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

P AGE N O : 11 1881 - Big School completed and used for the first time on Simeon’s birthday, February 20 th . Included are a new Common Room, School Rooms and Library ( Harry Wilkinson Moore Design ), first used on 23 rd March. The more public opening of Big School is on 9 th June (the first play in Big School is held 5 th June 1882) This completes the east side of the Quadrangle, the north side already occupied by dormitories, Hall, and Class Rooms, the Warden’s House being at one end of the block, and the Chapel at the other end. On the west side is the Entrance Lodge, and the group of buildings, already a familiar object to travellers on the Northern Line from Oxford, will be completed by the erection of three Boarding Houses on the South side, one of which (New Buildings) will be begun immediately. The total accommodation, when all is finished, will be for 200 boys, beside Day Boys, who can now be received from Oxford’ (Chronicle June). As shown earlier some of these statements were premature and even incorrect finally East end of Main Buildings converted into Class Rooms New Buildings ( William Wilkinson design ) construction begins, the first on the south side of the Quadrangle, planned to house the Head Master (Rev Herbert Dalton) and his future family. During the initial evacuation of this building site, a ‘femoral bone’ and ‘two teeth’ of a mammoth is uncovered. These are sent to the Oxford Museum of Geology for analysis; a long detailed report follows of their findings in the December Chronicle, which is inconclusive, but felt that the specimens came from ‘a woolly Elephant or Mammoth’! South east corner of the cricket field levelled, with new seeding expected in the spring of 1882 ‘The spectacle of gangs of workmen, bricks and mortar, et hoc genus omni - the visible capital of the contractor - cannot claim to possess the charm of novelty to us. But gradually and surely the whole plan of St. Edward’s is advancing to completion, and since the foundation stone was laid in 1872, hardly a year has passed without leaving its legacy of additions and improvements, until we are almost, as it were, in sight of the end’ (November Chronicle) ‘In the midst, like the Tree of Life in the garden, stands the Chapel, the centre and source of the truest life of the School, and linked to it by Cloisters are the (Big) School and Library, expressing by their union our belief that human wisdom is only valuable when it advances hand in hand with what is divine’ (November Chronicle) ‘Deep drain’ laid across the Cricket Ground, which will ‘secure the new houses from damp’ and ‘add materially to the supply of water in the bathing place’ (November Chronicle) ‘In February Big School was completed, which gave us a Mathematical Room, a short-lived Masters’ Common Room, besides a room above for preparation’ (Cowell, February 1931 Chronicle) Big School was lighted in early days simply by two gas ‘sunlights’ in the roof. These had a large group of jets at the foot of a six-foot tube, which carried the hot air up to a couple of terra cotta ventilators close to the ridge of the roof, their louvres were supposed to be wired against birds, but this was defective’ (Cowell, July 1931 Chronicle). 1882 - New Buildings are opened 25 th November ‘During the Eighties a good deal of building went on. Big School was finished in 1881. In 1882 New Buildings were opened as a separate ‘House’ for the Headmaster, the Reverend Dalton. There was a ceremonial opening. The Choir, or part of it, went in procession from room to room, and some prayers and responses were recited in each. Dalton only stayed one year and left in 1883 (Cowell in the December 1931 Chronicle and separate notes in Box 15)