An architectural elevation print of the east front of the Greenwich Hospital School building of 1783, designed by William Newton, Clerk of Works to the Hospital Surveyor of the time, James 'Athenian' Stuart.

The active foundation of the school as part of the Crown charity was first proposed in 1712 by the Hospital Governor, Lord Matthew Aylmer, to educate the sons of seafarers. Originally, the Hospital paid for boys to attend Weston's Academy, Greenwich, before establishing a separate school and the earliest record of them doing so is in August 1715. Newton's structure was the second purpose-built schoolhouse on the same site, fronting King Street (now the south end of King William Walk, Greenwich).

Though the colonnade and right end were removed in subsequent changes, three-quarters of the building still survives as a rear wing of 20th-century Devonport House. It was converted to student accommodation in the late 1990s and is a rare survival of an 18th-century institutional school building. This print is one of the illustrations to Cooke and Maule's 'Historical Account of the Royal Hospital for Seamen' (2nd ed., 1789).