Wisbech Ouse being a common Celtic word relating to water, and the name of a river that once flowed through the town. Alternatively, the first element may derive from the River Whissey which used to run to Wisbech or possibly ‘marshy-meadow valley or ridge’. OE Wisc or wisc + bece or baec. During the Iron Age, the area where Wisbech would develop lay in the west of the Brythonic Iceni tribe's territory. Icenian coins are known from both March and Wisbech. Like the rest of Cambridgeshire, Wisbech was part of the Kingdom of East Anglia after the Anglo-Saxon invasion. The first
Wisbech Grammar School how master Jacob Creffen was granted leave by the Bishop of Ely to collect an "adequate salary" from each scholar according to the "praiseworthy, ancient and approved custom". Following the English reformation, the Guild of the Holy Trinity was dissolved and replaced by the Wisbech Corporation. The school was renamed and re-established by King Edward VI in 1549, who gave the school a charter "for the instruction of youth in grammatical knowledge and polite literature". The charter is still in existence, and is currently held by the Wisbech Museum. The same year, land was given for the construction of a