Quintin School History : III - PIONEERS 1886-1919.

III

PIONEERS 1886-1919

A SCHOOL begun by such an enterprising patron was naturally characterised by a number of novel features in its early years. The various innovations which gave the School its distinctive personality were most of them established in the first ten years of its life and were not greatly improved upon during the remainder of the first phase of its history, which lasted till 1919.

One admirable innovation was the decision to award scholarships annually to boys in the west London board schools, tenable in the school's Technical division. Deriving entirely from the initiative of Quintin Hogg, this is yet another illustration (like his demand for a school meals service and the raising of the school-leaving age to eighteen) of his farsightedness in educational matters. Writing in Home Tidings in 1886, he says: -

"There should be, I think, a certain number of free scholarships attached to every Board School, which should entitle those children who exhibit sufficient exceptional ability to gain them, to free education in a Middle Class School . . . I shall never think that we are doing our duty towards the young in this country, or indeed towards the country itself, whose wealth is in the possession of a capable and well-trained rising generation, until we have established some such system."

Accordingly, Q.H. offered twelve scholarships to elementary school boys in 1888 and continued to offer such scholarships annually thereafter. One may mention, as among the many successful O.Q.'s who entered the school by means of these scholarships, A. E. Bangert, A. E. Holbrow, and Dr. F. Matthews. It must always be a source of pride to recall this contribution by the School to the extension of educational opportunity so early as 1888, some fifteen years before the state took action in this direction. It was made at a time when those who could not afford to pay fees were otherwise excluded from anything but elementary education; and it is worth emphasising that these scholarships to the School were open only to boys from the board schools.

The same year, 1888, saw another pioneer venture, an event which has been claimed as "the first school journey on record".[12] The Polytechnic Magazine of 26th July, 1888 thus records the start of this momentous journey: -

"On Monday night the Swiss Continental Party, in connection with the Boys' School, left Liverpool Street at 8 o'clock. The fifty members of the party are under the leadership of Mr. Woodhall, who is assisted by Mr. Pritchard and Mr. Saunders[13] and with Dr. Jackson acting as honorary physician to the party, they have every prospect of a most delightful four weeks' holiday . . . Mr. (Robert) Mitchell . . . has been acting as courier en avant, with . . . Mr. Schauermann, who accompanied him as interpreter."

A week later, we read: -

"Our holiday contingent from the Day School is creating somewhat of a sensation on the Continent. At Brussels the boys received quite an ovation, and they were heartily cheered on their way from the hotel to the station."

Excitement mounted as news came through that the party had narrowly missed catastrophe: -

"I continue to hear good news of our Swiss Party, who, after being snowed up for a day at Andermatt, the snow falling fourteen hours incessantly, started at eleven o'clock on Friday for the Furka Pass, Rhone Glacier Hotel, a distance of over twenty-seven miles. The snow was fully three feet deep in most places. I am glad to say that although guides and all the people at Andermatt said the journey was impossible the Poly boys "scored a record" and executed "the impossible," reaching their destination about nine p.m.

"In Mr. Woodhall's letter, dated August 2nd, he mentions passing over the Devil's Bridge. Our boys, therefore have the satisfaction of being one of the last parties to have passed over that wonderful structure. The bridge fell in on Tuesday, August 7th. "We shall all be very thankful that the bridge fell in on the 7th, instead of the 2nd."

After such adventures, they were not unexpectedly accorded a heroes' welcome on their, return: -

"On Friday morning early, "Our Boys" returned from Switzerland, and were met by their friends and relations at Portland Road Station.[14] Their next move was a march on the Polytechnic, where arrangements had been made to serve breakfast in the Great Hall. The business of consumption occupied some time, for hard work and foreign customs had not caused the boys to forget how to do justice to a good English breakfast. After breakfast Mr. Hogg made a speech congratulating the boys on all they had seen, and the way they had seen everything, and expressing his gladness at their safe return. To say that the tourists looked well would be speaking very mildly, the majority looked a shade lighter than ordinary Red Indians."

Later, a long account of the trip by a boy called Hendrick appeared in the Polytechnic Magazine. The sensation the adventure had caused is illustrated by the fact that the writer begins with the assertion that he is not the first to publish a report of the trip: -

"that notorious interviewer of famous men, the Pall Mall Gazette has already published a graphic account of our adventures supplied to their representative by our commander-in chief, Mr. Woodhall."

Two points stuck in the writer's mind about Brussels: -

"At the Bourse there are two fine lions carved and modelled by Mr. Schauermann, one of the instructors at the Poly."[15]

The other was one which has been re-echoed many times since: -

"I expect we astonished some of the Belgians with our Polytechnic French."

They toured the Battlefields of Waterloo, and then Strasbourg, and thence proceeded to Lucerne by train. It being Sunday,

"in the afternoon we held a service on top of a hill called Drei Linden; Mr. Kirk conducted, assisted by Messrs Woodhall and Pritchard."

They sailed from Lucerne to Flüelen and then walked on to Amsteg. Next day they walked to Andermatt where the snow held them up: -

"Dr. Jackson had to do about his only piece of doctoring here; one of the boys had the toothache, and the doctor hauled the tooth out!"

Their arduous trek from Andermatt to the Rhone Glacier Hotel has already been mentioned. From the Rhone Glacier, they walked to Oberwald, where they spent the second Sunday: -

"Oberwald is a poor collection of wooden huts, situated on the banks of the Rhone. It is a very poor place; the people look as if they needed some Pear's Soap. The houses are dirty and the cattle live in a sort of shed under the house."

From Oberwald to Fiesch (on foot of course) was the next stage, and the day after that they reached the Jungfrau Hotel at the top of the Eggishorn: -

"It was rather a stiff climb, and we had to stop frequently. During one of the stops a boy let his knapsack roll down the side of a ravine, and it took Mr. Pritchard half an hour to get it back again. It took us four and a half hours to get to the hotel, inclusive of stops."

Three days later they had reached Zermatt, by way of Brieg and St. Nicholas. On the way: -

"There were some cherry trees, well laden with cherries, growing by the roadside, so we started on these cherries and speedily cleared the trees. While doing so, we suddenly heard a rush and a lot of screaming, and those who were still at the cherries came tumbling down the bank with two women after them. They began shouting and yelling at us in I don't know how many languages at once. We were immediately hurried off the scene by the masters, Mr. Woodhall and Dr. Jackson staying behind to parley with the enraged women, and at last they accepted two francs for the damage we had done."

