He opened the school in November 1843 at Bingham House, which had been leased by the directors of the school, and within a few months 167 boys had been enrolled. The end-of-year ceremony in the summer of 1844, presided over by Peter McGill, with Lord Metcalfe to present the prizes, was held in the large hall that had been the ballroom of Bingham House. The boys at the school in its early days included Thomas White, George Holt Henshaw, George Washington Stephens, Andrew Gault, later called the Cotton King of Canada, and Charles Hamilton, first Archbishop of Ottawa. In 1846 the school moved into a new purpose-built building on La Gauchetière Street. The same year, on the death of the elderly Alexander Skakel, Master of the Royal Grammar School of Montreal, for many years the city's leading secondary school, the high school's board petitioned successfully for Skakel's salary to be transferred to it, and thus absorbed the Royal Grammar School. Newton Bosworth, describing the school in a guide to Montreal of 1846, reported that it had accommodation for between three and four hundred pupils, that the Rector had several able assistants, and that the fees were £10 a year "in the higher branches" and £6 a year in "the preparatory branches". On 28 July 1847 a Provincial Statute was enacted which allocated the revenues from the Estates of the Late Order of Jesuits to educational institutions around Quebec, and the first item listed in the schedule was "For the Salary and Allowance for House Rent, heretofore paid to the Master of the Grammar School at Montreal, to be allowed to the Directors of the High School at Montreal, in consideration of their educating twenty free scholars of the poorer classes ... £282-4s-6d". Shortly afterwards the directors received £98-3s-6d as the balance of the grant for the year 1846, and also £141-2s-3d for the six months ended 30 June 1847. In 1850, Foster resigned as Rector and returned to England, where he became headmaster of Lincoln Grammar School, but died suddenly in 1857. In 1853 control of the school was given to McGill, and it was renamed as the High School of McGill College. A McGill prospectus for 1863 states that "The High School Department offers a thorough English education, with the French and German languages, and the Classical and Mathematical training necessary for entering the College course." In 1864, during