 In his 1939 history of the school , headmaster H. Lawrence White opines that the purchase of this 18th @-@ century house was a " grave mistake " , as it was " constantly needing repairs " and was " difficult to warm " . He suggests that for the eventual price of conversion , a purpose @-@ built school would have been a more satisfactory decision . Initial plans to build a dormitory for boarding pupils were scrapped , with a physics laboratory being constructed instead , effectively ending the tradition of boarding scholars . The Education Act 1902 brought the school under the control of the Cambridgeshire local education authority as a voluntary aided school . By 1917 , the boys ' Grammar School had 64 pupils attending . Numbers had been swelled by an influx of boys from the Barton House School , a small private school which had closed in 1913 . 
