The Chronicle, Autumn 2018

4 ST EDWARD’S CHRONICLE

The Armistice The end of the Great War 100 years ago By Chris Nathan, School Archivist The news of the end of hostilities was greeted at the School with as much enthusiasm as could be mustered. As the Chronicle of December 1918 noted: “The news came at a moment when we needed cheering, for the influenza, which had islanded us for six weeks, suddenly invaded us and in less than a week turned the School into a Hospital”.

This was the so-called Spanish Flu epidemic which had affected 500 million people globally and would eventually kill an estimated 100 million of the world’s population. Starting in China in 1917 it quickly spread throughout the world, carried by the mass movements of underfed and exhausted soldiers and sailors who had been fighting for four years. Oxford was not spared, and the School was decimated, with the fittest sent home, and the sick cared for in dormitories as the sick bay was overloaded. The Warden, the Matron (twice) and her staff, plus most of the Common Room were all affected; local parents came in to help until they too

went down. There were only 14 boys left standing who were basically stretcher bearers and had to cope with all the tasks needed. All this was on top of the war years that had meant that to date 116 OSE and three teachers had been lost out of a St Edward’s complement of an estimated 673 souls who went to war. Even after the armistice, another five OSE would die due to their War service, the last being Richard Ussher on the Isle of Wight, of tuberculosis, in 1922 – his two older OSE brothers had earlier also been lost in action.

Big School in 1916 – now the Library and Old Library.

Despite all these hardships, the armistice in November 1918 was

acknowledged at the School by the ringing of the Chapel bells, “Our bells were almost the first in Oxford to do so”. Even this peal had to wait until there were enough bell ringers available after tending the sick – with the inhabitants of Summertown “listening anxiously for them all morning”. The lights in the Quad and in Chapel were again relit, and a service of thanksgiving was led by the Chaplain, the Reverend George S Duncan, himself only recently recovered from the epidemic and still very weak; the Warden was unable to attend and was still on his sickbed. While there was huge relief that the War was over, due to the epidemic there was little chance to openly rejoice until

The 1918 production of A Christmas Carol .