While at Zermatt some of the boys hired a guide and climbed the Hörnli, a peak near the Matterhorn. This was the last major event, and rejoining the railway at Visp they went on by train to Antwerp, where: -

"we once more gave ourselves up to the tender mercies of Father Neptune, and again he treated us rather roughly."

The last word is a tribute to the "kind and judicious management of Mr. Woodhall, and those masters and friends who assisted him." Incidentally, the cost of the twenty-seven day trip was £5 19s. 0d. inclusive.

This was not the first Poly trip to Switzerland, for there had been one for adults in 1886, covering much the same ground. But the public interest which the Day School's journey aroused may be taken as the starting point of the effective history of the world-famous Poly Tours, in the first instance of course, under the resourceful leadership of the astonishing Robert Mitchell. By 1893 that amazing man had organised 13-day Poly cruises to Norway, a three-week trip to Madeira, tours of the Ardennes (usually conducted by the inexhaustible David Woodhall), a visit for 1900 persons to the Chicago World Fair, and had started the Polytechnic Chalets at Lucerne. When boys of the Quintin School take - as they have been regularly doing now for many years - a Swiss holiday centred on these same Poly chalets they are participating in something which in a very real sense their own School started nearly seventy years ago.

One curious consequence of the enormous growth of Poly Tours was that for years the teaching staff of the School were employed as continental holiday guides.[16] Such was the happy-go-lucky spirit of those days that masters were often not back in time for the opening of term. Nobody minded. And although such amiable laxity ceased after 1918, it is on record that as recently as the end of August, 1939 Mr. Lambert only just managed to get back from Lucerne in time for the Evacuation - naturally travelling to Calais in a Polytechnic Special Train.

Another feature of Polytechnic life, of annual occurrence till 1938, also sprang from an initiative made by the school in this same year 1888. This was the Christmas Dinner Fund.

The origins of this remarkable philanthropic activity are recorded in the following note in the Polytechnic Magazine of 13th December, 1888: -

"The boys and girls of our Day Schools[17] are determined not to be the only ones to spend a happy Christmas, for they have arranged to collect sufficient money to give at least 500 poor children a good Christmas dinner in our Gymnasium . . . It is proposed to give to each child a good dinner of roast beef and plum pudding, a bag of cake and fruit, and a new sixpence.

In the event, of course, the School did better than it promised: -

"We found that our active little missionaries had got enough, not only to provide the dinner in question, but also to provide 100 children with a free dinner every day for the next two months. Our cadets will have the satisfaction of knowing that they have made Christmas last well into the Spring for some whose Christmastides in the past have often brought but little merriment or food."

The final summary of their efforts, given in the Polytechnic Magazine of 7th November, 1889, is even more impressive: -

"They not only collected sufficient to give a splendid dinner to over 500 children at the Poly on Christmas Day, but they clothed nearly twenty destitute orphans, and gave no less than 5,000 free dinners to the very poorest children in the district during the months of January and February."

In the next year, the Polytechnic as a whole made itself responsible for a large scale imitation of the School's endeavour. The Polytechnic Magazine of 11th December, 1891 reports: -

"Last year no fewer than 572 families, representing nearly 3,000 persons, received a parcel containing a joint of meat, parcels of grocery, fruit etc. .. All the necessary printing has been done gratuitously, and no expense on account of the appeal will be deducted from the fund, consequently every penny contributed will be devoted to providing the dinners. I am told the Day School boys are taking the matter up very heartily indeed."

The money collected by the Day School for this Christmas Dinner Fund during the sixty years it operated must have been over £10,000. Thus, the School collected £127 in 1910 and £146 in 1911. In 1919 the total reached £388 and in 1935 £476. As well as acting as collectors for the Fund, some of the older boys took part in the strenuous work of arranging for the distribution of the parcels in the gymnasium, which usually took place on Christmas Eve. It was a record of social service on behalf of the less fortunate which linked the School with the spirit of its founder and with the harsh realities of the time. Changes in our way of life since 1945 have made this particular kind of work unnecessary; but the School might do well to remember this old tradition of helping others.[18]

The last major innovation of the School's first years was the formation of the Old Quintinian Club in 1891. The Polytechnic Magazine of 27th November, 1891 reports: -

"On Thursday, November 12th, a meeting of the old Poly Day School Boys took place in the Great Hall, and in pursuance of a resolution then come to, a further meeting was held in the Conversational Room, on Wednesday, November 18th, at eight o'clock, for the purpose of forming a Club."

Q.H. was in the chair, about 150 Old Boys attended, and the Club was duly formed, under Q.H.'s Presidency, membership being open only to "Old Scholars or Teachers of the Poly Day School."

To deal faithfully with the Old Quintinian Club would require a separate history, and just as the School from which it sprang was unlike other schools, so the O.Q. Club was different from other "Old Boy" organisations. It was, and has for the most part remained, to an unusual extent independent of the School. It was founded to maintain the old boys' connection with the Poly and with its Founder rather than with the School, because Q.H. could not bear to see his Day School boys pass out of the Institute he had founded. Consequently it took on the characteristics of a miniature social and athletic club within the Polytechnic. Q.H. provided O.Q.'s with a club room, spent a great deal of time with them and afforded them privileges which on occasions excited some not unnatural envy among orthodox Poly members who can have seen no particular reason why old boys of the day school should not simply join the Poly and its existing social and athletic clubs without insisting on their own separate identity and thus establishing one more rival claim on the Poly's crowded facilities. The position was all the more anomalous in that O.Q.'s enjoyed their club room and access to football etc. pitches, without being required to pay the full fee demanded of ordinary Institute members. With the passage of time, and particularly since 1939, as the School has gradually drawn apart from the Polytechnic, there has been a tendency for the O.Q.'s to find themselves left out on a rather shaky limb. Despite Q.H.'s passing. the 1911 Rebuilding saw the O.Q.'s provided with a not unpleasant club room, though its additional use as a School Prefects' Room in later years submitted it to a degree of hard usage from which it suffered considerably. By 1945 however, it had become an O.Q. room in little more than name, and with the creation of the Hailsham Room in 1953 it disappeared altogether. Thereafter, the O.Q.'s were reduced to possessing not much more in Regent Street than the right of access to a locker in one of the new club rooms then created. Nevertheless, the club shows very tough powers of survival and has in fact a more continuous history than any other institution connected with the school.

