P581 Ch19 Dr. Fisher

Transcription

CHAPTER XIX
Dr. Fisher: 1922 — ig45
T
HE Oundle Committee received the applications of fifty-six
candidates: six men were short-listed and interviewed: the names
of three in order of recommendation were put before the Court on
9 August 1922. On a ballot, Kenneth Fisher, the first on the list, was
declared duly elected. On 20 September the Master of the Company with two
other members of the Court and the clerk formally inducted the new Headmaster at a dinner held in the Talbot, which was attended by all the masters
and mistresses, and by the bishop of Peterborough and the vicar of Oundle.
Kenneth Fisher, the son of a cotton merchant, had been born at Timperley, Cheshire, on 18 July 1882: educated at Manchester Grammar School,
he won a demyship at Magdalen College, Oxford, and went up in October
1901. He took his degree in 1904 and was elected a Senior Demy in 1905.
He went to the University of Jena and received a Ph.D. for his research
work in Chemistry: on his return he continued his work in the laboratories
of Manchester University and published papers in chemical journals.
In 1906, as a chemist, he accompanied a scientific expedition to West
Africa to investigate rubber production there, going to the source of the
Niger, the river discovered by that great African explorer, Mungo Park.
In 1909 he was appointed assistant master at Clifton College, and acted as
house-tutor in School House: while at Clifton he married. He became
head of the Chemistry Department in 1914, but as he was an officer in the
O.T.C. he was lent by the War Office to the Ministry of Munitions in
1915, and for more than three of the war years managed a high-explosive
plant engaged on a new process, at the Brunner, Mond Works at Winnington, Northwich. On returning to Clifton he was put in charge of all the
scientific instruction in the school: instead of accepting a house at Clifton,
he went in 1920 to Eton College as the senior Science master.
Dr. Fisher, as he came to be known, had none of the staff difficulties
581
A HISTORY OF THE OUNDLE SCHOOLS
that disfigure Sanderson's early years: this was due in part to the deeprooted loyalty to the School of the masters who had been at Oundle for
any length of time, but it was also due to his own personal gifts of kindliness and humour. He was always accessible, but, unlike Sanderson, who
transacted much business in the roadway between School House and the
Cloisters, he preferred the privacy of his own study: he would leave
whatever happened to be occupying his attention to give a sympathetic
hearing to the personal problems of the master or boy who approached
him. He was at his best in dealing with individuals :1 indeed, he was, as it
were, his own Careers master. If he thought the problem presented to
him should be solved without recourse to his authority, he could display
a masterly inactivity. He had a remarkable memory for faces and names:
it is literally true that he never forgot the one or was at a loss for the
other. When not borne down by the responsibilities of his office he was a
delightful companion to men and boys alike. He loved the Welsh mountains, Harlech being his favourite resort: he had a first-hand knowledge of
all games, had been a county Rugby football three-quarter, and was an
accomplished golfer. The delight of his life, next perhaps to his happiness
in his family, was bird-watching, on which he was an authority. His
eldest son, Mr. James Fisher, has acknowledged his own debt to his father's
training, but many Oundle boys also owe much to Dr. Fisher's enthusiasm.
He loved music, and his appreciation of it deepened—as indeed, did that
of the School—as the years went by. It was a pity that he did not see his
way to continuing the Senior Scripture class: he might have done so if he
had realised that it was Sanderson's way of taking his boys into his confidence, but he took, perhaps excessive, pains over the preparation of his
sermons to the School. In punishing boys he was strictly fair, but in his
anxiety to be just did not always strike while the iron was hot. Did he
know that his strength lay in his simplicity, not in the mantle of authority?
For those who saw through the Headmaster to the man he was, loved
him with great devotion. He became a J.P. early in 1933.
1
Dr. Fisher's daily visits to the Sanatorium will be remembered by all who at any time were
nursed there.
582
DR. FISHER: 1922-1945
If Sanderson, who died in 1922, is still too near to be viewed in a
correct perspective, it will be manifestly impossible in the case of his
successor to attempt an assessment of his aims and achievements. Some
account of the sequence of events can be given: and certain trends will
become visible: but it cannot be judged how far Dr. Fisher was consciously
or unconsciously responsible for them. In fact, this chapter will attempt to
convey an impression of the life of the School in his time. It will be
agreed that to follow Sanderson was a difficult task, especially for one who
had had no personal contact with him and admitted that at first he found
many of his ideas incomprehensible. Another educational reformer would
undoubtedly have been a disaster: the School was a going concern at the
moment on lines of its own: it might be thought that the School would
run for a few years on the impetus given to it by Sanderson, and then
gradually slow down, and come to a standstill. That it did not do so, but
rather increased its prestige, was the result of Dr. Fisher's twenty-three
years of office. He inherited all the problems of excessive numbers, improvised buildings and tangled finances: but his mind was business-like,
and his arguments persuasive; he carried the Governing Body with him
and most of the difficulties were surmounted. Then, shortly before he
expected to retire, the Second World War broke out, which multiplied
the cares, anxieties and sorrows that inevitably rest on a headmaster. The
War over, he resigned, handed over to his successor, and then, a month
and a day later, died suddenly, truly a casualty of the War.
Dr. Fisher saw his task to be one of maintenance: after gaining ground
so quickly, the School must make good its position: make-shift improvisations must be replaced by permanent arrangements: hastily acquired and
adapted properties must be overhauled and made good. It was said, by
way of an epigram, that "Sanderson built in a hurry and Dr. Fisher put
in the drains". And that was literally true: the sanitation had to be systematically replanned and cost much, but the drains were put in, not in one
house only but in all the converted houses. Similarly, the electric light and
power were completely rewired in the interests of safety: the problem
of supplying sufficient light and power was solved by the erection of a
583
power-house at the south-east end of the Home Close near the Foundry.
The building was ready to receive the machinery by the beginning of
May 1925 in spite of bad weather and strikes, and on 28 October was
formally opened by the Master of the Company, in full working order.
To have the power-house of use also for instruction in Applied Physics,
two different engines and two different generators were installed. Current
was supplied at 200 volts: as the old supply had been at 100 volts, changes
had to be made in all motors and starters in the School. The process of
tidying-up might also be seen in the paving of the Quadrangle, the old
School Yard, which took place in 1925, or in the replacement of equipment in the laundry, and its extension in 1927. The town cricket ground
was purchased in 1926 to preserve the amenities of the Field houses:
and later, part of the glebe land and of Mr. Platt's land was acquired for
the School Farm (it had previously been rented) but the creation of a
dairy farm, suggested in 1925, had to be abandoned.
When someone dies suddenly in office, there are bound to be unfinished schemes and loose ends. Sanderson had been engaged in purchasing
for the use of the School two pieces of property, Avondale and Caldecott's: in both cases part of the' purchase money had come out of his own
pocket and part out of School Funds. The Oundle Committee decided
not to purchase Avondale, although the School had rented it for one
purpose or another since 1912: in this case Mrs. Sanderson repaid the
School Funds and sold the property. In 1930, however, the Governing
Body purchased it. The purchase of Caldecott's premises was completed
forthwith and Mrs. Sanderson was repaid for her husband's outlay upon
them. The carpenters' shop and the forge were still urgently needed, and
full use could be made of the rest of the buildings. There was still a lack
of rooms in the School: at Dr. Fisher's suggestion the School bookshop
was transferred to the ground floor of the shop facing the Market Place
before Christmas 1922. From January 1923 the lower room of the Brereton
Rooms was once again hired for the use of the School. Later on, the room
over the entry to the east of it, once rented as a gymnasium, was likewise
again taken, to serve as a Modern Languages classroom. Before the end of
584
DR. FISHER: 1922-1945
1924 the chancel of the temporary Chapel was partitioned off and used as
a studio. The upper part of Caldecott's was let to Mr. and Mrs. Cole: in a
big room in the building behind it, until this had to be taken down as unsafe in 1927, Mrs. Cole ran a much-needed school for masters' children.
The British School, which in 1921 Sanderson had suggested should be
used for Music rooms to set a house free for a married master, became a
club-room for the domestic servants employed by the various School
houses. The provision of a Music School became an urgent problem at the
end of 1926. The Wesleyan minister living in the Manse, next door to the
Music rooms in Milton Road, complained of the nuisance caused by the
continuous practising there. When the property was conveyed, nothing
had been said to prevent the School from using it for any purpose: there
was therefore no breach of covenant; but it could hardly be disputed that
this use of a semi-detached house might amount to a nuisance. The Wesleyan
trustees offered to sell the Manse to the School or to accept an exchange of
houses: failing this they threatened an action at law. There was no site to
offer in exchange, and an attempt to come to terms for the purchase of the
Manse failed for that reason. In August 1927 the Oundle Committee
decided to purchase Fairholm, a house lying to the north of the Home
Close and then reasonably isolated, for temporary use as Music rooms:
but Dr. Fisher made the suggestion that as the Firs would be vacated in
January 1928, the Music School should be established there. And so it came
to pass: eleven rooms with pianos were ultimately available: the Music
Library and Record Collection were housed there; but the Firs lacked a
room large enough for meetings of the Orchestral Society. As Music
involves printing, for programmes and so on, it may be mentioned here
that in January 1928 Dr. Fisher was anxious to buy Alfred King & Sons'
printing plant from Miss King, so that the School might do its own printing : the suggestion was made but not followed by action.
There were other unfinished arrangements. As part of the financial
reorganisation, the system of house scholarships (i.e. of reduced boarding
fees) had been given up, but the last holders were not likely to leave before
1926. In their place entrance scholarships to a fixed amount charged on the
H.O.S.—19*
585
School Fund, into which tuition fees were paid, were being awarded
after examination in June to boys under fourteen; one of £80 and two of
^50 to begin with. The change of headmaster did not interfere with this
development: indeed, the award of entrance scholarships did secure many
boys of ability; but Dr. Fisher also induced the Grocers to provide noncompetitive scholarships to be granted at his discretion. By the time he
came to retire there were ten entrance scholarships each year and three
more for sons of Old Oundelians.
A scheme for assistant masters' pensions had long been under discussion; the necessity of providing a Masters' Pension Fund was mentioned
in the circular of 12 December 1919 (announcing the raising of the fees by
£j) as one of the increased costs of working the School; the draft scheme
had been in Sanderson's hands at the end of 1920, but many of the details
concerning men who had been some time on the staff were still unsettled.
At his interview the Oundle Committee had been pleased to find Dr.
Fisher asking questions about the well-being of the staff, dwelling-houses,
salaries and pensions: about these he must be reassured, if he hoped to
secure, or retain, assistant masters of the desired quality. The Pension
Scheme of 20 April 1921 was to be non-contributory, but ^3000 a year
from the School Fund was to be paid to five trustees who were members of
the Court, with a temporary transfer of ^20,000 to form a guarantee;
from the Pension Fund, annuities were to be purchased as masters retired at
sixty; and the widow or next of kin, should the master die before retiring,
would get a sum roughly equivalent to the amount set aside for him up to
the time of death. In thirty years the Fund created by ^3000 a year would
cover all liabilities and be self-maintained. As a result of the adoption of this
Scheme, all appointments became subject to an obligation to retire at
sixty unless the tenure of the post was prolonged by the headmaster with
the sanction of the Court. The School Teachers (Superannuation) Act 1918
had rendered the Scheme necessary, but it had been under consideration
even earlier. It also became desirable in the case of a master going to another
post to provide him with the lump sum to buy him into the scheme in
force at his new school. In 1923 the Scheme had to be modified to meet the
586
DR. FISHER: 1922-1945
requirements of the Board of Inland Revenue: but, under it, no master
over twenty-five at the date of the Scheme coming into force could reach
the maximum pension unless special consideration was given to his case;
and no Music master came into it at all. The cases of the senior men had been
considered individually, for example the arrangement with Mr. Brown
depended on the future disposal of the Berrystead: Mr. Brown had agreed
with Sanderson to sell it to the Grocers for an agreed sum equal to what he
had paid for the premises and spent on improving them. The Pension
Scheme was revised again in 1927^ and on 6 May 1931 the Governing
Body sealed the Deed of Covenant relating to the Pension Fund.
As to the provision of houses, the small size of Oundle made it difficult
for a married man to find a house, and Sanderson had persuaded the
Grocers to acquire a few suitable residences as they came on the market:
this policy continued, indeed was extended, for two pairs of semi-detached
houses were built in the Bramston paddock. A system of "tied houses" may
be open to some objections, but it cannot be denied that it has its advantages,
especially in days when the bachelor master is becoming somewhat a
rarity. There is, of course, no acknowledged right to a residence—any
more than a bachelor can expect board and lodging—but, if the School is
in a position to offer accommodation, it is more likely to secure the services of the men needed. All but a very few members of the staff do now
live in houses owned by the Governing Body. Naturally, house property
of this kind adds to the work of keeping the School buildings in repair.
Under Sanderson there was no salary scale. Any increase in a man's
salary had to be suggested by the Headmaster to the Governors, and
authorised by them. Judged by the standards of to-day the salaries paid
were low, and some were paid entirely or in part by the Headmaster. Dr.
Fisher undoubtedly did much to improve the remuneration of his staff:
he secured a salary scale, and then set himself to getting his masters put on
it at the figure proper for their years of service, and to gain better terms
for the Music masters also. Although the sum allotted to salaries was thus
2
In 1928 also, certain changes were required by the Revenue Authorities under the Trust Fund
Validation Act, 1927.
587
greatly increased, the Headmaster found his Governors anxious to be fair
in each individual case.
When Sanderson died, a financial reconstruction was under way: the
complexity of the accounting had vastly increased with the growth of the
School and the old system could no longer bear the strain. There was
already a financial secretary (as Mr. Carpenter was called in February 1926)
with a clerical staff; but the appointment of a bursar to be responsible for
buying supplies and keeping the School property in repair was a new step.
Commander H. F. Formby, R.N. retired, was the first official bursar:
he was appointed on 22 March 1926, and authorised to do running repairs
up to ^20 without reference to the Governors: anything more serious he
had to report with an estimate of the expense: his office was for some time
in Queen Anne's House. He resigned in May 1928, and in July Mr. G. S.
Rees took his place. The work increased greatly but was managed without
friction: a house was built for the bursar between the Sanatorium and the
laundry, into which Mr. Rees moved in June 1930. In 1934 a clerk of the
works was appointed, and the old almshouses were taken into use for his
office and for some of the bursar's stores. The ground floor of Caldecott's
(13 Market Place) was being used by the financial secretary: the buildings
behind (13 A) were occupied by the bursar and his clerical staff from 1935.
Later on, a caterer-dietitian was added to his department. The bursar's
staff of workmen had their materials in various places, behind old Dryden,
in the temporary Chapel (where the nave was divided between the School
carpenters and the School scenery store) and in odd corners: a planned
establishment was not realised.
