Coordinates: 52°35′16″N 0°43′30″W / 52.58778°N 0.725°W / 52.58778; -0.725

Uppingham School is a co-educational independent school of the English public school tradition, situated in the small town of Uppingham in Rutland, England. The school was founded in 1584 by Robert Johnson, the Archdeacon of Leicester who also established Oakham School.

The school's current Headmaster, Richard Harman MA, is a member of the Headmasters' and Headmistresses' Conference and the school is a member of the Rugby Group of independent schools in the United Kingdom.

The Reverend Edward Thring (headmaster 1853–1887) is perhaps the school's best-known headmaster. His many innovative changes to the school's curriculum were later adopted in other English public schools. During his headship the school moved temporarily to Borth in Wales after an outbreak of typhoid ravaged the town. The move to Borth is commemorated in an annual service, held in the school chapel.

Uppingham has a tradition for high musical standards based on the work of Paul David and Robert Sterndale Bennett and has recently opened a new music school, a fusion of new and old buildings named after the first Director of Music, Paul David. The current Director of Music is Stephen Williams.

Uppingham has the greatest area of playing fields of any school in England, in three separate areas on different sides of the town: the Leicester to the West, the Middle to the South, and the Upper to the East.^[1]

History[link]

The Old School

In 1584 Uppingham School was founded with a hospital, or almshouse, by Archdeacon Robert Johnson. The original 1584 Schoolroom in Uppingham churchyard is still owned by the school and is a Grade I listed building. The original hospital building is now incorporated in the School Library.

The first recorded Uppingham schoolboy was Henry Ferne from York, who was Chaplain to Charles I.

In the 17th, 18th and early 19th centuries Uppingham remained a small school of 30-60 pupils, with two staff. Despite its small size, pupils then,(as now), regularly gained places and scholarships to Oxford and Cambridge Universities.

During that period, various features of life in the School developed which are still in evidence today. Uppingham became a full boarding school, with all pupils having individual studies. This pattern was established around 1800, and some of these original studies still survive, although they are no longer in use. The first recorded school play was performed in 1794 and Uppingham has a thriving theatre. The main recreation in the 19th century was cricket - the first recorded cricket match, described in the school magazine, was in 1815 - and the game still thrives at Uppingham. In 1846 the Institution of School Praepostors, or Prefects, was established and still operates. The Praepostors are universally called "Pollies" around the school. As now, certain pupils were to gain distinction in later life, an early example being Professor Thomas Bonney, at Uppingham in the 1850s, the most distinguished geologist of his time, and President of the Alpine Club.

Edward Thring transformed the School from a small, high-quality local grammar school into a large, well-known public school, with 330 pupils. He moved the whole school (of around this number) temporarily to Borth in Wales to escape typhoid fever as a result of the poorly-maintained water system. This was successful in saving the school from a serious epidemic. He also won national and transatlantic reputation as an original thinker and writer on education. His ideas are still important today: - Every pupil must receive full and equal attention; as much time should be spent in class on an ordinary as on a brilliant pupil; those not intellectually gifted should have opportunities to succeed in other occupations; scattered boarding house enshrine a different and higher life; each pupil must have a small study of his own. At a time when Maths and Classics dominated the curriculum he encouraged many ‘extra’ subjects - French, German, Science, History, Art, Carpentry and Music. In particular Thring was a pioneer in his introduction of Music into the regular system of education; thus were the foundations laid for Uppingham’s present flourishing musical life.

He also opened the first gymnasium in an English school, the forerunner of the present Sports Hall, and later added a heated indoor swimming pool. He also commissioned a number of impressive buildings, notably the Chapel designed by the famous Gothic Revival architect G. E. Street.

Ernest William Hornung was at the School in the 1880s; he wrote several novels but his fame rests upon his creation of the character A.J. Raffles.

The school cricket pavilion, built as a war memorial

During this period the School continued to grow, with numbers reaching well over 400. These years saw the formation in 1889 of the Combined Cadet Force; the creation in 1890 of the first School Orchestra; in 1896 the re-introduction of hockey; and the adoption of rugby football, with the first match being against Rugby. Uppingham pupils still take part in all these activities today.

The buildings of the School also continued to grow with the construction of the Tower block, through which you still enter the School, and the combined gymnasium and concert hall - which in 1972 was converted into the School Theatre.

