PUPILS and staff at an historic York school marked the centenary of the death of a former head teacher who saw his school burnt to the ground.

Bootham School staff and students commemorated the life of John Firth Fryer last Friday.

Mr Fryer was head at the school when, on the morning of May 12, 1899, a fire destroyed the school’s main teaching area.

Pupils heard how he had slept through the inferno only to be roused by the York fire brigade, politely knocking on his door and requesting a key to be let into the school in order to tackle the blaze.

The source of the fire was eventually traced to a pan of boiling snails; a schoolboy scientific experiment which had been left unattended.