When Dr. Fisher came the School fees were: Entrance ^2.2.0 and
tuition ^73 per annum, house entrance ^ 3 - 3 - o and boarding ^87 per
annum: there were extras amounting to ^17.14.0 a year, as well as
various optional expenses. In 1931 he introduced a composite fee of ^60
a term, i.e. ^31 covering tuition and extras and ^29 the boarding fee.
This charge of ^180 per annum remained unchanged until he retired,
in spite of the war-time rise in costs.
One of the problems with which Dr. Fisher was faced was that of
588
DR. FISHER: 1922-1945
understanding the structure of the forms and the nomenclature of them:
this was coupled with the minor problem of having the rooms known by the
names of the masters who principally used them—this he solved by numbering the rooms, thus simplifying all notices and time-tables: but it seemed to
him that the names of the forms had been made during Sanderson's last
two years deliberately unintelligible, as part of a policy of mystification.
The organisation of the School was admittedly complicated, but the notation
employed for the top of the School gave no information to the outside
world. Even the most junior form of Berrystead boys was the second
division of the Lower Fourth (CIVB2), instead of Form I: consequently if
a boy "went over" to the Engineering Side, he must not go "down"; the
bottom form on that side was therefore EVB3, a Fifth Form instead of a
Fourth. On the Classical Side things were simple: there was the Classical
Sixth (CVI) in one or more divisions, with a Classical Remove and the top
Classical Upper Fifth; a History VI, and a Modern Remove; and below
these stood CVA2; CVBi, 2, 3; CIVAi, 2; CIVBi and CIVB2. Of these
thirteen Forms, the Classical VI, the History VI, the Classical Remove and
the Modern Remove (with the exception of a boy or two in the Removes,
who took the School Certificate) were all entered for the Higher Certificate
Examinations: CVAi took the School Certificate and CVA2 and CVBi
took the Lower Certificate Examinations of the Oxford and Cambridge
Board: the remaining forms on this Side took no outside examination.
(In 1922 the results were eight Higher, twenty-two School and thirty-one
Lower Certificates.) But on the Science and Engineering Side things were
extremely difficult to understand. Sc.VIAiai was a form of scholars-to-be
in Pure Science, Sc.VIAia2 a form of Biologists; Sc.VIAipi did
Applied Science, but Sc.VIAip2 took Agriculture; Sc.VIA2a was again a
Pure Science form, but Sc.VIA2p did much Modern Languages; Sc.VIBi
did Elementary Science and Applied Mechanics, but Sc.VIB2 was again
a Biological form: Remove A was Agricultural, but Removes B and C
took Applied Science with a different emphasis: there were two divisions
of the Shell: three Upper Fifths (EVAi, 2, 3) and three Lower Fifths
(EVBi, 2, 3). Of these nineteen forms, Remove A, EVB2 and EVB3 took
589
no outside examination, EVA 3 and EVBi took the Lower Certificate,
Sc.VIB2, Shell II, EVAi and EVA2 took the School Certificate, and the
remaining Sixth Forms, Removes B and C, and Shell I took the Higher
Certificate. The results in 1922 were sixty-three Higher, thirty-five
School and fifteen Lower Certificates.
After a year's trial of the old arrangement Dr. Fisher somewhat simplified it thus: Classical Side, CVI, C Remove, History VI, and CVAia,
CVAip, CVA2, CVBi, CVB2a, CVB2p, CVBs, CIVAi, CIVA2,
CIVBi, CIVB2: on "the other side" Sc.VIAiai (Pure Science), Sc.VIAia2
(Biology), SaVIAipi (Metallurgy), Sc.VIAi|32 (Agriculture), Sc.VIAa
(Pure), Sc.VIB (Applied), Sc. Remove A (Pure), Sc. Remove B (Applied),
Sc. Remove C (Mathematics), Sc. Remove D (Biology), Shell, EVAi, 2, 3,
EVBi, 2, 3. A year later there were changes in the names on the Science
Side: Sc.VIAiai survived, followed by a Modern VI (which in January
1925 was, as logic dictated, transferred to the Classical Side), a Biological
Sixth, a Mathematical Sixth, Sc.VIAipi, Sc.VIAip2, Sc.VIA2, Sc.VIB,
Sc. Removes A, C and D: the rest remained unchanged. In 1945 the
structure was still much the same: Classical VI and Remove, History VI,
Modern VI, History-Modern Remove, CVAi, 2, 3, CVBi, 2, 3, 4,
CVCi, CIVAi, 2: Sc.VIAiai, Mathematical VI, Biological VI, Sc.VIAipi,
Sc.VIAip2, Sc.VIA2, Science Remove, Ei Remove, £2 Remove, Biological Remove, Mathematical Remove, Sc. Remove Bi, Sc. Remove B2,
Shell, EVAi, 2, 3, 4, EVB. The organisation had undoubtedly improved,
but the notation employed was still confusing.
But essentially it was the same. It was argued that the ideal course was
for a boy to begin his career and to take his School Certificate on the
Classical Side, and then proceed to specialisation in one of the Removes:
but not all boys could do this sufficiently early to give them time. Some
who got a poor School Certificate from one of the CVAs might well take
it afresh in different subjects—such as Chemistry and Physics—after a year
in Shell: and from there pass into the Removes or skip them. Those not
expected to get the Latin credit in their School Certificate (which gave an
exemption from Responsions or Little-Go) it was found better to transfer
590
DR. FISHER: 1922-1945
to the Engineering Side from Lower Certificate forms, or even from the
Junior School. Admittedly, some of the Engineering Fifth Forms, both
Upper and Lower, were heavy forms, but there were usually boys who
came to life in them and responded far better than they had done, or would
have done, to the work on the Ckssical Side. Occasionally it was suggested,
by way of a joke, that so-and-so was not making progress in a low E form
and should therefore be transferred to the Classical Side! It remained the
aim to get every boy, before he left, into the Sixth Form that suited him.
It did not always happen, any more than every boy reached the position
of a house prefect before leaving. In effect, however, as each boy's case
was considered on his merits, there was no hard and fast rule as to the
wholesale promotion of one form into another at the end of every School
year. The many small forms at the top of the School favoured the individual training of the boys: and there was almost no limit to the arrangement of "private routines" to meet the boys' needs. No less than Sanderson,
Dr. Fisher attached great importance to this flexibility of the curriculum: a
far cry from the days when "there was no departure from the curriculum
to meet individual requirements".
The problem of numbers was still acute. When Sanderson died there
were 532 boys in the School: Dr. Fisher had to find room for 541 in
September 1922. The policy of the Governors was to standardise the
number at 500: instructions were given that a reduction should be made to
that figure: but an immediate reduction on the arrival of Sanderson's
successor might be misinterpreted and harm the School's reputation. The
alternative was the use of waiting houses, for which Dr. Fisher preferred
the name "holding houses": there were eight boys at the Firs, and the
adjoining cottages might make room for more. In March 1923 an urgent
appeal for the temporary increase in the School in view of commitments—
the Headmaster saw no chance of reducing until 1927—was granted: he
could take a few more for one or two terms only. There was room for six
or eight in a vacant dormitory at the Laxton School boarding-house,
which was being closed: and nine boys were lodged with masters, Mr.
Spurling, Mr. Bolton, Dr. Shann and Mr. Stockton. The numbers in the
Summer Term 1923 rose to 552, a year later to 559. In July 1925 there were
523 in the houses, nineteen at the Laxton School, ten at the Firs, three each
with Dr. Shann, Mr. Hewett and Mr. Stockton, and two with Mr. Spurling,
making forty for whom there was no room in the School houses, overcrowded though they were. Dr. Fisher thought they could conveniently
hold 480, but the Oundle Committee thought the figure should be only
468. By now it appeared unlikely that the number in the School would
fall below 550 for some years, and it came to be realised that a return to
500 was out of the question: the committee began to consider providing
accommodation for at least ninety in a new double block to be run as hostels
by single masters. Dr. Fisher, however, argued in favour of a separate
house to be managed by a married man. The decision to build was taken
by the Court on 22 July 1925, it being left to the committee to settle what
form the building should take. By November plans had been prepared for
a house of fifty with married quarters to be erected in the Firs paddock:
when this site was known as Shillibeers long before, the Grocers had had
their eyes on it as a suitable one. Messrs. Foster & Dicksee of Rugby secured
the contract in May 1926 to build the house in twelve months—it was
actually first used for examinations in July 1927. The choice of name lay
between Saint Anthony's and Sanderson: the former was selected, but
in practice the house has always been known as St. Anthony House. In
January 1928 it was opened with fifty-one boys: all those lodged in the
Laxton School boarding-house, the Firs, or in the holding houses were
included, and the number was made up by boys from the other houses,
selected by the Headmaster: J. Simpson was taken from Grafton to be
the first head of the house. The housemaster was an experienced man,
Mr. S. G. Squire, who had left Laxton on his marriage in 1926 and gone into
the Firs: as his house tutor he had Mr. L. Shaw, one of his Old Boys from
Laxton and a former captain of the School. Mr. H. C. Palmer had left his
position as house-tutor in Bramston to take over Laxton from Mr. Squire.
After the opening of St. Anthony the numbers in the School steadied: for
eight years from September 1928 the figure was between five hundred and
eighty and five hundred and ninety: the latter figure was passed in 1937.
592
DR. FISHER: 1922-1945
But by July 1935 the committee had considered the School houses still
overcrowded, and Dryden was regarded as no longer suitable for the
number it contained. Strangely enough it was New House that would
have been given up had the School declined after the building of St.
Anthony: but in 1932 New House had been bought by the Governing
Body, and it was, unlike Dryden, in possession of an extensive garden.
The committee proposed to build two new houses for married masters to
run, one intended to replace Dryden, the other to relieve congestion; to add
married quarters to one of the Field houses (Mr. Walker of Crosby was
about to get married); and to consider modifications in the others. Early
in 1936 the Court decided, after a Special Committee had reported, to
build two houses for sixty boys each at once, and to delay proceeding with
the other suggestions. The site chosen was the northern end of the Home
Close: Mr. W. A. Forsyth was selected as architect—Mr. A. C. Blomfield,
the surveyor to the Company, had died in November 1935, and had not
been replaced. Messrs. H. Martin of Northampton built the two houses in
brick for just over sixty thousand pounds. In January 1938 the new Dryden
House was ready, and in April a new house known as Sanderson was
opened in the other. It was started by Mr. and Mrs. Walker, with fifty-four
boys, ten of them new to the School, the rest being selected by Dr. Fisher
from every house except Dryden: D. J. Forbes was chosen as head of the
house and for five terms was of the greatest assistance in getting the new
house on its feet. In the summer term 1943 the head of the house was
R. D. Marshall, Sanderson's only grandson. As, just before the Michaelmas
term 1937, Sidney had suffered considerable damage by a fire on 12
September, the Sidney boys, who had been scattered for three months in
the Sanatorium, the tuck shop and private houses, Mr. Kingham and some
of his boys sleeping in the Laxton School boarding-house, moved into
the old Dryden in January 1938. The plans Mr. Forsyth had prepared in
December 1935 for the improvement of the building were utilised in the
rehabilitation of Sidney: and when this was done, by Messrs. Trollope &
Colls, Sidney returned to its home.
Mr. J. H. Thompson, who had been Sanderson's house-tutor in School
593
House, had left to enter the Indian Civil Service: Dr. Fisher brought with
him to replace him Mr. W. C. B. Tunstall, who stayed three years and left
to achieve fame as a naval historian. (His Admiral Byng and the Loss of
Minorca was published in 1928, when he was Lecturer in History at the
Royal Naval College, Greenwich.) Mr. I. Hepburn succeeded him as housetutor. Mr. J. A. Higgs-Walker left Grafton to become headmaster of
Sevenoaks in the Spring of 1925: he had created the History VI, and
coached the cricket eleven for five years. His house-tutor, Mr. F. B. Baker,
took over Grafton, but left after four terms to go to Malvern: Mr. R. W.
Stopford took his place in September 1926. Mr. Squire married in April
1926, and went to the Firs, vacated by Mr. Bray, and had charge of the
boys there until St. Anthony was opened in January 1928. Mr. H. C.
Palmer was housemaster in Laxton for seven terms, and in September
1928 Mr. Hepburn went from School House to Laxton, where he stayed
until his marriage. On Mr. Ault's death Mr. H. P. Hewett went to Laundimer in January 1933 for a period of fifteen years—the first occasion on
which a time-limit was mentioned in connexion with any house appointment in Oundle School. After Mr. Brown's death in the summer of 1933
the Rev. W. Cole was put in charge of the Berrystead, which was to be
run henceforth as a hostel, also with a limit of fifteen years. In December
1934 the Rev. R. W. Stopford left to become Principal of Trinity College,
Kandy: and Mr. A. C. Cutcliffe, the house-tutor in School House, who
had spent two years at a school in Canada, succeeded him in Grafton.
Mr. C.J. P. Hughes took Mr. Cutcliffe's place in School House in January
1935: and Mr. R. E. Fenwicke replaced him a year kter. At the end of the
summer of 1935 Mr. Hale retired and Mr. H. Caudwell took charge of
Dryden: as he had young children some of the Dry den boys overflowed
into a Laxton School dormitory across the road. When Dryden moved
to their new building in January 1938 they left behind them a building
with the longest record of continuous use as a School boarding-house,
which had many cherished names and customs connected with it. After
housing Sidney in their distress, Old Dryden was turned to use partly as
schoolrooms and pardy as flats. Although Mr. Walker had married in January
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DR. FISHER: 1922-1945
1936, he had continued to run Crosby until he was transferred to the new
house: in April 1938, Mr. G. Priestman, who had done a spell at Geelong,
took charge of Crosby. In July 1938 Mr. King retired to Cotterstock and
Mr. G. T. Burns took charge of New House. A year later Major Nightingale—he had married in August 1924, and Bramston had been run as a
married hostel—retired to Tansor, and Mr. D. S. Heesom moved into
Bramston. In September 1944 Mr. F. F. Spragg took Mr. Squire's place in
St. Anthony, and a term later Mr. L. Shaw replaced Mr. B. V. Kingham
in Sidney. All these appointments were understood to be on fifteen years'
tenure. Dr. Fisher held the view that the creation of housemasters came
within his powers, but the Governing Body felt that they should have
prior information and, should they think fit, a veto on such appointments.
In any case it is clear that there was a new order coming into being, and
the older housemaster of many years' experience was passing away.
