The Grammar Schools Act 1860 was passed by Queensland's first parliament in 1860 and allowed for the establishment of a grammar school in any town where £1000 could be raised locally. Between the years 1863 and 1892, ten grammar schools were opened under the auspices of the Act. The first of these was Ipswich Grammar School, which opened in 1863.

A grammar school is one of several different types of school in the history of education in the United Kingdom and other English-speaking countries, originally a school teaching Latin, but more recently an academically oriented secondary school.