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Midland Mainline

Midland Mainline was a train operating company in the United Kingdom that operated the Midland Main Line franchise between April 1996 and November 2007. It was owned by the British transport company National Express.

Midland Mainline took over operations of the franchise from the state-owned operator InterCity in April 1996. Originally intended to run for ten years, a two-year extension was awarded in exchange for greater investment into new rolling stock and the provision of an hourly service to Leeds. To facilitate the Project Rio services, 23 HST power cars and associated Mark 3 carriages were transferred from Virgin CrossCountry to Midland Mainline. During February 2002, Midland Mainline ordered sixteen four-carriage and seven nine-carriage Class 222 Meridian trains, the first of which entered service in May 2004. These new trainsets allowed for several HSTs to be released to other operators, such as First Great Western and Great North Eastern Railway (GNER).

Midland Mainline ran fast and semi-fast passenger services from London to the East Midlands and Yorkshire, on the Midland Main Line. Most services ran between London St Pancras and either Derby, Nottingham or Sheffield. Some services extended to Burton upon Trent, Matlock, Barnsley, Leeds, York and Scarborough. Midland Mainline operated at twenty-seven stations, of which it managed eight. In June 2007, the DfT awarded the franchise to rival company Stagecoach; accordingly, the services operated by Midland Mainline were transferred to East Midlands Trains on 11 November 2007.

History
The Midland Mainline franchise was awarded by the Director of Passenger Rail Franchising to Midland Main Line Limited for a period of ten years with operations commencing on 28 April 1996. Shortly after the franchise commenced, the transport conglomerate National Express launched a bid to acquire Midland Main Line Limited, and thereby the franchise. The tentative acquisition was promptly referred to the Monopolies and Mergers Commission for review as National Express not only operated an existing rail franchise but also numerous express coach services in the West Midlands. The Commission found that the deal would likely be against the public interest, leading to the Board of Trade deciding that National Express ought to commit to certain requirements in respect to coast fares and service levels. National Express consented to several restrictions, including to maintain the service levels of its coach services, to not increase fares above the increase in the Retail Price Index, and to provide verifying information to regulatory authorities so that its level of compliance to this undertakings can be ascertained.

During May 1999, Midland Mainline was able to extend its sphere of operation following the delivery of additional rolling stock. In August 2000, the Shadow Strategic Rail Authority awarded a two-year extension in return for National Express committing itself to certain investments in the franchise, which included the ordering of new rolling stock and the running of an hourly service to Leeds.

Service patterns
The off peak service pattern, upon conclusion of the franchise in November 2007, consisted of four departures per hour from London St Pancras. There were two fast and two semi-fast trains per hour. All Midland Mainline services (except The Master Cutler morning up service) called at Leicester with the fastest journey time to and from London of one hour and nine minutes. The services between London, Luton and Bedford supplemented the high frequency Thameslink and later First Capital Connect commuter service.

Limited services

Midland Mainline operated a limited service between St Pancras and Leeds, with three early morning departures from Leeds and four evening return trips from St Pancras. This was principally because Midland Mainline's HSTs were maintained at Neville Hill depot. The timings did not compare favourably with the principal service from London King's Cross to Leeds along the East Coast Main Line with the Midland Main Line having a much slower line speed. The journey time on the Midland route was around three hours and 15 minutes vs two hours and 15 minutes via the East Coast.

In July 1996, a bus service between Kettering and Corby was introduced.

From May 1999, a small number of through trains from St Pancras to Burton upon Trent and Barnsley were introduced as well as stops at Belper and Meadowhall.

From May 2000, through trains between St Pancras and Matlock were introduced, ceasing in December 2004 when Class 222s were introduced, as they were not allowed on the Derwent Valley Line branch line. That same month, Midland Mainline also began operating one Saturday service between St Pancras and York via Doncaster; in summer, it would continue to Scarborough. On Sunday, a service to York started at Leicester, with the return service being via the Erewash Valley Line to Nottingham, where it reversed before proceeding to St Pancras.

A small number of trains operated between St Pancras and Sheffield via Nottingham and along the Erewash Valley Line to Chesterfield serving Langley Mill and Alfreton.

Project Rio
From May 2003 until September 2004, Midland Mainline operated an hourly service between St Pancras and Manchester Piccadilly; this was at the request of the Strategic Rail Authority whilst the West Coast Main Line between London Euston and Manchester underwent engineering work using former Virgin CrossCountry High Speed Trains. This temporary service was named Project Rio after the similarity of the route to footballer Rio Ferdinand's recent transfer movements. He first transferred from West Ham United to Leeds United, then later crossed the Pennines in a £30 million record transfer to Manchester United.

The service used the Midland Main Line as far as Trent Junction, before taking the Erewash Valley Line (avoiding Derby) to Clay Cross, rejoining the Midland Main Line until Dore South Junction, using Dore Tunnel Curve to join the Hope Valley Line westwards towards Manchester Piccadilly. South of Leicester, the service ran in the path of the xx:30 semi-fast Nottingham train, with an additional Leicester to Nottingham service introduced using the displaced Class 170 Turbostar.

Named trains

 * The Robin Hood on the 06:30 Sheffield to St Pancras via Nottingham, and returning as the 17:00 St Pancras to Nottingham.
 * The Master Cutler on the 06:14 Leeds to St Pancras which runs non stop from Chesterfield, and 16:55 St Pancras to Leeds return.
 * The Midlands Express on the 07:05 Sheffield to St Pancras.

Rolling stock
Midland Mainline inherited a fleet of High Speed Trains from British Rail. Enhancements were carried out to the power cars of the HSTs, most notably a revised lighting cluster.

In April 1997, Midland Mainline ordered 13 (later expanded to 17) Class 170 Turbostars to operate stopping services. Originally, all were ordered as two-carriage sets before it was decided to increase 10 to three-carriage sets. During May 1999, the first Class 170 entered service with the operator; the type's arrival permitted a new timetable with increased frequencies to be introduced, in which the Class 170s operated the majority of the stops south of Leicester, allowing the HSTs to be better used on the longer-distance services.

To cover for a shortage of HSTs, Midland Mainline hired two Fragonset Class 47 locomotives to top and tail a set of HSBC Rail Mark 2 carriages on a morning service from Nottingham to London St Pancras and evening return to Sheffield from February 2002. In October 2002, Midland Mainline was able to replace these, after leasing an additional five HST power cars and two sets of Mark 3 carriages that had been released by Virgin CrossCountry.

During February 2002, Midland Mainline ordered sixteen four-carriage and seven nine-carriage Class 222 Meridian trains based on Virgin CrossCountry's Class 220 Voyager, but with developments to improve passenger comfort and address some of the criticisms aimed at the Voyager. The first of these sets entered service in May 2004. The four-carriage sets replaced the Class 170s, which were transferred to Central Trains, while the nine-carriage sets were ordered to operate a new service from London St Pancras to Leeds via Nottingham and the Erewash Valley Line. When the Strategic Rail Authority ruled that there was not enough demand for this service, the nine-carriage sets were left sitting idle  until eventually they were put into use on the services between Nottingham/Sheffield and London St Pancras from July 2005, releasing one HST for hire to First Great Western while it refurbished its fleet and two other HSTs to Great North Eastern Railway (GNER) to allow that operator to run extra services to Leeds from May 2007.

As the nine-carriage Meridians were lightly loaded while the four-carriage sets were overcrowded, it was decided in 2006 to reduce all of the nine-carriage sets to eight carriages, the removed carriages then being used to extend seven of the four-carriage sets to five carriages. A further reconfiguration of the Meridians took place in 2008, shortly after East Midlands Trains took over Midland Mainline's services, when six of the eight-carriage sets were reduced to seven carriages and the remaining set was reduced to five carriages, allowing all nine of the remaining four-carriage sets to be extended to five carriages.

To operate the Project Rio services to Manchester Piccadilly, 23 HST power cars and associated Mark 3 carriages were transferred from Virgin CrossCountry in May 2003. Whilst these were undergoing overhaul, a First Great Western HST was hired from May 2003 until February 2004. When Project Rio concluded in September 2004, some sets were transferred to First Great Western and GNER, while others went into storage.

Midland Mainline's fleet consisted of the following trains at the time they ceased operating:

Stations
London St Pancras, Wellingborough, Kettering, Market Harborough, Leicester, Derby, Chesterfield and Sheffield.
 * Midland Mainline operated at twenty-seven stations, of which it managed eight:

Luton Airport Parkway, Luton, Bedford Midland, Loughborough, Long Eaton, Willington, Burton upon Trent, Beeston, Nottingham, Langley Mill, Alfreton, Dronfield, Meadowhall, Barnsley, Doncaster, Wakefield Westgate, Leeds, York, Scarborough.
 * Other stations served included:

Duffield, Ambergate, Whatstandwell, Cromford, Matlock Bath, Matlock, Stockport, Manchester Piccadilly.
 * Stations which used to be served but then had their Midland Mainline services stop before the franchise ended:

Depot
Midland Mainline's HSTs were maintained at Neville Hill with the rest of the fleet at Derby Etches Park.

Demise

As part of a redrawing of the rail franchise map from November 2007, the Midland Mainline franchise was combined with some Central Trains services into a new East Midlands franchise.

In September 2006, the Department for Transport (DfT) announced that National Express, Arriva, FirstGroup and Stagecoach had been shortlisted to bid for the new franchise. In June 2007, the DfT awarded the franchise to Stagecoach, with the services operated by Midland Mainline transferring to East Midlands Trains on 11 November 2007.