It has been said that the staff of every public school can be divided into
three roughly equal parts: first, the men who have been at the school for
twenty or thirty years and are either pillars of strength or characters;
second, the men with a dozen years' service to their credit, who have
either made up their minds to join the first group or are on the look-out
for headships or posts of responsibility elsewhere; third, the floating
population of younger masters of under six years' service, who have come
for the experience they gain and have no intention of spending their whole
working life in the place, together with those on probation. The remark,
broadly speaking, is true of Oundle. Of Dr. Fisher's early appointments
only one stayed above the dozen years: some left for Winchester or
Malvern: there were future Professors of Education or of Fine Art or of
History among them, but they never reached the second group. In September 1925, however, he appointed six men, three of whom remain—
Mr. A. C. Cutcliffe and Mr. I. Hepburn, of Lincoln College, Oxford, and
Mr. G. Priestman, of Corpus Christi College, Oxford: of the others, one went
to Winchester after four terms, another (a county cricketer) to Charterhouse
after nearly five years, and the last after nine years—in the course of which,
besides running the History VI, a house, the School plays and so on, he had
595
become assistant chaplain—left to be Principal of Trinity College, Kandy,
and afterwards of Achimota. In January 1926 Mr. J. M. Branfoot began
his long association with the Biology of the School, which terminated
only with his tragic death in 1947. Mr. W. Llowarch, after a term in 1924,
returned as Physicist in 1926, and twelve years later went to the senior
post at Stowe. Also in 1926 Mr. L. Shaw returned as a master, and in 1927
Mr. G. T. Burns and Mr. D. S. Heesom arrived on the scene of their
labours: the Scouts, the School plays, the tuck shop can testify to some of
the things (outside the form-room and their houses) they did for the
School. In September 1927 also, Mr. F. F. Spragg, late scholar of Pembroke
College, Oxford, who had represented his University at Rugby football
and Rugby fives in 1926, joined the staff: this was an epoch-making
appointment. For Mr. Spragg's name has become a household word
wherever there are Oundelians of a time since 1927: what Mr. Llewellyn
Jones had been to earlier generations, that Mr. Spragg has been to the
later, in the form-room and in games. It is of importance to note that for a
year or two after coming to Oundle, Mr. Spragg captained the O.M.T.s
and so had first-hand experience of first-class Rugby football: it was not
his blue but his up-to-date knowledge of the game that was found so
inspiring. What he has done for Oundle Rugby football can be seen in the
appended lists of School matches: his first great XV was that of 1929, with
two future Cambridge blues in it, which won all its matches—and never,
if it could help it, kicked for touch: but opinions will always differ as to
the merits of subsequent teams which had to play a series of sides far
superior to those met in 1929. Similarly, his coaching had its effect in
raising the standard of fives: and on the cricket field he was no less successful. Mr. Cutcliffe, simultaneously, was improving the training for the
sports by precept and example, as the dates of the School records show:
the older men on the river were reinforced by Mr. Priestman, Mr. Shaw
and Mr. Heesom. A new combination of vigour and skill made itself felt
in all the games of the School. Mr. A. E. Collier and Mr. E. de Ville came
in September 1929, adding to the rowing coaches. Mr. H. Caudwell came
in January and Mr. R. B. Cordukes in September 1930, when Mr. R. E.
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DR. FISHER: 1922-1945
Fenwicke (one of the finest Rugby football referees seen in Oundle) also
began that valuable career cut short by death in January 1949.
In Dr. Fisher's time the recruiting of the staff from the Old Boys of
the School began with the appointment of Mr. Shaw: Mr. H. Borrie
(who was principally concerned with the Laxton School, however) served
from September 1928 to December 1938 before taking his own preparatory
school: Mr. C. J. P. Hughes (the writer of film criticism and of a volume of
modern history) came in May 1930 and left in December 1935 to join the
B.B.C.: Mr. C. A. B. Marshall (a popular female impersonator, Arthur
Marshall of the B.B.C. and a writer of polished short stories) was persuaded
by Dr. Fisher to return as a master in September 1931: Mr. B. K. Harris
came in September 1932; and Mr. W. L. Garstang (an Oxford rowing
blue) in September 1937, but left in July 1944 to become a headmaster; and
lastly, Major A. L. Butcher, M.C., became Adjutant to the Corps in
September 1936. In May 1944 Mr. J. A. Sharman, although then partially
disabled by his war service, returned to Oundle as a master.
In May 1934 Mr. R. E. Upcott joined the staff: his was another promising career cut short by an early death in 1950. The Rev. C. H. D.
Cullingford came in January 1935 as assistant chaplain: he served throughout the War as Chaplain to the Forces, returned to Oundle and then became headmaster of Monmouth School. Dr. E. D. Tagg and Mr. H. J.
Matthews joined in September 1937 and Dr. B. V. Bowden in May
1938—all in one capacity or another were called away during the War:
some twenty in all were absent on war service. The Rev. R. B. Parker,
now headmaster of Igbobi, joined the staff during the War, and so did
Mr. R. O. Barber, Mr. D. L. Yenning and Mr. G. Huse, the Oxford
rowing blue; Dr. B. B. Rafter came, served and returned: Mr. D. M.
Annett, who succeeded Major Nightingale as Form master of the Classical
Sixth, did the same; he is now headmaster of the Marling School, Stroud.
The ladies came to help once again in 1939: Mrs. James Fisher (an inspiring
teacher of English and now a novelist and critic), the wife of the Headmaster's eldest son, and his daughter, Miss J. Fisher, now a barrister, were
the first. Mrs. E. M. O. Cutcliffe came to teach Chemistry in September
597
1940, and Mrs. Turner, who (when still Miss Hattersley) had taught in the
First World War, returned to teach French in 1942. During Mr. Legge's
absence his wife took his place on the Music staff: Mrs. M. V. Pritchard
and other ladies also taught Music. After the War, during Mr. Branfoot's
illness, Mrs. Upcott taught Biology. Some older men, such as Mr. H. J.
Muir, whose son, Mr. R. J. Kerr Muir, had gone on service, Mr. H. J.
Allport and Mr. M. H. S. Hancock gave their help: and Mr. E. N. Collie's
great assistance was given to the Music. The Art master, Mr. G. A.W. Burn,
was serving: between September 1940 and April 1944 Mr. P. F. Millard
replaced him: on his departure Mr. A. R. H. W. Treffgarne joined the
staff. A photograph of Dr. Fisher, with the staff of the two Schools, was
taken a few days before he retired, and is reproduced as Plate 46.
The War Memorial Chapel, designed by Mr. Arthur Blomfield and
built by Messrs. Thompson of Peterborough, of which the foundation
stone had been laid shortly after Sanderson's death, continued to grow.
By the time the fabric was completed, it had cost nearly forty-two thousand pounds. The Chapel Committee, which after 15 June 1922 was
presided over by Mr. Summers Hunter, gave place in October to a new
committee under Dr. Fisher: a Sanderson Memorial Fund was started to
complete the interior. The old chairs, the old pulpit, the old stalls, the old
sanctuary carpet and the old altar were moved in from the temporary
Chapel: the Brereton lectern and the old brasses were also transferred.
On 22 November 1923 Dr. Theodore Woods, still bishop of Peterborough,
consecrated the Chapel and in his sermon used many of Sanderson's own
words. A silver key was afterwards presented to him by the head of the
School. The new Chapel was thereafter continuously in use: the ground
about it was levelled and the paths paved. The Commemoration Service
was held there, not in the parish church, for the first time in 1924, a special
Litany being brought into use. The east window was unveiled on this
occasion, being a gift from some members of the Court: the presence in it
of the figure of Sir William Laxton serves as a reminder that Oundle is no
new School. The pulpit given by Mrs, Sanderson and her family in memory
of her husband was erected on the south side: in the Michaelmas term 1925
598
DR. FISHER: 1922-1945
it was moved across to the north side. A grand piano was used for the
accompaniment of the singing: this was, surprisingly, a great success, for
the attack was much more incisive than it had been with the organ.
The familiar red-bound volumes of anthems and settings were never
brought into use in the new Chapel. Mrs. Sanderson also gave a stall for the
headmaster in memory of her son, R. B. Sanderson, which was in position
early in 1926. The stalls for the masters, given by themselves—the profits of
the combined volume Sanderson of Oundle were added—came at the same
time, for the practice of seating the masters in the chancel was retained: the
old stalls were removed to the west end under the gallery. The scheme for
oak chairs, bearing name and dates, to be given by Old Boys or by boys
as they left, which had been launched in 1924, was beginning to bear fruit:
but it was not until 1934 that the requisite six hundred and fifty had been
given: high-backed chairs for use in the gallery or the north transept
continued to be given until all requirements were met by December 1936.
It had been felt that, as the War Memorial was to be in the ambulatory,
some clear indication should be given that the whole Chapel was a Memorial:
in 1926 a rood beam, with an inscription by Mr. Nightingale, was inserted
—a step, much discussed at the time, that has by no means pleased everyone.
Also in 1926 the altar and retable in oak were given by Lady Needham in
memory of her two sons, E. N. and G. G. Needham. At Whitsun, 23 May
1926, the five memorial tablets with the names of the fallen, which had
been designed by an Old Boy, Mr. B. C. Williams Ellis, and presented by
the O.O. Club, were dedicated by Dr. Bardsley, bishop of Peterborough.
On the same occasion nine stops, the first part of the south-east organ, by
Harrison & Harrison of Durham, were brought into use: by June the west
organ was completed. In 1927 the reredos, ordered by the Sanderson Memorial Fund, but paid for by a parent who wished to remain anonymous,
was put in position: and the stair for the reader at the lectern, given by Mr.
Ernest Yarrow, was set in place before the end of the year. The organ had
been increased to twenty-one stops: there was a further addition made to it
in 1928. Oak open-work screens with gates were put in, in 1928, to fill the
arches between the sanctuary and the ambulatory. In 1929, just before the
599
Confirmation Service on 16 March, the cross, two candlesticks and four
vases, presented by Lady Llewellyn, were dedicated: and during the last
week of the Easter holidays the bishop also dedicated the new chalices and
patens. The tenth anniversary of the Armistice fell on a Sunday and was the
occasion of a most moving Service of Remembrance. After experiment a
suitable hassock had been found, and by September 1929 all that were
necessary had been provided. On 20 October 1935 was dedicated the font
given by Mrs. Brown in memory of her husband, the late chaplain, which
was a restored facsimile of the old one at Little Gidding, hand-wrought by
Mr. A. S. M. Maidment of Gillingham. By 1936 the general effect of the
woodwork could be judged: only organ-casings were lacking. All the boys'
chairs faced east. Flood-lighting and a new hymn book were under
consideration early in 1935: at the same time four stone pillars replaced
the posts to hold the chains on the Milton Road. Gifts still continued to be
made, embroidered Bible markers, cushions, lace chalice covers, and
further additions to the organ, such as the top octave of pedal flute pipes
given by Mr. R. T. Boston (O.O.), or the gemshorn fifteenth to the swell
organ by Mrs. Scott in memory of F. J. A. Scott. In planning for the
windows, it was written, "We must not forego our opportunity to produce
not only a great volume of progressive stimulus and instruction, but also a
great example of the best art of our time in this particular medium. The
craftsmanship of the building may be left to the criticism of our successors
with great confidence. The quality of its decoration must be equally
beyond reproach."
In 1928 Dr. Fisher pointed out that there were something like one
hundred and sixty Old Oundelians at Oxford and Cambridge in any year,
and appealed for more leaving exhibitions. In 1911 the number had been
doubled so that there were two available every year: in 1928 the number
was again doubled, for the award of not more than four yearly of the value
of ^50 for four years was authorised. In 1929 was submitted a building
scheme, which included a fine conception, the centralisation of all the
workshops on the south end of the Home Close adjoining the power-house.
Since Mr. Potter's departure in 1929, Mr. M. F. Lakeman had been in
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DR. FISHER: 1922-1945
charge of the workshops. Dr. Fisher convinced the Grocers that a new
Wood workshop and a new Forge should be built first: that a new
Gymnasium should be built on the site of the temporary Wood workshop, and a new classroom block then built on the site of the temporary
Gymnasium: later the Metal workshop could be transferred to a wing
yet to be constructed that would complete the range (Foundry—Powerhouse—Wood shop—Wood store—Forge—Metal shop) along Black
Pot Lane. The first part of this programme was achieved when the Wood
workshop and Forge were built on to the power-house, and opened for
use at the beginning of the summer term of 1930. All the fifteen benches
had been made by the boys themselves: and most of the work done on
them was for School use, blackboards, forms, desks, hurdles for the sports,
fowl-houses, etc.
There was a delay before proceeding to the next step, caused by the
inadequacy of the Sanatorium even with its annexe, the converted army
hut. By January 1931 the provision of an extension had become a matter of
urgent necessity. Plans were prepared, and the tender of Messrs. Joseph
Dorey of Brentford was accepted in May 1931: the building was completed
by the summer of 1932: the kitchen had also been enlarged.
In May 1933 the plans for the new Gymnasium were prepared, and in
February 1934 the committee was instructed to contract for the erection of
a block of classrooms on the site of the old wooden Gymnasium. To
facilitate entry to the new Gymnasium two interesting exchanges were
made. Between the almshouses and the site chosen was an erection used
for the town fire-engine house and the store for the sexton's implements
—as the churchyard was no longer used for interments, perhaps gardening
tools would be more accurate—both belonging to the vicar and churchwardens. In order to remove these and lay down a concrete square, the
Governors built a fire-station on half the site facing the Market Place
which had lain unused since the demolition in 1922 of the ruinous shops
owned by the Company since 1912: they also built the tool-shed on the
north side of the parish church, between the path and the rectory wall.
Messrs. Joseph Dorey finished the building of the Gymnasium in May 1934:
601
it had cost over ten thousand pounds. The suggestion that the building
might have a built-in stage, so that it could easily be converted into a
theatre for the School plays and so prevent the dislocation caused annually
by the use of the Great Hall for that purpose, was defeated by the desire of
those responsible for P.T. to have the building permanently available for
their purposes: but they forgot the examinations for the School Certificate!
The opening-up of a way to the Gymnasium, beside the bookshop,
involved refacing the exposed wall of No. 15 Market Place, which did
not belong to the School, as can be seen by the screens outside the gallery
windows which might overlook this property. The same building firm
secured the contract for building the block of classrooms on the north
side of the Quadrangle, which were in use for the summer term 1935.
The block, which cost about ten thousand pounds, contained four classrooms, two ante-rooms to the Chemical and Physical Laboratories built
in 1899, and also the headmaster's offices. The transference of the last
named set the old office free for use as a masters' common-room: but the
carrying of the new building through to the churchyard caused the demolition of the Metallurgical Laboratory. A home was found for the latter
in the new workshops, entered from the north side between the Forge
and the Wood workshop, a space intended for the use of the School
carpenters.
But since the building scheme was put forward, the School was consuming so much light and power that early in 1931 the consultant electrical
engineer had warned the Governing Body of the danger of over-loading at
peak periods: in fact, the power-house was inadequate to supply the needs
of the growing School. Instead of installing a third generating set, arrangements were made to take a supply from the Grid System: two transformers
were installed, one in the power-house and the other behind Sidney, to
take the power supplied by the Rushden & District Undertaking at 11,000
volts and transform it down to 440 volts, from which direct current at
200 volts was supplied by a motor generator. The School would inevitably
come to rely less and less on its own production of light and power: and
this would have its effect on the planning.
