Things Called Haileybury

A  Guest Post from Brain Fawcett (Ha 1952)

Following on from your 'blog' and streets called 'Haileybury',are you aware that there were

trenches in WWI named after Public Schools and one of which was called 'Haileybury Trench'?.

I  visited the Imperial War Museum,London, some time ago whilst researching another topic,but their trench maps do not name all the trenches. Unfortunately I do not know  exactly where this trench was located, in the Somme area I think.

Maybe someone who is interested in WWI can find the exact location and the next time I am in the locality I can visit it.  Another thought  is that,when the Removes have their annual visit,they could possibly locate the area.   A topic for research for those taking History as a  subject?

Fr Luke writes:

I found a book on Amazon here which may have the information, but it is a bit costly on the off chance it may be in there. There is an article on trench maps here. For those with an interest in slang there is a piece on the specialised language which developed in the trenches here. 

Streets Called Haileybury

Roger Woodburn, the Associate General Secretary has given me a fascinating side line on the Streets Called aileybury series. In Bangkok the main road is called Sukhumvit. It was the first tarmacadam road in the city and was named after the fifth chief of the Department of Highways, Phra Bisal Sukhum (Hi 1915). Sukhum was only briefly at Haileybury, arriving for the Lent Term 1915 and leaving in the same term a year later. The story is that he broke his leg, left to have it set, and never returned.

His name became Sukhumvit on his assumption of a Thai Title in 1965. The road named after him is also calle Thailand Route 3, and is over 400km long. There is a full description on Wikipedia here.

In lieu of the usual map here is a short video.



Here are some pictures.

Car Wash

Last weekend the members of the Lower School were busy washing cars. It was all in aid of the Haileybury Youth Trust.

Before

After

More apologies about the lack of posts recently. I have loads to post, but time has been limited. Tomorrow an intereting take on the Streets Called Haileybury series.

Master

The answer to yesterday's question was that there is only one Master - the rest are Beaks. Today however, there is one Master and the rest are Teachers. Beak is no longer used. I discovered this a couple of years ago when I used the term in a sermon and was quietly told afterwards by the chaplain that I was showing myself to be deeply out of touch at just the point at which I thought I was being relevant. Another example of the decline of slang in the modern school world about which I have blogged in the past.

Part of it may be that the staff is now, as is to be expected in a coeducational school, about half women, and maybe Beak seems a bit masculine. When we were in the process of appointing the new Master, there was some discussion in the interview panel about what Council would call the post should the successful candidate be a woman. It was pointed out that Cambridge Professor Sandra Dawson was until recently 'Master' of my other alma mater, Sidney Sussex, and that the name need not necessarily change.


Gerald Wilson, who gave me the question about Master(s) writes: "just after Christmas I reviewed a book on Amazon about the post-war aircraft industry.  Before doing so, I perused the other reviews and saw one from someone who recalled a lesson at school where everyone's attention was drawn from the "beak" droning on about Caesar's Gallic Wars to watch the latest fighter jet passing the window.  I e-mailed him to enquire whether by any chance he had been to Haileybury and it turned out he was in my house, Melvill, a year after I left."

New Guv's Test again

I gather from the General Secretary that there has been some interest in the New Guv's Test to the extent that someone has been in touch to ask for a copy. Sadly there is no such thing extant, and possibly there never was as it seems to have been a Haileybury institution differently administered in each House.

Haileybury Masters by RB Payton (Hi 1922):
HB Dawes; WR Lloyd; CW Adams; RF Atherton

Some people have said that their recollection is that the test was administered by the Head of House or a Prefect. I am pretty sure we went to the House Master. The questions would have been different in different places as well I guess.

In an email, Gerald Wilson (M 1962) remembered that there were some straightforward factual questions in the New Guv's test "like where is the KBM block, where was the White City (just destroyed at that point in time) and which study block was which."

He has another of the more tricky ones which I had forgotten or did not know:

How many Masters are there at Haileybury?

Answer tomorrow.

Lift Up Your Hearts

I was at Marlborough today to give a talk entitled "Speaking in Many Tongues" on the work of my former parish, S Mary's Tottenham, which was founded as the Marlborough College Mission. It was all booked before I knew I would by now have moved, and was part of a day organized by the Old Marlburian Club for OM clergy and their spouses, Clergy who are parents of children at the school and others who work for the church in other ways. We all had a very jolly time, and it is an idea I would like to copy for Haileybury.

Marlborough College Chapel

The themes of service to neighbour and community came up time and time again, notably in Bishop Tom Butler's sermon at the Eucharist with which the day kicked off and in the talk on The Principles of Christian Education by The Rev'd Douglas Dales, chaplain to the College.

I discovered in researching the history of S Mary's that on occasion Haileyburians had come to help with the work of the Mission. After one such visit in which Haileyburians provided an entertainment in one of the Mission Rooms (what this consisted of is not recorded), the editorial of the Marlburian for November 1885 commented:

“That an OM should do all in his power to help any work that has been undertaken by Marlborough is fortunately no new thing; but that in such matters active sympathy should be shown by one Public School towards another is not quite so common. May it in the future become more common, and may the good feeling between Marlborough and Haileybury, of which the Rev’d E. F. Noel Smith [OM, first Vicar] spoke at the end of the entertainment, ever grow to the benefit of both schools.” 

Our Service must be open and transcend the boundaries we tend to fix round things. It is so easy to think we are being generous and offering ourselves to others when in fact we are working well within the comfort zone. Lent is an opportunity to break down the boundaries we put about our generosity, by fasting from our insularity. 

The Doors

The huge doors at the Porters' Lodge have been renewed. The old ones had begun to rot and the decision was taken to replace them wholesale. It has been a huge job. The massive original hinges were retained, but the changes of weight meant that the lintels shifted slightly. In the picture you can just see at the bottom of the left door where the stonework has cracked and is being reset. Then of course even hardwood will swell slightly when brought out into the open and they had to be planed to fit. An easy enough job on a normal sized external door but for these a huge undertaking.

I asked the Bursar if he knows whether the doors had ever had to be renwed before. He did not know. Possibly the old ones were the 18th century originals.