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Michael Grade

Michael Ian Grade, Baron Grade of Yarmouth, (born 8 March 1943) is an English television executive and businessman. He has held a number of senior roles in television, including controller of BBC1 (1984–1986), chief executive of Channel 4 (1988–1997), chairman of the board of governors of the BBC (2004–2006), and executive chairman of ITV plc (2007–2009). He sat as a Conservative Party life peer in the House of Lords from 2011 until after his appointment as Chair of Ofcom.

In April 2022, it was announced by the Government that Grade would take up his four year appointment as chairman of Ofcom from May 2022 and would move to the crossbenches in the House of Lords at the earliest practical opportunity.

Early life
Grade was born into a Jewish show business family originally called Winogradsky. His father was the theatrical agent Leslie Grade, and his uncles were the impresarios Lew Grade and Bernard Delfont. When he was three years old, his non-Jewish mother (Lynn Smith) left the family to conduct a relationship with wrestling commentator Kent Walton. Grade was brought up by his paternal grandmother, and he only saw his mother once more as an adult. He was educated at Stowe School in Buckinghamshire and St Dunstan's College in London.

Career
Grade joined the Daily Mirror in 1960, and was a sports columnist from 1964 to 1966. By his own account (as related on Channel 4 chat show The Late Clive James), the job had been organised by his father. When Leslie Grade suffered a serious stroke in 1966, the 23-year-old Michael moved into his theatrical business. In 1969, he moved to London Management & Representation. Among the artists whom Grade represented were Morecambe and Wise (he successfully negotiated the duo's defection from ATV to BBC2 in 1968) and Larry Grayson.

LWT
Grade entered the television industry in 1973 when he joined London Weekend Television (LWT) as deputy controller of programmes (entertainment). During this time he bought the scripts of an African-American sitcom Good Times which had an all-black cast. Adapted as The Fosters (1976–1977), it became the first British sitcom to have an entirely black cast. At LWT, Grade worked with both John Birt and Greg Dyke.

After he became director of programmes in 1977, Grade commissioned the series Mind Your Language, but later cancelled it. At an event at the Edinburgh Television Festival in 1985, he agreed that the series was racist, and said that "it was really irresponsible of us to put it out". In what was termed 'Snatch of the Day' by the press in 1978, Grade attempted the acquisition of exclusive screening rights to Football League matches. Previously the BBC had held the more desirable rights, but the Office of Fair Trading intervened, and Grade's purchase was revoked. The package of recorded highlights on Saturday evenings now alternates each season between ITV and the BBC.

Also in 1978, Grade managed to place under contract the entertainer Bruce Forsyth who had helped the BBC to dominate the Saturday evening television ratings through the decade via The Generation Game series. His new vehicle was titled Bruce Forsyth's Big Night and was intended to feature all his talents in one programme lasting two hours. The budget was £2million for a fourteen-week run. The new series was considered a disaster, with the press turning against the host, but did achieve an initial audience of 14 million. The Generation Game, with new host Larry Grayson, managed to achieve a larger audience. LWT's Big Night was not recommissioned.

Grade announced at a press conference in May 1979 that LWT had secured a contract with a production company formed by television dramatist Dennis Potter and his producer Kenith Trodd. The corporate association proved short-lived, with both sides having insufficient experience for budgeting drama shot on film, and was terminated by Grade in the summer of 1980. Only three of what had been projected as six filmed plays by Potter were shot and screened. Grade though, was directly involved with some of the playwright's later commissions.

Grade approved production of The Professionals and initiated the long-running arts' programme The South Bank Show.

In 1981, Grade left LWT to begin a two-year period as the president of Embassy Television in the United States. In The Times he was quoted as stating, "It is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity; it is, if you like, a gamble I want to take". His pay rose from £32,000 to $250,000 per annum. During this time he was largely involved in developing and selling sitcoms in this period: "When you read 30 or 40 comedy scripts a week, you get a bit barking." Grade also produced a series for the only time in his career, a nine-part adaptation of Kane and Abel, the novel by Jeffrey Archer. In a Jewish Chronicle interview with Michael Freedland in 2011, Grade said he had "missed public service broadcasting, real drama, news, current affairs".

BBC
In early summer 1984, Bill Cotton recruited Grade for BBC Television, where he became controller of BBC 1 on 1 September 1984, taking, as he told Michael Freedland, "the biggest pay cut in history"; his salary went down from $500,000, excluding large bonuses, to £37,000 a year. Later he became director of programmes in 1986, and managing director designate in 1987, before leaving the BBC at the end of 1987. His three-year tenure as a BBC controller was controversial.

Grade cancelled the rights to screen Dallas while fighting Thames Television for the rights to the series (although this decision was subsequently reversed). He cut short the expensive serialisation of The Tripods trilogy, written by John Christopher, because he was dissatisfied with the ratings it had achieved after two series. He also considered cancelling the sitcom Blackadder, judging the first series to be unfunny. In exchange for renewing Blackadder, he required that it become a wholly studio-based production on a lower budget.

Grade agreed to commission Dennis Potter's serial The Singing Detective (1986) after a brief meeting with Jonathan Powell, then the BBC's head of drama. It was a highlight of this period, but came under criticism from Mary Whitehouse and the tabloid press for its content. Referring to the depiction of an illicit sexual encounter in episode three, Grade said: "There are very few people in television drama that you are prepared to trust with scenes like this. But Dennis Potter is one of them".

During his time as controller, Grade was also responsible for purchasing the Australian soap opera Neighbours for BBC1's new daytime schedule; it debuted on British television on 27 October 1986. He was also responsible for repeating Neighbours, at first exclusively an afternoon programme, in a later timeslot (on the advice of his daughter, Alison, who was annoyed that she could not watch it because she was at school). This proved to be a successful scheduling decision, with audiences in excess of 18 million for the new 5.35 pm broadcasts. Other successes during Grade's tenure included the debut of soap operas EastEnders and Howards' Way in 1985 and the hospital drama Casualty in 1986. He was also praised by Bob Geldof for agreeing to broadcast the charity rock concert Live Aid for 24 hours.

In November 1984 he decided to end screening beauty pageants, stating, "I believe these contests no longer merit national air time. They are an anachronism in this day and age of equality and verging on the offensive."

Doctor Who controversy
Grade announced on 27 February 1985 that season 23 of Doctor Who, which was scheduled to be transmitted from January to March 1986, would be postponed as he had decided that the programme's budget would be better spent on other drama productions. What became an 18-month hiatus for Doctor Who (the series did not resume transmission until September 1986) prompted a strong reaction from viewers. Grade was also noted for his strong dislike of the series, such as in an interview in 2004, where he said: "I thought it was horrible, awful. I thought it was so outdated. It was just a little show for a few pointy head Doctor Who fans. It was also very violent and it had lost its magic". In an appearance on the BBC's Room 101 in 2002, Grade chose the series as one of his hates, criticised its production values and said that he had little interest in, or sympathy for, science fiction.

Eric Saward, the script editor of Doctor Who at the time of its suspension, responded to Grade's criticism a few years later. In his view, Grade's comments were unfair because he was in the position to allocate more resources to the programme and thus improve its quality. Actress Katy Manning, who had portrayed a companion of Jon Pertwee's Doctor, praised Grade's treatment of the series on the DVD commentary for The Mind of Evil (1971). In her view, Grade "was actually doing the right thing", and she credited the long break prior to 2005 with rejuvenating the series.

In the autumn of 1986, Grade decided that season 24 of Doctor Who could only happen on the condition that Colin Baker was removed from the title role. Years later Grade stated that he thought Baker's portrayal of the Doctor was "utterly unlikeable; absolutely God-awful in fact". Baker's immediate predecessor in the role, Peter Davison, argued in 2018 that the decision to dismiss the actor was more to do with the executives wanting to get rid of the series' producer, John Nathan-Turner, saying: "I was upset about what happened, really – because, first of all, it wasn't to do with Colin, I know that. It was to do with other issues. The power structure in the BBC had changed and they didn't want John Nathan-Turner around is the truth of it."

Following the end of the first series of the revived Doctor Who in 2005, Grade wrote a letter to Mark Thompson, the Director-General of the BBC, congratulating all involved in the production on its success, signing-off with "PS never dreamed I would ever write this. Must be going soft!" In an interview for Radio Times in 2012, Grade commented: "From clunky Daleks that couldn't go up and down stairs to the filmic qualities today of Doctor Who, it's a transformation... The show still leaves me cold, but I admire it, which I never did before."

Channel 4
Grade left the BBC in 1987 after an unsuccessful application to succeed Alasdair Milne as director-general and a conflict with the corporation's new deputy director-general, John Birt, a former friend and colleague at London Weekend Television. He accepted the post of chief executive of Channel 4, succeeding Jeremy Isaacs, and took up his position at the beginning of 1988. It was a decision which led Isaacs to criticise the appointment and to threaten to "throttle" Grade if the nature of the channel was altered.

Grade phased out some of its more high-brow programming, for which he was accused of "dumbing down". His 1991 decision to axe the long-running and widely admired discussion series After Dark is detailed here. Grade stated that in the same week that he moved to Channel 4, it had shown a repeat of the 1984 adaptation of The Far Pavilions, featuring American actress Amy Irving "blacked up" as an Indian princess. During this period, he was also criticised by the conservative press: Daily Mail columnist Paul Johnson dubbed him Britain's "pornographer-in-chief".

In addition to securing talent from the BBC, Grade recognised the improving quality of US television output, making series such as Friends and ER the mainstays of the channel's schedule. In 1994, while at Channel 4, he was awarded the BAFTA fellowship in recognition of "an exceptional contribution" to television.

