Governors at the William Penn school, in Southwark, which is currently on a Department for Education and Employment special measures list, are proposing that it become Dulwich High School.

The school is being re-organised - admissions numbers are being reduced to 120 pupils a year, parts of its buildings are being closed or refurbished, and it is investing heavily in information technology.

LLoyd Marshall, headteacher, said the school was achieving many of its targets but “was always having to contend with the baggage of the past”.

Anne Worsley, chair of Southwark’s education and leisure services, said if the new name was approved it would reflect the changes being made in the school.

William Penn, the Quaker who founded Pennsylvania, was born in 1644. He was sent down from Oxford in 1661 for refusing to join the Anglican Church.