Archives
Tony Jones - School Archivist
Douglas Hickox, OE1942-46
The film awards season is upon us again, and if you were watching the British Independent Film Awards (BIFA) earlier in the week you may have noticed that Paddy Considine won the "Douglas Hickox Award" for his controversial directoral debut "Tyrannosaur". And here there is a fascinating Emanuel School connection, the BIFA was set up after a bequeath from Douglas Hickox's estate after his death in 1989, and this new talent award was named after him. Hickox was one of the 1970s top action directors, making films starring amongst others John Wayne, Oliver Reed and James Coburn. He is most famous for directing Vincent Price in the classic horror film "The Theatre of Blood". How many schools can say one of their Alumni directed John Wayne? Not many!
George Chesson OE
In 2001 a diary scrapbook about life in Emanuel School was discovered in a car boot sale in Mississippi, USA. The buyer very kindly returned it to us. The original owner, George Chesson, attended Emanuel in the late 1880s and emigrated to America in the early 1890s. How the diary survived the following 100 years is a mystery.
To see the whole 1890s Diary Scrapbook please contact the school Archavist to make an appointment to come into the school. trj@emanuel.org.uk
Please click the below for a selection of entries from the scrap book
article 1 article 2 article 3 article 4 article 5 article 6 article 7
The Banting Brothers
Every year, in the School Archive, we make fascinating discoveries which add to the rich tapestry of Emanuel's history. A casual enquiry often leads to the discovery of an Old Emanuel that causes some excitement. Recently, such an email revealed that the artist John Banting was an old boy of the school. Banting may not be a household name, nevertheless, I quickly found out that he was one of the leading British Surrealist painters of the 20th Century, and as I delved deeper into his life I realised he really was a truly great addition to our cannon of illustrious old boys, as this article will reveal.
The Thyrds
"The Thyrds" are a name remembered fondly by OEs who attended the school in the early 1960s. They were a school boy pop band consisting of Paul Ellis (lead vocals, guitars and blues harmonica OE1957-64)), Johnny Malcolb (bass OE1957-62)), Mick Teasdale (drums OE1957-64)) and Michael Hughes (guitar OE1958-63). They had a brief moment of fame when they qualified through several heats to the final of the music programme Ready Steady Win! (this was a spin-off from another programme - Ready Steady Go!) The played their first and only single "Hide and Seek". This single has since become a minor beat-box cult classic and it regularly changes hands on Ebay for between £35 and £50.
Because of the appearances on television, the band became huge school celebrities, and there was even a "Thyrds" fan-club in the school! The single was originally released on a small record label called Oakmead, however, because of its success it was rereleased on the much bigger "Decca Records" with a new b-side. OE Ian King remember the Headmaster Charles Kuper wishing the band "good luck" in the Friday morning school assembly!
The Thyrds played quite a few gigs around that time, including many bashes at Blagdons (the home of the OEA), and in a letter published in the OEA Newsletter Michael Hughes recalls playing regular Saturday night at the Young's Pub in Colliers Wood.
Michael Hughes goes on to say that the band turned down an offer from promoter/producer Mickie Most, as they "never intended to do anything more than have a bit of fun. I wonder what might have been?" OE Dick Tarlton recalls their sound as being an "earthy driving blues" and notes that they had a "large devoted following of fans".
They came very close to winning the competition, and got the thumbs up from Brian Matthew, however, Brian Epstein on the Juke Box
Jury was not a fan. At the time Epstein was manager of the Beatles. The "Bo Street Runners" were the eventual winners, I wondered what happened to them? Another interesting fact that was pointed out by OE Alan Shepherd was that "The Thyrds" were interviewed several times on the television by Michael Aldred, who was also an OE!
Over the years the single has frequently turned up on numerous compilation albums, and it has certainly retained some sort of cult status. One wonders what would have happened if the boys hadn't all decided to try to become pop stars instead of going to university!
Many thanks to the OEA magazine for providing some of the facts and quotes.
Tony Jones
Emanuel School Archivist
Notes From The Emanuel School Archive 2009-2010
If you were an Old Emanuel (OE) visiting the school 3 years ago we wouldn't have had an Archive to show you. All our material relating to the long 400+ year history of Emanuel School, and Emanuel Hospital (in Westminster) was stored in boxes, under sinks, in classrooms and storage cupboards. As a school librarian who looked after "the Archive" I dreaded the frequent family history email which often began with "my Grandfather attended your school.... do you have any information?" Sadly, we weren't equipped to answer many of these questions, and if we did, I doubt we did a very good job of it. for the full article visit this link
Memories of "Jack Cuddon" by Adrian Powell, Clyde, 1954-1960
I had two ‘heroes' at Emanuel. One was the tragically short lived Andrew Tilley who defused my fear of boxing and rugby tackling, and the other was ‘Jack', schoolboy nickname, Cuddon, who simply infused fear! With perhaps very few exceptions back in the ‘50's, the student body was quite wary of Mr. C. For the full article visit this link
The Mystery of the World War One Gun
This gun was donated to the School, by the Government, for its contribution to the War effort. The gun sat on the Headmaster's lawn for many years, however, nobody is sure what happened to it. The Portcullis tells us that it made visiting OE War veterans "jittery". However, it was most likely melted down and used again in World War 2, where there was another metal shortage.