In 1997, Grade became involved in a dispute with Chris Morris regarding the satire Brass Eye after repeatedly intervening in the production to order edits to various episodes, and rescheduling some instalments for sensitivity. Morris responded by inserting a frame stating "Grade is a cunt" into the final episode of the first run. In the same year, Grade left Channel 4 to head First Leisure Corporation but departed two years later following a substantial internal re-structuring. His next job was as the chairman of the new Pinewood and Shepperton film studios company.

Return to the BBC
Grade was on the board of the poorly received Millennium Dome project, and has served as chairman of Octopus Publishing, the Camelot Group, and Hemscott (a position that he intends to relinquish).

He had ambitions to become chairman of the BBC board of governors in 2001, but was beaten to the post by Gavyn Davies. Following Davies' resignation in the aftermath of the Hutton Inquiry report, it was announced on 2 April 2004 that Grade had been appointed BBC chairman; his only demand was that he would not have to give up his job as a director of Charlton Athletic F.C. He took up his post on 17 May.

On 19 September 2006, Grade became non-executive chairman of online food delivery company Ocado. He resigned from the role on 23 January 2013, after which he was replaced by Sir Stuart Rose.

ITV
On 28 November 2006, Grade and the BBC confirmed that he was to resign from his position within the corporation to replace Sir Peter Burt as chairman, and Charles Allen as chief executive, of one of the companies forming part of its commercial rival, ITV. He became executive chairman of ITV plc on 8 January 2007.

During Grade's tenure, ITV struggled with falling advertising revenue and viewing figures. Upon appointment, Grade announced that his first priority would be to work as a senior partner at ITV Network Limited to improve ITV programming, as well as strengthen its digital channels, ITV2, ITV3, ITV4 and CITV. On 12 September 2007, Grade announced a controversial five-year re-structuring plan for ITV plc-owned regions, selecting entertainment as the top priority. A major overhaul of ITV plc's regional structure was also proposed. The plans would result in the consolidation of the ITV regional news programmes in England, with regions now broadcasting a single service per region rather than multiple, specialised, local services (for example, ITV Yorkshire would no longer broadcast in separate northern and southern regions). They would also merge fully ITV Border with ITV Tyne Tees, and ITV West with ITV Westcountry, effectively ending two regions' tenure as independent players within ITV; the proposals have been criticised by BECTU and the National Union of Journalists. Any such changes would be subject to approval by Ofcom.

In March 2009, Grade initiated libel action against another television executive, Greg Dyke, and The Times newspaper over allegations of improper conduct made by Dyke about Grade, relating to his move from the BBC to ITV in 2006. The newspaper subsequently withdrew the allegations and published an apology, admitting that the allegations had no justification.

On 23 April 2009, Grade announced he would be stepping down as chief executive to become non-executive chairman at the conclusion of regulatory reviews into advertising contract rights and digital TV, at some point before the end of 2009.

Peerage
Grade revealed his membership of the Conservative Party for the first time in May 2010. On 25 January 2011, he was created a life peer, as Baron Grade of Yarmouth, of Yarmouth in the County of Isle of Wight. He was introduced in the House of Lords on 27 January and sat as a Conservative until moving to the crossbenches as part of his role as chairman of Ofcom, conditions of appointment effective from 1 May 2022.

Ofcom
On 2 April 2022, it was announced by the government that Grade would take up his four year appointment as chairman of Ofcom effective from 1 May 2022.

Personal life
Grade was appointed a Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 1998. That same year, he published his autobiography, It Seemed Like a Good Idea at the Time, and married his third wife, Francesca Leahy; they have a son, Samuel.

He was previously married to Penelope Jane Levinson (1967–1981) (she later married writer and historian Sir Max Hastings), by whom he has two children, and Sarah Lawson (1982–1991), a film producer.

Grade is a fan of Charlton Athletic F.C.

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title: Michael Grade


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First ScotRail

First ScotRail was a train operating company in Scotland owned by FirstGroup. It operated the ScotRail franchise between October 2004 and March 2015.

On 17 October 2004, First ScotRail took over operations from the incumbent franchisee, National Express. First ScotRail operated most commuter and long-distance services within Scotland, and some services to northern England, as well as the Caledonian Sleeper to London. Of FirstGroup's four train operating companies, ScotRail was the second largest (in terms of number of passenger journeys 2013–14) after First Great Western at the time of the termination of its franchise.

During April 2008, Transport Scotland granted a three-year franchise extension to First ScotRail. In May 2009, First ScotRail announced a crackdown on fare-dodging due to abuse of the Flexipass ticket system. One month later, it was alleged that ScotRail's passenger figures were substantially inflated and that 7.2 million less passenger journeys had been actually made; the matter became politically charged but did not impact the extension decision. In June 2012, the Scottish Government announced that the Caledonian Sleeper services would be split off from the ScotRail franchise. Following its unsuccessful bid to retain the franchise in 2014, First ScotRail transferred operations to Abellio ScotRail on 1 April 2015.

History
Between March 1997 and October 2004, the public transport conglomerate National Express operated the ScotRail franchise under the ScotRail brand. During July 2003, the Scottish Executive and the Strategic Rail Authority announced Arriva, FirstGroup and National Express had been shortlisted to bid for the new franchise. In June 2004, the franchise was awarded to FirstGroup; the services formerly operated by ScotRail were transferred to First ScotRail on 17 October 2004.

On 1 January 2006, Transport Scotland was established to carry out the Scottish Executive's transport responsibilities including its then newly devolved powers over rail franchising. During April 2008, Transport Scotland granted a three-year franchise extension to First ScotRail, postponing its end-date to November 2014.

In May 2009, First ScotRail announced a crackdown on fare-dodging shortly after discovering that one of its most popular saver tickets could be subject to widespread abuse; 150 travellers were caught misusing Flexipass tickets within a single week alone. First ScotRail's approach to dealing with fare-dodgers remained a point of controversy at times.

During June 2009, a report by Strathclyde Partnership for Transport alleged that passenger figures generated by ScotRail had contained 7.2 million more passenger journeys than had been actually made; in response, Holyrood's audit committee called in Auditor General Robert Black to review the extent of the miscalculation. First ScotRail stated that the "long-standing" error was being corrected, while Transport Scotland contended that the overestimate did not impact its decision to extend the ScotRail franchise.

During October 2011, First ScotRail and the British railway infrastructure operator Network Rail announced the enactment of a series of new measures to handle service disruption in the event of severe winter conditions. In addition to improved access to travel information at stations and aboard trains, a new design of warmed plastic tunnels along with the first "power shower" system in the UK were rolled out to help de-ice trains, while it was stated that priority would be given to keeping the most highly-trafficked routes operational. At times of severe weather, ScotRail services had been temporarily suspended on grounds of safety; in such situations, wherever possible, active trains were directed to stop in the nearest convenient station and alternative transportation was provided until services could be resumed.

In June 2012, the Scottish Government announced that when the ScotRail franchise would be re-tendered in 2014, the Caledonian Sleeper services would be split off and transferred to a standalone franchise. In May 2014, it was announced that the new Caledonian Sleeper franchise had been awarded to Serco.

In addition to FirstGroup, multiple other transport companies entered bids to operate the ScotRail franchise, including Abellio, Arriva, MTR, and National Express. During early October 2014, it was announced that Abellio's bid had been selected and thus First ScotRail would be discontinued from April 2015.

Accordingly, the franchise was transferred to Abellio ScotRail at midnight on 1 April 2015. Several hours beforehand, the Caledonian Sleeper services had been separately transferred to Serco.

Main lines
Express trains operated between Edinburgh, Glasgow, Inverness, Dundee and Aberdeen. The Highland Main Line links Inverness to the south. Some stretches of main line, such as the Highland Main Line, are single track, and express trains must call at intermediate stations to permit trains coming in the opposite direction to pass.

The main lines of Scotland are:
 * Ayrshire Coast Line
 * Dundee–Aberdeen line
 * Edinburgh–Dundee line
 * Fife Circle Line
 * Glasgow–Edinburgh via Carstairs line
 * Glasgow–Edinburgh via Falkirk line
 * Glasgow–Dundee line
 * Glasgow South Western Line
 * Highland Main Line

Glasgow
The densest part of the network was the suburban network around Glasgow, with 183 stations, the second-largest suburban rail network in the UK, after London. Much of it is 25 kV AC electrified. Glasgow’s main terminal stations are Central and Queen Street stations. ScotRail operated trains in this area under the Strathclyde Partnership for Transport (SPT) brand. However, the Strathclyde Partnership for Transport no longer has any input into specifying rail services in the Glasgow area. DMUs and EMUs that were liveried in the carmine and cream livery were stripped of the Strathclyde logos. Lines in and around Glasgow were:

 * Argyle Line
 * Ayrshire Coast Line
 * Cathcart Circle Lines
 * Croy Line
 * Cumbernauld Line
 * Inverclyde Line
 * Maryhill Line

 * Motherwell–Cumbernauld line
 * North Clyde Line (extended to Cumbernauld & Edinburgh )
 * Paisley Canal line
 * Shotts Line
 * Glasgow South Western Line
 * Whifflet Line (incorporated into the Argyle Line)

The North Clyde Line is now linked to the Edinburgh-Bathgate Line (see Edinburgh, below) with the completion of the Airdrie–Bathgate rail link, creating a new direct link between Glasgow and Edinburgh. There is also a proposal to create a new rail link across the city with the Crossrail Glasgow project.