The extent of its activities has always varied. For many years now the hard core of its live membership has been provided by its football and cricket teams and it has in its day done much to further the national popularity of the native school game of basketball. For a time there were such other activities as an O.Q. Debating society, and a Hockey section, and one reads of an "O.Q. Follies" appearing at several Poly Fetes as well of many successful dances. An O.Q. Annual Dinner (traditionally it was held on February 14th, Quintin Hogg's birthday) remains a recurring testimony to the extraordinary variety of the generations of old boys. The club has a most important task in the future, for its survival and continuous contact with the school can do perhaps more than anything else to preserve in a school at Marlborough Hill a genuine link with the Day School Q.H. founded in Regent Street. Without the O.Q. club, for instance, anybody entering the school after 1919 would have been unlikely to realise that the school had existed before Mr. Abbott became Head, so insistent was he on ignoring the past and so rare were his references to the school's Founder.

THE principal dividing line in the history of the school before 1919 is undoubtedly the death of Quintin Hogg in 1903. Boys had been his chief concern when he began his philanthropic activities, and they appear to have become his chief concern again after the Day School was founded. There is no gainsaying the remarkable influence he seems to have exerted on the boys who grew up to be O.Q.'s while he was alive. His approach would nowadays be regarded as perhaps over-sentimental, and when one finds him referring to his "bairns of the Day School" one feels in danger of losing sight of real school-boys altogether. Yet half a century or more afterwards there are still many in whose memories he holds a unique place. A picture of him as the schoolboys of that time saw him is given in the following extract from a reminiscence by Mr. Albert Bangert on Founder's Day 1913: -

"I can recollect my first personal contact with Mr. Hogg It was when I entered the school some 23 years ago. I approached the portals of the Polytechnic, wondering what the school was like, when I saw a kindly looking gentleman wearing a nice grey suit and top hat; smiling, and walking over tome, he said: "Well, what is your name?" "Albert Bangert, sir" "Oh - anything to do with the two big boys in the institute?" "Yes sir, my brothers." "Well, I hope you will join the institute when you leave the school and do as they are doing. . .' When I was at the day school I very often saw Mr. Hogg. I do not know how he found the time. I should have thought he ought to be at business at 12 o'clock in the morning. He sometimes walked round the Engineer's shop, and watched us boys, giving us a little encouragement. Later on I joined the institute, and then I met Mr. Hogg a great deal. He used to come up to the O.Q.'s room and give us a few yarns. He took much interest in the chaps, and tried to find out the pet ideas of each. and used to encourage us by lending books or helping in any other way."[19]

A parallel testimony has reached us from Mr. Oswald Groenings, a Studd Trophy winner, and one of the most distinguished and versatile athletes in the history of the school: -

"The atmosphere in those days (1892-7) was very friendly and dominated by Mr. Quintin Hogg, whose influence was so helpful and whose example was life lasting. For instance, he used to stand at the door at the close of school and one day it was pouring with rain. He said to about ten of us all going out together, "You can't go out in this rain like that. Wait here." in five minutes or so he came back with an arm full of umbrellas, gave us one each and called out as we were going, "Don't forget to bring them back." I am sure nothing was ever lost that he lent. I never forgot this incident - not the fact of lending the umbrellas but the fact that he went back and fetched them himself instead of sending one of us to fetch them. In later years this remained in my memory as an act of great courtesy. He was like that."[20]

There was not only the small act of courtesy; there was also the large generous gesture that could change a life. Q.H. did a good deal more than trust a few boys with some umbrellas. To Mr. F. R. Moser, one of the Vice-Presidents of the Old Quintinian Club and one of its most loyal and distinguished members we owe the following reminiscence printed, for the first time, in The Quintinian for July, 1956: -

"Such is my reverence and admiration for Quintin Hogg that I willingly pass on this example of his amazing generosity in an individual case, because it illustrates so well the kind of man he was. He realised he was imposed upon, but note his reply - 'I don't mind failing with two if I succeed with the third.'

"My own case, briefly, is as follows. Q.H. knew me during the eight or nine very impressionable years of my life, from the time I was about thirteen till I was twenty-two, chiefly through cricket and football. Many times he played back, I being wing-half in front of him, in the O.Q. team. Quintin Hogg's son, Douglas Hogg (later first Viscount Hailsham) played half for the Polytechnic 1st XI, but on the outbreak of the Boer War he left for South Africa and I took his place in the Poly team.

Meanwhile, Q.H. knew I was studying dentistry and at odd times enquired as to my progress. I managed to clear all the obstacles up to the Final examination, when my father's place of business closed down overnight, which meant my final year's fees, £80, could not be paid. In this shocking position, I considered several ways of getting a postponement of payment, one being to ask the Dean to trust me until I qualified. But I realised that that, by itself, would be of little use, but if I could get a well-known man to say he knew me to be trustworthy that might carry weight. Thus came the idea of approaching Q.H. I sent him a short note, saying I was in difficulties, and would he be good enough to see me.

The following morning, on leaving the Hospital at lunchtime I automatically looked in the letter rack and found a telegram. It read: See me Polytechnic tonight six o 'clock Quintin Hogg.

Now, would you believe it, I failed to appreciate what a wonderful action that was in itself! Here was one of the most important business men in London, receiving by the morning post a letter, from one of hundreds of young men known to him, and he immediately replies by telegram!

I was duly shown into his presence, with a short speech in my mind on the subject of my requiring someone to vouch for my trustworthiness. He greeted me with, "Well, my boy, sit down and tell me about these difficulties."

I only got as far as, "My father's firm has closed down and he cannot meet my final year's fees," when full stop . . . Q.H. interrupted my story with, "And how much are those fees?"

This so disturbed me, as I had not prepared any mention of the amount, that I became tongue-tied. As I continued to remain silent, he broke in with, "Now, out with it, my boy, out with it." When I at last told him, he immediately said, "Certainly those fees shall be paid" (and this rings in my ears after fifty four years as if said it yesterday).

He went to his desk, gave me two cheques of forty pounds each, one for the Royal Dental and one for Charing Cross Hospital, and with a "God bless you, my boy," he sent me off.

The whole interview was less than ten minutes, and to my lasting regret I never saw him again. Such was my experience of this great Victorian philanthropist, and to me, even now, after a lifetime, it is all the more wonderful as he knew none of my family. That is why I felt it my duty to make a large benefaction to the school myself, as proof of my appreciation of this wonderful man and to have his name permanently associated with my old school and my hospital."

