History

Strong foundations create great institutions. Our founder Robert Carter Jett's enduring values continue to serve as VES' compass nearly 110 years after its founding.

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“If Virginia were part of the name, the school would have a history from the day of its opening,” proclaimed Wilton E. Mingea of Abington, the school’s first benefactor.  In the fall of 1916, Dr. Jett—later the first Bishop of the Diocese of Southwestern Virginia—and The Reverend Joseph B. Dunn cofounded Virginia Episcopal School for boys.  “They must have high character, healthy bodies, well-furnished minds, and a spirit of selfless service,” wrote Jett.  “These maxims represent the ideals of this school.  The school stands for drawing out that which is noblest and finest.”  With these convictions, Jett and Dunn coined VES’ motto “The Full Stature of Manhood.” 

Jett commissioned the nationally distinguished architect Frederick H. Brooke to design a classically proportioned complex of red-brick buildings, which remain the pride of our campus today and received both Virginia Historic Landmark and National Register of Historic Places designations in 1992.  These physical structures—the settings in which VES students live, learn, bond with one another and their mentors, and abide by a common code—continue to provide a place to which generations of alumni feel they can return home.  

The most prominent early donor to Jett’s vision was The Viscountess Nancy Langhorne Astor.  Virginia native Nancy Langhorne, later Lady Astor, the first elected female member of British parliament and world symbol of women’s rights, urged her father in 1918 to give Langhorne Memorial Chapel—the heart of the VES community—in memory of her mother, Nancy Witcher Keen Langhorne.  A large bronze memorial plaque, given by Lady Astor’s sister, Irene Langhorne Gibson, the original “Gibson Girl,” hangs in the nave of the chapel.  Since its May 11, 1919 dedication, Langhorne Chapel has provided a home for communal worship and private contemplation.  It has been the setting for Baccalaureate, award ceremonies, baptisms, alumni weddings, memorial services, and farewells to retiring faculty.  It was the place our community gathered on the D-Day invasion of June 6, 1944, after the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., on April 4, 1968, and during the 9/11 attacks of September 11, 2001.  The chapel serves as a reminder of VES’ rich architectural heritage as well as an enduring symbol of the generosity of friends who have sustained the school since its earliest days.

In 1967, VES became the first boarding school in Virginia—and among the first in the South—to integrate.  William Alexander of Nashville and Marvin Barnard of Richmond matriculated to VES in the fall of 1967 and became the first two black students to attend VES.  VES remains immeasurably proud of their story, which the New York Times Magazine’s 2017 Education Issue and NPR’s This American Life documented in 2017. 

VES’ motto to guide boys toward “the full stature of manhood” broadened to encompass girls in 1986 when VES became the first traditionally male boarding school in Virginia to become coeducational.

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Distinguished Alumni

VES prepares its graduates for prestigious colleges and universities across the country and abroad, and we are immeasurably proud of the extraordinary contributions our alumni have made to a wide spectrum of fields.