Founders and Benefactors

We are absolutely delighted to announce that, since the launch of the ‘Bursary Now Appeal’, we are approaching nearly £1m in donations. Many of the donations have come from first time donors and we w…

The annual Founders’ Day took place today, with over 1500 pupils, governors, alumni and staff seated in Manchester Cathedral. This year was made even more special with an address made by Archbishop S…

We were delighted to welcome Old Mancunians back to MGS for the annual Reunion Dinner on Saturday 7th May. This was especially poignant given the restrictions imposed by the covid-19 pandemic, which …

In pre-Covid times, this coming weekend would see the gathering of members of the South West section of the Old Mancunian’s Association to lay a wreath at the tomb of Hugh Oldham in Exeter Cathedral.…

Hugh Oldham was born in 1452 to Roger and Margery Oldham. Early sources are unclear as to whether he was born in Oldham or in Manchester, but either way his family’s roots were strongly Lancastrian. …

Sarah, Duchess of Somerset was born Sarah Alston in 1630, the daughter of wealthy London physician Edward Alston. Alston had no sons, and so his two daughters were co-heiresses to a large fortune. Sa…

Charles James Oldham did not grow up in Manchester, but he did have a family connection to the School. His family were descendants of MGS founder, Hugh Oldham. He was born in 1842 in Brighton, the so…

Thomas Wrigley was born in Bury in 1808, the son of a wealthy paper manufacturer, James Wrigley. On his father’s death in 1846, he inherited Bridge Hall Paper Mills. For Wrigley’s first twenty years …

Richard Johnson, in common with a number of our nineteenth century benefactors, was a successful Manchester businessman. The roots of Johnson’s wealth lay in the late eighteenth century. James Howard…

Charles Frederick Beyer, mentioned eighth in the Founders’ Prayer, is our only benefactor to have been born outside the UK. Beyer was born in Plauen, Saxony in 1813. His original German name was Carl…

The prayer for Founders and Benefactors lists three MGS “founders” and eight “benefactors”. However, Edward Riley Langworthy was often described as the school’s “second founder” and the three founder…

There are three women named in the Founders’ Prayer, including our subject for this week’s piece, Hannah Brackenbury. Who was she, and how did she come to be known as a major benefactor of MGS? Hanna…