Q.H. also possessed the unfailingly attractive quality of never forgetting a face or the right name to go with it. He did even better than that; he was always astonishing people by instantly recalling after long intervals some small private joke that a man with as much to do as he had would have been expected to forget. He also had a passion for sending birthday greetings. A former sub-editor of the Poly Magazine had this to say on this point: -

"Mr. Hogg had a remarkable magnetic gift in regard to young men and his ability to remember fellows has often been referred to. I do not, however, think it is generally known that he used to aid his memory with systematic entries in the largest book of the sort that I have ever seen. For instance, he kept, in connection with the school, every schoolboy's birthday, with particulars of him and what he was doing. They were all entered up, so that the boy, much to his surprise and delight, would get a birthday card from Q.H. every year, wherever he happened to be. Very often it happened during the South African War that Q.H.'s card was the only one that got through to him. It was all done by a process of careful thought and mastery of detail on the part of Q.H. For that purpose he kept a clerk, whose sole business it was to see to this part of his work."[21]

It is difficult to think of any parallel to the unique personal interest that Q.H. took in the boys of the school. It clearly made it very much more than a place of instruction and it would perhaps be wrong, despite its pioneer character, to judge the school mainly by its curriculum for so long as Q.H. was alive. It was a living community deriving its essential character from the pervading influence of a great personality. With Q.H. always there, to advise and befriend, to remember birthdays even when boys had nominally "left school" but had remained within the family as O.Q.'s, to exchange boyish jokes, to set a living example of service to others, to stand there at arrival and departure in the entrance hall, a rich man who lavished his riches on others, a man of leisure who devoted none of that leisure to himself, an ardent Christian who was also passionately fond of football and swimming, an elderly gentleman who was very much something in the City but at the same time easy and affectionate towards the young at a time when such an attitude was the exception not the rule - it is not surprising that even now one can catch from those who survive from that time a sense of the enthusiasm and pride and moral straightforwardness that their hero communicated to them. It is clear too, that with the death of such a man a light had gone out which it would be beyond the power of others to rekindle. Henceforth the schoolboys of the Day School had, like other schoolboys, to be content for the most part with the character-forming influence of mere schoolmasters during their years at Regent Street. Some personalities are irreplaceable. Q.H. was one of them.

The fact is well illustrated from the fate of one long surviving tradition which he began, by which, every Friday morning, the school assembled to listen to a religious address.[22] This institution survived until 1939, but as an instrument for the propagation of the faith it must, regretfully, be accounted a failure. The earnest exhortations of the miscellaneous gentlemen who harangued successive generations of boys in the Large Hall on those Friday mornings were no substitute at all for the living influence that was Quintin Hogg.

The Polytechnic - in 1910 and after the Rebuilding in 1911

SPRINGING as it did from the muscular brand of Christianity practised by Q.H. and his disciples, and living within the ambience of the Poly which was so much a power in amateur sport, the School naturally attached much importance to games. Comparisons with later periods are not possible, for a variety of reasons, if only because in those days games were still regarded much more as a jolly pastime designed to encourage clean living and good fellowship than as a calculated struggle for prestige backed up by meticulous statistics. What must seem strange to the present day boys is that it was quite normal for the masters to play in the school teams. Messrs Lee, Saunders, Paffard, Abbott and Hester for example, all played at various times; and Quintin Hogg's son, Douglas (the first Viscount Hailsham) also played for the School in his youth. Both Douglas Hogg and Q.H. himself also turned out on occasions for the O.Q.'s as well. Moreover, when the School was divided into two distinct sections, the Commercial School and the Technical School, each of these sections ran its separate football and cricket teams; and when a Day School team re-emerged, about ten years before the First World War, membership was open to boys from other Poly Day Schools as well. Still, it is worth recording that in the 1911-12 season this Day School team played 21 games, of which it drew three, and won all the rest.

For those not in the school team or teams, there was no House rivalry, but instead form matches organised in three internal "Leagues" one for the Upper School, another for the Middle School and another for the Lower School. The games were chiefly under the care of Mr. W. C. Lee and Mr. W. .J. Saunders and remained so until the coming of Mr. Lambert and Mr. Hough. Mr. Lee, who died in December, 1955 at the age of 97, is remembered with universal affection, and older O.Q.'s still speak with something like awe of his efficiency as a football referee.

An annual Sports Day was a highlight of the school calendar from 1892 onwards. It was held at Merton Hall, Wimbledon, at the Paddington Recreation Ground, and then at Wembley Park, on the site where the Stadium now stands. It is characteristic of a less speed- and efficiency-conscious age that it was usual for the spectators to be beguiled at intervals by some form of music. The atmosphere was, indeed, so idyllic that it prompted the following rhapsodic description of one Wembley Park Sports Day: -[23]

"Altogether the good quality of the events together with the beautiful afternoon and with the satisfactory arrangement of sufficient seats on the lawn within the enclosure for the comfort of the visitors, added to the inspiring strains of the mandoline band under the able direction of Mr. B. M. Jenkins combined to produce an ideal sports day in such rustic surroundings, suggesting that it was still possible in the twentieth century to obtain the glamour and merriment of the fourteenth."

In 1903 the Wembley Park Brass Band provided the music but in 1905 the Mandoline Band was once again called upon, their efforts in that year being supplemented by those of the Wealdstone Male Voice Choir. By 1912 these delights had been replaced by a Gymnastic Display, which included "Pyramids by the entire school, Irish Dance by the girls of the Business Training School, Halt and Drill by the Boy Scouts, Indian club squads, and a march past of the combined schools."

There was no House competition to stimulate the competitors, but there was a somewhat surprising selection of prizes. Thus, the winner of the egg and spoon race received a "case of spoons and tongs," the winner of the sack race became the grateful owner of a butter dish, and third place in the same event established an entitlement to "silver sleeve links." For winning the Open 220 the reward was a cake basket; the High Jump offered a silver match case, the Half Mile Walk a preserve dish, and the Open 440 a "case of razors". One is left wondering what the child who came third in the 440 under 14 did with the hat brush Mr. Studd presented him with at the end of the day; and it must be admitted that a "cruet frame" appears an odd guerdon to carry off as a memento of success in the One Mile Bicycle Handicap Race.

By 1912 some regularity in the matter of time-keeping seems to have been established (the time-keepers that year were Arthur Wilson and H. A. Benson, and of course Frank Matthews was a starter - when was he not?) but not all the times get into the report. We do however learn that the 100 yards (boys 15-18) was won in 11 seconds, which is described as a record, the 220 yards championship in 24.8 seconds, and the 440 in 59.2 seconds, also a record. The winner in each of these events was R. A. Gough of the Commercials, who then went on to win the 880. The graphic description of this event which the unknown contributor to the Polytechnic Magazine felt moved to write must rank as one of the sublimest attempts to create something out of nothing ever made by any sporting journalist. He writes: -

"The competitors got well away without the slightest delay, and, running for all they were worth, brought the race to an end in the splendid time of 2 min. 17.2 sec."