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DR. FISHER: 1922-1945
The School prospectus states that the School was "Incorporated by Royal
Charter in 1930": the explanation of this phrase and the meaning of the
change must now be discussed. In 1499, when Dame Joan Wyatt obtained
the Royal Licence (or Charter) to refound the Gild of Our Lady of Oundle,
she paid ^5 into the Hanaper. Royal Charters are indeed granted "of
especial grace", but the grant is still a financial operation. Equally, the
considerations which in the past dictated the application for Royal Licences
were the hope to avoid the payments of fines or penalties. The application
for a Royal Charter for Oundle School falls into line. In Sanderson's last
year the profits made by the hostels exceeded the loss on the tuition fees:
the profits went to the Oundle Building Fund, and the losses were paid by
the Grocers' Company. In Dr. Fisher's first eight years there were profits
both on the tuition and on the hostels, together reaching five figures.
These profits were ploughed back in the form of a capital outlay: the
Company received rents from the hostels and the laundry and some private
houses, as interest on their capital laid out on creating or buying the
properties. In 1925, that is just after the School had begun to show a profit—
in fact, to cost the Grocers nothing—came the Brighton College case:
the point at issue was the liability to income tax of the profits made by the
school which were being ploughed back into it: in 1926 the appeal came
before the House of Lords and judgment went against the college. In
conclusion, dismissing the appeal, the Lord Chancellor had said that it had
been suggested that this decision would "throw a heavy charge upon
many places of education, such as colleges and public schools, not carried
on with a view to individual profit. I think this is improbable. The real
property and investments of these bodies are exempt from taxation;
and the cases in which such a college or public school can show (as in the
present case) a substantial profit earned year after year and applied for
capital purposes must be rare." But this was just what was happening at
Oundle: no wonder the Grocers had contributed to the fund to support the
Brighton College appeal. The fact is that between the date of the purchases
from Dr. Stansbury and the granting of the Charter—i.e. from 1875 to
21 August 1930—well over a quarter of a million sterling (^269,743 .2.4)
603
had been spent by way of capital outlay on Oundle School: of this sum
^118,398 .16.0 came into the Oundle Building Fund from profits earned
by the hostels (after paying rent) since 1897 or from profits on the tuition
fees made only during the last eight years. In June 1927 the Chief Inspector
of Taxes was of opinion that Oundle School was not entitled to exemption
from income tax under Schedule A: against this decision there was an
appeal to the Commissioners: the Special Commissioners held that Oundle
School was a Public School, and was therefore exempt from property
tax on its buildings (except that part of School House used as a private
residence). But, according to the Income Tax Commissioners, Oundle
School was a private enterprise of the Grocers' Company, and its profits
were liable to income tax under Schedule D unless shown to be inalienably
the income of the School: payments under Schedule D could be avoided
only if Oundle School were put on a definite foundation to prevent the
Grocers from realising the property and closing the School. The Brighton
College case had shown that this exemption did not follow from the conversion of a school into a limited company incorporated under the Companies Acts (Brighton had done that in 1873 '> it had been founded in 1846):
Sir Roger Gregory in January 1928 urged the Court to consider this
question. "I should think a Royal Charter would be the most acceptable
form. Of course, the Court may decide to carry on the somewhat indefinite
basis of the School, realising that this has been good enough in the past
and will probably be good enough for some years to come." The Court
of 8 May 1929 took the decision to apply for a Royal Charter. Sir Roger
Gregory undertook the preparation of the petition.
The Charter was granted on 21 August 1930. By it the Master, Wardens
and Court of Assistants of the Worshipful Company of Grocers were
constituted the Governing Body of Oundle School. To the Governing
Body all the real and personal property hitherto held by the Master,
Wardens and Court of Assistants of the Worshipful Company of Grocers
and appropriated to the general purposes of the School was transferred:
that is, they in one capacity transferred it to themselves in another. This
was not merely a formal transaction: it meant that the rents hitherto
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DR. FISHER: 1922-1945
received by the Company for their common fund went instead into a new
"General Purposes Account", which replaced the old Oundle Building
Fund, that is, the Company's income fell by some three thousand pounds,
a year as a result of their birthday present to the newly chartered School.
But the Governing Body of Oundle School has no income other than
that derived from the rents and the profits of the School: under the Charter
Oundle is not an endowed School. The Old Boys of Oundle will do well
to ponder very deeply the implications of this fact. The Laxton School,
which was not affected by the Charter, remained endowed—to the extent
of £41.4.0 per annum.
The wording of the preamble of the Charter is legally accurate and cannot be disputed: but to many Oundelians it must have come as a surprise,
so much so that some have assumed that this is a legal fiction to avoid the
necessity for a lengthy explanation of the true state of affairs. Something
has been said earlier as to the different interpretations put upon the division
of the School in 1876: it is, perhaps, too much to expect the law to take
the view of common sense, or even to be able to condense into a document
acceptable to the Courts the real meaning of the step then taken. Of course,
the same thing happened in the sixteenth century when Laxton directed
the erection of the Free Grammar School of Sir William Laxton: the
Gild School was already in existence, and had been for at least half a
century. In all probability there was already a Grammar School of some
sort in Oundle, which the refounded Gild thereupon adopted as its own
school.
GEORGE THE FIFTH by the Grace of God of Great Britain, Ireland, and the
British Dominions beyond the Seas King, Defender of the Faith, Emperor of India.
To all to whom these Presents shall come, Greeting!
WHEREAS The Master Wardens and Court of Assistants of the Mystery of
Grocers of the City of London . . . have presented their Petition to Us setting forth
that they were the Founders and Governors of a Society or Institution known as
Oundle School situate at Oundle in the County of Northampton:
THAT the said School was founded in or about the year 1876 by Our Petitioners
to provide a classical mathematical scientific engineering and general education of
the highest class for boys residing in any part of Our Dominions:
THAT for the purpose of the foundation of the School Our Petitioners purchased
605
land and erected and provided buildings and equipment and that since the time of the
foundation Our Petitioners have continuously endeavoured to develop and improve
the School by the addition of new boarding-houses, class-rooms, playing fields,
laboratories, workshops and a Great Hall with the necessary buildings and that in
the year 1923 a Memorial Chapel was built out of funds provided by Our Petitioners
and by the friends of the School:
THAT Our Petitioners are advised and believe that a Charter of Incorporation
would permanently establish the School as an important educational institution,
would assist the management and development of the School and would greatly
tend to promote the objects for which it was established and exists:
THAT Our Petitioners humbly supplicated Us to grant to them and their successors a Charter of Incorporation for the purpose of constituting a Corporation for
the purpose of more effectually carrying on and conducting the School under such
regulations and instructions and with such powers as to Us might seem expedient
and for the purpose of vesting in the Corporation so created all the property acquired
by Our Petitioners and appropriated by them to the School:
Now KNOW YE, that WE taking the Premises into Our Royal consideration, of
especial grace, certain knowledge and mere motion, have granted, constituted and
appointed, and by these Presents, for US Our Heirs and Successors do grant constitute and appoint as follows (that is to say):—
Forty-two Articles follow, with a Schedule of property to be made over
to the Governing Body.
The production of the necessary Bye-Laws followed:
At the Council Chamber, Whitehall.
The 5th day of January, 1931.
By the Lords of His Majesty's Most Honourable Privy Council.
WHEREAS the Governing Body of Oundle School did, on the 3rd December,
1930, in exercise of the powers in that behalf conferred by the Charter of the said
Society, make the first Bye-Laws for the Government of the said School:
AND WHEREAS by Article 9 of the said Charter of the said Governing Body it is
provided that no Bye-laws shall take effect until the same have been allowed by the
Lords of the Council:
AND WHEREAS the said first Bye-laws have been submitted to the Lords of the
Council for allowance:
Nou THEREFORE, Their Lordships having taken the said first Bye-laws into
consideration, are pleased to allow the same as set forth in the Schedule to this
Order.
M. P. A. Hankey.
Eighteen Bye-laws follow.
Most unfortunately Admiral L. G. Tufnell, C.M.G., the Master of the
Company, who was to have been the first Chairman of the Governing
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DR. FISHER: 1922-1945
Body, died on n August ipso.3 This certainly threw a gloom over the
transaction: the December Laxtonian (apparently) mentions the admiral's
death but not the grant of the Charter. The Commemoration Book did not
refer to the Charter until after the War: the caption "Governors" above the
names of the Master and Wardens was replaced by "Governing Body"
above a full list of the Court: that was all. The Laxtonian report of the O.O.
Dinner at Grocers' Hall on 14 February 1931 states that Dr. Fisher said
then:
In the history of the School the year 1930 would always stand out as one of no
ordinary importance, for on August 2ist the King signed the Royal Charter. This
was a matter of congratulation, setting, as it were, the Royal Seal on the status of the
School, and removing certain anomalies in its position which carried with them
possible sources of danger in the years to come. "Now, with the Charter granted,
the School has a permanent independent foundation, and we can look forward to
the future with assurance all trie greater, and at the same time feel as certain as ever
that the bond existing between the School and the Grocers' Company could never
be weakened."
Plans made for a ceremonial delivery of the Charter at Oundle by the
hand of one of Royal Blood fell through: and the middle-page article
prepared for The Times never saw the light. The Charter remained a
business arrangement, and little of the glamour associated with Royalty
attached itself to it.
It was asked at the time what difference the Charter made: the answer
given was that the continued existence of the School was secured, for the
Company could not now decide to close it. This was a mistake. Article
41 lays down the procedure for the surrender of the Charter and the winding
up of the affairs of the School: it is provided, however, that the members of
the Governing Body shall not receive any of the property remaining after
all debts and liabilities have been satisfied, but shall transfer it to some
similar institution. The relations between the Grocers' Company and the
Governing Body of Oundle School have been so far most cordial. The
Governing Body was able to raise a loan from the Company for building
the two new houses, and the Grocers' Company has sold property—the
3
The Boxing Cup was presented in his memory.
607
Laxton almshouses, for example—to the Governing Body. It would indeed
be hard to distinguish between the Grocers' Company and the Governing
Body in point of either interest in the School or enthusiasm for it.
In July 1929 the Mercers' Company, in recognition of the hospitality
extended to them by the Grocers during the restoration of Mercers' Hall,
transferred to the Grocers' Company a sum of Consols to provide an
annual scholarship for a boy from Oundle School. The Grocers' Company
did not convey the presentation of this scholarship to the Governing
Body of Oundle School: and the Court awards the scholarship every year
to a boy leaving the School or already at a University.
In December 1934 the Governing Body approved in principle of the
building of a School tuck shop and of the creation of an open-air swimmingbath. The site for the former was on Milton Road, on the opposite side of
the way to the temporary wooden structure, which became a boxing
gymnasium: half an acre with a frontage of 72 feet had been purchased in
1932 and part of the Avondale garden on the east of it was added to give
sufficient frontage to the Milton Road. The latter was sited to the north
of the temporary Chapel, immediately facing the service road behind the
Field houses. The architect for the swimming-bath was Mr. K. Cross,
and the tender of Messrs. Trollope & Colls was accepted at just over
eight thousand pounds: some of the preliminary digging was done by
volunteer boy labour in the summer of 1935: the bath was opened for
use on 17 May 1936. The School bathing-place, for the use of which
Mungo Park had agreed to pay the Duke of Buccleuch five shillings a
year, had two parts, the shallow end of the new cut from Baker's Mill,
which filled when the staunch was lowered and in which alone the "mudlarks" (wearing red and white striped bathing-drawers) were allowed to
bathe, and "the pit" (then deeper and wider than at present) below the
staunch: those bathing here had gained their "blues" and were expected to
dive in. When Mr. King gave up control of the bathing, Mr. Jackson took
charge: his duties included the posting of a large card showing all who had
gained their blues—it was decided that the boys (struck out in red) medically
forbidden to bathe should not prevent a house becoming "All-blue".
608
DR. FISHER: 1922-1945
Before the opening of the School bath, bathing on Sundays took place
at Cheremy, near the railway bridge, on the south of the great loop made
by the river Nene.
The Tuck Shop (to an Oundelian there is nothing ridiculous about the
phrase, but he smiles at the "Grubber" or the "Refectory" of other schools)
was opened at about the same time, having cost over seven thousand
pounds. It was planned by Mr. P. Bicknell, an Old Boy of the School
and a rising young architect; the building solved several problems. At
Dr. Fisher's suggestion, the road front consists of two changing-rooms with
modern baths for visiting teams, and of a dining-room for their entertainment after the match: the extensive kitchens and stores lie behind; and on
the garden front is a large room with the counter on one side and glass
(opening on the terrace) on the other, and a fireplace at either end. When
not in use for its primary purpose as a tuck shop, the room, especially since
rolling shutters were fitted to cut off the counter, has been used for School
functions, for orchestra practices and concerts, for Junior debates, Modern
Languages Society's entertainments and the like. Mr. Bicknell's original
plan had included more ambitious things, a bakehouse to serve the whole
School, a sports shop for the cricket professional, a room for the sale of
games clothes and the School flannel lengths, and a flat for the manager's
residence. The remainder of the plot was grassed and planted.4
At the Speech Day of 1926 a pamphlet (printed in Newcastle-on-Tyne)
was openly on sale, entitled Les Inconnus, being a series of twenty-seven
caricatures of the Headmaster (in colour), members of the staff, the Gym
sergeant and the School porter. J. L. Lovibond, who afterwards made a
name for himself in Cambridge as a caricaturist, and G. T. Shoosmith,
whose six representations are careful studies rather than caricatures, were
responsible: being boys still at school, they had obtained the Headmaster's
consent—the one drawing that he rejected was afterwards sold and reproduced in a Peterborough paper to the delight of its victim, the bishop
of the diocese. On the cover, among other quotations, is Virgil's Haec
olim meminissejuvabit. And truly, to those who possess a copy, it is very dear.
4
H.O.S.—20
The situation of the Tuck Shop can be seen in Plate 44.
609
When the masters came to leave and Mr. Priestman's photographs appeared
in The Laxtonian, the merits of J. L. Lovibond's work became even more
apparent. The Unofficial Independent appeared at intervals; possibly the
last issue was dated 1932 and showed no diminution in the amount of
riotous fun it contained. House magazines—either termly or annual—were
steadily produced: some houses can boast an unbroken run. But this
isolated issue of caricatures of the staff has not been repeated. Many of
those, whose departures fall to be recorded, can be seen through a schoolboy's eyes in its pages.