Edinburgh

Edinburgh’s suburban network is less dense than Glasgow’s. Edinburgh’s main station is Waverley. The main railway line through the city centre runs in a cutting immediately below Edinburgh Castle. A secondary station is at Haymarket in the west of the city. Railway lines running north from Edinburgh to Fife and the Highlands cross the Firth of Forth via the Forth Bridge. Lines in and around Edinburgh were:
 * Edinburgh–Bathgate line (incorporated into the North Clyde Line )
 * Edinburgh Crossrail
 * Edinburgh–Dunblane line
 * North Berwick Line
 * Shotts Line
 * Edinburgh–Dundee line

The Edinburgh rail network is being expanded with the construction of the Waverley Line to the Borders, and the Edinburgh–Bathgate Line has been extended by the Airdrie–Bathgate rail link. A project to open a rail link to Edinburgh Airport was cancelled in September 2007 by the Scottish Government in favour of construction of a station at nearby Gogar which will connect with the Edinburgh tram network to take passengers to the terminal. A proposal to re-open the Edinburgh suburban railway line has been made by campaigning groups.

Rural lines
Rural lines include the scenic West Highland Line, Kyle of Lochalsh line and Far North Line. These lines carried more passengers, mostly tourists, during the summer months, but provided a valuable link and social service during the winter months.

Many rural lines are single track. Trains terminating at the coastal towns of Oban and Mallaig connected with the Caledonian MacBrayne ferry services to Skye, Colonsay, Lismore, Islay and the Outer Hebrides and Inner Hebrides.

The rural lines were:
 * Aberdeen–Inverness line
 * Far North Line
 * Kyle of Lochalsh line
 * West Highland Line

InterCity & Sleeper services
First ScotRail operated some services that ventured south of the border: principally the Caledonian Sleeper to London Euston along the West Coast Main Line, and a three times daily cross-country service between Newcastle upon Tyne and Glasgow Central via Carlisle and Kilmarnock.

Performance
Performance figures for National Express’s last quarter as franchise holder, July to September 2004, were:

Performance figures for FirstGroup’s first quarter as franchise holder, October to December 2004, were:

FirstGroup started operating the franchise on 17 October 2004.

The performance figures released by the Office for Rail Regulation (ORR) are as follows:

Note:
 * The percentage change figures are not the actual increases in % but the percentage increase in the % value.
 * These values are very similar to the sector performance level.

Rolling stock
First ScotRail inherited a fleet of Class 150, Class 156, Class 158, Class 170, Class 314, Class 318, Class 320 and Class 334s from National Express, as well as Mark 2 carriages and Mark 3 sleepers for use on the Caledonian Sleeper.

First ScotRail contracted EWS to haul the Caledonian Sleeper services. Class 90s were used south of Edinburgh and Glasgow Central with Class 67s used on the portions to Fort William, Aberdeen and Inverness. A dedicated pool was also created due to the need to fit cast steel brakes. Three Class 90s were repainted in First ScotRail livery with EWS logos.

For a short time in 2005, the Edinburgh - North Berwick Line services were operated by English Welsh & Scottish Class 90s with former Virgin Trains Mark 3 carriages and a Driving Van Trailer. In late 2005, five Class 322s were transferred from One to replace these. Following an refurbishment performed by Hunslet-Barclay of Kilmarnock between 2006 and 2007, all Class 322s had their capacity increased from 252 passengers to 293.

During January 2007, public calls were made for the refurbishments of First ScotRail's Class 158 diesel multiple units, particularly in regards to the toilet facilities. One year later, work commenced on the refurbishment of 25 Class 158s, which involved repainting, new seating, extra luggage space, the addition of new customer information systems,  and the fitting of the requested toilet retention tanks.

In September 2008, Transport Scotland announced that all First ScotRail trains, including those previously operated on behalf of the Strathclyde Partnership for Transport, would be repainted in a new blue livery with white saltire markings on the carriage ends. This rebranding placed less emphasis on the First and was marketed as "ScotRail: Scotland's Railway". The first unit to receive the new livery was 170434, unveiled at Glasgow Queen Street on 22 September 2008.

During December 2008, ScotRail started operated a set of DB Schenker Mark 2 carriages on a peak-hour Fife Circle Line service hauled by a Class 67. A second set was also operated for a while.

In July 2008, Transport Scotland funded the acquisition of 22 three-carriage and 16 four-carriage Class 380 Desiros with the first entering service in December 2010. These trains operated Ayrshire and Inverclyde services, adding extra capacity and allowed the cascade of existing stock to the new Glasgow to Edinburgh services via the reopened Airdrie to Bathgate line.

Past fleet
Former train types operated by First ScotRail include:

Stations
The majority of Scotland's 340 passenger stations were operated by First ScotRail under Network Rail ownership. Edinburgh Waverley and Glasgow Central stations were operated by Network Rail itself; Glasgow Prestwick Airport station was owned and operated by the airport; and Dunbar was operated by the InterCity East Coast franchise holder (originally GNER, then National Express East Coast, then East Coast, and finally Virgin Trains East Coast). ScotRail operated Lockerbie station although none of its services called there.

Depots
First ScotRail's fleet was maintained at Edinburgh Haymarket, Glasgow Shields Road, Corkerhill and Inverness depots. During early 2005, the rebuilt Glasgow Eastfield was reopened.

title: First ScotRail


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Valleys & Cardiff Local Routes

Valleys & Cardiff Local Routes (Llwybrau Lleol y Cymoedd a Chaerdydd) (formerly Valley Lines) is the network of passenger suburban railway services radiating from Cardiff, Wales. It includes lines within the city itself, the Vale of Glamorgan and the South Wales Valleys.

The services are currently operated by Transport for Wales Rail. In total, it serves 81 stations in six unitary authority areas: 20 in the city of Cardiff, 11 in the Vale of Glamorgan, 25 in Rhondda Cynon Taf, 15 in Caerphilly, 8 in Bridgend and 5 in Merthyr Tydfil.

Services on these routes are provided by Class 150 DMUs and Class 231 Diesel–electric multiple units. They are typically end-to-end, in that they run from one branch terminus, through Cardiff Queen Street station, to another branch terminus, e.g. from Pontypridd to Barry Island.

The major hubs of the network are Cardiff Queen Street and Cardiff Central. Other hubs are Pontypridd, Bridgend and Barry.

History
A stretch of the Vale of Glamorgan Line, on which passenger services were closed under the Beeching Axe, re-opened for passenger service, with services from Cardiff Central to Bridgend, via Barry, Rhoose Cardiff Intl. Airport and Llantwit Major. These services were originally advertised to start in April 2005, but commenced on 12 June 2005. Previously services only went as far as Barry.

On 28 March 2020, ownership of the lines between Cardiff and Treherbert, Aberdare, Merthyr Tydfil, Coryton, Rhymney and Cwmbargoed (the "Core Valley Lines") was transferred from Network Rail to Transport for Wales, who leased them to operator AKIL.

Electrification
On 16 July 2012 the UK Government announced plans to extend the electrification of the network at a cost of £350 million. This was at the same time of the announcement of electrification of the South Wales Main Line from Cardiff to Swansea. This would also see investment in new trains and continued improvements to stations.

The investment will require new trains and should result in reduced journey times and cheaper maintenance of the network. Work was expected to start between 2014 and 2019, but has since been pushed back to between 2019 and 2024.

Lines
The colours used below are from the official network map (see External links). Stations in bold are major interchanges for the network.

Routes
Generally trains run from one line to another, joining at Cardiff Central eliminating the need for changing trains there. However they may not run for the whole length of the line. Services run between:
 * Bridgend/Barry Island and Merthyr Tydfil/Aberdare - incorporating the Vale of Glamorgan and Merthyr Lines
 * Penarth and Rhymney/Bargoed - incorporating the Vale of Glamorgan and Rhymney Lines
 * Radyr and Coryton - incorporating the City and Coryton Lines
 * Cardiff Central and Treherbert - incorporating the Rhondda Line only
 * Cardiff Queen Street and Cardiff Bay - incorporating the Butetown Branch Line only

Surrounding lines
The following lines also serve Cardiff and the South Wales Valleys but are not considered part of the network by Transport for Wales and use more "mainline" rolling stock (currently Class 170 units).

title: Valleys & Cardiff Local Routes


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Adam Buxton

Adam Offord Buxton (born 7 June 1969) is an English actor, comedian, podcaster and writer. With the filmmaker Joe Cornish, he is part of the comedy duo Adam and Joe. They presented the Channel 4 television series The Adam and Joe Show (1996–2001) and the BBC Radio 6 Music series Adam and Joe (2007–2009, 2011).

Buxton has produced music videos, including several collaborations with the band Radiohead. Since 2015 he has produced The Adam Buxton Podcast, in which he interviews comedians, authors, musicians and celebrities. He has appeared on panel shows including Would I Lie To You?, Never Mind the Buzzcocks, and 8 Out of 10 Cats Does Countdown.

Early life and education
Buxton was born on 7 June 1969 in Shepherd's Bush, London, and spent some of his childhood in Wales. His father was the travel writer and wine critic Nigel Buxton, who later appeared on The Adam and Joe Show as "Baaad Dad". Adam's mother, Valerie (née Birrell), was Chilean.

Buxton was educated at Windlesham House School in Pulborough, West Sussex, then Westminster School, London. At Westminster, he befriended his future comedy partner Joe Cornish and the future documentarian Louis Theroux. He attended the University of Warwick for two terms before dropping out to study sculpture at Cheltenham College of Art.

With Joe Cornish
Buxton's first television appearance was in an episode of Channel 4's Takeover TV. In 1995, he hosted the show itself. Buxton and Joe Cornish formed the comedy duo Adam and Joe, and with the production company World of Wonder created The Adam and Joe Show for Channel 4. It ran for four series from 1996 to 2001. In 1999, The Adam and Joe Book, a spin-off book written by Buxton and Cornish, was published. Buxton and Cornish presented radio shows on Xfm and later BBC Radio 6 Music, which won a Silver Sony Award for Best Entertainment Programme in 2012.