And, of course, there was the Swimming Bath and an annual swimming gala. Evidently, the day students of the School of Architecture lost no time in using the bath, for Mr. Culliford writes: -

"The swimming bath was another outstanding feature. All through the summer term I left the studio at one o'clock, was undressing in the baths at 1.01 p.m. and was in the water about 1.03 p.m. I allowed myself time to get to the Dining Room by about 1.50 p.m., bolt a very hasty meal and be present in the studio again at 2 o'clock for roll call."

Swimming gala events included such items as "Horse Racing" a Lighted Candle Race and one called "Fox and Hounds." There does not appear to have been much concern with such refinements as time-keeping. One odd fact about the swimming bath is recalled by Mr. Culliford: -

"In the winter the baths were emptied and filled with a lot of decrepit and derelict furniture and moth-eaten carpets and called (if I remember rightly) a Reading Room. A most depressing place."

Later on it was known, when in this dehydrated condition, as "The Cavendish Hall," and was sometimes used as a classroom by the School. Mr. Culliford is right in remembering it as a most depressing place. It was not, in fact, until the winter of 1929 that the swimming bath was open other than in the summer, and this perhaps explains why before 1919 swimming does not seem to have loomed as large in the life of the School as it did later. However, this further reminiscence from Mr. Culliford shows that then, as now, others were at times made aware of the School's swimming prowess: -

"I think it was in the summer of 1904 that the Poly hired the Ramsey Grammar School, Isle of Man, put Mr. and Mrs. Saunders in charge, and ran it as a holiday home for the schoolboys. I was captain of the school team that beat Ramsey Town at water polo and I still have my medal-we were each given one for our success."

And of course, in the playgroundless Poly, there were always unofficial games. In a final reminiscence, Mr. Culliford recalls one of the more spectacular of these, which, until it was stopped by the authorities, took place after school in the gym: -

"To amuse ourselves we started Rink Polo (i.e. Hockey on roller skates). The noise was most disturbing for the early evening classes right through the building, but in addition to that, at frequent intervals we players would crash into the rifles ranged all along the walls and bring down a noisy cascade of anything from one to two dozen rifles on to the floor of the gym. As an interesting sport to watch it proved extremely popular, but as the Poly happened to be an educational institute, education won. I think rightly."

Later generations, when they found themselves with nothing to do and nobody to stop them, took refuge in the less noticeable but at times almost universal game known as "tuppeny-ha'penny football."

Cultural or out of school activities in the modern sense do not seem to have existed in this first period of the school's history, although there was a Ramblers Club very early on and there was a scout troop after the South African war. It was, however, the custom to present, from time to time, some sort of dramatic entertainment on Prize Day. Thus, at the Prize Distribution on 20th December, 1905 by way of a play in French, dramatic selections from Le Voyage de Monsieur Peyrichon were given, there was a German play called "A German Dictation Lesson," and a "costume recital" from Hamlet - produced by Mr. T. Hobart Pritchard and Mr. P. Abbott. Earlier, in 1902, the French Play had consisted of a shortened version of Le Malade Imaginaire, somewhat improbably under the direction of Messrs T. Hobart Pritchard and A. E. Holbrow; a costume recital from William Tell in German, produced by the German master, Mr. Seifert, and for good measure another costume recital, from Shakespear's Henry V, with another surprising pair of producer's, Mr. P. Abbott and Mr. C. W. Hester. (How many of those who knew him only as Headmaster could have imagined P.A. producing a play?). As on each of the two occasions referred to there were various musical items, as well as the usual routine of speech-making and prize and certificate distributing to be got through during the evening, it is clear that we are dealing with an altogether hardier generation than ours.

To pass judgement on the standard of the education provided in the School in the period before 1919 is extremely difficult. It has long been common form to disparage the work done in schools in general at that time, and the tendency to look down on the Polytechnic School considered strictly as an educational establishment was, as we shall see, fostered almost of set purpose by Mr. Abbott when he became Head in 1919. As far as he was concerned the School did not become a School until he took over. What makes assessment even more difficult is first, that the great store set on the technical education given in the earlier days makes comparison with the work of a contemporary grammar school irrelevant, and second, that the standards aimed at by those other secondary schools which existed at that time were, if not lower than, certainly different from, the standards aimed at today. What it does seem possible to say is that before 1919 the school had at least three different purposes. First - in its own estimation, we feel, - was its work as the rough equivalent of a junior technical school, aiming to fit boys for apprenticeship to a trade. Second, was its approximation to a commercial school, aiming at equipping boys for junior posts in offices. Third, it could, if necessary, give a boy the appropriate instruction to enable him to pass the qualifying examinations for entry into the lowest grades of the Civil Service, or even to get him through the London Matriculation, which would qualify him to begin a university course. Few boys however reached this standard, and although after 1919 Matriculation passes became commonplaces in this as in all other grammar schools, they were not always very much more common in those other schools before 1914 than they were in the Polytechnic Day School.

It is also relevant that throughout the first thirty years of the School's history the statutory school-leaving age was twelve; and since the Day School had a distinctly vocational outlook on education, boys tended to stay in it only until they got a suitable job. One may also recall the absence in early days of such things as maintenance grants for boys staying on at school. It is therefore wrong to look for a kind of school organisation closely parallel to the intricately planned system of today. It is fairer to think of the School in its first period as doing what the Polytechnic itself was doing in its evening classes - providing something of everything simply because everything was needed and was not being provided elsewhere. To begin with, the Day School was something of a junior technical school, something of a junior commercial school, something of a higher grade board school or central school, something of a secondary grammar school. In the main a boy entered it when his parents got to hear of its existence and left it when he got a job, and if he started in the middle of a term or left in the middle of a term, that didn't matter very much. If there was room and his parents could pay the fee, he was in; and as soon as he got a job he was out. There was no question of an entrance examination unless or until there were more applicants than places.

By contemporary standards the School set its sights fairly low in its earliest days, as the following notes (some by Q.H. himself) taken from the Polytechnic Magazine at various dates between 1888 and 1894 suggest: -

"F. Booth has been offered an appointment by the Civil Service Commissioners as a Telegraph Learner."

"H. D. Wheeler has signed indentures for four years with Mr. G. Macaire, lithographic artist and designer, of 41 Charterhouse Square."