Sixteen members of the staff of the two Schools had been appointed
before the War: it was to be expected that the most senior would retire
in the course of Dr. Fisher's twenty-three years. On these he naturally
came to rely for advice, but their departure did not affect die stability of
the School. Eleven of the staff Dr. Fisher found in the School were still
there when he retired. The ladies temporarily on the staff mostly withdrew: Miss O. Edge carried on her work in the Laxton School, and so did
Miss Creeser, the teacher of Art: Miss Browning retired in 1931 and died
in 1949. In 1925 Mr. Evans retired, and in 1929 Mr. Bray on the ground of
ill health: the former died in May 1932 and the latter in July 1935. Mr.
Hornstein, who during the War had taken his wife's maiden name of
Lowdell, after retiring in 1922 returned in 1924, and continued to give
part-time assistance until 1933: he died in June 1934. These three Modern
Language masters had each in his own way made a great contribution. Mr.
Lowdell, besides his service as School secretary, had published, under the
pen-name of John Garth, a novel entitled Warped, and Caravan Tales.
Mr. Evans, whose shrewd and witty sayings were sure of a wide circle
of admirers, had had much to do with founding the Modern Languages
Society and had acted in many French plays. Mr. Bray, whose talent for
light topical verse is to be seen in many numbers of The Laxtonian (he
published in 1914, in aid of the Belgian Relief Fund, a selection of Verses
'Varsity, Scholastic and otherwise) and who was heard with delight at many
masters' entertainments, was not only an inspiration in the form-room, or
with a French Singing Set, but also an actor of rare distinction. Mr. Ault
610
DR. FISHER: 1922-1945
died suddenly on 15 October 1932 and Mr. Brown on 9 June 1933; Mr. E. E.
Yeld died after a long illness in March 1938: and Sgt. Curley ("Crowley")
died in December 1925. Mr. Brown had founded The Berrystead, was the
School chaplain, had meant much to all Oundelians long after his cricket
prowess had been forgotten, and died two months before he was due to retire
to Weymouth.5 Mr. Yeld had come during the War to act as Librarian: in
spite of ill health, he was a keen cricketer; and as a Classical scholar he
could always bring out an apt quotation to fit the events of the day. Mr.
Ault, whose jelligraphed notes are still treasured by Old Boys, had founded
Laundimer House and braved all weathers during many an athletics
meeting.
Mr. Hale retired in 1935: he had for long been the senior master, and
after his twenty years in Dryden the School had forgotten his work in
creating the hostels, his early agricultural experiments, his responsibility
for the ornamental planting of the School grounds, and imagined that he
merely took an interest in the tuck shop, ignorant that he had created it.
His forms knew and appreciated his even flow of instruction in Chemistry
and Mathematics, his House his felicitous utterances on all occasions and
his amazing knowledge of Rugby football, and the Old Boys his brilliant
after-dinner speeches. His Headmaster and his colleagues realised the
experience he put so unreservedly at their disposal, and wondered at his
superb imperturbability. A little later Mr. Ashworth retired: unlike Mr.
Hale, he was not Sanderson's first appointment, but the growth and development of the workshops dates from his arrival. For many years everyone
turned to Ashworth in any emergency, before there was a clerk of the
works. Then in 1938 Mr. King retired: of him, wherever Old Boys
forgather, there are many tales told and most of them are true: it would
indeed be difficult to invent a story in character, which had not really
happened at some time or other. Of his services to the School as a devoted
teacher at the outset, rowing coach to the end, life-saver at the bathingplace, examination organiser, purveyor of curious information about the
6
A Berrystead boy told me, "I know why Mr. Brown died: he loved Oundle so much that he
could not bear the thought of leaving it".
611
town and the School, bursar for the Field houses before there was a bursar,
and disciplinarian, it would take too long to tell. He was always a busy man
and kind-hearted, in spite of the legend he created that he was dilatory,
stern and forbidding: he loved to tell stories, not of how he had scored off a
boy, but of how a boy had answered him back, for he admired courage
(and to answer him back required it, indeed), but he did not suffer fools
gladly. And in 1939 Major Nightingale retired, the last survivor of the
Years of Conflict: he had maintained the Classics, himself one of the finest
scholars of his time, who could do faultless versions in prose or verse,
Greek6 or Latin, and could in his prime translate Juvenal into neat Popian
couplets or in his eightieth year turn out in English dress William Dillingham's Latin poem on the Bells of Oundle: he commanded the Corps and
produced School plays with equal effectiveness (Mr. King commanded the
scene-shifters): but in the shrewdness of his judgment he was perhaps preeminent—he could in a few words resolve a difficulty and make a baffling
problem appear simple. Mr. Jones died in August 1943 and Mr. King in
September that year: Mr. Hale died in September 1944 and Mr. Ashworth in the following November: Major Nightingale in October 1952.
A term before Dr. Fisher's retirement, Mr. A. E. Chadwick retired in
April 1945 after nearly thirty years' service: apart from his value as the
fosterer of the Colts in cricket and in the form-room, his contributions to
the Classical Society, of which Major Nightingale had so long been the
Vice-President, were models of their kind in provoking the hearers of
his papers to do further reading by themselves: he, like Mr. Bray, was a
writer of light verse and published A Modest Score. He was the founder of
the Play-reading Circle.
In July 1936 came the retirement of the Director of Music, and in
6
In connexion with Major Nightingale's successes in the Saturday Westminster Gazette competitions, The Sidneian, No. 2, Christmas 1917, published the following 'Nursery Rhyme Re-Nursed':
Old Mr. Muffet,
Sat on a tuffet,
Making some verses in Greek:
Now people are saying
That verses are paying—
He's making two guineas a week!
6l2
DR. FISHER: 1922-1945
July 1938 that of the leader of the orchestra, Mr. Champ. Between September 1891, when Mr. C. M. Spurling, A.R.C.M., joined the staff, and
1936, when Dr. Spurling resigned, the development of Oundle Music,
for which he was responsible, had been immense. He will be remembered,
not as the composer of the tunes for the Carmen Undeliense and Mr.
Brown's hymn for the end of term, but as the creator of Oundle's musical
reputation. The first performance of Messiah has been mentioned: nearly
every Christmas since, some great oratorio has been performed. The
School seemed always to rise to the occasion and make each new performance more memorable than the last. The absence of applause is part
of the attempt to keep the atmosphere of the performance religious as
fitting both the music and the Sunday evening. Mr. Spurling was the first
to acknowledge how much of the success was due to Mr. Champ, leading
the first violins, and to Mr. Brewster, the accompanist on the organ. As
planned before Sanderson's death, Bach's Mass in B Minor, with nine
choruses sung by the whole School, was performed in December 1922,
the soloists being Miss Carrie Tubb, Miss Astra Desmond, Mr. Hubert
Eisdell and Mr. Norman Allin: and again with thirteen choruses in
December 1923. In 1924 the work chosen was Bach's Christmas Oratorio:
the non-choir joined in four of the six choruses and in ten chorales. As in
1923, Miss Carrie Tubb, Miss Margaret Balfour, Mr. John Adams and Mr.
Topliss Green were the soloists: a feature of this performance was that the
trebles and altos sang the da capo to "Slumber, Beloved", and the tenors,
basses and non-choir that to "Mighty Lord, and King all Glorious". The
same four artists came in 1925 for Messiah, in which the non-choir took
part in six of the eight choruses sung by the School. By this time Mr.
Spurling's work had won the warmest appreciation from the leading
music critics of the day. In 1926 and 1927 the School returned to the
Mass in B Minor, learning eleven choruses in 1926 and twelve in 1927. In
1926 the performance started without a preliminary chord from the organ,
the orchestra having tuned up in the Art room: the same vocalists came,
but to relieve Mr. John Adams, who had a severe cold, Mr. Archibald
Winter took over after the interval. There were again Old Boys returning,
613
as well as professionals, to stiffen the orchestra, but the performance was
most creditable to the School flautists and Bach trumpeters. In 1927 the
same method of starting was used: Miss Dorothy Silk sang instead of Miss
Carrie Tubb, who, after all, managed to be present and sat and sang among
the trebles. A new feature was the singing of the Quoniam by all the basses
to Dr. Vaughan Williams's re-scored accompaniment. During this performance the tuba stop of the organ began to cipher: R. G. Elliott climbed
into the organ and dealt with the trouble not once but a dozen times, and
few noticed the mishap. In 1928 the first twelve numbers of the Christmas
Oratorio were broadcast by the B.B.C.: Miss Carrie Tubb and her same
three friends again took part: but though the portion broadcast was
representative, it did not include the most thrilling parts of the performance.
In 1929 three Bach cantatas Bide with us, A Stronghold Sure and Sleepers,
Wake! were selected and performed with the help of the same four singers:
a quotation from the account by the music critic of The Times will show
what had been achieved—"The opening fugue of 'A Stronghold Sure',
not by any means an easy thing for any choir to sing, had the sheer magnificence which is Oundle's unique possession." In 1930 Mr. Spurling was ill
for the last part of the Michaelmas term; Mr. Tatam took charge of the
training and conducted the performance, at which Mr. Steuart Robertson
replaced Mr. Topliss Green. The fifth School performance of the B Minor
Mass came in 1931: Miss Carrie Tubb was indisposed but showed her deep
interest by attending the last rehearsal: the soloists were Miss Dorothy
Stanton, Miss Margaret Balfour, Mr. Steuart Wilson and Mr. Arthur
Cranmer. For 1932, Mendelssohn's Elijah was the chosen oratorio, with
Miss Sophie Rowlands, Miss Astra Desmond, Mr. Frank Titterton and Mr.
Harold Williams as the soloists: Miss Carrie Tubb sang with the chorus.
The Christmas Oratorio was given for the third time in 1933, six choruses
and thirteen chorales being sung, and broadcast in the Midland Regional
programme. Miss Elsie Suddaby joined Miss Astra Desmond, Mr. Steuart
Wilson and Mr. Topliss Green for this performance. As so often before,
the tone was at times overwhelming, but never rough, and always in tune.
The Times remarked that the listener "is generally carried along on the
614
DR. FISHER: 1922-1945
broad tide of sound with the comfortable conviction that nothing in the
choral part can go wrong". For the sixth performance at Oundle of
the B Minor Mass in 1934 only seven choruses were learnt in order to fit
in with the B.B.C. programme: the first three soloists were the same as in
1933, but the bass solos were sung by Mr. Arthur Cranmer: all regional
transmitters of the B.B.C. broadcast the performance, which was very
well received. Mr. Spurling ruptured a muscle in his right arm at the
opening bar, but carried on successfully in spite of it. In 1935, however,
there came a break in the series, for the School had been invited to perform
a religious play at the Festival of the Friends of Peterborough Cathedral on
6 November: The Great World Theatre, i.e. "an English translation by Madge
Pemberton of Hoffmansthars modernised German version of a Spanish
Morality Play by Calderon", was given in the Cathedral with the orchestra
and the School choir in the presbytery and the transepts: Mr. Spurling
had arranged the music and conducted the earlier practices, but was
too unwell to attend the one and only performance. To make up for
the missing oratorio more attention was given to the carols for the end-ofterm service.
When it was known that Mr. Spurling was retiring in July 1936, it
may be that some memory had survived of the tribute paid by his friends
to his predecessor, Francis King, in purchasing him an American doctorate:
a movement started, backed by influential names in the world of music, to
petition the Archbishop of Canterbury to use his power7 to confer a degree
in Music on Mr. Spurling, who, after all, had brought Oundle Music to
the fore and was a not unworthy recipient of a genuine honour. On
27 April 1936 at Lambeth Palace the Archbishop conferred on Mr. Spurling
the Mus.Doc. Cantuar; and as the Archbishop was an Oxford man, Mr.
Spurling could wear the robes of the Oxford Mus.Doc., which his friends
presented to him. The Court granted ^100 towards expenses and sent him
a letter of congratulation. On 17 February 1936 Mr. Spurling gave a talk,
broadcast in the Midland Regional programme, on the two organs in the
7
The Archbishop as Legatus Natus had papal authority to confer degrees in Theology, Music and
Law: this authority was confirmed to the Archbishop by the Act 25 Henry VIII c. 21.
6I 5
School, and Mr. Tatam played selections on both of them. Shortly after
his last Midsummer concert Dr. Spurling retired: he had come to Oundle
in September 1891, and had served the School faithfully for forty-five
years.8 A few words from the Laxtonian Editorial may be quoted: "It is
not so much the boys that have actually learnt music from him nor the
boys who have been members of the Choral Society that are especially
indebted to him. It is the larger and hoarser part of the School who go to
make the non-choir that feel they have received something at his hands
which they might have missed at another school. He leaves memories of
many practices which he has conducted after prayers in the winter term
and of many full practices on Sunday evenings which have instilled even
into the most unwilling of us a real delight in the singing of large choral
works ..." That is a genuine expression of the gratitude felt throughout
the School to Dr. Spurling. Having retired to Mayfield, Dr. Spurling died
there in 1942.
As his successor Mr. A. E. F. Dickinson, Director of Music at Campbell
College, Belfast, was appointed. In 1937, therefore, the performance of
Messiah was deliberately not in the tradition of 1921: as it were to mark the
difference, the performance took place in a rearranged Chapel: musically
it may have been more ambitious, but it was certainly not Oundle singing.
Mr. Dickinson resigned in 1938 and received an appointment with the
B.B.C.; his musical articles became a feature of the Corporation's publications. In his place Mr. J. A. Tatam, who had joined the staff in January
1919 and had had experience both of training and of conducting performances at Oundle, became Director of Music: he held the position to the
end of 1953: Oundle Music returned to its traditional heartiness, vigour and
volume.
In July 1938 Mr. Champ retired after thirty-three years' service:
himself a violinist of rare quality, he taught those learning to play both
stringed instruments and the piano, but in the building up of the School
orchestra lay his life's work. If professionals and Old Boys augmented the
8
The Governors had purchased in 1926 the house in which he lived: the next tenant gave it the
name of "Spurlings", which it bears to-day.
616
DR. FISHER: 1922-1945
orchestra for the performance of the oratorios, it was owing to lack of
numbers in some sections, not to the weakness of the School members of
the orchestra. Between them, Mr. Champ and Bandmaster F. T. Allen
had trained the boys well for their difficult and exacting task. The playing
of Beethoven's Kreutzer Sonata by Mr. Champ and Mr. Brewster, heard
at intervals over thirty years, lingers in the memory of those who heard it.
The bandmaster's death in 1939 was a great loss: Mr. G. A. Lawes took
his place, and immediately secured his pupils' respect.
