St Edward's, 150 Years

Foreword

FOREWORD

T he second half of the 19th century saw the creation of a number of great schools in England, many founded in the Christian fervour of the Oxford Movement and all of them building on the growth of confidence that characterised the Victorian era. One such school was St Edward’s. Founded by the Revd Thomas Chamberlain, vicar of St Thomas the Martyr in Oxford and Senior Student at Christ Church, the School would be an institution where the religious principles of Tractarianism would form a strong underpinning for the academic education offered. The Revd Algernon Simeon became the fledgling School’s second Headmaster and it was his enthusiasm and drive which ultimately ensured the move from the centre of the city out to North Oxford; he essentially re-founded the establishment and appointed himself as first Warden. This move and the acquisition of the School by Simeon were probably the most important events in the young School’s life, and it is from Simeon’s dream of a great Oxford Public School that the St Edward’s of today has grown. So, from our earliest years in New Inn Hall Street, through the excitement and vision of the move to the Woodstock Road and on to the more recent grand developments over the past

50 years, St Edward’s has had an unbroken history of growth and improvement; its pupils have made a significant impact on British life and its position in the ranks of the most influential schools in the country has been increasingly secured. Thus 150 years of history, of progress and of development is a great legacy for us in 2013 but this excellent book, most capably and creatively written by my colleague, Nicola Hunter, does not chart the history of the School but rather is intended as a portrait of it in its 150th year. Successive generations of pupils, members of Common Room and Wardens have impressed upon the School their own dreams as well as their views and their devotion; the changing financial fortunes of both the School and the country have written their tunes on the staves of the fabric; history itself, and not least the troubled times of the 20th century, has carved happiness and loss in equal measure into the stone and wood of the buildings. What we have now is not the single vision of a single man but rather a complex organism living within its 100-acre shell in Oxford with influence far wider than that limited sphere.

Stephen Jones 13th Warden

TheDiningHall. Clockwise fromtop left: DiningHall 1894; part of thewindow St Edward and Martyr (gift of H.C. Brook Johnson, 1930); part of the Wind in the Willows mural, 1997, by Tim Plant (B, 1957–61) and his wife Ana Maria; Lower Sixth dinner, 2013; Dining Hall c. 1938.

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