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St Edward’s: 150 Years Chapter 1 / Origins and Earliest Days
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been described as ‘ascetic, austere, autocratic and unbending’
(R.D. Hill, A History of St Edward’s School, 1962), yet he had
a great passion for educating children. St Edward’s was one
of several schools he opened and, luckily for those who have
since benefited from their education here, the most successful –
indeed, the only one actually to survive. He left the day-to-day
running of these schools to others, and in New Inn Hall Street
he charged one of his curates with this task, the Revd Frederick
Wilton Fryer MA, who became the first of three Headmasters of
the School. Chamberlain named it the School of St Edward, King
and Martyr, for reasons which he did not record, and the new
School’s religious services were of course held in his own church,
St Thomas’s. The role of Warden in the School did not come into
being until after the move to Summertown.
The School premises were less than desirable by modern
standards. They were part of what had once been a fine
property owned by Lady Mackworth, known as Mackworth
House, but had become badly dilapidated by the time the
School was set up. Kenneth Grahame, the world-famous author
of The Wind in the Willows, who was a boy at the School in
New Inn Hall Street, dated it ‘at about Queen Anne’. There
were many rats which apparently ‘swarmed under the floors,
in the walls and over the rotten rafters’ (Hill), the structure
itself was not in good order and hygiene was very basic, with
bathing in moveable tubs which were brought before an open
fire in winter and abandoned altogether if the weather was
too cold to draw water. Lighting was by candle. One of the
upstairs rooms was used as an Oratory. There was a gravelled
playground at the back for exercise and the boys also played
some games in fields and open spaces in the locality.
There were two storeys into which classrooms,
dormitories and kitchens were squeezed. Teachers sometimes
had to sleep in cupboards (so the next Headmaster, Simeon,
said), and space was clearly at a premium. The teaching staff
consisted mostly of Oxford undergraduates fitting in teaching
round their studies. From a start with just two pupils in 1863,
in 1864 the numbers reached 22, in 1865 there were 34 and
by 1866 there were 49. Ages ranged from eight to 18. The
academic curriculum was circumscribed and consisted of
‘Repetitions in Latin, Greek and Latin accidence’. Irton Smith
(Roll 97) complained that no attempt was made to explain
why Greek and Latin should be learnt, while Literature was
Right: The first Headmaster, Revd Frederick Wilton Fryer MA, c.1870.
Farright:AlgernonBarringtonSimeonc.1865.Hebecamethesecond
Headmaster in 1870 and later Warden in 1877, with the post of
Headmaster (later to be SubWarden) beneath him. It was he who
owned the School by the time it moved.
School population 1870. This was
Algernon Barrington Simeon’s first
term as a teacher at St Edward’s and
the year he became Headmaster.
Simeon in centre, A.H. Chesshire to
Simeon’s right in light jacket, W.H.
LeedsisonSimeon’simmediateright
in cap, D.F. Lewis on Leeds’s right.
K. Grahame is at Simeon’s feet. The
other teacher shown is A.T.C. Cowie.
Kenneth Grahame on the use of the cane inNew
Inn Hall Street:
‘The lowest class, or form, was in session,
and I was modestly lurking in the lower end of it,
wonderingwhat the deuce it was all about, when
enter the headmaster. He did not waste words.
Turning to the master in charge of us, he merely
said:“Ifthat”(indicatingmyshrinkingfigure)“isnot
up there”(pointing to the upper strata)“by the
end of the lesson, he is to be caned.”Then like a
blast away he passed, and noman sawhimmore.
Here was an affair! I was young and tender,
well-meaning, not used to being clubbed and
assaulted; yet here I was, about to be savaged by big, beefy, hefty,
hairy men, called masters! Small wonder that I dissolved into
briny tears. It was the correct card to play in
any case, but my emotion was genuine. Yet
what happened? Not a glance, not a word was
exchanged; but my gallant comrades, one and
all, displayed an ignorance, a stupidity, which
even for them, seemed to me unnatural. I rose,
I soared, till, dazed and giddy, I stood at the very
top of the class; and there my noble-hearted
colleagues insisted on keeping me until the
period was past, when I was at last allowed to
descend from that “bad eminence” to which
merit had certainly never raised me. What
maggot had tickled thebrainof theheadmaster
on that occasion I never found out. Schoolmasters never explain,
never retract, never apologise.’
KENNETH GRAHAME
‘A hundred years ago, this street, cobbled for its
entirety, and earlier known as Seven Deadly Sins
Lane, did not run north for its full the
junction with what is now St Michael’s Street, a twin-
gabled house barred its further progress and it swept
round at right angles to run out as it does today, in
the Corn[market].The whole was named New Inn Hall
Street, from the now defunct Hall which was once part
of the the corner, but with forty-eight
feet of its frontage to the west, was No. 29, a stone-built
house which had earlier enjoyed the grandiose title of
Mackworth House, the residence of Lady Mackworth.’
– R.D. Hill
Henry Taunt’s photograph of New Inn Hall Street, 1865.
Entrance to School playground shown on left.