"I am glad to announce that Messrs Carringtons who applied to us for a junior clerk have appointed W. Nelson, one of our Commercial boys."

"W. Hammond, one of our senior boys, has not been visible lately, having accepted a temporary post in the office of the Hon. T. Pelham. Willie, we have missed you and await your return with anxiety."

"We are sorry to have to record the departure of one of our boys of the Commercial Division, C. H. Finch, who has accepted a post at a ventilating company at Moorgate Street."

"We are glad to hear that the manager of the Great Western Railway Works at Swindon has accepted F. G. Rees of the 1st Technical Division to serve a term of apprenticeship for five years."

"P. Taylor late of the Professional Division has obtained a situation in the London and Westminster Bank."

"Messrs Mellier and Co., of Margaret Street, Regent Street, builders and decorators, having had a vacancy in their manager's office, were good enough to offer it to a boy of the Technical Division. They have accepted H. G. Holman, who will commence his duties immediately."

It is worth adding that none of these items relates to happenings at the end of a term, let alone the end of a school year. Two other items also throw light on the standards of the first few years. In 1891, the Head Master reported with pride that a boy in the commercial division had passed the entrance examination to St. Paul's, "a school of higher grade than ours." In 1894 we are given an indication of what an Upper Sixth then aimed at. Announcing the formation of such a form, Q.H. writes: -

"The Commercial Upper Sixth will deal almost exclusively with shorthand, typewriting and book-keeping and it is hoped that boys leaving this class will be competent to write shorthand at the rate of from 80 to 100 words a minute and be able to transcribe their notes at from 30-40 words a minute on the typewriter."

It seems fairly evident, nevertheless, that what was taught in the School was taught intensively. In those days thoroughness was all with no concessions to any frail human demand to be interested; and a rigorous training of the memory was the main feature of a system altogether devoid of frills. We may catch a glimpse of this from the unusual circumstance that for several years the school's homework time-table was published week by week in the Polytechnic Magazine. The purpose of this was to compel the boys to buy a copy of the magazine and take it home, where it would act as a form of publicity for the Polytechnic in general. Although one cannot derive much insight from such instructions as "Arithmetic, do ex 35, nos 7 to 12" the greater detail provided for Grammar and Composition (it was not called English), History, Geography and Languages give a good idea of what the boy of those days was required to learn. Thus, a typical History homework for a middle school boy goes like this: -

Read up the reign of Edward III, and assign some event to each of the following dates: 1327, 1328, 1332, 1333: 1337, 1340, 1346, 1349, 1356, 1360, 1376, 1377.

Another reads: -

Learn Henry II and give dates for the Norman Conquest, Magna Charta, Provisions of Oxford, Conquest of Wales, Black Death, Battle of Agincourt, Discovery of America, Loss of Calais.

Geography was treated in an equally factual manner: -

Learn capes, straits and islands of Europe, and describe as accurately as you can the position of the following places and state what you know about each: Caledonian Canal, Dogger Bank, Goodwin Sands, Hartland Point, The Minch. The Needles, Pentland Firth, Scilly Isles, Tarbet Ness.

Grammar might involve a pleasant forty-five minutes obeying the instructions to: -

"parse 'On right, on left, above, below,

Sprung up at once the lurking foe'."

or to "decline he and who"

French might involve a written exercise together with the injunction to learn the conjugation of the verb "ne pas découdre" up to the conditional, or the whole of "ne pas apercevoir." As for German, the following handsome testimonial from a London University examiner after the school had been in existence for one term is indeed worthy of immortality: -

London, 26 Belsize Park Gardens

April 16th, 1886

To The Secretary of the Polytechnic Middle Class School.

Dear Sir, - With the sanction of the Head Master of your school, I have examined the German class on the morning of Thursday, the 15th of this month, and beg to report as follows: -

I found the pupils, amounting to about 50, divided into three sections, some of which had had two hours instruction per week, and others only one hour. As all had had German lessons only during one term, I, of course, expected to find that the progress made was only moderate. But the excellent method adopted by the teacher had, nevertheless, produced some very remarkable results. Great care is taken to make the pupils familiar with a number of words and easy phrases, which are committed to memory, and when they are thus in possession of some material to work on, they are introduced to the study of the grammar to show them the rules and laws which they have before applied, as it were unconsciously. This method I consider exceedingly good in teaching a modern language.

I also heard the boys read and translate passages from the German New Testament, and saw their written exercises, in both of which subjects some boys displayed an unusual amount of proficiency while the majority showed almost greater advancement than I had expected after so short a period of instruction.

Permit me to add that the discipline of the class left nothing to be desired, and that the moral tone pervading the oral as well as the written exercises, cannot but exercise a healthy influence on the minds of the pupils and accustom them to submit to law and order. - I am, dear Sir, yours truly,

L.L. Schmitz, LL.D., Examiner in the University of London

Finally, one may quote a question - one among several listed - on Euclid, included under the heading "Day School Questions for Week Ending November 25th, 1892": -

"Given two intersecting straight lines AB and AC and a point P between them; show that of all straight lines which pass through P and are terminated by AB and AC that which is bisected at P cuts off the triangle of minimum area."

WHEN one turns to consider the organisation of the School before 1919 and some of the personalities connected with it one is faced yet again with the phenomenon of good work done in circumstances which might be thought to militate against it.

From January 1886 until the summer of 1892, the School operated as one unit, with several Divisions, under the headship of Mr. V. Butler-Smith, B.A., B.Sc. (Lond.). He was, in terms of university degrees, the most highly qualified man to teach in the School for many years. Of the original staff of 1886, no other man had academic qualifications, and even twenty years later the distinctions which fitted a man to teach in the School were of an infinite variety. In 1905, for instance, although seven men could boast a B.A. or B.Sc. degree, the qualifications of the others, apart from those who boasted none, included "Lon. Mat." (London Matriculation,), Inter B.Sc., Registered Teacher, Silver Medallist, and Honours Science; one master's qualification is described ambiguously as "Edinburgh University" and another's as "Trinity College, Dublin". On the other hand it must be remembered that as early as the mid-1890's there were, among the men with degrees, both P. Abbott and G. E. Dench, one day to be Head Master and Second Master respectively, and among the men without them, such extremely competent teachers as C. W. Hester, W. C. Lee and W. J. Saunders.[24] Similarly at one stage we find a name appearing on the prize list as one of those rare ones among the boys who had gained the London Matriculation, while over the page the same name appears as that of a new member of the staff. But the name is Frank Matthews. In due course the magic letters "B.Sc., Ph.D., F.I.C." were to add to his glory. The presence of his name along with those of the others mentioned, is a guarantee that the school did not lack teachers of ability. Nor must one forget that schoolmasters were really underpaid in those days, and those employed by the Polytechnic were no exception. One member of the staff of that time, who, like Frank Matthews was transformed from pupil into teacher in the interval between a summer term and the immediately following autumn term, started on a salary of seven shillings a week. Eight years later (the year was 1902) he married - on a salary of £39 a year.

