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Et Virtutem Et Musas: Mill Hill School and the Great War

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 March 2016

Clyde Binfield*
Affiliation:
University of Sheffield
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Extract

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‘It is the duty of every Christian man to regard his religion as the Expeditionary Force of his soul’.

In the autumn of 1950 W. H. Balgarnie, a retired public school-master, was asked to reminisce about his early days in the profession. Balgarnie’s boys certainly remembered him, ‘very young-looking for his age, so much so that on one occasion we were rejoiced by a parent approaching him on the touch-line of the football field and saying: “Can you tell me where Mr. Balgarnie is, my boy?”’ Balgarnie replied from his house in Cambridge:

... I came in 1890, and stayed only 3½ years, and know nothing of the great Eltham days. ‘S.S.M.’ was our abbreviation for ‘School for the Sons of Missionaries’, wh. I suppose was held not terse enough for a slogan on the football field. The School was quite small in my time, and 50 was accounted a full house. The Rev. Edward Waite was Headmaster—a beautiful reader of the Psalms at morning prayers—and I was under Mr. Hayward for only a year: it was he who took the motto from the Apocrypha, Filiorum gloria Patres.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Ecclesiastical History Society 1983

References

1 [The] M[ilì] H[ill] M[agazine], June 1922 p 6.

2 [The] Glory of the Sons [A History of Eltham College School for the Sons of Missionaries] Witting, C. (London 1952) p 164 Google Scholar.

3 Ibid p 39; W.H. Balgarnie to C. Witting, 6 Brookside, Cambridge, 26 August 1950.

4 Ibid p 77.

5 Ibid pp 270, 278.

6 Ibid p l55.

7 Obelkevich, J., Religion and Rural Society: South Lindsey 1825-1875 (Oxford 1976) pp 44-6Google Scholar.

8 [Smith, D.], Conflict and Compromise: [Class Formation in English Society 1830-1914: A Comparative Study of Birmingham and Sheffield] (London 1982) pp 2525 Google Scholar.

9 Wells, A., An Address Delivered in the Chapel of the The Protestant Dissenters’ Grammar School, Mill Hill, On Occasion of Public Day, June 18th, 1845 p 2.Google Scholar

10 Ibid p 3.

11 Ibid pp 4, 5: Sir James Murray, the lexicographer, was a master at Mill Hill from 1870 to 1885.

12 Ibid p 6.

13 Ibid p 10.

14 Ibid.

15 Ibid pp 8-9.

16 Ibid. p 10.

17 Ibid pp 11-12.

18 Ibid pp 12-13.

19 Ibid pp 14-15.

20 Conflict and Compromise, p xii.

21 Ousey, (Kathleen) McClure of Mill Hill, A Memoir by his Daughter, (London 1927) pp 9, 276Google Scholar.

22 Ibid p 10.

23 As McClure put it at the school’s centenary: ‘I do not complain of the exclusion. Those to whom it was due knew what they wanted, and took the direct course to the realisation of their desires, and I know from my own experience how prone I am to be ruthless when I have my own way’. Ibid p 138.

24 Thus the title page of each issue.

25 MHM, June 1923 p 2.

26 Ibid November 1913 pp 91, 93.

27 Ibid p. 117.

28 Ibid March 1914 p 149.

29 Ibid November 1913 pp 98-9; December 1913 p 132.

30 Ibid.

31 Ibid July 1914 pp 52, 45, 47.

32 Ibid December 1913 p 136.

33 ‘On Labels’ Ibid November 1913’ p 106.

34 Ibid March 1914 p 172. The editor replied ‘The newspaper of the Socialists is the Daily Herald, which used to appear in the Scriptorium but was stopped by the authorities. The Daily Cilizen represents the Labour Party’.

35 ‘Awaken’ Ibid April 1914 p 176.

36 ‘Awaken’ Ibid June 1914 pp 13, 15-16.

37 thus ‘Votes for Women’ Ibid March 1914 pp 150-4. This, like the essay ‘Awaken’ was by G.B. Bfarber], ‘A strong forward who is hard to stop. Should be good next year with a better knowledge of the game.’ Ibid p 150. Also pp 164-5.

38 Norman Brett James ‘ (master and commandant of OTC) review of M.S. Briggs, Baroque Architecture, ‘Baroque Architecture’ Ibid December 1913 pp 132-5.

39 Ibid November 1913 p 92; July 1914 p 73.

40 Ibid June 1914 p 38.

41 Ibid March 1914 p 170.

42 ‘A Short Visit to Frankfurt-On-Main’, ibid 160-3: ‘German police require to be armed with a sword at their waist—a London policeman by raising one hand stops an endless stream of traffic’, (p 161).