Pupils continued to go on to later fame - Patrick Abercrombie, pioneer Town Planner; Sir Malcolm Campbell, motor racer; James Elroy Flecker, poet and playwright: CRW Nevinson, official war artist in both wars; WH Pratt (Boris Karloff), film actor; E.J. Moeran, composer; Lt General Sir Brian Horrocks, Commander of the XXX Corps under Montgomery, and later a TV lecturer on battles and war; and Percy Chapman, captain of the England cricket team 1926-30, who won the Ashes.

The growth of the School continued with numbers of well over 600 pupils being reached in the 1960s. In 1973 the first girl attended Uppingham, as a day-girl; with a few more added in 1974. Then in 1975 the first Sixth Form Girls’ House, Fairfield, was opened, with its full complement of 50 girls achieved by 1976. This venture proved so successful that in 1986 a second Girls’ House, Johnson’s, was opened; and in 1994 the Lodge House (formerly a Boys’ House) was converted into the third Girls’ House. In 2001 the first 13-year-old girls entered the School, with the opening of a new house, Samworths’, the first house for girls aged 13–18; followed in 2002 by the conversion of Fairfield into a second House for 13-18 year-old girls and another new house, New House, opened in 2004. Johnson's was converted to a 13-18 girls' house in 2011 with an extension and significant internal reconstruction.

The buildings of the School continued to expand. Four hundred and fifty ex-pupils died in the First World War and the School Hall was built in their memory. Also built in this period were the main classroom block in the centre of the School, the Cricket and Rugby pavilions, and a school sanatorium. In 1956 the new Science Block was opened by the Duke of Edinburgh; it was extended in the 1960s. In 1989 a new Maths Block, to house Mathematics and Computing was opened by Professor Stephen Hawking. New squash courts were built and in 1970 the Sports Centre, incorporating the old swimming pool was opened, with the later addition of a climbing wall and a well-equipped weights room. In 1981 a new Music School and a new Buttery, where the pupils can buy snacks, were built. In 1995 the new Arts and Design Faculty was built, the Leonardo Centre, designed by old pupil Piers Gough. In 2003 the Language Centre (TLC), housing all the Modern Languages classrooms, opened. In 2006 a third Music facility, the Paul David Music School (PDMS), opened on School Lane, incorporating all the old houses that were there, to accommodate the growing demand for music at the School. In 2010 the Uppingham School Sports Centre (USSC) was completed, and the old sports centre demolished to create space to develop the proposed new 'Western Quad'.

In the post-War period sports other than the main ones of rugby, hockey, cricket, athletics, swimming and shooting began to be introduced including tennis, basketball, badminton, fencing, squash, sailing, soccer and golf.

School Lane; on the right is the Memorial Hall, built in the 1920s. The buildings on the left are now part of the school's Music Centre. The building beyond the arch is the Library, originally the hospital

In 1945 Douglas Guest succeeded Robert Sterndale Bennett as Director of Music and this area of School life developed even further. The concert choir was increased until it contained over half the School: a bandmaster was appointed; music scholarships were introduced; and various music societies were created. All these innovations still flourish.

In the 1960s Uppingham pioneered the introduction of Design and Technology into the curriculum, with Uppingham being the first independent school, and one of the first 5 schools in Britain, to evolve and introduce A-level Design. Design was taught in the Thring Centre, opened in 1965. These subjects were then transferred with Art, Woodwork and Metalwork to the Leonardo Centre, opened in 1995.

The years since the 1970s have also seen a considerable expansion in the subjects taught, particularly at A-level, with the introduction of Politics, Ancient History, Design, Business Studies, Theatre Studies, Classical Civilisation, Spanish, Italian, Philosophy & Religious Studies, ICT, and Physical Education.

Uppingham is considered one of Britain's best schools for music, and the school's music facilities have been improved considerably recently. The school houses two large three-manual pipe organs, in the Memorial Hall and the Chapel; the latter was substantially rebuilt in the summer of 2007 by Nicholson Organs of Malvern. A completely new Choir division is now situated high on the South wall, and a new console and action has been installed, along with new pipework. The organ is notable for its smooth Harrison tone and rare two independent sets of Swell shutters - one opening westwards into the nave extension and one southwards across the repositioned choir stalls.

Uppingham has one of the largest private theatres in the country, in a building based on the original Leipzig Gewandhaus. An extension to the main theatre houses a Drama studio to be used for the teaching of Theatre Studies as well as for performances of smaller productions. There is also a large workshop to provide storage and workspace for technical equipment.