George Lyward (OE1912-1918) OBE - My Autobiography
Those of you who have copies of The Portcullis from around the time of World War One may recognise the name of George Lyward. He frequently published in the Portcullis and returned to Emanuel as Senior English Master after he graduated from Cambridge. I came across this book by chance, if you Google Lyward you'll find lots of articles about his career, however recently, I was surprised to stumble across information about an autobiography. This was news to me, Lyward was one of the UK's leading educationalists for over 40 years, before dying in 1073. He published a few books, and many papers, but no autobiography, He attended Emanuel as a boy from 1912-1918 and after leaving Cambridge University (he won a Choral Scholarship at St. Johns) returned to teach in the 1920s. He was held in high esteem, and was one of a breed of young new teachers to work at Emanuel in the 1920s, along with the likes of Stafford Hipkins. After leaving Emanuel he attended Bishop's College, Cheshunt, and came within two weeks of becoming ordained as a priest. For the full article visit this link
Henry Saxon Snell: Architect of Emanuel School
While Sir Edwin Chadwick was supervising the workhouses which went up under the new Poor laws, Henry Saxon Snell was building them. Snell's career as an architect in many ways paralleled Chadwick's career in public health administration - Chadwick crafted regulations for the administration of the poor based on Benthamite principles, and Snell built workhouses and hospitals which embodied these principles in practical architecture.
Before the mid-19th century, public institutions were not organised on ‘scientific' principles. Hospitals were places where sick people could be confined, but there was no division into wards and no notion that people with one category of conditions should be treated next to each other and apart from others. Likewise, the prisons and mental asylums were places of confinement, not rehabilitation or therapy (often indeed, mental asylums were housed in disused prisons). One of Chadwick's most hated innovations in the workhouses was his rigid separation of adults from children and men from women. (The well-known song ‘My Old Dutch' which begins "We've been together for 40 years and it don't seem a day too much", was about an elderly couple reduced to the workhouse who knew they would never see each other again once they crossed its threshold.) Snell was one of the first architects to build therapeutic institutions on the ‘cellular' principle with which we are still familiar today - based on a classification of the patients by age, gender and nature of illness.
Snell was born in 1832, a generation after Chadwick and Farr, and came of age when Victorian society had thrown off the conservatism which had so dogged his elders and was now in a positive frenzy of reform. As a young man he was assistant to Sir Joseph Paxton (architect of the Crystal Palace). In 1851, Snell received the Royal Academy Silver Medal for his measured drawings of the steeple of St Mary-le-Bow, Cheapside. This was the first of many honours conferred on him throughout his long and distinguished career. He became a member of the Architectural Association in 1850 and was elected a Fellow of the Royal Institute of British Architects in 1871.
In the 1860s he obtained his first important appointment as architect to the St Marylebone Board of Guardians. Among the many projects he carried out for the board was the reconstruction of the Marylebone Workhouse. Soon there was hardly a part of London to which he had not made some contribution - the Boys' School for the Royal Patriotic Fund, Wandsworth; the Convalescent Home for Children, Norbiton; the Holborn Union Infirmary, Highgate Hill; St Olave's, Tooley Street, Union Infirmary; the Hospital for the Sick Poor, and Nurses' Home, Rackham Street; and the Outpatients' Department and Nurses' Home and Dispensary, Royal Victoria Hospital for Children, Tite Street.
Snell's contributions to public architecture were not, however, confined to the UK. In Canada, he was the architect for the Royal Victoria Hospital, Montreal and the Forres Hospital, New Brunswick. With the benefit of his extensive experience he published Charitable and Parochial Institutions in 1881 and Hospital Construction and Management in 1883.
Henry Saxon Snell became a Member of Council of The Sanitary Institute in 1879, and also served for many years as an examiner. He died in 1904, the year in which The Institute's patron, King Edward VII granted the use of the prefix ‘Royal' thus becoming ‘The Royal Sanitary Institute'.