43 N.M. G[oodman], ‘War: An Incident’ M June 1922 pp 33-4.

44 The record time was two minutes, twelve and four fifths seconds, Ibid p 17.

45 Ibid November 1914 p 89; November 1918 p 40.

46 C. A.V. Conybeare (1853-1919) was a barrister who had been M.P. for Camborne from 1885 to 1895, and briefly imprisoned under the Coercion Act in 1889.

47 MHM November 1917 p 89.

48 Ibid pp 87, 89.

49 Ibid November 1914 pp 77-9.

50 Ibid December 1914 pp 115-6.

51 Ibid March 1915 pp 139-140.

52 Ibid December 1915 pp 85-6.

53 Ibid April 1916 pp 147-8.

54 Ibid November 1916 p 61.

55 Ibid June 1917 pp 2-3.

56 Ibid April 1918 p 150.

57 Ibid June 1918 p 1.

58 Ibid July 1918 p 19.

59 Ibid November 1918 p 39.

60 The others were ‘Lance-Corporal’, on the role of NCOs in the OTC; ‘One who tends to always split his infinitives’, and ‘Seven Vols of Tennyson’s Works’ who ‘would jolly well like to know why we have completely vanished from the Library’. Ibid july 1915 pp 53-5.

61 Ibid April 1917 pp 175-7.

62 Ibid April 1915 pp 199-200.

63 Ibid March 1915, p 153, 152.

64 Ibid April 1915 p 179.

65 ‘Civilization’ Ibid November 1914 pp 79-83.

66 first published in The Times in 1897.

67 ‘Great Britain and the War’ MHM March 1915 pp 141-5.

68 ‘Mankind and the War’ ibid April 1915 pp 182-4.

69 ‘A new order should be instituted by the King for men who stand up for their views against all comers’, and it quoted Emerson ‘Heroism’ Ibid March 1916 pp 120-2.

70 ‘Peace and War’ Ibid December 1917 pp 104-8.

71 Ibid November 1918 pp 49, 53-5; March 1918 pp 131-4; July 1918 pp 20-2, 28-9.

72 Ibid April 1915 pp 187-9; July 1915 pp 35-7.

73 Ibid November 1914 pp 83, 108.

74 Ibid March 1915 pp 158-9.

75 Ibid p 163.

76 Ibid July 1915 p 35.

77 Ibid July 1917 p 52.

78 Ibid December 1917 p 96.

79 Ibid June 1916 p 6; July 1916 pp 27-8.

80 Ibid june 1915 pp 6-10.

81 Ibid March 1916 pp 145-6; April 1916 pp 150-1 Christopher Isherwood, in April 1916, at

Saint Edmun’s Hindhead wrote a ‘Lay of Modem Germany:

Then out spoke fat Von Winklepop

Who composed the ‘Hymn of Hate’

Finney, B., Christopher Isherwood: A Critical Biography (London 1979) p 32 Google Scholar.

82 MHM March 1916 p 119. Impossible Parson is the title of his father’s autobiography: Martin, D.B., An Impossible Parson (London 1935)Google Scholar.

83 Martin, K., Father Figures: a first volume of autobiography 1897-1931 (London 1966) p 58 Google Scholar.

84 Ibid p 66.

85 BKM ‘The Caprices of Clio’ MHM June 1916 pp 8-10 especially p 9.

86 Ibid July 1916 pp 54-6.

87 Ibid December 1915 pp i-xviii.

88 Thus Ibid p iv.

89 None of the eleven school servants listed in addition to the seven hundred Old Boys held a commission; an unsurprising fact which should nonetheless be noted.

90 MHM November 1914 pp 92-102, 88; for foreign legionary Rieu see ibid March 1915 p 147.

91 Between 1911 and 1914 the OTC had already produced one hundred and forty Old Millhillians of whom ninety were in the forces, one hundred and twenty by June 1915, with eighty holding commissions. Ibid November 1914 pp 101-2; June 1915 p 20.

92 Ibid December 1915 p 106.

93 Ibid March 1915 p 161; November 1916 p 79.

94 Ibid June 1915 p 3; July 1915 p 31; November 1916 pp 62-64. And an elderly Old Millhillian was drowned in the sinking of the Luskania, ibid ]uly 1915 p 43.

95 Ibid March 1917 p 150.

96 So he purchased a first class ticket, only to discover that third class smokers had been reserved for ‘gentlemen cadets proceeding to Camberley’. Ibid July 1916 pp 33-35 especially p 34.

