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

P AGE N O : 17 kept in open lockers in the Boot-Room on the ground floor and were put on after breakfast, being exchanged for slippers between tea and bedtime. A clean white shirt, collar, socks and handkerchief and under clothes were put on the beds each Saturday night and a clean collar and handkerchief on Wednesday nights. Down the centre were washstands, three in each of the long dormitories with a double row of basin-holes and loose basins, five or six aside and a low partition in the centre carrying narrow shelves for sponge and tooth brush, etcetera and an ‘occasional’ looking glass. A towel rail ran the whole length, below the front edges of the washstand. Basins and mugs were filled with water each day for morning used. There were a further two small dormitories in the New Buildings accommodating 20 of the very youngest boys at the School later called the ‘Junior House’ by Warden Ferguson in his personal diaries The Chapel is approached from the main (East) Door of the School building through a covered way of eight bays of which six led due east, and the last two turned south. Two of these bays had arches to the Playground, on the north as well as towards the south. Beyond the double arches the corridor, or Cloister as it was called, was railed in with folding gates that were locked every night. The western portion, some 10 feet wide, formed an Ante-Chapel with an organ in the gallery above, and an oak screen with glazed fenestrations and central gates separating it from the Chapel proper. The Vestry was east of the tower, the base of which formed part of it. Set against the screen, on each side of the aisle, was an oak seat with a canopied stall at its outer end, in front of which was another oak seat, with a portion marked off by an arm in front of the stalls, and in front of the book-desks of these seats was a row, four on each side, of armed seats in pitch pine which had been in the Beauchamp Dormitory when it was used as a chapel, and in front of these the communion rails from the same source, consisting of cast-iron standards with moulded wood rails. The Warden sat in the stall on the south side with his family in the adjoining seat. The Masters occupied the back row on the north side - the Senior Master in the stall. In the second rows the Sacristans occupied the armed seat in front of the stalls, the remainder being used by visitors. The main congregation sat in rush-bottomed chairs battened together in rows of six facing inwards (i.e. north to south) in three blocks of three rows on each side of the central aisle. Boys sat in School order, the lowest forms in the front (beginning from the west) - the Prefects in the back row of the centre block. (Harold Rogers, O.S.E. and School Architect, writing in 1938 - Boxes 303 & 306) Further stained-glass window ( Charles Kempe design) installed in Chapel: ‘Unction’ in memory of Thomas

Roberts, publisher of the City of London (N. Hunter, 2013). 1889 - Additional stops added to the Chapel Organ (Hill, 1963) School Governing Body of twelve members established.

1890 - Field House (later renamed Corfe House) and adjoining cottages built next to the Avenue on the western side of the Woodstock Road. This is purchased by Algernon Simeon as a possible future family home and in the meantime leased to the School (Oxley, 2015). In reality Simeon never lived there and eventually leased then sold it to the School During negotiations to set up the Governing Body, an independent valuation of the School’s estate at that time is estimated at £34,500 (£6,003,000 today). Simeon believed this is too low and should be closer to £45,000 (£7.830,000 today). (Oxley, 2015) The seating arrangement in Chapel changes from ‘the monastic north-south orientation’ to chairs facing eastwards in rows of six or seven (Oxley, 2015)