James Edward Oglethorpe
The School is named after General James Edward Oglethorpe (1696-1785), an English soldier and philanthropist who entered Parliament in 1722.
In 1733 he founded the American State of Georgia. He was Governor for thirteen years. In 1744 he married Elizabeth Wright of Cranham Hall, Cranham, and came to live at the hall. He lived in Cranham for thirty years.
He is buried in All Saints’ Church, Cranham.
The School Badge
The chevron is taken from the centre of the ‘Southern Cross’, the original flag of the founding states of the United States of America, of which Oglethorpe’s Georgia was one. Each star is, of course, a state – Georgia is the centre star for our purposes. The crosslet shows the religious origins of the School as a church school. The acorn is a little seed from which the mighty oak will grow, the oak being:
the tree of knowledge
the tree which never stops growing
the state tree of Georgia
The book represents learning and teaching – the school’s ‘raison d’etre’. The helmet is that of the esquire (Sir James Edward Oglethorpe) surmounted by the boar’s head from Oglethorpe’s own family coat of arms. The motto (loosely ‘He knows not how to submit’) is Oglethorpe’s own family motto. The colours are red and blue on silver.