97 Ibid June 1917 pp 11-13.

98 Ibid pp 13-14.

99 Ibid p 7 with a reproduction of the painting.

100 Ibid July 1917 p 28.

101 Ibid June 1918 p 4.

102 Ibid November 1914 pp 113-14.

103 Ibid April 1915 p 193-4; December 1916 p 123; June 1917 p 24; June 1918 p 16.

104 Ibid July 1915 pp 41-2.

105 Ibid November 1915 p 68.

106 J.P.H(oward) ‘Reform in Education’ Ibid November 1916 pp 84-8.

107 AHM ‘The Old Order Changeth’ Ibid July 1917 pp 34-5.

108 ‘A Public School Looks at the World’ Ibid November 1917 pp 75-6.

109 Ibid March 1918 pp 138-40.

110 Ibid July 1917 p 32.

111 Ibid April 1916 pp 163-5; March 1917 p 154; November 1917 pp 83-4.

112 Ibid November 1914 p 112.

113 Ibid December 1915 p 116 (was McClure himself the correspondent, disguised as ‘Out of the Mouths of Babes and Sucklings’?); April 1916 p 170.

114 Ibid July 1916 p 26, with review, and photographs, pp 45-9.

115 Ibid July 1917 pp 44-5.

116 ‘Heroism’ Ibid March 1916 p 122.

117 Ibid December 1914 pp 133-4.

118 ‘For the Choir Secretary to find that the Head Master’s list of hymns does not agree with the organist’s, and the boards both tell a different tale’. Ibid March 1916 p 136.

119 Ibid December 1915 p 113.

120 Ibid July 1918 p 23.

121 ‘Reminiscences’ Ibid November 1918 p 46.

122 Ibid November 1917 pp 64-6.

125 Ibid December 1918 pp 72-7.

124 A comparison with some other Free Church schools is instructive: at Taunton of a thousand and four serving at least one hunded and sixty-five were killed; at Bishop’s Stortford of nearly six hundred serving fifty-five died; at Tettenhall of over two hundred serving, twenty-four died; at Eltham College (for missionaries’ sons) of one hundred and twenty serving, twenty-nine were killed; at Silcoates (for Congregational ministers’ sons) two hundred were fighting by February 1917, and by 1919 forty-one had died; at Caterham (for Congregational ministers’ sons) sixty-nine died. The respective sizes of the schools is not easy to determine. Of the three comparable schools Mill Hill topped three hundred by 1917; Taunton was larger; Bishop’s Stortford smaller. Tettenhall had one hundred and thirty four boys by 1919; Eltham one hundred and sixty by 1919; Caterham had over two hundred by 1919; Silcoates was the smallest, varying between seventy-three and eighty-nine boys between 1914 and 1919. See Record, S.P., Proud Century: The First Hundred Years of Taunton School (Taunton 1948) p 175 Google Scholar; Morley, J. and Monk-Jones, N., Bishop’s Stortford College, 1868-1968. A Centenary Chronicle (London 1969) p 55 Google Scholar; The Tettenhallian. College Centenary Vol xxxiv June 1963 No 3 p 126; The Glory of the Sons p 74; Oakley, H.H., The First Century of Silcoates (Cheltenham 1920) p 56 Google Scholar; Stafford, H., A History of Caterham (Shrewsbury 1945) p 100 Google Scholar.

125 MHM June l916 pp 5-6.

126 Ibid December 1918 pp 88-9.

127 Ibid December 1920 pp 108-9.

128 Ibid July 1921 pp 22-3; June 1922 p 23.

129 Ibid April 1924 pp 242-5.

130 Ibid March 1922 facing p 89.

131 to 283 in June 1922; Ibid June 1922 p 23.

132 Ibid December 1918 pp 65-6.

133 Ibid March 1919 pp 99-100; April 1919 pp 153-5.

134 Ibid July 1919 pp 37-9.

135 Ibid pp 58-60.

136 Ibid December 1919 pp 155-6; March 1920 pp 205-6: Sinn Fein was justified by twenty five votes to ten, ‘the most exciting debate of the session’.

137 ‘Tidings from Vienna’ Ibid June 1919 pp 17-18; November 1919 p 110-12, and N.G.B. J(ames) ‘Mr. Poilu’ Ibid March 1917 pp 134-6.

138 Ibid April 1919 pp 155-8.

139 Ibid March 1919 p 121.

140 Ibid June 1919 pp 1-3.

141 ‘Australian Types’ Ibid pp 9-11; ‘Australia and Peace’July 1919 pp 54-5; ‘Tea-Planting in Assam’ November 1920 pp 81-6; December 1920 pp 111-3; June 1921 pp 15-16.

142 Ibid November 1919 pp 112-4; March 1922 pp 181-3.

143 Ibid June 1919 p 5.

144 ‘Sunday, May 14th, 1922’ ibid June 1922 pp 4-9 especially p 7.

145 Ibid p 6.