St Edward's Rhubarb - 2018

16 ST EDWARD’S r h u b a r b

contained married accommodation for the newly married Dingwall. He doubled up as Bursar until 1932 and in 1937 became Headmaster of Hurstpierpoint. He was replaced as housemaster by none other than R. H. Barff, who had ‘rumbled on to the scene’ in 1927, ‘”temporarily” filling a gap left by Griffiths’ departure and reading for his degree at the same time’; he was married in Summertown Church in 1930, ‘with the school choir in attendance and the reception held in the Warden’s house’. Barff remained the only married housemaster until 1947, when Roger Northcote-Green, newly married, took over Mac’s (from Macnamara), where fortunately there was the married accommodation occupied by Herbert Dalton, headmaster from 1877 to 1883; appointed as Headmaster of Worksop in 1952, he was succeeded by Charles Mather who was married with two daughters. The next married housemaster (with a son) was Bill Veitch, for whom married accommodation had to be added to Segar’s in 1955 when he took over from Jim Gauntlett. The Warden asked Barff to open Field House on 1 September 1939 (the day on which Hitler invaded Poland) ‘for the benefit of parents wishing to remove their sons from more dangerous areas, and by the beginning of term 25, including some of the new boys, had assembled…The older boys in the Corps paraded three times a week and those “two experienced ex-officers, Major Macnamara and Lieutenant Barff” returned to the colours’. After Dunkirk 90 senior boys were enrolled in the LDV (Local Defence Volunteers, later renamed the Home Guard). The platoon, commanded by Sergeant Yorke with Corporals Segar and Gauntlett, formed part of the Summertown and Wolvercote Company under Major Macnamara. A patrol camped nightly at the boathouse to keep watch for enemy parachutists on Port Meadow, and was more than a little disconcerted one morning to find that a great camp had sprung up in the darkness to shelter a large portion of the returned Expeditionary Force. ‘I thought I heard something’ reported Barff. Field House, half a mile from the centre of the school, uniquely acquired a measure of independence and individuality which puzzled the rest of the school. They had all their meals in the central dining hall, whereas Field House had breakfast and supper in the house ‘which at mealtimes preserved something of a country house atmosphere’. In our day these

A R C H I V E S

Still in the house!

in 1957. The additional accommodation necessary consisted of a dormitory for 16 boys with four studies below. It was built by Symm and Co. Ltd., who had built the Chapel 80 years before; their charge for each was almost the same (£4,500). In 1960 a property company became interested in buying the remaining Field House estate for development and a sale was completed. A new Field House was built close to K House (the original Field House!) and occupied from 1964.

were supervised by Jean Allison, the house nurse who left in 1959 after some 10 years. Even in the 1950s Bim Barff and his wife Renee, ‘attended by a uniformed maidservant, would dine by candlelight’ in full view of the boys, and their ‘ageing and weighty retriever’ Leo had the run of the so-called Italian garden laid out in front of the house. Barff ‘left the prefects and senior boys to run the house’. Stewart Pether, married with three children, succeeded Barff (who became Second Master for 10 years) as housemaster

Corfe House in the winter of 1940.

Gauntlett photos The St Edward's School Society is paying for Jack Gauntlett’s glass frame pictures to be digitised. Gauntlett was a member of staff at Teddies from 1924-1964. He developed and fixed the images in a home- made concoction due to wartime restrictions. The quality of the images is astonishing. We will be making these images available in the near future.

Henry Kendall orchestrating the digging out of one of the School’s air raid shelters in the summer of 1940