Recent Developments[link]

In 2005 the school was one of fifty of the country's leading private schools which were found guilty of running an illegal price-fixing cartel, exposed by The Times, which had allowed them to drive up fees for thousands of parents.^[2] Each school was required to pay a nominal penalty of £10,000 and all agreed to make ex-gratia payments totalling three million pounds into a trust designed to benefit pupils who attended the schools during the period in respect of which fee information was shared.^[3]

In May 2010 a mutiny was staged over the expulsion of some sixth-form pupils. For an entire day 500 students failed to attend classes and formed protests in aid of the dismissed students.^[4]

In March 2011, Lord Sebastian Coe officially opened the School’s new sports centre. The building includes a large sports hall, 25m swimming pool, a 50-station fitness studio, squash courts, gymnasium and two dance studios. It was designed by ORMS Architecture Design and is part of the School’s plans to develop the western campus buildings.^[5] The School also now has, in a converted squash court behind the Theatre, a climbing wall facility, installed in 2010.

Houses[link]

There are nine boys' boarding houses at Uppingham, informally split into three groups:

The 'Hill Houses' are Brooklands, Fircroft, and Highfield;

The 'Town Houses' are School House, Lorne House, West Deyne (1859) and West Bank;

The 'Country Houses' are Meadhurst and Farleigh.

There are six girls' boarding houses: Johnson's, The Lodge (sixth form only), Fairfield, New House, Constables and Samworths'. Samworths' was built in 2001 as the first house for girls aged 13 to 18. It was named for the Samworth Brothers, Old Uppinghamians who helped to finance the construction.

Quatercentenary[link]

Queen Elizabeth II visited the school on the occasion of the Quatercentenary, November 16, 1984.

Old Uppinghamians[link]

The book Eminent Uppinghamians by Bryan Matthews, former Second Master, was voted Most Ridiculous Book of the Year by The Sunday Times in 1986.

Notable former pupils include:

