11. Deacon’s School

This plaque is located on the north side of Cowgate on the building now occupied by The PizzaParlour.

Thomas Deacon, born in 1651, was a local wealthy wool merchant and philanthropist. He became a Peterborough Feoffee in 1679 and was appointed as a governor of the Town Estates in 1683. He owned a number of properties within the city and surrounding area, including the New Manor, Longthorpe (Longthorpe Tower), which he acquired in 1701. In 1704, he was appointed High Sheriff of Northamptonshire, of which Peterborough was part of at the time.

In 1721 Deacon endowed a school for 20 ‘poor boys of the city’ so that they could learn to ‘read, write and cast accounts’. It was expected that these boys would go on to become apprentices.

The buildings which formerly stood on the site were part of the endowment and already housed a school. However, the school traditionally dates its commencement from the ‘proving’ of Deacon’s will in 1721. Deacon died on the 19th August, 1721 and is buried in Peterborough Cathedral.

By the 1880s the buildings had become unsuitable and the Charity Commissioners strongly advised the building of a new school. The school moved to Crown Lane (later Deacon Street) in 1883 and again in 1960 to Queens Gardens. Until the introduction of comprehensive educationDeacon’s was one of the city’s three grammar schools, the others being King’s School and the County School for Girls.

Deacon’s became a voluntary controlled co-educational comprehensive school in 1976 and a grant maintained school in the 1990s. It became a specialist Technology College in 1994.

In 2007 the new Thomas Deacon Academy, designed by Sir Norman Foster and Partners, costing nearly £50 million was opened on the same site.

Thomas Deacon’s magnificent classical monument is situated at the far end of the Cathedral and is well worth a visit. The reclining figure of Deacon is the masterpiece of the distinguished sculptor Robert Taylor Snr. The white marble monument depicts Deacon in a powdered wig, his elbow resting on a pillow and his hand upon a skull. The inscription and that of his wife Mary below detail the various charities that they had supported in the city.

This plaque is the eleventh in a series of twenty blue plaques recently installed in the city centre byPeterborough Civic Society. Further details about all the plaques can be found in the accompanying leaflet available at the Visitor Information Centre in Bridge Street, or via the society’s website.