Bedford on 22 April 1566, Harper provided Bedford School with new buildings at its second location, in St Paul's Square, and a house for the headmaster, Edmund Greene. Elected Lord Mayor of London in 1561 and knighted by Queen Elizabeth I in 1562, William Harper's coat of arms and crest included the eagle which remains a symbol for Bedford School. In the 1680s, as a consequence of London's rapid expansion in the late seventeenth century, the land in Holborn, with which William Harper had endowed Bedford School in 1566, was built upon. The rental value of the thirteen acres of land and three roods of meadow, purchased by Harper in 1564 for just £180 13s, soared and the future of Bedford School was assured. Harper's surname was changed to 'Harpur' in 1764, nearly two centuries after his death. This was supposedly in the belief that the new spelling looked much better when used in a Latin inscription, still visible today, below the statue of Harper on the facade of the old school buildings in St Paul's Square. Whatever the truth of this story, in that same year, 1764, the Harpur Trust was formally created by Act of Parliament to administer Bedford School's endowment. James Surtees Phillpotts was appointed as the twenty-second headmaster of Bedford School in 1874, at the age of thirty-five, and he remained in that position until his retirement in 1903. It was during his time as headmaster that, on 29 October 1891, a procession of masters, pupils and old boys moved the school from its site in St Paul's Square to its third, current, and far more spacious location in buildings constructed on land to the north of St Peter's Green. The new Main School Building, in Gothic Revival style, included a great hall with galleries opening to classrooms on the second and third floors. The ground floor included the headmaster's study, the Bell Room, common rooms for masters and, later, for monitors, as well as more classrooms. Access to the upper floors was by narrow staircases situated at each end of the building. Bedford School's Main School Building remained in this form until a disastrous fire on 3 March 1979 destroyed all but the west end where the Bell Room and the headmaster's study were located. All that remained of the rest of the building was the brick shell which was incorporated in the restored building.