It was founded in 1850 by John Lees, a local lock-manufacturer and freemason, after a cholera epidemic ravaged the town and left many children orphaned.

The charity carried on using this title until the late 1940s when King George VI permitted it to be re-styled The Royal Wolverhampton School.

[1] The following decade saw a rapid decline in the number of pupils as the newly formed Welfare State took over some of the school's responsibilities.

The cost of caring for orphans also dramatically increased and so the constitution was controversially changed to allow the admission of fee-paying pupils.

Its replacement, also called the Hilda Hayward swimming pool, cost £2.5 million and was opened by Prince Edward in September 2006.

Eric Idle was an Orphan's scholarship holder and benefited from a forces bursary as his late father had been a former member of the RAF.