Wheelwright Scientific School – School Scholarships

The Wheelwright Scientific School offers tuition scholarships to Newburyport residents who plan to major in science or engineering. This includes public and private school graduates who live in Newburyport.

Applications are due annually on April 15. VIEW HOW TO APPLY HERE.

Annual awards vary depending on the number of qualified applicants and funds available each year. Recently awards have ranged from $8,000 to $30,000 per year. Those continuing their studies may reapply each year for tuition assistance. In the recent past, most recipients have reapplied throughout their undergraduate years.

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About William Wheelwright and the Wheelwright Scientific School

William Wheelwright was born in 1798 in Newburyport,

the son of a sea captain and merchant trader.

By the age of nineteen, Wheelwright himself became a ship captain, sailing for six years before a shipwreck on the Pacific coast of South America changed his life. Wheelwright lived at a time of technological advancements that saw shipping embrace steam power, railroads connect far-flung places, and technological advances such as telegraph shrinking the world. An entrepreneur and practical thinker, Wheelwright founded the Pacific Steam NavigationCompany, built the first railroad and telegraph system in Chile, and brought the allure of technological enhancements to Chile and Argentina. At the same time, he was an advocate for technical education and the power of technology to improve the human condition.

In his will, he left funding to create the Wheelwright Scientific School and provide scholarship assistance to those seeking a scientific education. Incorporated in 1882, the School sent its first scholarship recipients to MIT in 1883.

By the late 1990s, over 1500 Newburyport youth got help with their scientific education from the Wheelwright fund, attending a wide range of colleges and universities including MIT, Harvard University of Massachusetts, Amherst, Yale, Georgia Tech, Johns Hopkins, and more. J.P. Marquand, a Newburyport writer and Pulitzer Prize winner, began by studying chemistry at Harvard with a Wheelwright scholarship!

Today, the School is administered by six trustees, including the Mayor of Newburyport:

John Elwell, President
Cindy Johnson, Secretary
Mark Littlefield, Treasurer
John W. Pramberg
Anna Makos
Sean Reardon, Mayor, City of Newburyport

Source: William Wheelwright: Steamship and Railroad Pioneer, by J. Valerie Fifer. (Historical Society of Old Newbury, 1998)