Solo work
Buxton co-wrote and acted in the Channel 4 mini-series The Last Chancers, broadcast in December 2004. In 2005, he performed character-driven comedy at Edinburgh Festival, with a show entitled I, Pavel, for which he grew a large beard.

Buxton appeared as a future version of himself in the BBC Two comedy series Time Trumpet, which began a six-part series in August 2006. In 2007, he portrayed journalist Tim Messenger in Edgar Wright's film Hot Fuzz. He has also appeared in the film Stardust, covering for Noel Fielding, who was ill at the time of production. Buxton appeared in the BBC Three comedy sketch show Rush Hour, which premièred on 19 March 2007. He also featured in the 2007 film Son of Rambow as a teacher.

Buxton has collaborated on several occasions with the band Radiohead. He assisted with a 2007 webcast from their studio, co-directed the videos for their 2008 singles "Jigsaw Falling into Place" and "Nude", and created a video vignette for their 2016 album A Moon Shaped Pool.

Buxton released a number of videos on YouTube, and was commissioned to produce a pilot for the BBC based around work of this kind. It was broadcast as MeeBOX on BBC Three in June 2008. Buxton guest-starred in the 2011 film The External World by David O'Reilly. In January 2010, Buxton appeared in the BBC comedy The Persuasionists.

In July 2012, Buxton appeared in a TV version of his tour Bug on Sky Atlantic, Adam Buxton's BUG. He started performing the show in 2007, and has continued to tour the Bug show as well as hosting it regularly at the BFI in London. He is the narrator of some books available on the Ladybird Classic Me Books iPad app, including "Goldilocks and the Three Bears" and "Three Little Pigs". He has since narrated several other titles on the Me Books app such as The Great Explorer, The Brave Beast and The Lonely Beast by children's illustrator and author Chris Judge. He also appeared in the Doctor Who audio drama The One Doctor by Big Finish Productions.

Buxton has made appearances on Have I Got News for You, Never Mind the Buzzcocks, The IT Crowd, Don't Watch That, Watch This and Look Around You among others. He was also a panellist with Jonathan Ross for the Big Fat Quiz of the '80s. Buxton has guest starred in several episodes of the comedy gameshow mash-up 8 Out of 10 Cats Does Countdown featuring in Dictionary Corner. In 2015 Buxton became the voice of Messy for children's TV animation Messy Goes to Okido, which aired on 7 September 2015 on CBeebies. In 2017 Buxton made regular cameo appearances as "Jarhead" in the revamped version of The Crystal Maze. He appeared in the video game Lego City Undercover for Nintendo's Wii U and the 2021 Illumination film Sing 2.

Buxton released the audiobook version of his autobiography, Ramble Book, in April 2020, published by HarperCollins. He provided voice acting roles for the Cartoon Network pilot Beetle + Bean.

The Adam Buxton Podcast
Since September 2015, Buxton has produced The Adam Buxton Podcast, in which he interviews cultural figures including comedians, writers and musicians. Guests have included Joe Cornish, Louis Theroux, Charlie Brooker, Jon Ronson, Caitlin Moran, Michael Palin and Brian Eno. The Adam Buxton Podcast won Best Online Comedy Talk Show at the Online Radio Awards, Podcast Champion at the British Podcast Awards and the Internet Award from Chortle.

Personal life
Buxton married Sarah Evans-Lombe in 2001. They live near Norwich with their three children.

title: Adam Buxton


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Westminster School

Westminster School is a public school in Westminster, London, England, in the precincts of Westminster Abbey. It descends from a charity school founded by Westminster Benedictines before the Norman Conquest, as documented by the Croyland Chronicle and a charter of King Offa. Continuous existence is clear from the early 14th century. Its academic results place it among the top schools nationally; about half its students go to Oxbridge, giving it the highest national Oxbridge acceptance rate. In the 2023 A-Levels, the school saw 82.3% of its candidates score A*/A.

Boys join the Under School at seven and the Senior School at 13 by examination. Girls join the Sixth Form at 16. About a quarter of the 750 pupils board. Weekly boarders may go home after Saturday morning school. The school motto, Dat Deus Incrementum, quotes 1 Corinthians 3:6: "I planted the seed... but God made it grow." Westminster was one of nine schools examined by the 1861 Clarendon Commission and reformed by the Public Schools Act 1868.

The school has produced three Nobel laureates: Edgar Adrian (Nobel Prize for Physiology in 1932), Sir Andrew Huxley (likewise in 1963) and Sir Richard Stone (Nobel Prize in Economics in 1984). During the mid-17th century, the liberal philosopher of the Enlightenment, John Locke, attended the school, and seven UK prime ministers also then attended, all belonging to the Whig or Liberal factions of British politics: Henry Pelham and his brother Thomas Pelham-Holmes, Charles Watson-Wentworth, James Waldegrave, Augustus Fitzroy, William Cavendish-Bentinck, and John Russell.

Westminster School is included in The Schools Index of the world's 150 best private schools and among top 30 senior schools in the UK.

History

The earliest records of a school at Westminster date back to the 1340s and are held in Westminster Abbey's Muniment Room. Parts of the buildings now used by the school date back to the tenth-century Anglo-Saxon abbey at Westminster.

In 1540, Henry VIII ordered the dissolution of the monasteries in England, including that of the powerful Abbots of Westminster, but personally ensured the School's survival by his royal charter. The Royal College of St. Peter carried on with forty "King's Scholars" financed from the royal purse. By this point Westminster School had certainly become a public school (i.e. a school available to members of the paying public, rather than the private tuition arranged by the nobility). During Mary I's reign the Abbey was reinstated as a Roman Catholic monastery, but the school continued.

Elizabeth I refounded the school in 1560, with new statutes to select 40 King's Scholars from boys who had attended the school for a year. Queen Elizabeth frequently visited her scholars, although she never signed the statutes or endowed her scholarships; 1560 is now generally taken as the date that the school was "founded".

Elizabeth I appointed William Camden as Head Master, and he is the only layman known to have held the position until 1937. It was Richard Busby, himself an Old Westminster, who established the reputation of the school for several hundred years, as much by his classical learning as for his ruthless discipline by the birch, immortalised in Pope's Dunciad. Busby prayed publicly up School for the safety of the Crown, on the very day of Charles I's execution, and then locked the boys inside to prevent their going to watch the spectacle a few hundred yards away. Regardless of politics, he thrashed Royalist and Puritan boys alike without fear or favour. Busby also took part in Oliver Cromwell's funeral procession in 1658, when a Westminster schoolboy, Robert Uvedale, succeeded in snatching the "Majesty Scutcheon" (white satin banner) draped on the coffin, which is now held in the library (it was given to the school by his family three hundred years later). Busby remained in office throughout the Civil War and the Commonwealth, when the school was governed by Parliamentary Commissioners, and well into the Restoration.

In 1679, a group of scholars killed a bailiff, ostensibly in defence of Abbey's traditional right of sanctuary, but possibly because the man was trying to arrest a consort of the boys. Busby obtained a royal pardon for his scholars from Charles II and added the cost to the school bills.

Until the 19th century, the curriculum was predominantly made up of Latin and Greek, and all taught up School. Westminster boys were uncontrolled outside school hours and notoriously unruly about town, but the proximity of the school to the Palace of Westminster meant that politicians were well aware of boys' exploits. After the Public Schools Act 1868, in response to the Clarendon Commission on the financial and other malpractices at nine pre-eminent public schools, the school began to approach its modern form. It was legally separated from the Abbey, although the organisations remain close. The Dean of Westminster was ex officio the Chair of the Governing Body until 2020 and remains a Governor. There followed a scandalous public and parliamentary dispute lasting a further 25 years, to settle the transfer of the properties from the Canons of the Abbey to the school. School statutes have been made by Order in Council of Queen Elizabeth II. The Dean of Christ Church, Oxford, and the Master of Trinity College, Cambridge, were also ex officio members of the school's Governing Body until 2020.

Unusually among public schools, Westminster did not adopt most of the broader changes associated with the Victorian ethos of Thomas Arnold, such as the emphasis on team over individual spirit, and the school retained much of its distinctive character. Despite many pressures, including evacuation and the destruction of the school roof during the Blitz, the school refused to move out of the city, unlike other schools such as Charterhouse and St. Paul's, and remains in its central London location.

Westminster Under School was formed in 1943 in the evacuated school buildings in Westminster, as a distinct preparatory school for day pupils between the ages of eight to 13 (now seven to 13). Only the separation is new: for example, in the 18th century, Edward Gibbon attended Westminster from the age of 11 and Jeremy Bentham from the age of eight. The Under School has since moved to Vincent Square, overlooking the school's playing fields. Its current Master is Kate Jefferson.

In 1967, the first female pupil was admitted to the school. Girls became full members in 1973. In 1981, a single-sex boarding house, Purcell's, was created for girls. In 1997 the school expanded further with the creation of a new day house, Milne's, at 5a, Dean's Yard.

In 2005 the school was one of 50 leading independent schools found guilty of running a cartel, exposed by The Times, which had allowed them to collaborate in uncompetitive fees for thousands of customers. Jean Scott, the head of the Independent Schools Council, said that independent schools had always been exempt from anti-cartel rules applied to business, were following a long-established procedure in sharing the information with each other, and that they were unaware of the change to the law (on which they had not been consulted). She wrote to John Vickers, the OFT director-general, saying, "They are not a group of businessmen meeting behind closed doors to fix the price of their products to the disadvantage of the consumer. They are schools that have quite openly continued to follow a long-established practice because they were unaware that the law had changed.". However, each school agreed to pay a nominal penalty of £10,000 and ex-gratia payments totalling £3 million into a trust designed to benefit pupils who attended the schools during the period in respect of which fee information was shared.

