Sir John Bayley Gates - Wrekin College, Wellington, Telford, Shropshire - Citizen Memorials on Waymarking.com

These memorial gates are located at the entrance to the Wrekin College Cricket Pavilion on Roslyn Road in Wellington, Telford.

Plaque 1 Inscription :
These gates were erected to the memory of John Bayley Knight 1852-1952 who founded this school in 1880

Plaque 2 Inscripstion :
Aut Vincere Aut Mori
(Translation : Either to conquer or to die)

Sir John Bayley founded Wrekin College in 1880. He wanted to establish a school which would be different. In particular, he said “the danger of any school is that of falling into a narrow groove of teaching all children as though they were turned out by Mother Nature in stereotyped fashion, of failing to realise that any successful school is one where each pupil receives individual attention”. This has been Wrekin’s philosophy ever since.

About Sir John Bayley :
Born on the 21st December 1852 at Ashton Under Lyne 8 miles from the city of Manchester, he was the 7th son of a 7th son, his father was a coalminer.
John started training as a teacher from the age of 13.
He arrived in Wellington via teacher training school and his first headship in Ashford, Kent where he met and married, Emily Susannah Butler, immediately after arriving in Wellington he was appointed as Headmaster of the Board School on Constitution Hill, he was 24years of age.
John left the Constitution Hill school on the 31st March 1880 and started his own school in Albert rd, Wellington, this later became “Wrekin College”. 40 years later he owned 125 acres of land most of which the present Wrekin College still occupies.
John Bayley was a firm friend of David Lloyd George and became interested in politics and stood for election on the 7th February 1920, but came 3rd in the vote with 4750 votes, a rare defeat for the great man.
At the end of the year 1920 John Bayley sold Wrekin College and retired to his Buckatree home, and in 1921 he moved to Torquay, returning to Shropshire two or three times a year.
The New Years Honours list of 1921 contained the name of John Bayley and he was confirmed with the title of, Knight Bachelor, “for services to education” . His wife Emily died on the 4th of June 1928.
Sir John Bayley died in 1952, just short of his 100th birthday, and is buried in the churchyard of St,Tudnos on the Great Orme at Llandudno, next to his wife Emily, where he had proposed some 70 odd years earlier.

Website with more information on either the memorial or the person(s) it is dedicated to: [Web Link] Location: Wrekin College Cricket Pavilion Gates

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