The Building of St Edward's School: A Chronology (1870 - 2020)

P AGE N O : 10 handsome carving. The fireplace is placed in an arched recess, and will be one of the principle features of the room. Folding doors separate the Library from the Common Room’ (December Chronicle) *The Library was afterwards used for some years as the ‘Shell’ class room and by 1925 as the Masters’ Dining Room **The School Room ran the full length of the East Wing and was divided into three rooms, which in 1925 were called New Zealand, Natal, and the Sixth Form Room. The Sixth worked at the south end, the Shell on benches raised between the door and the wall facing Chapel and the Modern Form occupied the middle of the room (February 1925 Chronicle) ‘The south side of the Quadrangle will be composed of three Boarding Houses, each capable of accommodating 30 boys. The Head Master’s, which will be built first (later New Buildings), will occupy the south-west Corner.’ (December Chronicle). This statement proved very premature and thirty-five years ahead of its time The Cloisters running down the east and south sides of the Quadrangle ( Harry Wilkinson Moore Design ) ‘will enable those living in the masters’ houses to come to Chapel without going into the open air’ (December Chronicle). Again very premature and in fact erroneous, as no Cloisters were ever built on the south side of the Quadrangle The ‘Chronicle’ publishes a ‘remarkable lithograph’ entitled “Simeon’s Dream” showing a Quadrangle ‘completed by two Boarding Houses on the South side and a third in the south east corner, which is connected by cloisters to Big School and the Chapel’ (Hill, 1963). This iconic lithograph is uncannily accurate as to what followed in the years ahead, apart from the south east corner of the Quadrangle and the southern Cloisters ‘The Lodge was completed, and the Head Master, the Reverend H.A. Dalton, through whom I came ( Cowell had just been hired onto the staff ) was settled with his family in the Lodge. The front wall was complete up to the green gate, the entrance to the field opposite the Lodge was made, and the new pavilion built (it replaced a corrugated iron affair, which was moved down to the Lower Field and became a cow-shed, which duty it performed for many years). The slope on the Lower Fields had been planted with a collection of willows given to Mr. Simeon’. By 1930 only two of these trees remained (Cowell, 1930) ‘In the large room there (Big School) were nearly always four forms. The Sixth with the Headmaster at the far end, the Modern Form in the middle, and the Shell by the door. There were two lines of desk benches on both sides all down the room, and in the corner by the door, in the space between it and the wall facing the Chapel were three small benches raised slightly behind the other, so the boys on the top form could comfortably kick the boys below them! Opposite to me was the Second Form, nominally doing exercises. Behind me were the Fifth doing ditto, but generally engaged shoving men off the form. Opposite them was the Modern Master, supposed to be looking after them, but generally quite fully occupied with his own lot, who were a handful; at the far end was the Headmaster and the Sixth. Opposite him was a huge locked box, called the Pound, into which anything left about - books, clothes etc. was placed, and only released on payment of a fine’ (Cowell, February 1931 Chronicle) The above arrangement was common in most Public Schools of that time, using ‘the Westminster Model’ where the boys sat in ‘groups’ up each side of the large School Room (or Hall) - one side being called ‘Up’, another called ‘The Shell’ as it was formed in a semi-circular shape - this name became popular and common throughout many Public Schools and ‘generally designates a Form linking Lower and Upper Forms - at St. Edward’s however the Shell formed the lowest of the three forms in the Upper School’ (Box 303) Cowell describes the fact that almost all the boy’s daily possessions were kept in their desks including sports clothes (except boots). Changing was done in the lavatory, ‘a room with (cold water) basins all around on the site of what is now (in 1930) the Masters’ Dining Room. There was a Boot Room beyond it’ (Cowell Diaries)