Mr. Tatam produced the B Minor Mass in 1937 and 1944: between these
performances were: 1938 Mozart's Requiem Mass and Haydn's Creation;
1939 Handel's Samson; 1940 The Christmas Oratorio; 1941 Handel's Saul;
1942 Parry's Blest Pair of Sirens and Bach's Sleepers, Wake!; and in 1943
Messiah. During the war years performances were given on the Sunday
afternoon, the black-out curtains having a deadening effect on the voices:
the visiting musicians too, who had arrived late on the Saturday night
from "London in the Blitz", had to catch their early trains: but the tradition
of Oundle Music held. There was much of it, from the Madrigal Group
to the Jazz Band, with Senior and Junior concerts provided by the boys,
Music for Enjoyment in the tuck shop, and exchange concerts with other
schools: concert parties and quartets paid frequent visits. But perhaps the
greatest innovation was the revival of inter-house Music competitions:
the first of the new series for the Rossiter Cup (given in memory of F. G.
Rossiter, who died in 1937) was held on 31 May 1938: the competition
consisted of three parts: a set piece for unaccompanied singing by twelve
voices, a unison song chosen and sung by the whole house, and an instrumental piece, played by whatever combination of players the house
possessed. The Cup was awarded each year by a distinguished arbitrator
unconnected with the School.
In 1925 Major Nightingale produced his last School play, Captain
Brassbound's Conversion: he could look back on many years of successful
producing, sometimes with as many as ten ladies in the cast and latterly
with Miss Irene Ward to play the female lead. In 1926 Mr. Ridgway was
producing The Critic, when illness sent the School home a week before
H.O.S.—20*
6l7
production: for the next few years Mr. Stopford, at first assisted by Mr.
M. V. C.Jeffreys—the two published a book, Play Production for Amateurs
and Schools, in 1933, in which some Oundle settings are illustrated—and
later by a well-integrated team, produced with all-boy casts a series including Goldsmith, Sheridan, Barrie, Shaw and Shakespeare: on one
occasion, it is true, the School was sent home early, but the actors stayed
on and played to an audience gathered from the town, including some from
the Workhouse (not yet renamed the Glapthorn Road Institution but
known, as was discovered during the enacting of a regrettable murder for a
mock trial, as the Spike). The School play used to end the Lent term:
but because, for anything better than farce, this was hardly fair on the actors,
the play was moved a fortnight earlier in the term. Mr. C. A. B. Marshall
(who had stooped to conquer, and also had acted Lady Mary in The
Admirable Crichton) took over the School play on Mr. Stopford's departure:
after a cancellation in 1934, he produced Laburnum Grove, Dandy Dick,
The Merchant of Venice, and two plays of Galsworthy (in which he returned
to the use of ladies of the School for the female parts). During the War
Mr. G. T. Burns began his series of masterly productions of Shakespeare—
which were certainly too good for an end-of-term audience. The various
Art masters supervised the scene-painting for School plays, with interesting
results. It should be mentioned that the houses quite frequently produced
plays, some of a remarkably high standard, in the more intimate setting of
their own dining-halls: the School provided scenery to fit and electrical
appliances for the lighting. Every few years at Christmas the staff gave an
entertainment, for which Mr. Stopford (it seems) devised the name
Masterpieces: these were much enjoyed both by the performers and by the
audiences.
Music and Drama were far from being the only civilising influences in
the School: the series of School societies increased during Dr. Fisher's time.
There were the Debating Society and the Science Society of some antiquity, the Classical Society and the Modern Languages Society only slightly
less old-established, which did not so much continue school-work into
out-of-school hours as encourage interest in related topics and promote
618
DR. FISHER: 1922-1945
research into such themes with a view to popularising the results. While
the Modern Languages Society produced every year a play in French,
German or Spanish, the Classical Society catered for the historians, and
organised excursions to study architecture or to attend Greek plays at
Bradfield or Cambridge. There was the Photographic Society enjoying a
new lease of life: but the Natural History Society had developed out of the
Science Society—and alone resumed its publications after the War. The
latest comer was the Geographical Society, founded in 1943: which indeed
did reflect a considerable development in the teaching of Geography and
the provision of a Geographical Department. When the need was felt, a
Chess Club and a Stamp Club functioned from time to time: but it was
always a struggle to find time for them when so many competing societies
abounded. All served a useful purpose and must have performed that
essential feature of Education, the provision of interests for the grown man's
leisure hours. It is worthy of record that both the Debating Society and
the Modern Languages Society found it possible to start Junior branches,
which received great support. But perhaps in the appreciation of Art the
progress was most marked: exhibitions of paintings were borrowed for
display in the Art Room: the Studio in the old temporary Chapel was well
attended, and pottery made which was fired in the Metallurgical laboratory:
a Sketch Club went out fairly regularly: the influence of Mr. P. F. Millard
was felt in all parts of the School, and Mr. Caudwell contributed not a little.
The long corridor in the Cloisters, where the reproductions of the.Italian
Schools had hung unchanged since Sanderson died, came into fuller use as
the Corridor Gallery, and its exhibitions could not fail to attract attention.
The Conversazione at Speech Day continued to call forth all the
ingenuity of masters and boys, and undoubtedly had its effect not merely on
the parents and visitors but also on the participants: the boy demonstrator
had to be prepared to explain his experiment to all comers, his fellows and
their parents and other visitors—who quite often included some professionally interested in the process either as manufacturers or laboratory workers.
But first he had to make it work: in the overcoming of difficulties and the
solving of the problems as they arose in the course of the week's prepara619
tion, in the ingenuity and patience displayed, there lay the true justification
of the Conversazione as an educational method. Originally the Conversazione had been limited to Science: but it was inevitable that the
Classical Side should be drawn in. It was in preparation for an exhibit at
the Speech Day Conversazione that Mr. Stopford began that series of
excavations at Fotheringhay, Armston, Thorpe Waterville and Sacrewell,
which aroused so much genuine enthusiasm among the diggers. The
exhibits of the History VI were always of more topical interest in Mr.
Heesom's hands: a draft Peace Treaty may be mentioned. The Junior
Conversaziones mentioned in the last chapter flourished for a while, and
then divided into Scientific and Literary in different terms: ultimately they
were held in the Michaelmas terms alternately. For a Literary one, in
November 1938, the given theme was Drama: there were models of
theatres ancient and modern, and a series of plays, including a French
ballet and a few scenes from The Beggar's Opera. Of earlier Conversaziones
a series of experiments reconstructed as Faraday had performed them
stands out: but the wealth of models created year after year by young
geographers under the direction of Mr. A. Bond almost passes belief. In
1931 two large dioramas displayed the development of transport by land
and sea. Once again the explanations accompanying the models spread
the knowledge and enjoyment the boys had gained during their construction of them. The plays, recitations and songs of the one type, the wide
range of experiments in Physics, Chemistry and Biology of the other type,
were not only of interest, but of value also, to all concerned. It was appropriate that the programmes of these Junior Conversaziones had printed on
them the very motto John Newton had placed on one of his title-pages in
1669: "I cannot tell whether anything be better learned than that which
is learned by Play."
In 1927, in the hope of seeing the total eclipse of the sun, the whole
School went overnight by special train to Croft Spa, near Darlington, on
the centre-line of the zone of totality. Mr. Palmer, on whose initiative the
expedition was undertaken, had transported much scientific apparatus
that would have been of the utmost use, had the clouds permitted full
620
DR. FISHER: 1922-1945
observations to be made. As it was, the drop in temperature at the time of
totality was recorded (see The Times of n July), but the corona was not
seen.
The awards gained by Oundle boys in the entrance scholarship examinations at Oxford and Cambridge during the twenty-three years of Dr.
Fisher's time average six a year, for there were one hundred and forty-four
of them. To be exact, a few more gained by Laxton School boys who had
been working in Oundle School classes, should be added to this figure,
but it is fairer to leave them out of the count. Eighteen awards in Classics,
twenty-seven in Modern History, eleven in Modern Languages, with
one each in English and Music add up to fifty-eight: there were fiftyeight awards in Natural Science (including Biology and Mechanical
Science), seventeen in Mathematics and eleven in Mathematics-and-Physics,
or Science-and-Mathematics. The balance between the two Sides of the
School is very similar to that observed in Sanderson's time: but the
appearance in strength of the historians and modern linguists is evidence
of the development that has taken place—although many of these scholars
might easily have been turned out as Classical scholars, they had been
encouraged to pursue the course of their choice. It must be remembered
that the School was about six hundred strong at this time, and that the
Classical Sixth was throughout the period a small form. While considerably
more went to Oxford than had been the case, the School still tended to send
its boys to Cambridge: of the entrance awards, however, forty-three were
at Oxford, and one hundred and one at Cambridge. Boys were going to
other Universities also, some by Mining and others by Brewing scholarships, which had been made available for the School.
The number of boys entered in the Register by Dr. Fisher was 3246:
this means that on an average one hundred and forty-one entered the
School each year and that they stayed a little over four years: a new volume
was taken into use. A feature of his entries was the addition of "(himself an
old boy of the School)" to the names of an increasing number of parents.
The first Panora photograph of the School was taken in Sanderson's
time: the semicircle was in front of the Great Hall. The photograph was
62 T
taken at three-year intervals until the Second World War: on one occasion
an American journalist happened to visit Oundle and his illustrations show
the preparations for the taking of the picture.
If Dr. Fisher accepted Sanderson's final structure of the School (into
which he introduced one innovation, that of a Classical VA taking not
three but only two languages, and in which he developed further the
History and Modern Language Removes and Sixths), he also took over
the practice of submitting whole Forms to the Certificate Examination
for which their work fitted them. He did not, however, insist that all
work done should be examined: for example, the Metallurgical workers
were not examined in that subject. The results became even more striking
than before. In June 1926, as the School entered "the straight" between
Speech Day and the examinations, he told the School of the Governors'
wish that the numbers should return to five hundred; but before that
happened, he said, he would like to see the School gain a hundred Higher
Certificates. When the results came out in September, the number was
exactly one hundred. His comment to the School on its reassembling was,
"Ah! But I didn't mean you to take me so literally!" The School, however,
got three days' extra holiday at Christmas! If the average of his first fourteen years be struck, the School gained every year 98 Higher, 86 School
and 50 Lower Certificates. In 1936 the figures were 119 H.C., 109 S.C.,
51 L.C. These results, it need hardly be said, were unapproached by other
schools, and gave rise not only to the mild envy natural in the circumstances, but also to an ill-founded conviction that the whole work of
Oundle School was directed towards gaining certificates. The School was
full to bursting, at a time when some others found it necessary to close
houses; it was playing its games with healthy vigour; its Music flourished;
its many societies were active; scholarships were gained in a variety of
subjects, and its boys went to Universities and technical colleges in great
numbers. What those outside did not realise was the spirit of work which
Sanderson had infused and Dr. Fisher had maintained.9 It was not that the
' The rest of this paragraph is an attempt to state Dr. Fisher's known views, but not in his own
words.
622
DR. FISHER: 1922-1945
gaining of a certificate was an incentive, but that boys would be bitterly
disappointed if the form they were in was not allowed to sit for the appropriate examination. Most forms contained weaker brethren, who would
elsewhere not have been entered: it was found that in many cases such boys
were successful. One form-master complained that X was not good enough
for his S.C. Form: when the boy got an indifferent certificate, he remained
of the same opinion. This was not a case of cramming, or of the "forcinghouse", but the natural outcome of the boy's will to work. The Lower
Certificate Examination was felt to provide a good training, and in some
respects was a better examination than the School Certificate. The certificates themselves were almost useless (perhaps they secured exemption from
the Law Prelim.), but the boys' satisfaction at having secured them, added to
their experience of examination conditions, made them much more mature
when they came to the School Certificate the following year. On the
average, the Oundle candidates for School Certificates were younger than
those from other schools: here the body of opinion, which led to the
G.C.E. with a fixed lower age-limit, naturally was critical of the Oundle
practice. It was likewise often assumed that the acceptance of a syllabus
from an examining body was in itself a bad thing: but Oundle had always
submitted, where necessary, its own syllabuses, its own choice of set books
or periods, and the Board had agreed to examine on them with special
papers—as always in Mathematics for the S.C.—certainly not easier than
the Board's own papers. But the main point of criticism was that Oundle
boys proceeded to take the H.C. the year after the S.C., and to take it
every year until they left. Here are two distinct complaints, the one that
getting boys over what was intended to be a two-year course in one year
might harm them and lead to hurried work, and the other that repeated
taking of the H.C. might impede the preparation of boys for entrance
scholarships at the Universities. For the bright boys in Mathematics and
certain branches of Science, there was no difficulty about their gaining the
H.C. in a year, without damage or undue strain: but in Classics, History,
Modern Languages, Biology and some other branches of Science this was
an impossibility, and it was not attempted: if the boys took the examina623
tion at all, it was merely as their end-of-the-year examination. Boys of
scholarship calibre got their scholarships: but it must be remembered that
the number of entrance scholarships to the School was still small and their
value insufficient to exert a pull, unless the candidates' parents had already
decided on Oundle in preference to sending their sons to the school that
offered the best price for their brains.
On 8 July 1936 the chairman of the committee, after prolonged discussion with Dr. Fisher, reported to the Governing Body "that at the
request of the Headmaster the Committee had resolved, subject to the
approval of the Governing Body, to invite the Board of Education to
carry out an inspection of the School". The proposal was approved, and the
first inspection of Oundle School was undertaken by a team of H.M.I.s
from the 24th to the 28th May 1937: that is, in the interval between the
disturbance caused by the Coronation and that caused by Speech Day: it
had been originally expected to take place in February. The confidential
Report issued probably still holds the record as the longest ever made on a
public school: it cannot be quoted, for if published, it must be published
in its entirety (The Controller of H.M. Stationery Office in this resembles
Mr. Bernard Shaw!), and there are forty-six pages of it. In view of the
widespread criticism of Oundle in respect to the School's successes in the
Certificate Examinations, it was unfortunate that the inspection took
place less than six weeks before the examinations, during the process that
Sanderson always referred to as "tool-sharpening". The Chief Inspector,
who combined his assistants' departmental reports in the final Report,
contrived to bring in at every turn the pressure of examinations. There is
evidence that the tone of the Report rather than its substance deeply
wounded the Headmaster: there was appreciation as well as criticism,
much of it well-founded, which is perhaps all that could be hoped for from
a visit lasting the inside of a week. Some very definite recommendations
were made to the Governing Body, and many things said of which they
were already very well aware. It is to be remarked that the committee on
8 January 1935 "were of opinion that it was desirable that a separate house
should be provided for the Headmaster: and it was resolved to ask the
624
Photograph by G, Priestmtm
CHURCH LANE IN 1952
The view from School House shows the corner of the Cloisters on the left, and behind it the
converted Workshops; at the end of the Lane the Gymnasium can be seen; the gabled building
is the Almshouse; between it and the Brereton Rooms, shown only by the shadow, however,
stands the upstairs room formerly used as a gymnasium; the Brereton Rooms are indicated
by the hanging sign.
