Anonymity

Discussing blogging at dinner tonight there was a question of anonymity. Some write, as I do, under their own names. Other bloggers are anonymous - or pseudonymous. There was quite a tradition of Pseudonymous writing in the Haileyburian. Letters from 'our corespondent' at one or other of the Universities were signed "Cantab" or "Oxon" or "Londin" and there were the famous letters from 'Praeteritus'. Praeteritus was LS Milford (L 1867 and staff 1879 - 1919), Haileybury's first historian.  These letters were written from memories of old boys sent to Milford, which he recast for publication. It seems to have been an open secret that he was the author, so maybe that pseudonym does not count.

Anonymity was frowned upon in the letters column, though some early editions allowed a few unsigned letters; anonymous editorials were common until fairly recently. Today this is all less the case. I cannot find a single piece (or picture) in the current issue without a by-line or accreditation.

So - is it good to say who we are? or does the hidden or alternative persona help?

Running Late

Arriving late for Chapel was, in the early days of the school, the subject of a number of rules now defunct. One was not late provided one could get through the doors before they were shut, and this led to what LS Milford describes as a deliberate 'scrummmage' at the door as the press of those arriving sought to hold the door open against the prefects inside.

No cloisters yet in this view

Then once the cloisters were built a boy was held to be in time if the clock had not yet struck by the time he reached their sanctuary. In order to make sure that everyone heard the clock a hand bell was rung in the cloisters to mark the time.

Milford goes on: 'For a long while after the bell was abolished the habitual sluggards, or those who are professionally nearly as late as they can be for all their engagements, or those who enjoyed a sprint, expected some earlier arrival in the Quadrangle to shout "running," and then they ran. This dangerous practice has been stopped. It is natural perhaps, to like the run, but after all it is hardly a good preparation for public worship.'


He does not make it clear whether those "running' were allowed to run over the grass.

Hair Cut!

It was off to school again today for the young. The last thing to do before setting off was get a hair cut. There were some protests (though not from the young man in the picture who went resignedly to his fate)!

I once went into Hertford to get a 'trim' and was greeted by the barber with the words, "College boy? I know what you will need." He took a razor to my head, and in those days of 80s 'big hair' I was shorn.

LS Milford states that from the foundation of the College to the time of his writing (37 years) Mr Dickins the hairdresser came twice a week. I think there was someone who came in my days in the 80s, but I seem to think that was only for those whose hair had grown beyond the limits tolerated by the rules. I wonder what your recollections are?

The rules now are for boys that your hair must be off the collar and the ears. Girls in the Vths and below must wear their hair tied back. Boys must be clean shaven. That may seem obvious, but the local secondary schools here in London seem to allow their young men to be barbarous if they so choose, as did, of course, the East India College.

Calix Sanguinis Christi

Maundy Thursday is the day on which the church commemorates the Last Supper. It was with great pleasure that I saw the school newsletter Hearts and Wings today, and a piece in it announcing formally that the East India Communion Silver has been returned to the school.

Picture from Hearts and Wings
Archivist Toby Parker and Chaplain Rev Chris Briggs

The set was made by Rundell and Bridge in London in 1815, William Pitts being the craftsman who did the work. After the closure of the Esat India College the plate was passed to Coopers Hill Engineering College.

In his history of Haileybury up to 1909, Haileybury College Past and Present LS Milford tells the story of the set coming to the school.

On February 9, 1907, Mr. Croslegh (a great-grandson of Dr. Batten), whose father was formerly Chaplain at Cooper's Hill, came up to see the Master and suggested to him that he should put in a claim for the Communion Plate which had formerly belonged to the H.E.I.C. at Haileybury, and had been removed to the India Office on the closing of Cooper's Hill. The Master accordingly wrote direct to Mr. John Morley, who most kindly, without any delay, acknowledged the justice of the claim, and sent down the plate. An admirable photograph of it was published in the Haileyburian. Sir John Ottley records on the box that the plate was " made in 1816." 

The vessels were carried in and used for the first time at the Choral Celebration on Easter Day. 

Theatre

At the end of the holidays we went as a family to the Globe Theatre, to which I had not been before. We stood in the Yard, and while you need fine weather, and I would not have wanted to have done that for three hours of Hamlet for the slapstick entertainment of The Comedy of Errors it was huge fun.

This brings to mind the following snippet of "school boy howlers" from Lionel Milford's Haileybury College Past and Present.



 "The contrast between a Greek play and an English play":

" Greek plays were merely poetry, without much dramatic instinct. A person on the point of death will lapse into a fine speech on Thracian Spinning or the Setting Sun. The Chorus must always have several entries, and make several pointless remarks, every one at the same time.

" An English play is not so poetical, has a clever plot, and the speeches are to the point. Also, they do not give way to such frightful murders."

Greek Chorus "pointless"

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.