From humble beginnings in a box room in the tower, the school archives have grown rapidly in both volume and importance since the 1980s, when the late headmaster and scientist-turned-Suffolk historian, Dr. John Blatchly, undertook the herculean task of creating a new museum to show our history to the school and the outside world. Dr. Blatchly’s work in collecting and cataloguing artefacts from around the globe led in 2007 to the opening of the ‘New Morfey Rooms’, named after Old Ipswichian Wallace Morfey, a pioneer in gathering Ipswich School records. Morfey’s spidery handwriting preserves names and fragments from the past which would otherwise almost certainly have been lost. Once the music practice rooms of the old Prep School, the school archives and museum now provides a walk through history, with collections covering over 600 years of the school’s history.

We hope you enjoy browsing the collection and exploring the history of Ipswich School. Many photographs, artefacts, and school magazines have been scanned and photographed to create the online museum and we hope that we can continue to expand the digitisation of the collection to make this an even more useful resource for those wishing to rediscover material from their school days or for those researching topics related to the school. Should you wish to contact the museum or help us add to the site, please contact the school Development Office on 01473 298961 or archive@ipswich.school