The Phoenix

There are many who deprecate the demise of the Vivat! It was relatively late on the scene however. This song by FW Bordillion was published in the Haileyburian on March 13th 1872 and reprinted in the Haileybury Song Book. It plays on the idea of the school rising from the ashes of the East India College.

The tune is given as "So hurrah for the pipe so rich and ripe." I wonder if anyone knows that song and its tune?

The Phoenix

A Bird there was in days of old,

(Each one the story knows),

Who birth did claim form a nest in flame,

And a dying mother's throes.

And we are like that bird of yore,

And we like her were born;

We drew life-breath form a parent's death,

Left alone but not forlorn.

So here's to all whose deeds have won

For Haileybury glory!

Ours be the aim to uphold their fame,

And prove the Phoenix story. 

We boast no kingly founder's name,
We boast no royal clan,

Of a sterner mould were those of old

Our glory who began.

We train no dainty sons of wealth

To dance with luxury's daughters:

In the torrid zone our name is known,

Where Ganges rolls his waters.  

So here's to all whose deeds have won…

Then let us for our motto each
Our "Sursum Corda" take,

And upward still with a sturdy will

Our path to honour make.

We will not shrink from danger's call,

We will not turn from toil,

Till a nobler fame shall crown our name,

Where'er is British soil, 

So here's to all whose deeds have won…

The Register

Increased printing costs and the advent of computers may well have killed off the School Register. Many schools produced them, lists of former pupils listing their achievements at school together with their achievements in later life. For the collector of ephemera the older editions can be a fascinating read. Haileybury's latest register goes up to 1994 but even then concerns of cost cut out most of the interesting details of the older generations and the lengthy historical introduction - the first of which, by LS Milford, is an outstanding history of the first forty years of the life of the school. As a result the Eleventh Haileybury and ISC Register, put together with indefatigable energy by Bill Tyrwhitt-Drake (BF 1940), though full of interest for later generations, is a relatively dry volume for the older entries.

FW Bourdillion (E 1865) was a writer and poet who came from a significant Haileybury family. He wrote a poem on Registers in a volume called Sursum Corda published in 1893. You can read the whole book online here, but this is the poem.

 A Public School Register

As birds of passage on some mid-sea isle,

From diverse lands and bound on diverse ways,

In company assembled for a while,

Then lose each other in the ocean haze:

So are we parted when are done the days

Of our brief brotherhood within this pile;

The world grows wider then; new hopes beguile;

And from new lips we look for blame or praise.

No lifeless page is this that bears enrolled

Names once familiar, and bids reappear

Forgotten faces. One has climbed to fame

In law or letters; one proved greatly bold

In battle; one—it may be the most dear—

Just does his life's work well and is the same.

By the way, if you want a copy of the register - you know you need it - you can get one from the Society by clicking here.