Frederick was born in Newark, Nottinghamshire and from 1845 attended Magnus Grammar School studying mainly Greek and Latin but also some arithmetic, algebra, Euclidean geometry, English and writing. He went to St John's College, Cambridge as a sizar in 1854 and graduated BA in classics and mathematics in 1858. He then taught classics at University College School, London , King Edward’s Grammar School in Birmingham and Brighton College before being appointed headmaster of the Perse School in Cambridge in 1861. He remained in Cambridge for the next 14 years.

In 1875 he was appointed headmaster of Sedbergh School in Yorkshire. The school had become run down under the previous headmaster and boys were no longer taking the Cambridge entrance exams. He started with only 14 pupils and had to find lodgings for himself and his family in Sedbergh, as the Headmaster's house was unfit for habitation. Within 2 years of his arrival the school had 53 boarders and a staff of 6 masters. Football, cricket and athletics had been restarted, the external examiners were happy with the academic standards and boys were again sitting the Cambridge entrance exams. By 1879 a new school house and a new master's house had opened and there were 82 boarders and 9 day pupils on the school roll. However in that year Frederick’s health deteriorated and he traveled to London for a further medical opinion. On his way back to Sedbergh, he broke his journey in Newark to visit his mother-in-law and died at her house at the age of 44.

Return to Heppenstall One-Name Study Main Page here