St Edward's 150 Years - by Nicola Hunter

St Edward’s: 150 Years

Chapter 1 / Origins and Earliest Days

‘No boy may have in his possession gunpowder, strong acids, poison or other dangerous things.’ [By 1877 catapults were added to this list.] From the School Rules, published c. 1876.

A SCHOOLDAY AT THE NEW PREMISES

contracted to erect the School House (now the Warden’s rooms, Apsley and the Common Room), for £8,659. The contract stated it should be completed and ready for use on or before 1 August 1873, unless bad weather or problems with the workers intervened; in fact the weather was consistently wet and this deadline could not be achieved. Simeon had written to parents asking if boys could be kept home for a month longer, but about 40 families ignored this plea and presented their boys on 22 August, with workmen still everywhere and the doors and windows not yet fitted. Simeon says in his autobiography that he himself swept out the dormitories and that he ‘worked like a navvy’ to get everything in some sort of order. Even so, one boy fell into the well dug for building purposes and two others ran away, although they fortunately did not get too far. The Chapel was built between 1873 and 1878 and was in many respects at the heart of School life. The buildings were designed to accommodate 135 boys, a number that was first exceeded in 1915. It had not been the easiest of starts, but by the end of 1873, after ten years, the School was well underway. The first foundations for what was to follow had been well and truly laid. We will consider the Chapel, the heart of Simeon’s School, in its own chapter. The school bell went at 7am (6am in summer) and a hand bell was rung on the staircase. The expectation was that every boy would pray before leaving his dorm. The prefect in fact called out prayers and everyone knelt. Conversation was allowed after three or four minutes. Half anhour later another bell rang to call everyone to the schoolroomfor the register tobe takenby aprefect in thepresence of a master. There was milk at the foot of the stairs to be had on theway for thosewho had ordered it. Prep followed for 25minutes (an hour in winter), then the bell rang and the School went to the Chapel for Prime (15 minutes). Breakfast was porridge and thick breadwithbutter, and teawas served fromanurn.Therewasmeat, eggs or fish for those whose parents paid an extra two guineas per term. After breakfast boots were put on and classes started at nine, withthreeone-hourslotsandthelasthourbeforelunchbeinggiven to Gym, Choir practice, Music or Drawing classes and Detention. Those not doing any of those things could play games of their

choiceor swim in summer. Fromnoon to12.45pmand2pmto4pm boys could leave the School, but were only allowed to purchase goodsfromtheSchoolStores.Boundsincludedeverythingnorthof St Margaret’s Road and west of the Cherwell. When the bell rang for tea or dinner everyone had towash their hands and brush their hair ready for entering theHall when the secondbell rang. At lunch the joints for the boys were carved by the cook and the butler and the Headmaster carved for the masters. Plates were distributed by maids. There were then two hours of lessons from 2pm in summer and4pminwinter.Teaat 6.15pmconsistedof tea, breadandbutter. Full Evensong with all the psalms of the day was at 7pm and was followedbytwopreps,withsupperbetween.Supperwasat8.30pm: bread and cheese and beer. The lower school went to bed during supper. At 9.30pmthe Seniorswent tobed. Prayers and timewould be called by the prefect, and lights out was 9.45pm. Hot bathswere taken once a week, along with the occasional shower.

Summertown, which he described then as ‘a miserable dirty little village’). In Summertown what is now South Parade was called Double Ditch, a part of the Royalists’ defences of Oxford during the Civil War. At the site Felicia Skene and Simeon ‘cut the first sod’ for the building of the School in what had been a turnip field, where the grand Quad now stands. This first stage of the building of the School was embarked upon, amazingly, totally at Simeon’s personal expense. On 15 July 1872, Holy Eucharist was celebrated in St Thomas’s at 8am; the School choir set out in surplices, with cross and banner, and processed singing to the site, joined on the way by the choirs of similarly minded churches, namely St Barnabas and SS Philip and James. Chamberlain was to lay the cornerstone but he was in disagreement with Simeon about the site, as the boys would no longer be able to attend St Thomas’s. Chamberlain overcame his feelings however, and at the ceremony praised Simeon’s work and ‘asked for God’s blessing on it’. The School

transferred from New Inn Hall Street to Summertown in August 1873 after several delays. At the time, Simeon was bed-ridden with a serious bout of diphtheria, but somehow contrived to conduct work on the School from his bed. Felicia Skene nursed him through this illness. At the first site, primitive as it had been, 216 boys had been educated, of whom 163 had left by the time of the move. Desmond Hill notes in his history that among them were ‘two Knights of the Realm, a High Sherriff, two Rural Deans, three Colonels, a Professor, two architects, a world-class cricketer, two explorers, a President of the Oxford Union, an Athletics ‘Blue’, and Kenneth Grahame. One in ten of the leavers had gone to the colonies, and one in seven had taken Holy Orders.’ The first buildings were designed, as were all the buildings of the 1870s and 1880s, by the local architect William Wilkinson (who also built the Randolph Hotel and much of North Oxford), and were put up by Messrs Orchard of Banbury, who had

Opposite: School population 1872, just prior to themove to theWoodstock Road. Simeon is again in the centre, and was by that point Headmaster. Right: A later, and somewhat gaudier version of the ‘Basher’. The Archivist, Chris Nathan, wore such a boater in the mid-1950s when at the School. It was obligatory to wear it to go to Summertown or into Oxford.

‘Finally it is hoped that all will remember that they are Christian gentlemen, and that they have sworn to fight manfully against the world, the flesh and the Devil, and to live in unity and godly love with one another: and as such, that they will bravely resist temptation and help one another by all means in their power so to spend their time here that when they go forth into the world they may be known as true gentlemen, good citizens and faithful soldiers of their common Lord.’ From the School Rules.

‘ST. EDWARD’S SCHOOL, OXFORD – The object of this school is to combine careful religious teaching under a clergyman and graduate of the University, with a first-class modern education. Day boys are not received.Terms, including Classics, Mathematics, Book-keeping, Drawing, French, Music, and the elements of Physical Science, twenty-five guineas per annum: washing and use of books, two guineas extra.There is an excellent playground.’ An advertisement posted in The Church Times , 7 January 1865.

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