• Robert Adley, Member of Parliament for Bristol North East and Christchurch.
• Jonathan Agnew, England, Leicestershire cricketer and Chief Cricket Correspondent for BBC Radio
• John Aldridge, Royal Academician
• Anthony Armstrong, author, essayist, dramatist
• Adrian Bell, author of Corduroy
• Robin Blaze, countertenor
• Brian Boobbyer, England rugby player and evangelist for Moral Re-Armament
• Thomas George Bonney, geologist
• Ernle Bradford, historian and writer
• Edward Brittain, Roland Leighton and Victor Richardson - associates of Vera Brittain whose stories are told in her autobiography Testament of Youth.
• Everard Calthrop, railway engineer and inventor.
• Sir Donald Campbell, World Land and Water Speed record holder, killed on Coniston Water in Bluebird (West Deyne)
• Sir Malcolm Campbell, holder of World Land and Water Speed records in 1920s and 1930s (West Deyne)
• William Henry Charsley, Master of Charsley's Hall, Oxford
• Lord Nigel Crisp, former Chief Executive of the NHS
• Johnny Dawes, rock climber
• Adrian Dixon, Master of Peterhouse, Cambridge University
• Eric Dorman-Smith, British Army officer and Irish nationalist ^[6]
• Rt Hon Stephen Dorrell, MP PC, Health Secretary 1995-7, current Chair of the Health Select Committee
• Norman Douglas, novelist and travel writer
• Charles Dunstone and David Ross, co-founders of Carphone Warehouse^[7]
• John H. Edwards (geneticist) and his brother A.W.F. Edwards (statistician)
• William Fawcett, writer on horses, hunting and racing^[8]
• Ronald Firbank, novelist
• Pat Fish (Patrick Huntrods), songwriter and musician.
• James Elroy Flecker, poet and dramatist
• Nick Freeman "Mr Loophole", celebrity lawyer
• Stephen Fry, actor, comedian (Blackadder) and writer (Fircroft), expelled in 1972
• Christopher Gabbitas, Baritone for The King's Singers
• Andrew Gimson, Political Journalist (West Bank).
• Piers Gough, architect
• Mark Haddon, author of The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time
• E. W. Hornung, author
• Danny Hipkiss, professional Rugby player, Leicester Tigers and England
• Lieutenant-General Sir Brian Horrocks, soldier, Corps Commander in World War II
• George Ivatt, mechanical engineer
• Hugh Jackman, actor (former teaching assistant)
• Jack Jarvis, professional rugby player (Canterbury, New Zealand)
• Christian Jessen, doctor and television presenter (Fircroft)
• Harry Judd, musician and member of McFly (Fircroft)
• Dominic Keating, actor (West Deyne)
• Andrew Kennedy, Tenor (Winner of Rosenblatt Song Prize at Cardiff Singer of the World 2005) (Fircroft)
• Sir David Li, current Chairman and Chief Executive of the Bank of East Asia in Hong Kong
• Sir Claude Maxwell Macdonald, soldier-diplomat
• Gregor MacGregor, England, Scotland, Cambridge University, Middlesex cricketer and rugby player.
• Tim Melville-Ross, head of CBI and Institute of Directors
• Ed Minton and Alex Davies, members of rock band Elliot Minor (School House)
• Ernest John Moeran, composer
• Oscar Murton, Baron Murton of Lindisfarne, politician
• Richard Lewis Nettleship, philosopher
• C. R. W. Nevinson, Official War Artist in both World Wars
• Ernest Newton, architect, President RIBA
• Dickson Poon, businessman and non-executive Chairman of Harvey Nichols
• Peter Powell, Radio One disc jockey
• William Henry Pratt, who achieved fame under his stage name, Boris Karloff
• James Purves, cricketer
• Professor Canon Charles E. Raven Vice-Chancellor of Cambridge University, Theologian, Intellectual, Preacher
• Canon H. D. Rawnsley, Co-founder of the National Trust
• Sam Riley, Actor
• Alan Rotherham, (left in 1881), former England rugby union international, captain of England, and inductee into the IRB Hall of Fame^[9]
• Guy Rowlands, Historian
• John Schlesinger, film director
• Cecil Sharp, musician, master of English Folk-song and Dance
• Charlie Simpson, Musician in Busted (2002–2005), Fightstar (2003–Present) and as a solo artist (2011–present) (Meadhurst)
• Sir Arthur Somervell, composer
• Toby Spence, tenor
• Phil Spencer, property expert, Channel 4 television
• Ed Stafford, Explorer, walking the length of the Amazon River
• Rick Stein, chef and restaurateur (West Deyne)
• George Martin Stephen, Headmaster of St Paul's School
• John Suchet, journalist and broadcaster
• Richard Thorp, actor ('Emergency Ward 10'; 7yrs, 'Emmerdale'; 30yrs), writer.
• Robert Thorogood, actor (Cambridge Footlights), writer (Death in Paradise (TV Series 2011)) (Fircroft)
• Edward Timpson Conservative Member of Parliament for Crewe and Nantwich
• Johnny Vaughan, TV presenter
• Anthony Way, former chorister - St Paul's Cathedral
• James Whitaker, Leicestershire and England cricketer
• Jenny Willott, Member of Parliament for Cardiff Central.
• Charles Plumpton Wilson (1859–1938), England footballer
• William Yates, former member of both British and Australian Parliaments

Military[link]

Victoria Cross Holders[link]

Five Old Uppinghamians have won the Victoria Cross:

• Victoria Cross
  • First World War
    • Arthur Moore Lascelles^[10]
    • George Allen Maling^[11]
    • Thomas Harold Broadbent Maufe ^[12]
    • John Stanhope Collings-Wells ^[13]
  • Second World War
    • Willward Alexander Sandys-Clarke^[13]

Notable masters[link]

• George Howson (1886–1900), reforming headmaster of Gresham's School
• Reginald Owen (1887–1961), Archbishop of New Zealand 1952–60

Southern Railway Schools Class[link]

The twenty-fourth steam locomotive (Engine 923) in the Southern Railway's Class V (of which there were 40) was originally named Uppingham, but the name was changed following objections from the school.^[14] This Class was also known as the Schools Class because all 40 of the class were named after prominent English public schools. 'Uppingham', as it was called, was built in December 1933 and had its name changed to Bradfield on 14 August 1934.^[15]

See also[link]

• List of Victoria Crosses by School

References[link]

External links[link]

• Uppingham School Website
• Uppingham School Exam Results
• Uppingham School League Table by BBC
• Upp The Arts at the Uppingham Theatre
• The Uppingham Summer School
• Uppingham by the Sea at Project Gutenberg Story of when the school relocated to Borth in 1876.

