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

P AGE N O : 23 funds allowed, to add new dormitories and class rooms to facilitate the School’s expansion’. Harold Rogers is asked ‘to tender appropriate designs’. 1918 - School finally purchase ‘Wiblin’s Field’, a 1.5-acre strip of land, east of the Chapel and west of the Stratfield Road, which is immediately cultivated for crops. In a report in 1923 there is a codicil which reads ‘but there is some doubt as to whether this included a strip of land to an outside road on the south side which was not included in the purchase when eventually arranged’ (Box 303). Today this is part of the site where the Maths Centre, Cooper Lodge and Cooper Quad as well as the Arts and Design Centre reside (Oxley, 2015) Arthur Weller (Common Room), in addition to his Set, also is in charge of twelve boys at Field House officially rented by the School from the Simeon Estate (Jack Tate list 1974). 1919 - Work commences on a ‘greatly modified’ scheme afforded by the War Memorial Appeal which has not been as successful as originally hoped. The Calvary ( Harold Rogers & Frederick E. Howard design ) dedicated at Commemoration by the Archdeacon of Oxford, the Venerable T.H. Archer Houblon. 1920 - The old Gymnasium is converted into a new Armoury against the north wall ‘Canada’ Dayroom converted into a Masters’ Dining Room in the Old Buildings New Changing Room hut ( ‘New Chaggers’ ) built against the north wall Carpenters’ Shop moves into old Armoury in South Parade School Shop enlarged next to the Carpenters’ Shop The Chapel is lit electrically for the first time Five new tennis courts are laid out; one already exists at Field House, with ‘stop-nets’ - actually fishing nets from Yarmouth The School Shop, Stores and the ‘Crystal Palace’ (toilet block for School House) facilities displace the old Carpenter’s Shop - driving long time School carpenter Walter Young into the Old Armoury Two more wooden huts erected south west of where Tilly’s House now stands, as Chemistry and Physics Laboratories, freeing up the South Room in the New Buildings (once the Daltons’ Dining Room) as a dormitory for ten boys. 1921 - Conversion of the old Chemical Laboratory in the New Buildings into a dormitory completed Form Room at the north end of Big School finished Decision taken to finish off the oak tablets of the Fallen in Chapel (during the war, with no oak available, the names were placed on cards). Each oak tablet costs 15 shillings (£45.30 today) Calvary paid for - £400 (£24,260 today). A further £500 (£30,200 today) used from the Memorial Fund to purchase scientific equipment to be used in Laboratories in the ‘temporary’ huts The original “Jungle’ in the middle of the Quad falls to the axe leaving a yew standing alone in a turfed circle Cricket land increased during November and December as a result of setting back the western boundary, south of the pavilion (the original vendor was given the right to repurchase this ‘extra’ strip of land by the original contract for £150 - an option he never took up) (Box 303)