Roger Cholmeley

Sir Roger Cholmeley, who lived from around 1485 until 21 June 1565, was an English judge and educational philanthropist who served as Lord Chief Justice of the Court of King's Bench from 1552 to 1553. He was Recorder of London from 1535 to 1545, during which time he also sat in Parliament representing London, and he was briefly imprisoned and fined in 1553 for signing the instrument that named Lady Jane Grey as successor to the throne, an act that cost him his judicial office when Mary I declined to reappoint him. His most lasting legacy was founding Highgate School under a royal charter granted in 1565, whose alumni are known as Old Cholmeleians and have included the mathematician John Venn, the poets Gerard Manley Hopkins and John Betjeman, and the composers John Tavener and John Rutter.