Disambiguation: "Uppingham" is the colloquial name for Uppingham School

Coordinates: 52°35′24″N 0°43′20″W / 52.5900°N 0.7222°W / 52.5900; -0.7222

Uppingham
The town centre
Uppingham  Uppingham shown within Rutland
Population	3,781
OS grid reference	SP865999
Unitary authority	Rutland
Ceremonial county	Rutland
Region	East Midlands
Country	England
Sovereign state	United Kingdom
Post town	OAKHAM
Postcode district	LE15
Dialling code	01572
Police	Leicestershire
Fire	Leicestershire
Ambulance	East Midlands
EU Parliament	East Midlands
UK Parliament	Rutland and Melton
List of places: UK • England • Rutland

Uppingham is a market town in the county of Rutland in the East Midlands of England, located on the A47 between Leicester and Peterborough, about 6 miles south of the county town, Oakham.

The market square is transformed once a year into the only fatstock show still to be held in temporary penning in a traditional market town. The first recorded show was in 1889. In 2011 140 sheep, 24 pigs and 20 cattle were entered. The event attracts farmers from all over the area who exhibit their prize livestock and toast their acquaintances afterwards in The Falcon Hotel.

History[link]

A little over a mile to the north-west at Castle Hill are the earthwork remains of a medieval motte and bailey castle. The Church of St Peter and St Paul is largely 14th century. It is perhaps known particularly for the early ministry of Jeremy Taylor. Uppingham Workhouse was first recorded in 1777 with space for 40 inmates. Until 1834 it was a parish workhouse, but in 1836 the Uppingham Poor Law Union began, and a new Union workhouse was built on Leicester Road to house 158 people to a design by architect William Donthorne. In the World War I, the building was used as an auxiliary hospital staffed by a Voluntary Aid Detachment. The workhouse was closed in 1929, and taken over by Uppingham School which uses the building as a boarding house.^[1]

The Eyebrook Reservoir near Uppingham was used by Lancaster Bombers flying from RAF Scampton as the final practice run for Guy Gibson's 617 Squadron Dambusters prior to Operation Chastise, the attack on the Ruhr valley Dams on the night of the 16/17 May 1943.

Governance[link]

Uppingham ward, which includes the neighbouring parish of Beaumont Chase, has three councillors on Rutland County Council. The Mayor of Uppingham is currently (2011) Peter Rees. His father was the first mayor of the town.^[2]

Education[link]

Schools in Uppingham include Uppingham School, an independent school founded in 1584.^[3] and a state secondary school, Uppingham Community College and two primary schools: Leighfield and Uppingham Church of England School. A proposal to replace the primaries with a newly-built school was rejected in 2007.^{[citation needed]}

Transport[link]

Uppingham railway station, at the end of a branch line from Seaton, was opened in 1894 and was located at the end of Queen Street. Passenger services were withdrawn in 1960 and the line closed completely in 1964. The station area has now been redeveloped as an industrial estate. The nearest railway station is at present Oakham on the cross-country line between Birmingham, Leicester and Peterborough. Although the operational railway line runs closest to Uppingham at Manton Junction, it has no station. An east-west A47 bypass opened in June 1982. There are bus services to Oakham, Corby, Leicester, Peterborough and Stamford.

Sport[link]

Uppingham plays host to a number of different sports; in particular football, where Uppingham Town F.C play their games at Tod's Piece. Uppingham Town Cricket Club's new ground opened in 2011. Uppingham School's new sports centre opened in 2010 ^[4]

Town partnership[link]

Uppingham First is a Community Partnership for Uppingham.^[5] Achievements have included free high powered town-wide wifi,^[6] electric cars and charging points^[7] and a public defibrillator in Hawthorn Drive^[8] in case of sudden cardiac arrest in the vicinity.

References[link]

External links[link]

• Rutland Website: Uppingham
• Uppingham School
• Uppingham Community College
• Leighfield School
• Uppingham Church of England Primary School
• Uppingham Town Council

This geographical article about a location in Rutland is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it. v t e

