of John and his wife, that had an inscription, was removed from the floor during a restoration, and placed against a wall of the church.

[2] Lyon established a trust for the maintenance of Harrow Road and Edgware Road, for which the income from his estate is dispensed by John Lyon's Charity, which grants for charities and for state schools of young people in nine London boroughs: Barnet, Brent, Camden, Ealing, Hammersmith & Fulham, Kensington & Chelsea, Harrow, and the Cities of London and Westminster.

Lyon spent twenty English marks every year on the education of poor children, as a consequence of which, on 13 February 1572, Queen Elizabeth granted him a Royal Charter by Letters Patent to found a free grammar school for the education of boys at Harrow, and to incorporate his trustees as Governors of the "Free Grammar-School of John Lyon".

Subsequently, after the Clerk to the Signet proposed to levy £50 from Lyon as a loan to the state, the attorney-general Sir Gilbert Gerard contended that Lyon ought to not be forced to sell lands that he had bought for the maintenance of his school.

[4] Lyon during 1590 stipulated statutes for his school that provided for a schoolmaster with the degree of M.A., and an usher with the degree of B.A., both to be unmarried, and that provided the admission fees and activities for scholars (including top-driving, handball, running, and shooting) who were to learn the Protestant catechism and attend mass, and to be taught Greek in the two highest forms.