Oakham School is a public school (English private boarding and day school) in Oakham, Rutland, England. The school was founded in 1584 by Archdeacon Robert Johnson, along with Uppingham School, a few miles away. They share a common badge design (and a strong rivalry), but while Uppingham's colours tend towards blue and white, Oakham's are black and red. Under headmaster John Buchanan, in 1971 Oakham was the first boys' independent secondary school in Britain to accept both male and female pupils throughout the whole school and not just in the sixth form. In 1995, it was the first public school to go on-line. Leicestershire County Cricket Club occasionally plays games on the school grounds. History Oakham School was founded in 1584 by Robert Johnson, Archdeacon of Leicester. Johnson received an income from four church positions and used this wealth to set up a number of charitable institutions, including the two free grammar schools at Oakham and Uppingham. As someone on the Puritan wing of the Church of England he had a strong belief in the benefits of education. According to Johnson's statutes for the school, "the schoolmaster shall teach all those grammar scholars that are brought up in Oakham, freely without pay, if their parents be poor and not able to pay, and keep them constantly to school." The master of the school was to teach Hebrew, Latin and Greek. Although the schooling was free, permanent attendance meant the loss to a family of an income, so not many very poor would have attended, or wanted the education. The master could supplement his income of £24 per year by taking in boarders. Johnson was careful to ensure that his schools were sufficiently endowed. This endowment was confirmed by royal charter granted by Queen Elizabeth I. The original school building was restored in the eighteenth century and remained the sole classroom for 300 years. In 1749 a case involving payment of rates recorded that "the school of Uppingham is not nor hath been of equal repute with that of Oakham." The headmastership of John Doncaster (1808–46), himself a previous pupil at the school, saw the school advance academically: "This was the man who returned to his old school at the age of thirty-six, with University honours and university experience, to give it fresh life, and to set a mark on it which it never quite lost". Even so, numbers attending were