Silence Exams!

An examination is always to be feared, for the greatest fool can ask more than the wisest man can answer.

Today is the day of the entrance exams for the lower school and number three son will be sitting his first examinations at Haileybury. The scholarship candidates have been doing their tests on Thursday and Friday. 

I am a great believer in exams. The life skills of being able to marshal the information that you know and bring it to a point and to answer the question which has been set is one which we come across time and time again. Coursework cannot cannot prepare you for the child who says "Well, if God made the world who made God?"

Having said that it is surely true that our children are over examined in today's English educational systems. One of the great attractions of I B is the linear course. That is, that the exams come at the end, just like sitting finals. This is a great attraction to my mind as it allows scope for young people to be able to explore a subject while preparing for the test which comes at the end.

However that may be, good luck to all those who are sitting for the entrance exams this time round.

Good News

"You must see this!" The first thing a friend who I have not seen for some time said to me when I saw him at my installtion. With that he thrust a piece of paper into my hand. It was from a catalogue for an auction of silver.

Insurance picture of the EIC Communion Plate

Years ago at dinner I had told him - he is very knowledgable about silver and such things - about the loss of the East India Company Communion Plate which was stolen from the Chapel after a service in the summer of 1996.

Now here was the sale catalogue from an auction house in Sailsbury: and there was a set of East India Company Communion Plate!

"You have GOT to show the authorities at Haileybury," enthused my friend. "They're mainly here!" I replied and forthwith introduced him to the Master and the Chaplain.

It looked promising. But we thought, maybe there was more than one set of EIC silver. Would there have been a set for the military training college at Addiscombe? Maybe they had a set for use in a London church or in India? Were we to be disappointed? My friend Michael to the rescue again. He knows Wynyard Wilkinson, the leading expert on the silver of the British Empire. EIC silver is exceedingly rare. If this is not the Haileybury Silver then it is some unknown set.

The picture from the sale catalogue

Well, now the police are involved. There is no allegation that the auction house has done anything wrong. I for one am not interested in who stole it all. It would just be wonderful to have it back and in use in the Chapel where it belongs. We await news. I had hoped to be able to report that it is on its way back, but not yet. The General Committee last week were delighted and the school were told from the pulpit of chapel on Friday. The chaplain has not stopped grinning, so my spies among the pupils tell me.

How Many?

An organisation of which I am part gives each member a number. As members die (or leave) your number decreases in size. And so those who are numbered 1 to 10 jokingly say that they are on death row. The numbers of members of the Haileybury Society continue to grow with each new generation. There are present about 7500 members of the society. Of these about 4000 receive their information by post, 3500 receive their information by e-mail and there are in fact only about 1000 missing members. 

I shall post on the good news to which I have been alluding for a week tomorrow. 

Last Archdeacons

James Thomson (C 1953) was not in the picture I posted on Thursday, but has sent me a picture to post. It seems I am not the first Archdeacon of Hampstead to have an association with Haileybury. 

James writes: the event was the laying of the Foundation Stone of the new St Paul's Primary School in Winchmore Hill (28 May 1960).  The Bishop is Bp Henry Montgomery-Campbell, on the Bp's right is The Reverend Francis Lampen, Vicar of St Paul Winchmore Hill 1950-1981 and on the Bishop's left is the Venerable H J Matthews Archdeacon of Hampstead whose Brother was Edgar Matthews at Haileybury - the father-in-law of JBW Thomas.


There is a great story about Montgomery-Campbell.  Mervyn Stockwood, Bishop of Southwark 'caused outrage in his early years as a bishop (amongst other things) by making it clear that he wouldn't wear gaiters. Stockwood told a story about meeting Henry Montgomery Campbell, Bishop of London (1956-1961) on Lambeth Bridge. Montgomery Campbell (in gaiters) muttered to Mervyn (in purple cassock, purple cloak, probably purple biretta, which he often sported) as he passed, 'Ah! The Bishop of Southwark incognito'. The source of this story is this extraordinary website.