In 2007, the school responded to an invitation to become the sponsor of Pimlico School, which was due to be rebuilt as an academy, but decided not to do so after Westminster City Council developed its plans. In 2013 the school collaborated with the Harris Federation to set up a selective, mixed sixth-form academy, with entrance priority being given to those from disadvantaged backgrounds. Harris Westminster Sixth Form opened nearby in 2014; pupils of the academy share some lessons and facilities of the school.

In 2010 the school and the abbey celebrated the 450th anniversary of the granting of their royal charter and Elizabeth I's refoundation of the school in 1560. Queen Elizabeth II with the Duke of Edinburgh unveiled a controversial statue in Little Dean's Yard of the Queen's namesake Elizabeth I, the nominal foundress of the School, by Old Westminster sculptor Matthew Spender. The head of the statue came off in May 2016 after a Sixth Former (a pupil in Year 12) tried to climb onto the statue. The head has since been reattached.

In May 2013, the school was criticized for staging an auction involving the selling of internships to fund bursaries, resulting in adverse press coverage.

In December 2017, the school announced plans to open six schools in China, working with the Hong Kong educational group HKMETG; the first opened in Chengdu in 2020. Revenue generated by the deal will be used to support bursary funds at the existing school, and follows similar moves by Harrow School, Malvern School, Wellington College and Dulwich College. The school was criticized in the media and by its pupils for its decision to teach the Chinese national curriculum as opposed to an international curriculum normally taught by international schools. Steve Tsang, director of the China Institute at SOAS London, was quoted in the Financial Times as saying, "I think they have no idea what they're dealing with.... If you set up a school in China, they will have a party secretary superintending the whole school and the party secretary will be responsible for political education." The school responded that it would exercise "soft power" over the teaching and would also teach an international curriculum for students aged 16–18. The issue was re-opened when The Times published an article quoting Professor Edward Vickers of Kyushu University, who accused the school (and King's College School, with similar plans) of "helping Chinese teach propaganda". These plans were cancelled in November 2021 in response to "recent changes in Chinese education policy".

The school stands mainly in the precincts of the medieval monastery of Westminster Abbey, its main buildings surrounding its private square Little Dean's Yard (known as Yard), off Dean's Yard, where Church House, the headquarters of the Church of England, is situated, along with some of the houses, the common room, the humanities building Weston's, and College Hall.

Just outside the abbey precincts in Great College Street is Sutcliff's (named after the tuck shop on the site of the building in the 19th century), where Geography, Art, Theology, Philosophy and Classics (Latin and Ancient Greek) are taught. The Robert Hooke Science Centre is further away, just off Smith Square. As part of an expansion programme funded by donations and a legacy from A. A. Milne, the school has acquired the nearby Millicent Fawcett Hall for Drama and Theatre Studies lessons and performances; the Manoukian Centre for Music Lessons   (timetabled and private) and recitals; and the Weston Building at 3 Dean's Yard. It often uses St John's, Smith Square as a venue for major musical concerts.

College Garden, to the East of Little Dean's Yard, is believed to be the oldest garden in England, under continuous cultivation for about a millennium. Just beyond rises the Victoria Tower of the Houses of Parliament; the King's Scholars have special rights of access to the House of Commons. To the North, the Dark Cloister leads straight to the Abbey, which serves as the School Chapel.

The playing fields are half a mile away at Vincent Square, which Dean Vincent created for the school by hiring a horse and plough to carve 10 acre out of the open Tothill Fields. The boathouse is now some way from the school at Putney, where it is also used for the Oxford and Cambridge boat race; but the school's First Eight still returns annually to exercise its traditional right to land at Black Rod Steps of the Palace of Westminster.

In 2011, the school agreed to buy a 999-year lease of Lawrence Hall, London from The Royal Horticultural Society. This listed Art-Deco building adjacent to the school's playing fields at Vincent Square has been converted into a Sports Centre. It provides for climbing, martial arts, fencing, rowing, table tennis, badminton, netball, indoor football and indoor cricket. In 2012 the school took possession of St Edward's House, which was the last Anglican monastery in London. The building, on the corner of Great College Street and Tufton Street, now houses Purcell's, a Boarding House for girls and a Day House for boys, as well as a small Chapel and Refectory. Westminster Under School has also been enlarged by a building in Douglas Street, which provides an Art Studio, IT Suite and Dining Hall.

Westminster was the 13th most expensive HMC day school and tenth most expensive HMC boarding school in the UK in 2014/2015 It achieved the highest percentage of students accepted by Oxbridge colleges over the period 2002–2006, and was ranked as best boys' school in the country in terms of GCSE results in 2017. In 2019, 84% of pupils scored A*-A for their A-Levels examination, while 80% scored A*-A for their GCSEs.

Notable buildings
Westminster School, in the middle of the UNESCO World Heritage Site of Westminster Abbey, St. Margaret's, and the Palace of Westminster, has several buildings notable for qualities, age and history.

The Great Cloisters, St Faith's Chapel, The Chapter House, The Parlour, 1 and 2 The Cloisters, and the dormitory with the Chapel of St Dunstan are listed Grade I as a group on the National Heritage List for England. The dormitory at Little Dean's Yard and the staircase and doorway in Little Dean's Yard to the Busby Library are separately listed Grade I.

College Hall, the 14th-century abbot's state dining hall, is one of the oldest and finest examples of a medieval refectory and still in daily use for that purpose in term-time; outside of term it reverts to the dean as the abbot's successor. Queen Elizabeth Woodville took sanctuary here in 1483 with five daughters and her son Richard of Shrewsbury, Duke of York, but failed to save him from his fate as one of the Princes in the Tower. In the 1560s, Elizabeth I several times came to see her scholars act their Latin plays on a stage in front of the attractive Elizabethan gallery, which may have been first erected especially for the purpose.

College, now shared between the three Houses of College, Dryden's and Wren's, is a dressed stone building overlooking College Garden, the former monastery's Infirmary garden, which is still the property of the Collegiate Church of Westminster Abbey. College dates from 1729 and was designed by the Earl of Burlington, based on earlier designs by Sir Christopher Wren (himself an Old Westminster).

School, originally built in the 1090s as the monks' dormitory, is the school's main hall, used for Latin Prayers (a weekly assembly with prayers in the Westminster dialect of Latin), exams, and large concerts, plays and the like. From 1599 it was used to teach all the pupils, the Upper and Lower Schools being separated by a curtain hung from a 16th-century pig iron bar, which remains the largest piece of pig iron in the world. The school gateway was also designed by the Earl of Burlington. It is engraved with the names of many pupils, who used to hire a stonemason for the purpose. The panelling "up School" is similarly, but officially, painted with the coats of arms of many former pupils. The original shell-shaped apse at the north end of the school gave its name to the 'Shell' forms taught there and the corresponding classes at many other public schools. The current shell displays a Latin epigram on the rebuilding of School, with the acrostic Semper Eadem, Elizabeth I's motto. The classroom door to the right of the Shell was recovered from the notorious Star Chamber at its demolition, but was destroyed during the Blitz.

The building lies directly on top of the Westminster Abbey museum in the Norman Undercroft, and ends at the start of the Pyx Chamber. Both School and College had their roofs destroyed by incendiary bombs in the Blitz of 1941. They were re-opened by George VI in 1950.

Ashburnham House houses the library and the Mathematics Department, and until 2005 accommodated the Economics, English and History of Art departments as well. Ashburnham House may have been built by Inigo Jones or his pupil John Webb around the time of the Restoration, as a London seat for the family, who became the Earls of Ashburnham. It incorporates remains of the mediaeval Prior's House. Its garden is the site of the monks' refectory and some of the earliest sittings of the House of Commons. In 1731 when Ashburnham housed the King's and Cottonian libraries, which form the basis of the British Library, there was a disastrous fire, and many of the books and manuscripts still show the marks. After the Public Schools Act 1868 there was a scandalous parliamentary and legal battle between the Dean and Chapter of Westminster Abbey and the School until the School eventually obtained Ashburnham House under the Act for £4,000. The dispute was reported in The Times and it was suggested by Thomas Wise, Secretary of The Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings that the property was "in danger of being pulled down or of being virtually destroyed by being converted into a boarding-house in connexion with Westminster School", adding that the "house is admirably suited for a residence for the Dean or one of the Canons, and is totally unfitted for a school or a boarding house." The school responded: "The Chapter themselves have in past years greatly altered and disfigured Ashburnham-house. It had originally two wings; one was destroyed and never restored. About 1848 the roof was taken off, a story added, and a dome in the ceiling of the drawing-room demolished, the external elevation being ruined. The house now has no beauty externally, and hardly any features of interest internally, except the staircase, which in any case would be preserved". On 28 November William Morris also became involved in the campaign, writing a letter to the editor of The Daily News. In the event, the school demolished the adjacent Turle's House and renovated sections of the east wing, but left the staircase and drawing room untouched. During the Second World War, the library was used for military purposes and as an American soldiers' club, the Churchill Club.

Customs
The Greaze has been held "up School" (in the School Hall) on Shrove Tuesday since at least 1753. The head cook ceremoniously tosses a horsehair-reinforced pancake over a high bar, which was used from the 16th century to curtain off the Under School from the Great School. Members of the school fight for the pancake for one minute, watched over by the Dean of Westminster, the Head Master, and the upper year groups of the school and distinguished or even occasionally royal visitors. The pupil who gets the largest weight is awarded a gold sovereign (promptly redeemed for use next year), and the Dean begs for a half-holiday for the whole school. Weighing scales are on hand in the event of a dispute. A cook who failed to get the pancake over the bar after three attempts would formerly have been "booked" or pelted with Latin primers, but that tradition has long lapsed.