Mr. Butler-Smith is remembered, by that very small handful of O.Q.'s who survive from his day, as a most magisterial and awe-inspiring personage, and under him the school certainly made rapid strides. Yet in 1892, he left. We do not know, at this date, what the reason was, but his departure was sudden enough to excite speculation among the boys. He did not stay for the 1892 Summer Prize Distribution, the report being given instead by Mr. Studd: -

"Mr. Studd pointed out that the increase in the numbers especially in the Technical Division, had rendered some considerable reorganisation necessary, and it was proposed to place the Technical Division under Mr. C. F. Mitchell, while Mr. Woodhall would act as head of the other Divisions. As a consequence of these changes, Mr. Butler-Smith felt it necessary to terminate his connection with the school; that gentleman, however, carried with him the good wishes of the governing body and he was sure he might say the same as regards the boys."

Q.H. expressed himself a little more warmly, when writing about the matter to the O.Q.'s:

"Mr. Butler-Smith carried with him the good wishes of all of us, as in the early days of the school he worked loyally and faith fully for the good of the boys and the change is not due to any dissatisfaction with him personally, but the growth of the school itself and the consequent necessity for throwing further responsibility on the heads of the various sections."

Whatever the true reasons, the action taken in 1892 was not to be reversed until 1919. The School remained (apart from the preparatory division which mostly operated under the control of Mr. T. Hobart Pritchard) divided into what were virtually two separate schools until, during the First World War, Mr. Mitchell died and Mr. Woodhall retired. In the last stages of the war the schools were for a short while controlled in a temporary capacity by Mr. Pritchard and Mr. Dench, and then, in 1919, re-united under Mr. Abbott.

The separation into two schools, though it lasted nearly thirty years, cannot be regarded as a very sound arrangement. The two sections united for prayers, for ceremonial occasions and for the annual Sports Day, though even on this last occasion they met as rivals. A coherent school personality could therefore hardly exist. According to G. E. Dench, rivalry between the two sections "sometimes took unpleasant forms;" and was only resolved when in later life, the "snobbish" Commercials and the "disreputable" Technicals became harmonious members of the Old Quintinian Club.

The selection of two such men as David Woodhall and Charles Mitchell as the two Heads was also, in away, a guarantee that the Day School would proceed on the lines already laid down and always remember to keep its proper subordinate place within the Polytechnic as a whole. It is hard to discover any important new development in the curriculum or other activities of the School at any time between 1892 and 1919. The departure of Butler-Smith removed a Head who seems to have had something like personal ambition, and the death of Quintin Hogg in 1903 removed the energetic and restless educational pioneer. From then on the School trod contentedly along its own well-worn traditional paths. Both Woodhall and Mitchell belonged to the original circle of Polytechnic pioneers, and were content - not entirely without reason - to follow the lines laid down in the past.

D. Woodhall

C. F. Mitchell

David Woodhall we have already met as the "commander in chief" of the School's "invasion of the continent" in 1888. Before joining the School as an original member of its staff he had been a teacher at All Souls' Church of England School; but apart from that he had had a long connection with the religious work of the Polytechnic and its founder. Speaking to the School at its memorial service to Q.H. in 1903, Mr. Woodhall

"said he had known Mr. Hogg for twenty six years and had so to speak grown up with this great work."

Like most schoolmasters of those days he was nothing if not versatile and in the evening class time table of 1885-6 he is recorded as being a teacher of Elementary Arithmetic, Elementary Bookkeeping, Reading and Spelling, and Writing, while he also taught the Civil Service preparation classes. These classes incidentally kept him occupied every evening from 8 p.m. till 10 p.m. As he also taught in the Day School (Shorthand and Writing were his specialities) conducted religious meetings at the week-end, and spent most of his holidays conducting Easter and Summer tours on the Continent, he must have lacked nothing in vitality. Yet a photograph of him in the Polytechnic Magazine in 1904 reveals the pleasant unlined face of a rather happy looking man with no signs of strain about him. By all accounts he was indeed a very likeable person, but it was perhaps inevitable that his long tenure of the headship of the Commercial School should be a period of steady conformity to the traditions in which he had spent his early manhood.[25]

His opposite number was also a native Polytechnic product. just as there has always been a Hogg and a Studd family connection with the Poly, so there was also, for a long time, a Mitchell family connection. As has been said, by the 1890s Robert Mitchell had acquired the title of Director of Education, which he held until the 1920s. Charles Mitchell was his brother; for a time he doubled his headship of the Technical School with that of the School of Architecture, which was in fact founded in the first place as a continuation school for boys who had completed the course in the Technical School.[26] By 1904, another Mitchell brother, George, had become Head of the School of Architecture, having been so effectively for some time before that. George Mitchell was also the architect responsible for the design of the rebuilt Polytechnic of 1911. A vivid if alas, somewhat unflattering picture of Mr. Charles Mitchell in action has been provided by Mr. L. A. Culliford, who was a student in the School of Architecture from 1903 to 1906: -

"Now and again Mr. Charles Mitchell himself would come and give us a lecture. He knew his job, but he was a little fellow with no presence or personality who wore a frock coat and trousers "left over by his big brother" and by the time he had finished his lecture he seemed to be smothered in chalk from head to foot; his tie had gone round to twenty past nine, his detachable cuffs had long slipped their moorings and his general disarray was complete."[27]

However, speaking with the authority of a highly qualified architect himself, Mr. Culliford adds: -

"Anyhow "Building Construction" by Charles and George Mitchell (elementary and advanced) was the standard text book then; and now, over fifty years afterwards, it stands very high."

To Mr. Culliford we are indebted for additional insights into the place and some of its personalities in the first decade of the present century. A picture of the emergent School of Architecture in 1903 gives a good idea of the physical conditions under which so much of the teaching in the Polytechnic building was done: (It must be emphasised that at this particular stage the School of Architecture was no more than an addendum to the Technical School.)

