House System

When a pupil joins BGS he is allocated into one of four Houses, Crosby, Dufferin, School or Ward and his house colour is worn as two stripes above the school badge on his blazer.

Each House has two Senior Prefects, The Head and Deputy of House, who run the fortnightly House Assemblies and help organise and support the competitions that run throughout the year such as The Junior and Senior Quizzes, the Junior Drama Competition, House hockey and rugby, Junior and Senior Debating and House Chess.

The winning House is announced at the first assembly of the new academic year, with the incoming House Prefects collecting the House Cup, awarded in memory of Miss Amanda Chapman, a former teacher at the school.

Competition is fierce throughout the year.

Crosby House is named after Mr William Crosby, one of the school’s most generous benefactors. Crosby emigrated to the USA in 1856 and returned to Bangor at the beginning of the 20th century. He believed it was a “cause for humiliation on the part of the residents of Bangor that boys had been obliged to go to Belfast – or even to a smaller town like Holywood – to complete their education” and so agreed to pay half the costs of a new school building for Bangor Grammar School.

The site on College Avenue was purchased and the Crosby building erected thanks to his generous donation. Although the school has now moved, the Crosby building still stands on College Ave.

Dufferin House is named in honour of one of Bangor’s greatest sons, the Marquess of Dufferin.

Dufferin was one of the most outstanding diplomats of the Victorian era, and during an illustrious career served as Governor General of Canada and Viceroy of India.

 His wife, the Dowager Marchioness of Dufferin, presented a golden key to Mr Robert Ward and Mr William Crosby on the opening of the new school building on College Avenue, and was a generous and loyal champion of the school.

The idea of a house system dates back to the age when pupils boarded in their school. Their ‘house’ was simply the building they lived and slept in. Thus, most old boarding schools had a ‘School House’ as some pupils inevitably slept in the school building. This explains why, when they formed a proper House system, Bangor Grammar, which used to have boarders, named one of their houses after the School. (Room 104 in the College Ave building used to be the dormitory!) In the modern era, School House also has a special responsibility: to maintain and promote the honour of the school.

The Wards had been proprietors of Bangor since 1709, but Ward House is named in honour of Colonel Robert Ward in particular. It was he who, in 1829, left £1,000 ‘for the use of …the Corporation of Bangor, to be expended by them in building and endowing a school house for the education of boys in mathematics, astronomy and navigation’.

Although the school was not established until 1856, it is still to Robert Ward that we owe our existence. The Ward family continued to play an important role in the school for many years, and a member of the family attended the opening ceremony of the College Avenue buildings in 1906.