The privilege of being the first commoners to acclaim each new sovereign at their coronation in Westminster Abbey is reserved for the King's (or Queen's) Scholars. Their shouts of "Vivat Rex/Regina" ("Long live the king/queen!") are incorporated into the coronation anthem "I was glad". The tradition dates back to the coronation of King James II.

Despite the formal separation from the abbey, the school remains Anglican, with services in the abbey attended by the entire school at least twice a week, and many other voluntary-attendance services of worship. The school was expressly exempted by the Act of Uniformity to allow it to continue saying Latin prayers despite the Reformation. Every Wednesday there is an assembly Up School known as Latin Prayers, which opens with the Head Master leading all members of the school in chanting prayers in Latin, followed by notices in English. The school's unique pronunciation of formal Latin is known as "Westminster Latin", and descends from medieval English scholastic pronunciation: Queen Elizabeth I, who spoke fluent Latin, commanded that Latin was not to be said "in the monkish fashion", a significant warning upon loyalties between Church and State. The School commemorates its benefactors every year with a service in Westminster Abbey in Latin in which the Captain of the King's Scholars lays a wreath of pink roses on the tomb of Elizabeth I: the service alternates between Little Commem, held in Henry VII's Chapel and involving just the King's Scholars, and the Big Commem, to which the whole school community is invited.

Since the monastic Christmas revels of medieval times, Latin plays have been presented by Scholars, with a prologue and witty epilogue on contemporary events. Annual plays, "either tragedy or comedy", were required by the school statutes in 1560, and some early plays were acted in College Hall before Elizabeth I and her whole Council. However, in a more prudish age, Queen Victoria did not accompany Prince Albert and the Prince of Wales to the play, and recorded in her diary that it was "very Improper". Today, the play is put on less frequently, any members of the school may take part, and the Master of the King's Scholars gives the Latin prologue. The 1938 play caused a diplomatic incident, with the German ambassador withdrawing offended by the words Magna Germania figuring in extenso on a map of Europe displayed.

The King's Scholars have privileged access to the House of Commons gallery, said to be a compromise recorded in the Standing Orders of the House in the 19th century, to stop the boys from climbing into the Palace over the roofs.

There is a Westminster jargon little known to the general public:
 * Years 9, 10, 11, 12, and 13 are called Fifth Form, Lower Shell, Upper Shell, Sixth Form and Remove, respectively.
 * Green is Dean's Yard.
 * Yard is Little Dean's Yard.
 * School is the main school hall, where Latin Prayers, exams and major plays and talks take place.
 * Sanctuary is the area outside the Great West Door of the Abbey off Broad Sanctuary.
 * Fields is Vincent Square.
 * The preposition "up" is used to mean "at" or "towards" (hence up School). At my house (boarding/day) and home can be differentiated thus, up House means at School and at my house means at home.

Houses

The school is split into 11 houses, some of which are day houses (only admitting day pupils, who go home after school), the others being boarding houses with a mix of boarders and day pupils. College is the exception to this — all King’s Scholars must board. Each house has a Housemaster, a teacher who is responsible for the house, the pupils in it and their welfare, and a Head of House, a pupil in the Remove, nominated by the Housemaster. The role of the Head of House largely consists of assisting the Housemaster in organising activities such as house competitions, for which the Head of House might draw up teams. Further to these positions, each day house has an Assistant Housemaster, and each boarding house has a Resident Tutor. The houses are named after people connected to the house or school in various ways – mainly prominent Old Westminsters, but also former Head Masters and Housemasters. Grant's is the oldest house for pupils other than scholars, not only of Westminster but of any public school.

Houses are a focus for pastoral care and social and sporting activities, as well as accommodation for boarders. All day houses are mixed-sex, and all houses admit girls; RR is the only boarding house not to admit girls as boarders (up until 2020) and PP does not admit boys as boarders.

All King's Scholars, both boys and girls, are required to board in College (unless under exceptional circumstances). Wren's was formerly known as Homeboarders and Dryden's as Dale's. Before it was rebuilt, Rigaud's was known as Clapham's and Best's.

Sport ("Station")
The school has three Eton Fives courts behind Ashburnham House. The school frequently fields pupils as national entries in international competitions in rowing, or "water", and fencing.

Westminster School Boat Club is the oldest rowing club in the world, located on the River Thames. The Oxford University Boat Club uses Westminster's boathouse at Putney as its HQ for the annual Oxford and Cambridge boat race on the Thames. The boathouse was remodelled in 1997 and won a Wandsworth design award in 1999. The school's colour is pink; Westminster rowers raced Eton College for the right to wear the colour. One story goes that, at one annual Eton-Westminster rowing race, both crews arrived wearing pink, which was fashionable at the time. The Eton crew bought some light-blue ribbons (which later became the standard Eton colours) to differentiate themselves, but the Westminster crew won the race and the right to wear pink in perpetuity. The premier Leander Club at Henley, founded in London by a number of Old Westminster rowers, later adopted it, although they call the colour cerise. The only problems arise when racing against Abingdon School, whose team also wears pink.

Since 1810, when the Head Master, William Vincent, fenced off and ordered the ploughing of the waste marshlands known as Tothill Fields for use by the school, which were being threatened by London's urban sprawl, the school's main sports ground has been nearby at Vincent Square, with football and cricket on the main area and tennis and netball on the courts; it also hosts a playground for Westminster Under School. At 13 acres, it is the largest private, open green space in Central London, despite this, it is not large enough for all pupils doing these sports to use simultaneously the three football pitches and typically one smaller practice pitch becomes one main cricket square and several smaller practice squares for the cricket season. So the school hires and owns other sporting facilities near the school. These include the oldest boating club in the world, an astroturf ground in Battersea, and the Queen Mother Sports Centre, home to a variety of sports. "Green" (Dean's Yard) is also used, and the three Eton Fives courts in Ashburnham Garden, the garden behind Ashburnham House.

Westminster played in the first school cricket match against Charterhouse School in 1794 and from 1796 played cricket against Eton.

Westminster has a historic joint claim to a major role in developing Association Football. During the 1840s at both Westminster and Charterhouse, pupils' surroundings meant they were confined to playing their football in the cloisters, making the rough and tumble of the handling game that was developing at other schools such as Rugby impossible, and necessitating a new code of rules. On 24 November 1858, Westminster played Dingley Dell at Vincent Square in the earliest known football fixture in the London area (Dingley Dell was the most active non-school team in the London area in the five years before the Football Association was established in 1863). During the formulation of the rules of Association Football in the 1860s, representatives of Westminster School and Charterhouse also pushed for a passing game, in particular rules that allowed forward passing ("passing on"). Other schools (in particular Eton College, Harrow, and Shrewsbury School) favoured a dribbling game with a tight off-side rule. By 1867 the Football Association had chosen in favour of the Westminster and Charterhouse game and adopted an off-side rule that permitted forward passing. The modern forward-passing game was a direct consequence of Westminster and Charterhouse football.

Head masters
• Since 2020 Gary Savage

• 2014–2020 Patrick Derham

• 2005–2014 Stephen Spurr

• 1998–2005 Tristram Jones-Parry

• 1986–1998 David Summerscale

• 1970–1986 John Malcolm Rae

• 1957–1970 John Dudley Carleton

• 1950–1957 Walter Hamilton

• 1937–1950 John Traill Christie

• 1919–1936 Harold Costley-White

• 1901–1919 James Gow

• 1883–1901 William Gunion Rutherford

• 1855–1883 Charles Broderick Scott

• 1846–1855 Henry George Liddell

• 1828–1846 Richard Williamson

• 1819–1828 Edmund Goodenough

• 1815–1819 William Page

• 1803-1814 William Carey

• 1802 John Wingfield

• 1788–1802 William Vincent

• 1764–1788 Samuel Smith

• 1764 John Hinchliffe

• 1753–1764 William Markham

• 1733–1753 John Nicoll

• 1711–1733 Robert Freind

• 1695–1711 Thomas Knipe

• 1639–1695 Richard Busby

• 1621–1639 Lambert Osbaldeston (jointly with Wilson until 1626)

• 1610–1626 John Wilson

• 1598–1610 Richard Ireland

• 1593–1597 William Camden

• 1572–1592 Edward Grant

• 1570–1572 Francis Howlyn

• 1564–1570 Thomas Browne

• 1563 John Randall

• 1562 Robert Rolle

• 1557 John Passey

• 1555–1556 Nicholas Udall

• 1543–1555 Alexander Nowell

• 1540 John Adams

Other notable staff

 * Nick Bevan (rowing coach, later headmaster of Shiplake College)
 * John Sargeaunt (English Master)

Fee fixing
Between 2001 and 2004, the school was one of fifty independent schools involved in the independent school fee fixing scandal in the United Kingdom. It was subsequently found guilty of operating a fee-fixing cartel by the Office of Fair Trading. The commission argued that until 2000, the practice had been legal and that the commission had not been aware of the change to the law.

Rape culture and racism
Two independent reviews were commissioned after national campaigns from Everyone's Invited and Black Lives Matter prompted evidence of rape culture and racism at Westminster School. In March 2022, the school issued a "sincere and unreserved" apology for harm caused by racism, sexual harassment and other harmful sexual behaviour.

Review into harmful sexual behaviours
In March 2021, alumni compiled a "dossier of rape culture" at the school. A 21-page document included 76 entries on "everyday life" for female pupils and included claims of rape, sexual assault, and sexual harassment. Allegations were levelled at both students and teachers.