Stephen Fry
Fry in Happy Birthday to GNU (2008)
Born	Stephen John Fry (1957-08-24) 24 August 1957 (age 54) Hampstead, London, England
Nationality	British
Alma mater	Queens' College, Cambridge
Occupation	Actor, comedian, author, journalist, broadcaster, film director
Years active	1981–present
Influenced by	Oscar Wilde, P. G. Wodehouse, Evelyn Waugh, Hugh Laurie, Emma Thompson, Douglas Adams, Rowan Atkinson, Christopher Hitchens
Title	President of Mind (2011–present)[1] Honorary Kentucky Colonel[2][3] Patron of the Lip Theatre Company Patron of the Norwich Playhouse theatre Vice President of the Noël Coward Society Honorary fellow of Queens' College, Cambridge Honorary fellow of Cardiff University Honorary president of the Cambridge University Quiz Society Rector of the University of Dundee (1992–1998)
Religion	None (atheist)
Partner	Daniel Cohen (1995–2010)
Parents	Alan John Fry Marianne Eve Fry (née Newman)
Signature
Website
www.stephenfry.com

Stephen John Fry (born 24 August 1957) is an English^[4][5] actor, screenwriter, author, playwright, journalist, poet, comedian, television presenter, film director, and a director of Norwich City Football Club.^[6]

After a troubled childhood and adolescence, during which he was expelled from a number of schools and eventually spent three months in prison for credit card fraud, he was able to secure a place at Queens' College, Cambridge, where he studied English Literature.

He first came to public attention in the 1981 Cambridge Footlights Revue presentation "The Cellar Tapes", which also included Hugh Laurie, Emma Thompson and Tony Slattery. With Hugh Laurie, as the comedy double act Fry and Laurie, he co-wrote and co-starred in A Bit of Fry & Laurie, and took the role of Jeeves (with Laurie playing Wooster) in Jeeves and Wooster.

As an actor, Fry played the lead in the film Wilde, was Melchett in the BBC television series Blackadder, starred as the title character Peter Kingdom in the ITV series Kingdom, has a recurring guest role as Dr. Gordon Wyatt on the Fox crime series Bones and appeared as rogue TV host Gordon Deitrich in the dystopian thriller V For Vendetta. He has also written and presented several documentary series including the 2008 television series Stephen Fry in America, which saw him travelling across all 50 US states. Since 2003 he has been the host of the quiz show QI.

As well as his work in television, Fry has contributed columns and articles for newspapers and magazines, and has written four novels and two volumes of autobiography, Moab Is My Washpot and The Fry Chronicles. He also appears frequently on BBC Radio 4, starring in the comedy series Absolute Power, being a frequent guest on panel games such as Just a Minute, and acting as chairman for I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue, where he was one of a trio of hosts who succeeded the late Humphrey Lyttelton. Fry is also known in the UK for his audiobook recordings, particularly as reader for all seven Harry Potter novels.

Early life[link]

Fry, upper right, rehearsing a student production of A Midsummer Night's Dream at the Norfolk College of Arts and Technology, 1975

Fry was born in Hampstead, London, on 24 August 1957, the son of Marianne Eve Fry (née Newman) and Alan John Fry, who was an English physicist and inventor.^[7][8] His maternal grandparents, Martin and Rosa Neumann,^[8] were Hungarian Jewish immigrants from Šurany, which is now in Slovakia.^[8][9][10] His mother's aunt and cousins died in Auschwitz.^[8] Fry grew up in the village of Booton near Reepham, Norfolk, having moved from Chesham, Buckinghamshire at an early age.^[11]

Fry briefly attended Cawston Primary School, Cawston, Norfolk^[12] before going on to Stouts Hill Preparatory School at the age of seven, and then to Uppingham School, Rutland, where he joined Fircroft house and was described as a "near-asthmatic genius".^[13] He was expelled from Uppingham when he was 15, and subsequently from the Paston School.

At 17, after leaving Norfolk College of Arts and Technology, Fry absconded with a credit card stolen from a family friend, was arrested in Swindon, and as a result spent three months in Pucklechurch Prison on remand.^[14]

Following his release he resumed his education at City College Norwich, promising administrators that he would study rigorously to sit the Cambridge entrance exams. He scored well enough to gain a scholarship to Queens' College, Cambridge. At Cambridge, Fry joined the Cambridge Footlights, appeared on University Challenge, and gained a degree in English literature.^[15] It was at the Footlights that Fry met his future comedy collaborator Hugh Laurie.