Plate 41
Plate 42
Plate 43
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DR. FISHER: 1922-1945
Bursar to let them know if he .heard of any likelihood of the Rectorybeing for sale".10 In this particular the present state of affairs is not the
result of the Report, but of the earlier conviction of the committee. The
dropping of the Lower Certificate Examination, however, was the direct
result of a recommendation in the Report. The School took that for the
last time in July 1938: this particular examination itself was discontinued
shortly after. The results of the last Certificate Examinations held while
Dr. Fisher was headmaster may round off this subject: in 1945 one hundred
and twenty-two Higher and one hundred and ninety-seven School
Certificates were gained.
The inspection came at a time when there was much searching of heart
among those responsible for the maintenance of the Sanderson tradition.
From the inspectors' conversation, some learnt for the first time that
Sanderson's ideas had been taken up elsewhere and developed: they became aware that in some cases—fortunately, not in all—they had stood still
in Oundle. They had become used to doing some things, and had ceased
to ask themselves why they did them. The question—for the upholders of
the tradition—was not what Sanderson had done, but what he would be
doing to-day: for the essence of the tradition was change, modification,
scrapping of the old, undertaking new experiments. There had been,
undoubtedly, since his death, a certain amount of almost unconscious
fixing of the syllabuses: and that is not the affirmation, but the negation,
of the tradition, and leads to death, for the vital interest of master and boys
is lost when it is known exactly what comes next: the pioneering spirit
has departed. In a way the very wealth of equipment militates against it:
and there is something of value in improvisation. The inventive capacities
of master and boys are called into play when the apparatus for the job in
hand has to be made on the spot: it would be easy (but invidious) to
indicate the parts of the School which most truly preserved the living
tradition. But—and this is the point—it was living.
Oundle School has always played Rugby fives: indifferent courts were
10
Cobthorne was offered for sale in November 1922, but the Oundle Committee was not prepared
to recommend the purchase then.
625
owned by the older houses, in some cases without the fourth wall. The
most recent ones were the court built for Crosby and paid for by Mr. Tryon
while on service, which though badly built was of great value to the
house, and that built by Mr. Brown in the Berrystead. The covered court
built by Mr. Winch was lost to the School. The four School courts were behind Grafton House, but open to the elements: they were usable on a damp
day only after drying out with brooms and sawdust. In 1924 four more courts
were built back-to-back to the old, paid for jointly by the Company and the
tuck shop: these have never been very satisfactory, and the present use
made of the walls is as sensible as possible. Apart from the disability of
being useless in wet weather, the courts seem rather smaller than the
standard court, and their walls and floors being rough wore out the balls
very rapidly: in view of the cheapness of balls at the time, the last consideration did not matter very much. Towards the end of 1929 the Headmaster issued an appeal for funds to build new courts and to cover the old.
The response was somewhat disappointing: but in February 1930 four
new covered courts of standard size were begun, close to the old ones:
they were opened for play in the beginning of October, and immediately
increased the popularity of the game. Play no longer depended on the
weather; and, as the courts were lighted, the hours of play were longer.
All School and house matches were played in them, and the older courts
were neglected in consequence. The quality of the courts together with the
quality of the play of Mr. Spragg, who coached the VI, rapidly had its
effect on the standard of fives played in the School and led to a long list
of victories in Public Schools Championship contests. The University
Rugby Fives Match has been played in these Oundle courts, as in 1938.
In May 1931 a change was made in the blazers worn by the School: a
uniform blue blazer was substituted for the black blazer bound with silk
ribbon of the colour worn by the boy's house: instead of many blazers
previously worn by School Colours, a system of letters on the pocket was
introduced. Unfortunately this reform was not accompanied by a change
in the caps, which remained black. There was a welcome alteration in
the substitution of cotton for wool in the jerseys worn for football. There
626
DR. FISHER: 1922-1945
was also, after experiments, a great change in the character of house
matches, both Senior and Junior, at cricket, and in the schemes for athletics
and Junior football. The old knock-out Senior competitions in cricket with
two-innings matches and unlimited time had become difficult to fit in,
and were also believed to tire out School Colours playing in them. House
Colours had to be forbidden to play in Junior matches. In 1932 a system of
single-innings games, on the knock-out principle, with a two-innings
final, was begun: but in 1934 a further change was made to one in which
each house played every other house in a game limited to one half-holiday
afternoon: in 1936 came a modification of this plan by which the houses
were divided into two groups, with a two-day final—ultimately singleinnings—between the leaders of each group. For the Juniors, the singleinnings knock-out system was introduced in 1934: in 1937 the same plan
was adopted as for the Seniors. Undoubtedly much time was saved: and
without question the cricket the vast majority could expect to play in
after-life would be the single-innings game on one day: but the implied
argument is dangerous, for the logical conclusion would be the playing,
not of cricket at all, but of lawn tennis: it seems a pity that schoolboys
should never experience the excitements and changes of fortune associated
with the two-innings game. One memorable game in 1929, in which the
side batting first made 526 and won by one wicket, had been played on
nine days: a succession of such matches would ruin any time-table!
In 1930 an idea, promoted by the housemasters of Laxton and Crosby,
with the warm support of Mr. Cutcliffe, was put into practice in the
School sports: this was the fixing of standard times, distances or heights
suitable for all the various events except the hundred yards. The competitors who gained standards passed into the School finals, but, if there was
not a reasonable number of them, then those nearest the standard were also
passed into the final: all who gained a standard earned a few points
towards their house's total for the Challenge Cup. The scheme was a
marked success, although it lengthened the judging and complicated the
book-keeping, inasmuch as many found that after their month's training
they could hope to achieve a standard in some event, in which a place
627
was beyond their powers: these house heats became exciting and strenuous
events and added greatly to the interest of the sports, to which the weather
at the end of March was seldom kind. It was found that the standard times
could be altered from year to year. But after 1935, a year in which a single
athlete, W. D. Clark—in the course of finals spread over five days—gained
a place in eight open events, the experiment of running all races as relay
events was tried for two years: a return was made in 1938 to normal
individual contests.
In the spring of 1925 the Junior Football Competition, hitherto conducted on the knock-out system, was worked on the principle that each
of the nine houses should play each of the eight others: members of the
XV acted as referees. In 1926 a return was made to the old system, but in
1927 an attempt was made to introduce a bumping system, starting with the
houses in alphabetical order, and to provide that any house undefeated
after the four rounds should challenge the top house, and that the resulting
order should be carried on to the following year. The object was to keep
the interest alive for as long as possible, avoiding the loss of enthusiasm in
any house knocked out early, but it ignored the demoralising effect of
constant defeat on a weak side, which might otherwise have rested after
doing its best against its first strong opponents. The opening of St. Anthony
was made the excuse for abandoning this scheme in 1928 in favour of a
modified knock-out scheme (invented by the housemaster of Crosby and
welcomed by J. Simpson, the football captain) which provided for two
houses to draw byes and pass into the first round, for the eight others to
play in the bye round, for the four defeated houses to play in a losers' bye
round, and for the two winners to play the houses that drew the byes at
the opposite ends of the first round. The eight houses in that round were,
therefore, the two that had not yet played, playing the two that had played
twice, and the four who had already won one game. Every house must get
two games except the two with byes, who were quite likely to get two
matches also. With a little adaptation the scheme could be made to fit a
larger number of houses. It proved a success: the principle of re-entry
received its completes! justification in 1944, when both finalists had played
628
DR. FISHER: 1922-1945
in the losers' bye round! This has never been applied to the Senior competition, as there is a shortage of time due to the number of School matches,
the absence of scholarship candidates in December and the possibility of
frosts. It is regretted by some that, on occasions when the final has produced
a drawn game, there has been no opportunity for a decisive replay. The
football ground behind the Field houses had been redrained, and it received
the name of Two Acre from J. Simpson.
In 1934 it was decided to bring the Junior Fives Competition forward
from the overcrowded Lent term to the Michaelmas term, which had in
it only the Senior football. So many of the newer fixtures tended naturally
to fall into the Lent term—boxing, gymnastics, fives and athletics: with
an open-air swimming-bath the swimming naturally came in the Summer
term. In rowing, house fours came in the Lent term and the rest of the
programme for the School and trial crews in the summer, and the Beesly
Fours and scratch fours likewise. In the Lent term many old members of
the XV might be rowing: it became, therefore, the practice for the possible
XV for the next season to play a few matches before training for the sports
began: and after 1942, when the School first entered the Public Schools
Seven-a-Side Competition, some football was played by enthusiasts to the
very end of the term. The building of the new tuck shop made the reception of visiting teams easier, and set free the old one for use as a boxing
training establishment, for the ring was erected in the Gymnasium for
matches and the house competition. After Major Butcher's departure on
service in 1939, Mr. R. B. Cordukes took charge of the administration of
the boxing and, after Mr. P. Barnes was called up, found instructors with
difficulty.
At the end of 1930 plans were made for the formation in January 1931
of a Scout troop, with Mr. Heesom as scoutmaster and Mr. de Ville and
Mr. Caudwell as assistant scoutmasters. The object was to train senior
boys as scoutmasters: the first members were either boys who had served
in the O.T.C. and gained their Certificate A, or non-Corps. Three patrols
(Curlews, Otters and Swifts) were formed, one patrol-leader being R. M.
Beresford. Some of the Scouts helped in the formation of a troop at Ald629
winkle. In the Michaelmas term, the War Office having set fifteen as the
age for entry to the O.T.C., two troops were formed of boys likely to
have at least two terms in the Scouts before entering the Corps: a Field
Houses troop under Mr. de Ville (Hawks, Kingfishers, Peacock sand Woodpigeons) used the old Wood shop as a meeting-place, and a Town Houses
troop under Mr. Caudwell (Beavers, Bulldogs, Herons and Plovers) used
the field next to the Bramston paddock and the old Mai tings of the former
Anchor Brewery. The Senior troop was largely concerned widi the running of these Junior troops, and also that at Aldwinkle: but in 1932 it
received a number of recruits and functioned again as a troop. By Christmas
1932 there were sixty in the three troops: many of them well seasoned
after the summer camps. In 1933 a dozen Oundle Scouts went to the
Jamboree at Godollo in Hungary: and thereafter Scouting may be considered definitely established as one of the School activities. A hut was
erected for the Scouts in 193 5/A Sea Scout troop was started in the Michaelmas term 1943.
There is not, and has never been, an Oundle Mission: the connexion
with the Aldwinkle troop and later with an Oundle Town troop recalls to
memory one or two practices which might almost come under the heading.
The Doubles Club, founded by H. C. Faulkner in 1930 (it received mention
in The Times Educational Supplement) aimed at replacing the Duke of
York's Camp (at that time suspended) by a series of small camps of eight or
ten, made up of Oundle boys as hosts and old boys of a Paddington Central
School of a similar age, or of lads from a Sheffield steelworks: a cricketing
camp was also held at Barnwell for six Oundelians and six junior members
of a London firm. Visits were paid by club members to Paddington homes
and lads from Paddington visited Oundle. In 1934 at Whitsun a party
from the Gordon Club, part of the Oxford and Bermondsey Boys' Club,
camped for the week-end behind the School Farm: Oundle boys again
acted as hosts. This became an annual event, and Oundle boys were invited,
in turn, to visit the club quarters in Tanner Street, where they found that
Oundle was one of the four "schools" into which the club was divided for
games and competitions. The Whitsun camp was omitted during the War,
630
DR. FISHER: 1922-1945
but resumed in 1945. In spite of the vagaries of the Oundle weather, the
Bermondsey visitors enjoyed their visits, and their hosts did so no less: river
picnics and camp-fire sing-songs have a way of lingering in the memory.
Major Nightingale, who had received the T.D. in 1922, retired from
command of the Corps (since 1908 the O.T.C.) in 1925, and in September
Captain B. V. Kingham assumed command as Major. Colonel C. D. Irwin
had been appointed Adjutant in 1924 and served until April 1936, taking
charge of P.T. and boxing also. On the expiry of Major Kingham's term of
command in November 1929, Captain W. Cole became C.O. as Major:
about the same time Captain A. E. Collier, M.C., joined the staff and the
Corps; he succeeded to the command in 1933. Major A. L. Butcher, M.C.,
became Adjutant in September 1936. Major Collier was recalled by the
Army in June 1939, and Captain G. Priestman became C.O. with the rank
of Lieut.-Colonel: he remained in command throughout the War. The
parade-ground was levelled and asphalted in 1937 and the new miniature
range beside the now further enlarged armoury was completed shortly after
the outbreak of War. For a short while after the Lent term 1925 a covered
miniature range in the old temporary Chapel had been in use. The R.A.F.
Squad had been formed early in 1938 under the command of Pilot Officer
E. de Ville: Mr. F. T. Jackson, a "flying ace" of the First World War,
served as his second-in-command. From January 1941 the Corps divided
into the J.T.C. and the A.T.C. The Adjutant returned to duty in the
Army and died while serving: R.S.M. E. A. Barnes, who had been since
1930 one of the instructors, took over the adjutancy and was commissioned
in 1940. It would be difficult to estimate the great debt owed to Captain
Barnes, and to the armoury staff, especially to R.Q.M.S. Cottingham for
his forty-six years' service. Some masters left to join the Forces, others,
including several with commissions in the Corps, served with distinction
and returned: two, Captain C. M. Osman and Lieut. J. A. Brittain, lost
their lives: others decided not to return to the School. Two hundred and
fifty-two Old Boys fell in the Second World War: 2322 had served, of
whom 392 received decorations and 372 were mentioned in dispatches.
A meeting at Grocers' Hall on 22 February 1945 decided to raise a Memorial
631
Fund, part of which was to be devoted to a visible memorial, later erected
in the Chapel ambulatory, and part to be expended in twenty years in
aiding the descendants of O.O.s who had fallen in the War. A memorial
volume was subsequently published.
It would be easy to write a chapter on the War which had threatened in
1938, and came in 1939: from the trench-digging at the time of Munich to
the C.E.M.A. performance of Arms and the Man on V.E. Day, 8 May 1945,
for the memories are still green and The Laxtonian, edited by the Classical
VI and supervised by Mr. Squire, adequately fulfilled its sub-title of The
Oundle School Chronicle. And for those reasons it is clearly unnecessary:
if War found the School unprepared, with all the black-out to do (it was
calculated that one of the new houses had over two hundred windows to
obscure), the School rapidly returned to the pattern of 1914-19. The workshops received orders and got down to work of national importance:
parties of boys went out to help farmers with their beet, potatoes and
threshing. There were two things that were really better than in the First
World War: the immediate rationing of food; and the system of call-up,
for neither men nor boys felt it was up to them to decide how and when
to serve their King and Country. Clothes rationing, perhaps, was another
story: the School certainly got shabbier in its dress, although, following the
example of the book-pound, housemasters ran second-hand departments for
games clothes—with officially fixed prices at which to buy and sell: but
the Sunday straw hats could no longer be supplied and boys, perhaps,
thought more kindly of their "bashers" and their varied uses. Housemasters
ceased to dress for dinner, for evening dress was not the most suitable
attire for the nightly round to ensure that the black-out of their houses was
complete, or for fire-watching. Oundle, as a reception area, was filled with
evacuees: there would have been no room for visitors at Speech Day, had
they had any petrol to get them to Oundle—or had there been any Speech
Day to visit. Uniformed O.O.s on embarkation leave came to take their
farewell of Oundle—and the Headmaster knew them all. The postmen's
deliveries got heavier and heavier, for many parents failed to realise that
their sons were probably better fed than they were themselves. Railings
632
DR. FISHER: 1922-1945
disappeared for scrap-metal, as for example from in front of the Cloisters;
and waste paper was collected.