In March 2022, a review into harmful sexual behaviour at the school was headed by Fiona Scolding QC. The review considered 44 Westminster-related posts submitted to Everyone's Invited alongside other evidence. The review found that 25% of pupils and 65% of girls surveyed said they experienced physical or verbal harmful sexual behaviours, sexual discrimination, and unwanted sharing of images. There was also "a strong sense from pupil interviewees of a social hierarchy within the school where some male pupils' status was dictated by familial wealth, academic success and charisma." Submissions to Everyone's Invited also recalled the Westminster Tree: website that mapped sexual contact between students.

A total of 44 recommendations included an overhaul of the school's relationships and sex education curriculum, "active bystander" training, and a greater emphasis on building healthy relationships. The report also recommended training for housemasters, matrons, and tutors on managing pastoral issues including mental health. Other recommendations include a behavioural code of conduct for students informed by the student body.

Racism and race review
In 2020, more than 250 alumni signed a letter lobbying the school to combat the "toxic culture of racism within the student body." Signatories complained that Westminster did not include any black authors in their curriculum and overlooked Britain's role in the slave trade.

In March 2022, Challenge Consultancy published a Race Review of Westminster School that found "continued denial of the racism and the invisibility of the issue". Challenge Consultancy was commissioned by Westminster School to facilitate understanding of how staff and pupils perceive the culture around race, ethnicity and cultural diversity and consider how it can better engage with these issues in the future. The review's authors were led by Femi Otitoju who found evidence that international pupils including British Asian, British Black, Chinese and Jewish pupils "recounted a lack of sensitivity and delays in responding to emotions they experienced when calling out unacceptable behaviour". 25 recommendations included the recruitment of "diverse teaching staff," a publicised racial harassment policy, and an increased offer of counselling for victims.

Former pupils
About 900 people educated at Westminster School are in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Former pupils are known at the school as "Old Westminsters" and include the following:
 * Richard Hakluyt (1553–1616), writer
 * Thomas Braddock (1556–1607), clergyman and translator
 * Ben Jonson (1573–1637), poet and dramatist
 * Arthur Dee (1579–1651), alchemist and royal physician
 * George Herbert (1593–1633), public orator and poet
 * John Dryden (1631–1700), poet and playwright
 * John Locke (1632–1704), philosopher
 * Sir Christopher Wren (1632–1723), architect and scientist, co-founder of the Royal Society
 * Robert Hooke (1635–1703), scientist
 * Henry Purcell (1659–1695), composer
 * Joseph Thurston (1704–1732), poet admired by Alexander Pope
 * Charles Wesley (1707–1788), Methodist preacher and writer of over 6,000 hymns
 * Sir Charles Asgill, 1st Baronet (1714–1788), banker and Lord Mayor of London (1757–1758)
 * Augustus Keppel, 1st Viscount Keppel (1725–1786), First Lord of the Admiralty
 * Augustus Henry Fitzroy, 3rd Duke of Grafton (1735–1811), Prime Minister
 * Edward Gibbon (1737–1794), historian
 * Charles O'Hara (1740 – 25 February 1802), British military officer in the Seven Years' War, American War of Independence, and French Revolutionary War, later Governor of Gibraltar
 * Charles Cotesworth Pinckney (1746–1825), ADC to Washington 1777, defeated by Jefferson in 1804 in contest for Presidency
 * Jeremy Bentham (1748–1832), lawyer, eccentric and philosopher
 * Thomas Pinckney (1750–1828), American soldier, politician, and diplomat
 * Sir Charles Asgill, 2nd Baronet (1762–1823), British soldier and principal in the Asgill Affair
 * Robert Southey (1774–1843), poet, historian and biographer
 * Matthew Lewis (1775–1818), novelist and dramatist
 * FitzRoy Somerset, 1st Baron Raglan (1788–1855), lost his right arm at Waterloo, C-in-C in the Crimea who is honoured with a statue in Dean's Yard
 * John Russell, 1st Earl Russell (1792–1878), Prime Minister
 * Augustus Short (11 June 1802 – 5 October 1883), the first Anglican bishop of Adelaide, South Australia
 * Harry Robert Kempe (1852–1935), electrical engineer, author and editor.
 * A. A. Milne (1882–1956, QS), author and journalist
 * Oliver Lyttelton, 1st Viscount Chandos (1893–1972), Cabinet Minister during World War II, chairman of the National Theatre Board
 * Hossein Ala' (1882–1964), former Prime Minister of Iran
 * Sir Adrian Boult (1889–1983), conductor
 * Edgar Adrian, 1st Baron Adrian (1889–1977) Nobel prize winner
 * Charles William Anderson Scott (1903–1946), pioneer aviator
 * Sir John Gielgud (1904–2000, GG), actor and director
 * Charles Harvard Gibbs-Smith (1909–1981), historian
 * Kim Philby (1912–1988), high-ranking member of British intelligence, one of the Cambridge Five and NKVD/KGB double agent
 * Sir Norman Parkinson (1913–1990), portrait and fashion photographer
 * Richard Stone (1913–1991), winner of the Nobel Prize in Economics
 * Roger Kidner (1914–2007), publisher and railway photographer
 * Sir Andrew Huxley (1917–2012), Nobel prizewinning physiologist
 * Sir Peter Ustinov (1921–2004), actor, writer, director and raconteur
 * John Cole (1923–1995), fashion photographer
 * Tony Benn (1925–2014), politician
 * Peter Brook (1925–2022, LL 1937–1938), theatre director
 * Nigel Lawson (1932–2023, WW 1945–1950), former Chancellor of the Exchequer, father of Nigella Lawson
 * Simon Gray (1936–2008, WW 1949–1954), playwright and diarist
 * Jonathan Fenby (born 1942, LL 1956–1960), journalist, author and former Editor of The Observer and South China Morning Post
 * Sir Martyn Poliakoff (born 1947) Professor of Chemistry and narrator of The Periodic Table of Videos
 * Andrew Lloyd Webber (born 1948, QS 1960–1965), composer and producer
 * Stephen Poliakoff (born 1952, WW 1966–1970), director, playwright and television dramatist
 * Chris Huhne (born 1954), disgraced Liberal Democrat politician
 * Dominic Grieve (born 1956), former attorney-general and pro-European politician
 * Jon Crowcroft (born 1957), Professor at the University of Cambridge
 * Shane MacGowan (1957-2023, AHH 1972–1973), musician
 * Adam Boulton (born 1959), journalist, broadcaster and author
 * Andrew Graham-Dixon (born 1960), art critic and writer
 * Edward St Aubyn (born 1960), author and journalist
 * Timothy Winter (born 1960), Shaykh Zayed Lecturer in Islamic Studies, Faculty of Divinity, Cambridge University
 * David Heyman (born 1961), film producer
 * Alexander Beard (born 1963), arts administrator
 * Matt Frei (born 1963, RR 1978–1981), broadcaster
 * Ian Bostridge (born 1964), classical tenor
 * Gavin Rossdale (born 1965), musician, songwriter, and lead singer with rock band Bush
 * Michael Sherwood (born 1965), banker
 * Lucasta Miller (born 1966), writer and critic
 * Helena Bonham Carter (born 1966, LL 1982–1984), actress
 * Jason Kouchak (born 1967), pianist and composer
 * Noreena Hertz (born 1967, CC 1983–85), economist and campaigner
 * Nick Clegg (born 1967, LL), Liberal Democrat leader, MP for Sheffield Hallam, former Deputy Prime Minister
 * James Robbins (1968–1972, GG), broadcaster
 * Ruth Kelly (born 1968, DD 1984–86), cabinet minister
 * Afshin Rattansi (RR 1981–83), journalist
 * Marcel Theroux (born 1968), novelist and broadcaster
 * Joe Cornish (born 1968), broadcaster, director and screenwriter
 * Adam Buxton (born 1969), comedian
 * Giles Coren (born 1969, RR 1982–1988), journalist
 * Lucy Walker (born 1970), documentary film-maker
 * Louis Theroux (born 1970), broadcaster
 * Jonathan Yeo (born 1970), artist
 * Dido Armstrong (born 1971, WW, 1987–1989), British musician under the name "Dido"
 * Polly Arnold (born 1972) Director of the Chemical Sciences Division at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
 * Martha Lane Fox (born 1973), head of Digital Public Services
 * James Reynolds (born 1974), BBC News presenter
 * Conrad Shawcross (born 1977), artist
 * Pinny Grylls (born 1978, HH 1994–1996), documentary film-maker
 * Benjamin Yeoh (born 1978), playwright
 * Christian Coulson (born 1978), Harry Potter actor
 * Simon Ambrose (born 1979), Chairman of the London Contemporary Orchestra
 * Alexander Shelley (born 1979), conductor
 * Anna Stothard (born 1983), novelist
 * Michael Penniman (born 1983), musician under the name "Mika"
 * Jack Farthing (born 1985), actor
 * Grace Chatto (born 1985), cellist in the band Clean Bandit
 * Alfred Enoch (born 1988), Harry Potter actor
 * Alexander Guttenplan (born 1990), captain of winning University Challenge team 2010
 * Jack Aitken (born 1995), racing driver
 * Blondey McCoy (born 1997), artist and model
 * Olivia Hardy (2021-2023), singer

Victoria Cross holders
Six pupils of Westminster have been awarded the Victoria Cross:
 * Edmund Henry Lenon (1830–1893, at Westminster June 1851 – 1855)
 * William George Hawtry Bankes (1836–1858) (at Westminster April 1850 – 1856)
 * Sir Nevill Maskelyne Smyth (1868–1941, at Westminster June 1882 – 1885). He served in the First World War
 * Arthur Martin-Leake (1874–1953; at Westminster June 1888 – 1891), one of only three to receive twice
 * William Hew Clark-Kennedy (1879–1961, at Westminster June 1893 – 1896)
 * Richard Wakeford (1921–1972, at Westminster June 1934 – 1940)

title: Westminster School