A FORMER teacher and chaplain at Oxford’s historic Magdalen College School will be withholding his legacy after it was announced the establishment was to admit girls.

On Wednesday, it was announced that the governors had decided to admit girls to the school’s sixth form.

The Rev Richard Martin, head of religious studies and chaplain at the public school between 1992 and 2002, said he was dismayed by the decision.

He said: “I would have thought the school was strong enough to resist this trend, particularly when there are two strong academic girls schools in Oxford, which we have had good relations with and which this move will doubtless jeopardise.

“This will mean eventually fewer places for boys, where it has already become too difficult for boys to get in.

“They won’t be getting my legacy because it was subject to it remaining a single-sex school and I imagine they will lose quite a lot of money from other people as well.”

He had already contacted chairman of governors Jeremy Palmer to express his objections to the plans, which could see girls joining the school as early as 2010.

But former pupil and ITV sports broadcaster Jim Rosenthal, who went to the school in the 1960s, said he was “absolutely delighted” by the decision.

He said: “I think it is a terrific move and not before time.”

Two rival Facebook groups have been set up, one called MCS Against Mixed Sixth Form and one called MCS for co-ed sixth form.

Seamus Gregan, who left the school in 2008, said: “Like it or not, the introduction of girls will distract valuable effort from study — they’re teenage boys for crying out loud.

“My greatest fear is that the willingness of boys to take their subjects out of the classroom will be replaced with social agendas that were previously limited to the weekend.”

Comments left on the two groups include some impassioned pleas to protect a tradition going back more than 500 years.

Current student Jun Li said: “If you destroy the ethos on which a school operates and, not to mention, undoubtedly lower standards in order to get a large boost of people in (during the first year this will be introduced), the standard will slowly degrade.”

And Henry Fletcher, who described himself as a worried Old Waynflete, said: “The whole affair is preposterous.

“The atmosphere, camaraderie and ethos of the school would be severely damaged, if not outright destroyed by such a move.”

But several spoke in favour of the plan, including Gus Kennedy, who said: “We can’t currently attract boys to our sixth form, instead we lose many at the end of the fifth form so this will only serve to improve sixth form life.”

l Last night 267 people had signed up to the Faceboook group opposing plans to admit girls to the school and 154 in the group in favour of a co-educational sixth form.

fbardsley@oxfordmail.co.uk