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Is it true that John’s school motto was “Out of this rough metal we make virtue”?

That is a myth that has grown up owing to a crude and incorrect translation from Latin of the motto of the Quarry Bank Grammar School.  The school motto in Latin is:

EX HOC METALLO VIRTUTEM

Translations of that phrase have appeared in print claiming that it means:

“OUT OF THIS ROUGH METAL WE MAKE VIRTUE”

It’s a brave guess by someone who does not fully understand Latin. Latin mottoes are notoriously difficult to translate as they miss out many words to achieve brevity. The key to this motto is that it refers to the name of the school “Quarry Bank”. Incidentally, there had once been a real sandstone quarry at the bottom of the school field but it had been filled in by the time we Quarrymen were at school.

The guesses have been that:

A)  the Latin word “metallo” means “metal”. Yes it can, but it can also mean “quarry” and in this case it refers to the name of the school. So here it means “quarry” 

B) the Latin word “virtutem” means “virtue”. Yes it can, but here it means “manhood”. It comes from the same root as the word in English for “virile” - “vir” which is Latin for “man.

So the word-for-word translation of the Latin phrase is:

“Out of this quarry - manhood.”  We were taught in our Latin lessons at school that it means “Out of this quarry cometh forth manhood”.

The inspiration for this motto can be found in the Quarry Bank school song. The lyrics refer to “sons of the Quarry”. Former pupils of the school are known as “Ashlars” - an “ashlar” being a finely-prepared piece of stone from a quarry - ready for use in a building.

So the school motto implies that each boy starts off as a rough piece of stone in a quarry who is polished up and prepared for manhood!

What John Lennon thought of the school motto – and the school’s role in the emergence of his manhood is for others to determine, yet when he lived in New York he asked his Aunt Mimi to send hm his old Quarry Bank school tie which he wore from time to time and is pictured with it in Bob Gruen’s famous photo.