Snell was one of The Royal Society of the Promotion of Health founding fathers. When he died in 1904 he left £750 for an essay prize. Almost one hundred years later the society still honours this award. It now awards £250 for the best essay on a subject in the area of domestic housing, domestic water supplies and pollution control. The competition is aimed at students under the age of 24.TRJ
NF Simpson Returns to the West End
Perhaps Emanuel's most famous literary OE had a programme dedicated to his work on Radio 4 over the Easter holidays, he is the only OE we know to have their plays performed regularly in the West End. Does anyone know of any other literary Old Emanuel who may have slipped through our net? NF "Wally" Simpson, Royal Court Theatre contemporary of Sir John Mortimer and Harold Pinter, was the author of several ground-breaking plays, the most famous of which are A Resounding Tinkle, The Hole and One Way Pendulum, which was made into a classic Sixties film with George Cole and Eric Sykes. For the full article visit this link
Moira Forsyth: designer of Emanuel School chapel windows
The series of impressive heraldic stained glass windows in Emanuel School chapel were the result of a collaboration between the eminent historian and heraldry expert C W Scott-Giles and the Stafford born designer Moira Forsyth. The designs on the windows are associated with the ancient family Dacre; the lineage responsible for founding Emanuel Hospital in 1954 in the years before it was transformed into a school. For the full article visit this link
William Vionnet Godwin (OE1888-1893)
Navigator from a different Age
Mr Godwin drowned at sea near India in 1893-he had set sail from Liverpool, undertaking a navigational course, and had recently arrived in India. He drowned after being thrown from the lookout after his ship, "Conway" gave a sudden lurch.
This is one of the few named photographs of boys we have who attended Emanuel School in the 1880s.
Notes from the Archives: Two Sides of a Post-Card
No-one can doubt that every post-card has two sides. Few can be as dramatically different, though, as the one depicted on this page. This photograph, of the Emanuel 1st XV of season 12-13, has the bleakest of contrasts when one thinks of the glad tides a postcard usually brings. The top photo side is an obvious depiction of the team sitting proudly in their school rugby kit. The reverse side is as shocking as it is startling. Showing, in an unknown hand, what befell most of the boys in the First World War. For the full article visit this link
The Mystery of "Paul Feakes"
For those OEs of a certain vintage you'll probably remember that short stories used to be common features in both daily and evening newspapers. Between the 1930s-80 one of London's best known evening newspapers was the Evening News (gone since 1980 - it was the sister paper of the Daily Mail) - in those days it regularly featured short stories. Around 400 of these stories were written by a writer called Paul Feakes, he was very popular and well known. However, Feakes was a pseudo-name, and until his death he real identity was never uncovered... In the 90s a book compending the best of his stories was published, but it still didn't give away his real name.... The only clue was that it was edited by two women with the last name "Payne". Researchers guessed that they might have been his daughters. For the full article visit this link
The Gallant Headmaster
We only went to one Carol Service at Emanuel School, in mid-December 2006, when we were seated close to the fine memorial to those former pupils and masters who died while serving during the Great War 1914-18. Although a fine canopied carving of St. George and the Dragon forms a distinguished centrepiece, my eyes were drawn to the name ‘H. Buchanan Ryley, late Headmaster', in the bottom right-hand corner of the four columns of names. There was a separate brass plaque, confirming that Harold Buchanan Ryley was Headmaster of Emanuel School from 1905 to 1913, with the words ‘A Man Greatly Beloved' along the bottom. I felt instinctively that there had to be a story here: why would a former Headmaster have gone to war? It was only then that I noticed that a pupil named H. B. Ryley was also listed on the memorial. by Jeremy Archer
For the full article vist this link
Brothers in Arms by Louise Hancock, Interview with Tim Berners-Lee, George Lyward OBE, 3 Memoirs by Prof. Tony Judt OE, Once a Teacher by Robin Reid OE,
Key & Iconic Photographs from the School Archive: Our first girls leave after 7 years, Save our school! (1976), Ian Botham Plays for OE Select, Bombing of the School Tower, Clapham Rail Disaster, Fete & Flannells 1906, First Hill Form, The Classroom 1908, Marlborough House 1907, Playground 1880s, Prep 11 1922, Whole School in 1902, Sports Day 1906, Tim Berners-Lee introduces "the Internet", The World War One Gun, Emanuel at the Royal Albert Hall 1959,
School Ceremonies & Other Notables: Beating the Bounds, Music to the School Song,
Emanuel School, years gone by: Images from George Chesson's 1890 Scrap Book, Swimming Certificate 1910,
Mixed Sports Photographs: Sports Day 1959 & 1960
Evacuation - The Petersfield Years: Photo Mixture