Some School History:

..... The Greenwich Hospital School also provided the bulk of officers to the Hydrographic Service (the branch responsible for surveying the oceans of the world). The first person to pass the Extra Master’s examination of Trinity House was a former pupil of Greenwich Royal Hospital School. Thus, just as, according to the Duke of Wellington, the Battle of Waterloo was won on the playing fields of Eton, it may justifiably be claimed, that the establishment, defence, integration, and trade of the largest empire the world has yet seen, the British Empire, was charted and plotted in the classrooms of Greenwich Royal Hospital School, and facilitated by its former pupils .....

courtesy of Bernard de Neumann - Nelson House, 56 -61