"From the north-east corner of the Gym gallery a small wooden staircase led up to the Architectural School which was a large top-lit studio perhaps 50 ft. by 25 ft. with plaster casts hung down both sides and desks in the middle. At each end was a large blackboard with a small platform in front: half the desks facing one blackboard and half the other . . . A lecture being given at one end was inclined to be disturbing to the other end, but somehow we managed . . . My general impression of the Poly as a whole was one of stuffiness and lack of ventilation and in the lower parts lack of natural light as well."

But, he goes on: -

"Generally the curriculum was sound, well considered and balanced, all the teachers were keen and particularly competent in their respective spheres, and, given the will to learn and progress, a student had excellent opportunities of a really good all-round training."

Of some of the masters (all of those mentioned taught in the Technical School as well as to the Architects) Mr. Culliford has this to say: -

"Our special masters included Alfred Holbrow, young and able, specialist on Geometry, Building Construction etc., and an art master, Mr. Preston Davies, very able and keen. His spare time was spent at street corners with the Salvation Army. His uniform did not seen quite to fit his small figure, bird-like features with glasses, little black moustache and receding forehead and chin. Anyhow a very good artist."

We may add of these two that Mr. Holbrow - he was an old boy of the Technical School - was to remain on the staff of the Polytechnic until 1944, by which time he had become Head of the Polytechnic Craft Schools for boys, and completed fifty years of teaching. He must by now be the last survivor of the men who were on the staff of this school in the 1890's, and he retained to the end of his career a sturdy vigour quite remarkable in one who had lived through those strenuous early times, when on almost every day of the week his teaching did not end till 9.30 in the evening.

Mr. Preston Davies continued as an Art Master until 1934 and to the end remained an ardent Salvationist. During the first world war he was joined in the Art Room by Mr. P. J. Walford. They worked together in what seemed to the boys the most exquisitely courteous harmony. "Excuse me, Mr. Davies." - "Certainly, Mr. Walford." - "By all means, Mr. Davies." - "May I interrupt, Mr. Walford?" - how polite it all was, as they moved gently about the room, titivating their students' portrayals of a stuffed owl or the inevitable cape gooseberries or carefully draped sheets which played such a part in the Art of those days.

Mr. Culliford also has memories of Mr. T. Hobart Pritchard: -

"He was a most striking looking man with heavy o'er beetling eyebrows, a rugged face full of character, a forbidding and aggressive look which was completely nullified by the merry twinkle in his eye and his sense of humour."

A somewhat different recollection of Mr. Pritchard has reached us from the pen of Captain Harry Parker who was in the School in the late 1890's. Captain Parker claims to have been "the worst scholar in the Technical School" and an apparently very violent difference of opinion once took place between him and Mr. Pritchard ("known amongst the boys," says Captain Parker, "as 'Hairy Joe' on account of his beard"). Captain Parker writes that the immediate result of the fracas in which he and Mr. Pritchard were involved was that the future Captain Parker

"bolted down the corridor and up the staircase, chased by 'Hairy Joe'. At that moment the Girls' School were being marched into the Gymnasium, and they stopped to see the fun."

Captain Parker's subsequent interview with Mr. Charles Mitchell was not, as he confesses, in the least funny. However, there was a sequel, not possible now, when the Polytechnic School for Girls is no more than a memory: -

"At the next Poly New Year's Fete, I was selling tickets for a Show in the Swimming Bath. Two very pretty girls came along the Gym Gallery. I got into conversation, sold them two tickets, and one said to me, "Are you not the boy that we saw being chased up the stairs by one of the masters with a stick?" I, blushing, said "yes". That girl is now Mrs. Parker, whom I married in 1911."

As the years passed and a number of young men of approved professional training and with teaching experience gained elsewhere joined the staff, there was introduced a certain air of restiveness. They disapproved of the way the school was organised, and they felt that by the year 1912, the traditions that had been set up in the 1890's were no longer enough when judged by the rising standards of secondary education in general. The school secured aided status in 1911, the mathematical teaching was constantly receiving the commendation of inspectors - one may see the hand of P. Abbott in this - and the technical instruction remained something of a novelty in many ways all through this period. But a feeling was growing that the school had not developed as notably as it might have done, given the good start it had had. Mr. Butler Smith had laid down quite clearly the proper lines of development as long ago as 1891: -

"The boys in our senior section might remain longer with us with advantage, and in that case could be prepared for advanced subjects in the Technical division, for the London Matriculation in the Professional and for the Chamber of Commerce in the Commercial divisions. The earliest age for these examinations is sixteen, but as the majority of our boys leave prior to that age we cannot present candidates for them although our teaching power and our accommodation is adequate for their preparation."

Yet even by 1914, the School had not fulfilled Butler-Smith's intentions. It was always a rare thing for a boy to reach Matriculation standard in the School. Thus, in 1903, the Technical School Report for the year announces: -

"Two passed the Matriculation of the University of London. As the Day School curriculum now includes a sufficiency of subjects to cover the requirements of the Matriculation it is desirable that parents should give their boys an opportunity of passing through the upper forms with a view to Matriculation."

At the same time the Commercial School announced: -

"Frank Baker of Form VI Professional obtained 3rd place in the honours list and a scholarship of £20 at the Matriculation examination of the University of London . . .

And so elated were the authorities with the success Frank Baker had achieved that his photograph was published in the Polytechnic Magazine (April, 1903).

If one takes another specimen year, 1912, one finds that there are still only four boys who succeeded in matriculating from the school. There are thus grounds for saying that although the target had been sighted by Butler-Smith in 1891, the School in general had not really reached it over thirty years later.

The outbreak of the First World War tended to turn the Polytechnic into a vast recruiting depot and the School into something like a species of young soldiers' battalion. Almost every boy became a cadet, and drilling, marching and manoeuvring became the major feature of the curriculum. Most members of the staff became officers in the Cadet Corps, following the lead of Sir Kynaston Studd who became Honorary Colonel Commandant of all the London school cadet corps. Boys marched off most afternoons to Regents Park, preceded by a band, led by Mr. Paffard. In the lunch hour, from a platform erected in the middle of Regent Street, patriotic songs were sung to stimulate the recruiting campaign. It does not seem that evacuation from 1939 to 1945 had anything like the disruptive effect on the curriculum that staying in Regent Street had between 1914 and 1918. As G. E. Dench put it in some rather acid recollections published in the Quintinian on the occasion of Mr. Abbott's retirement in 1934: -

"Extraordinary amateurs on the teaching staff filled the places of the good men at the front. Every boy was a cadet, and the drills made sad havoc with the lessons."

He clearly regarded the war years as constituting "the most difficult period" in the school's history up to 1919.

With t