The owner of a local brewery, Samuel Watts, set out plans for an endowment fund in his will for the formation of a middle class, secondary school which provided education to boys in Agriculture, Classics and English.

[5] Boulger was a Classical scholar and uncomfortable among small boys, and left in 1875,[6] to be replaced by William T. Kirkpatrick of the Royal Belfast Academical Institution.

Kirkpatrick oversaw the student population grow numerically and was responsible for the growth in academics at the college.

[7] In 1968, it became 'a selective, non-denominational, co-educational 14-19 Grammar School, offering a predominantly academic education up to Advanced Level in a wide range of subjects.

[9] The school has received the necessary funding to proceed with plans to erect a new building, replacing all of the current accommodation except for the listed 1873 portion.