Career[link]

Television[link]

Comedy[link]

Fry signing autographs at the Apple Store, Regent Street, London on 3 February 2009

Fry's career in television began with the 1982 broadcasting of The Cellar Tapes, the 1981 Cambridge Footlights Revue which was written by Fry, Hugh Laurie, Emma Thompson and Tony Slattery. The revue caught the attention of Granada Television, who, keen to replicate the success of the BBC's Not the Nine O'Clock News, hired Fry, Laurie and Thompson to star alongside Ben Elton in There's Nothing to Worry About!. A second series, re-titled Alfresco, was broadcast in 1983 and a third in 1984; it established Fry and Laurie's reputation as a comedy double act. In 1983, the BBC offered them their own show, which became The Crystal Cube, a mixture of science fiction and mockumentary that was axed after the first episode. Undeterred, Fry and Laurie appeared in an episode of The Young Ones in 1984, and Fry in Ben Elton's 1985 series, Happy Families. In 1986 and 1987 Fry and Laurie also performed sketches on the LWT/Channel 4 show Saturday Live.

Forgiving Fry and Laurie for The Crystal Cube, the BBC commissioned a sketch show in 1986 that was to become A Bit of Fry & Laurie. The programme ran for 26 episodes spanning four series between 1986 and 1995, and was very successful. During this time Fry starred in Blackadder II as Lord Melchett, made a guest appearance in Blackadder the Third as the Duke of Wellington, then returned to a starring role in Blackadder Goes Forth as General Melchett. In the 1988 television special Blackadder's Christmas Carol he played the roles of Lord Melchett and Lord Frondo.

Between 1990 and 1993, Fry starred as Jeeves (alongside Hugh Laurie's Bertie Wooster) in Jeeves and Wooster, 23 hour-long adaptations of P.G. Wodehouse's novels and short stories.

Towards the end of 2003, Fry starred alongside John Bird in the television adaptation of Absolute Power, previously a radio series on BBC Radio 4.

In 2010 Fry took part in a Christmas series of Short Films called 'Little Crackers'. Fry's short is based on a story from his childhood at school.^[16] He appeared as the Christian God in 2011's Holy Flying Circus.

Drama[link]

Fry has appeared in a number of BBC adaptations of plays and books, including a 1992 adaptation of the Simon Gray play The Common Pursuit (Fry had previously appeared in the West End stage production); a 1998 Malcolm Bradbury adaptation of the Mark Tavener novel, In the Red, with Fry taking the part of the Controller of BBC Radio 2; and in 2000 Fry took the role of Professor Bellgrove in the BBC serial Gormenghast which were adapted from the first two novels of Mervyn Peake's Gormenghast series. In 2011, Fry portrayed Professor Mildeye in the BBC adaption of Mary Norton's 1952 novel The Borrowers.

Fry narrates the English language version of the Spanish children's animated series Pocoyo.^[17]

From 2007 to 2009, Fry played the lead role in (and was executive producer for) the legal drama Kingdom, which ran for three series on ITV1.^[18] He has also taken up a recurring guest role as psychiatrist Dr. Gordon Wyatt in the popular American drama Bones.

In 2010, having learned some Irish for the role,^[19] he filmed a cameo role in Ros na Rún, an Irish language soap opera broadcast in Ireland, Scotland and the United States.^[20][21][22]

Documentaries and other factual programmes[link]

Fry made his first foray into documentary-making with the Emmy Award-winning The Secret Life of the Manic Depressive in 2006; also in 2006, he appeared in the genealogy series Who Do You Think You Are?, tracing his maternal family tree to investigate his Jewish ancestry.^[23] Fry narrated The Story of Light Entertainment, which was shown from July–September 2006.^[24][25] In 2007 he presented a documentary on the subject of HIV and AIDS, HIV and Me.^[26]

On 7 May 2008, Fry gave a speech as part of a series of BBC lectures on the future of public service broadcasting in the United Kingdom,^[27] which he later recorded for a podcast.^[28]

His six-part travel series Stephen Fry in America began on BBC One in October 2008 and saw him travel to each of the 50 US states;^[29] in the same year he narrated the nature documentaries Spectacled Bears: Shadow of the Forest for the BBC Natural World series.^[30]

In the 2009 television series Last Chance to See, Fry and zoologist Mark Carwardine sought out endangered species, some of which had been featured in Douglas Adams' and Carwardine's 1990 book and radio series of the same name^[31] Also in 2009, Fry briefly hosted CBBC series Horrible Histories, an educational TV show for school children.

In August 2011 Stephen Fry's 100 Greatest Gadgets was shown on Channel 4 as one of the 100 Greatest strand.^[32] His choice for the greatest gadget was the cigarette lighter which he described as "fire with a flick of the fingers".^[32]