The numbers dropped a little when the War began but, as in the First
World War, they rose again steeply: if they were normal at 581 by Midsummer 1941, they rose to 607 in 1942, to 631 in 1943, to 645 in 1944 and
to 652 in 1945: yet room was found for the boys without building, which
in any case was impossible in war-time, or the purchase of further property,
by putting in extra beds and by using the Laxton School boarding-house for
more boys from Bramston and Laundimer (which increased from thirtysix to fifty-two, and from forty-six to fifty-nine respectively).
After Munich many of the teaching staff and of the workshops staff
had received instruction in A.R.P. and had passed examinations (before
which they had been reminded that "co-operation is of the essence of the
system"): boys were trained in fire-fighting, dealing with incendiaries,
handling ladders, finding water-cocks, electric switches, gas-mains and the
like, and in first aid. The bursar was the brain behind the School's defence
on the home front. Plans for dispersal were drawn up: plans for the boys
to sleep on the ground floor: plans for the use of the concrete trenches:
plans for the simultaneous giving of the akrm to all houses by an ingenious
device known as the "Bungy-phone" (the name indicates its inventor).
The School buildings and houses were divided into four areas, for each
of which a team of three stood by, sleeping in their clothes when not out
on a periodic patrol. A Report Centre, telephonically in communication
with the town A.R.P. headquarters and with the observer post on the
School field, was manned nominally for twenty-four hours a day, and
from dusk to dawn by a rotation of masters and others. At first all "reds"
and "all-clears" were passed on. Some patrols heard dog-fights going on
above them, others had to deal with bonfires that would not go out;
but they were never in action. The town was never bombed, and no
incendiaries were dropped: but in the open country craters could be pointed
out and a two-mile stream of jettisoned incendiaries. One night—a day
after the boys had gone home—the town was awakened by machine-gun
fire, but there were no casualties. A crop of aerodromes sprang up in the
633
neighbourhood—the lakes on the Barnwell Road show where the gravel
came from for the concrete—and the Americans flooded the town.
Long before that, after Dunkirk came the formation of the L.D.V.,
which grew into the Home Guard: die Headmaster widi many masters
and workshop instructors joined at once; and the boys formed No. 2
Platoon 'C' Company, Oundle and Thrapston Battalion L.D.V.: the
contents of the armoury became, as it were overnight, of real importance
and were guarded until they were removed for issue to troops. The School
Company of die 3rd Bn. Northamptonshire H.G. was officered by Major
Priestman and Captain Heesom, yet functioned only during term time.
But the J.T.C. staff (Captain Barnes and R.S.M. Cottingham) were invaluable to the battalion: and many boy N.C.O.s were useful instructors at
the outset, and at the close in testing the training of the mobile platoons
standing by: but die officers of the A.T.C., Mr. Constant and Mr. Yenning,
were able to bring the Corps signallers to establish the Signals of the
Battalion H.Q. Many masters (including housemasters) joined in the ranks
and gradually earned their promotion. Major Hewett commanded a
company in the battalion and received the M.B.E. for his leadership,
which combined die male inhabitants of a dozen villages into a- unit.
Captain Collard was second-in-command to Major Spragg in the H.Q.
company of the battalion, which was commanded by Colonel Berridge.
H.G. officers repaid their debt to the J.T.C. by acting as umpires on field
days: and there came a time when the J.T.C. was glad to receive instruction
from die H.G. If the advent of double summer-time had made early
school unnecessary, the early "alerts" made it a war casualty; it has not been
revived. But the Sunday parades of the Home Guard also affected the
School time-table: masters teaching Scripture found it impossible to arrive
at 12 noon for the lesson: it was therefore cut by a quarter of an hour and
began at 12.15. Khaki-clad figures, hot and weary from their training,
arrived in time to continue, as the most natural thing in the world, their
instruction in the Gospel or Old Testament prophecy or whatever it was.
In the Second World War, Grocers' Hall escaped destruction: on
19 July 1944, however, a flying bomb destroyed the library, one of the
634
DR. FISHER: 1922-1945
drawing-rooms and the offices of the clerk and beadle. Just as, after the
Great Fire of 1666, two hundred pounds of fused silver, which was what
remained of the Company's plate, had been dug out of the debris, so
precious volumes from the library were salvaged from the dust and rubble:
but once again the records remained intact. The Blitz destroyed about a
tenth of the Grocers' property in London, and in 1940 the Master of the
Company was killed whilst fire-watching.
During the summers of the War one of the School houses would be
kept open for boy munition-workers and boy farm-workers in the vicinity:
and Mr Hewett organised a series of farming camps and sent groups of
boys to many farms in the neighbourhood. It was claimed, with truth,
that again and again Oundle schoolboys saved the harvest. Certainly the
farmers were appreciative, and the boys seem to have taken kindly to the
early hours and hard work on the farms. They will recall perhaps to their
dying day, the names (Lyveden, The Lynches, Apethorpe, Fotheringhay,
Rockingham and the rest), the friendliness of those in charge of the group
and the sight of Mr. Shaw delivering their rations, or of Mr. Walker bringing out dry blankets, or of Mr. Barber dealing with a difficulty. It was
good that this help was given locally, and not, as in the First World War, in
far-off Lincolnshire: and, of course, it was not in the holidays alone that
the help was given.
Then there were the War Savings Societies in the houses: and the various
devices for raising money for tobacco for the troops: the participation in
"Wings for Victory Week" and the like. There were efforts to grow vegetables no lawns were dug up, but the Bramston paddock and the Scouts'
field were ploughed: the Grafton garden deserves mention for its excellence.
But the true heroines of the War were the housemasters' wives and the
matrons, who carried on with dwindling staffs: it did the boys no harm
to make their own beds, or wait at table and wash up by turns: yet the
call for packed lunches for farm-workers, often at short notice, did put
a strain upon the ladies, already harassed with points, coupons and B.U.s.11
11
1 am assured by my typist that bread-rationing was not introduced until the War was over:
she is probably quite right.
635
The business of identity cards and new ration-books added to the housemasters' work: and the whole matter of registration and call-up had to
be put in the hands of the expert in deferment. Yet in spite of some
casualties—the Play-reading Circle ceased to meet, as it was felt that
senior boys should not be absent from where their duty lay—the School
carried out its normal work, unaided by the parish church, for the bells
were silent: paper was short, the back as well as the front had to be fully
used: set-books were out of print or slow in coming: there were gaps in the
staff, and replacements, but Mr. Arthur Gray, though there was then no
porter's lodge but only the old, inconveniently placed marshal's room, was
still at his post: he had entered the service of the School in 1886 at the
age of thirteen as "boy" to Tilley the marshal. Dr. Spurrell was on service,
but Dr. Turner and Dr. Elliott (who looked after some of the houses for
forty-two years and retired in July 1945) remained the School medical
men: and Sister Leverton presided at the Sanatorium.
The War added to the load of responsibility resting on the Headmaster
in many ways: but the growing casualty-lists had their effect on him.
The man who had felt so deeply the deaths of boys but recently left
school, whether in motor-cycle accidents or in climbing disasters, was
not likely to take lightly the toll of War. In view of the strain upon him
and his staff, with too much to do and too little time for rest (the condition
of the whole nation), it is not surprising that there were signs of a slackened
discipline: fortunately they were few, and the Headmaster was well aware
of the offenders.
It was known in the course of the Lent term 1945 that Dr. Fisher would
retire at the end of the summer term: and before Speech Day it was
announced that Mr. G. H. Stainforth, of Emmanuel College, Cambridge,
a housemaster at Wellington, had been appointed his successor. At Speech
Day the Master of the Grocers' Company, as chairman of the Governing
Body, reviewed Dr. Fisher's loyal service throughout the past twentythree years and referred to the fact that he had stayed on during the War
at the request of the Governing Body: the services that the Headmaster
had rendered, he said, were deserving of more than ordinary recognition:
636
DR. FISHER: 1922-1945
the Grocers' Company had voted to bestow on him the highest honour in
their power to give, the Honorary Freedom of the Company, a distinction
most jealously guarded. The pleasure that this unexpected announcement
gave Dr. Fisher was manifest to all. Unfortunately he did not live to
receive the intended honour.
After Speech Day the term drew rapidly to its close. The kst four
o'clock Pen Roll Calls were taken on the Field. The Certificate Examinations over, the School returned to the Great Hall for Prayers. After the
prefects had filed in, in reverse order of seniority, and the Headmaster had
mounted the platform, the School awaited the first signal of his hand to rise
for Prayers: the familiar lesson ". . . This is the end of the matter: all hath
been heard. ..." A last list-reading and distribution of trophies, and the
summer term was over: it was also the end of an era. Dr. Fisher had introduced the staff to the Headmaster Elect, who was to take up office on
i September. He withdrew to the Old Rectory at Achurch, only a few
miles away in one of the loveliest scenes near Oundle, but he was not
fated to enjoy a long retirement. The new term began on 25 September:
on 2 October, while on a visit to Oundle, he died suddenly. The bishop of
Peterborough spoke at the funeral Service in the Chapel on 5 October:
in the evening the Music staff paid tribute in a concert of solemn music.
Dr. Fisher was buried in the churchyard at Achurch: a simply inscribed
stone marks the place. It seems as though the family had remembered an
inscription in Stanion Church, which reads:
Praises on tombs are but idle spent:
A man's good name is his monument.
for the stone says simply:
IN MEMORIAM
KENNETH FISHER
Headmaster of Oundle School
1922-1945
Died October 2nd 1945
Aged 63 years.
637
A posthumous portrait, painted by A. K. Middleton Todd in 1947 from
Mr. Priestman's photograph,12 hangs in the old Art Room, now the readingroom. Oundle must be unique in having no ex-headmaster still alive.
The War had left problems to solve and weaknesses to repair: changes
were not only inevitable, but desirable. The old system of highly centralised control could no longer be retained: the headmaster would be able
to do more, if he had less to do. "This was sometime a paradox, but now
the time gives it proof." The new Headmaster would not be in charge of
School House, and the last proprietary house could thus become a hostel.
He was trained in Classics and a teacher of English: he would rely for
technical advice in Science on one of his staff. He would see the School as
a whole and plan accordingly. The period of consolidation was over:
the permanence of the School was assured: Oundle was ready for the next
step forward.
12
This is reproduced as Plate 40.
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652
DR. FISHER: 1922-1945
A PROVISIONAL LIST OF OLD OUNDELIANS WHO REPRESENTED
THEIR UNIVERSITY IN THE INTER-VARSITY CONTESTS
OXFORD
G. Toyne
Fencing, 1926, '27
M. A. H. Bellhouse
Lacrosse, 1927
O. W. Roskill
Rugby fives, 1925, '26, '27, '28
J. H. Alms
Shooting, 1926, '27
W. L. Garstang
Rowing, 1931
P. R. S. Bankes
Rowing, 1933, '34, *35
W. B. Thompson
Shooting, 1932 (Captain), '33
A. B. Leach
Athletics, 1933, 34. Relays, 1932, '33
W. D. Clark
Athletics, 1936. Relays, 1935
M. G. C. Ashby
Rowing, 1936, "37 (Secretary)
L. B. Clement
Cross-country, 1936
J. H. Hague
Rugby fives, 1939
D. F. Shaw
Rugby fives, 1939
C. R. S. Jackson
Rugby football, 1940
H. D. Williams
G. Culshaw
A. G. Milligan
T. D. A. Collet
R. W. Little
W. H. Powell
C. L. M. Kilner
R. A. C. Johnson
P. J. B. Reynolds
E. W. Gibson
V. N. Malcolm
J. Winder
N. G. Wykes
G. J. Meikle
R. Beesly
P. N. Carpmael
J. L. Parker
D. R. R. Pocock
E. S. Franklin
P. Mitrovich
W. H. Bermingham
A. W. Walker
K. D. Brough
K. C. Fyfe
G. S. Waller
J. R. C. Lord
R. M. Beresford
CAMBRIDGE
Rowing, 1922, '23, '24 (President)
Golf, 1921, '22, '23
Rugby fives, 1925, '26, '27. Lawn tennis, 1926, '27
Rugby fives, 1925
Rugby fives, 1925
Rugby fives, 1926
Swimming, 1923
Fencing, 1925
Fencing, 1927
Cricket, 1928
Shooting, 1927
Rowing, 1927, '28, '29 (President)
Rowing, 1930 (Secretary), '31
Rugby fives, 1928
Rugby fives, 1928, '29, '30
Athletics, 1928, '29. Relays, 1927, '28
Swimming, 1929. Water polo, 1929
Golf, 1929, '30
Rugby football, 1929, '30
Athletics, 1930
Rugby football, 1932, '33, '34, '35 (Captain)
Rugby football, 1933, '34, '35
Rugby fives, 1932, '33, '34 (Captain)
653
A PROVISIONAL LIST OF OLD OUNDELIANS WHO REPRESENTED
THEIR UNIVERSITY IN THE INTER-VARSITY CONTESTS—(Contd.)
S. Elliot-Smith
R. H. R. McGill
F. E. Baumann
H. F. Thomson
J. H. S. Field
F. L. Gwynne-Evans
G. H. G. Chase
A. T. Slater
G. F. N. Reddaway
F. M. P. Knott
D. S. McG. Eadie
H. T. Kennedy
R. W. K. Douglass
F. J. Leishman
P. B. Nicholls
I. R. Menzies
T. L. Waring
T.J. D.Walker
N. Q. W. Taylor
M. Collinson
B.J. Infield
C. R. Shaw
B. W. Peckett
CAMBRIDGE—(Contd.)
Boxing, 1933
Golf, 1933, '34
Rugby fives, 1934,'35
Athletics, 1934. Relays, 1933
Smallbore shooting, 1935
Contract bridge, 1935
Rugby fives, 1935, '36
Table tennis, 1937. Rugby fives, 1938, '39
Lawn tennis, 1937, '38 (Captain)
Rowing, 1938 (Stroke)
Athletics, 1938
Walk to Brighton, 1939
Cricket, 1943 (Captain). Rugby fives, 1943
Boxing, 1945
Boxing, 1945
Boxing, 1945 (Captain)
Athletics, 1945
Golf, 1945
654

P581 Ch19 Dr. Fisher

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