Rhubarb 2021

ST EDWARD’S

A BEVY OF wardens This year, having said farewell to Stephen Jones and welcomed our 14thWarden, Alastair Chirnside, we take the opportunity to look back and remember all ourWardens within the continuum of the School's history.We find out about eachWarden, identify their greatest achievements and how they, along with global social change, helped shape the School into what it is today. With thanks to Malcolm Oxley (MCR, 1962-1999), Simon Roche (MCR, 2004-2007/2010-current day), Lorna Roche (Wardens’ PA, 2001-2016) and JudyYoung (MCR, 1999-current day) for their invaluable contributions.

FEATURE

F rom 1863 until 1877 the 376 boys who passed through St Edward’s School knew nothing of Wardens because there weren’t any. Like most schools Thomas Chamberlain’s unsteady foundation of 1863 was headed by a headmaster helped by a clutch of transitory teachers.This headmaster was the Revd FW Fryer, a protégé and curate of the Founder. Under him, the new School never reached 50 pupils in attendance in any single term. In 1870 the more forceful enthusiasm of the second headmaster, the 24-year-old Algernon Barrington Simeon, more than doubled that number and he purchased the School from Chamberlain in 1870, moving it into the village of Summertown and re-opening it with new buildings in 1873. Simeon’s aims were more far-reaching as the

Revd F W Fryer

Thomas Chamberlain

impressive size of the new buildings testifies.The former Wykhamist envisaged an essentially religious community based upon the Anglo-Catholic revival we call The Oxford Movement. But he knew that a school would only attract pupils if it could teach the traditional Classical subjects properly and he knew that his own academic capabilities did not match his religious ones.The answer was to appoint a headmaster to direct the pupils’ studies while he continued to head up the religious foundation itself. So, on 5th June 1877, the day on which the completed Chapel was consecrated, Simeon named himself the first Warden.

Algernon Barrington Simeon

role as not unlike that of an abbot in a monastery and his ambitious building programme echoed monastic structures as well as educational ones. His great strength was with the pupils and he attracted both respect and affection from generations of them which many sustained as old boys. His celebrated birthday parties, lots of holidays for saints days and a paternal informality strengthened by his marriage in 1883 and happy family life generated a familial atmosphere in the School giving it a reputation for being unstuffy, friendly and unpretentious which it has largely sustained.With adults he was less successful. Clashes with teachers and some dissatisfied parents were not uncommon. His relationship with the headmaster Herbert Dalton, his future brother-

in-law, was disastrous. Simeon was deeply emotional and subject to stress under pressure. His achievement was massive and placed him among the ranks of pioneering Victorian headmasters. Among his achievements was the establishment of a proper constitution for the School in 1889 emotion into the School which he had more or less founded and to which he had devoted so much of his life meant that he remained involved with the School as one of the Councilors and thereafter as a Governor (the titles of those managing the School changed over the years as the constitution was amended) until 1920.This involvement, after he had retired from the wardenship in 1893, was probably unwise. with a governing body. His own investment of both money and

ALGERNON BARRINGTON SIMEON | FIRST WARDEN 1877-93

Simeon was the historical driving force behind the School’s survival and eventual prosperity. A not very clever and rather

naughty boy at Winchester, he underwent a total and lasting conversion to Anglo-Catholicism at Christ Church which drove him for the rest of his life. He saw theWarden’s

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