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St Edward’s:
150 Years
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involving all boys and not just the most able, with individual
performance against given standards scored and counting
towards the House totals.
The fitness of the School continued to be a high priority
and was visibly demonstrated further by the winning of the
highly prestigious Public Schools’ PT Shield at Tidworth
Pennings Summer Camp led by C.S.M. Merry in 1928.
Athletics had now become the principal sporting activity
in the Spring term even after hockey was first taken seriously
in 1930. Matches against other schools and even elite runners
from the University became commonplace, with the School’s
own Sports Days and the Standards Cup the high points, not
forgetting the mandatory daily mass PT undertaken in front of
the cricket pavilion all through the year.
In 1952 the first School Harriers race took place, commencing
an ongoing platform for the long-distance runners whose
performances became of a very high standard in the early
1960s, when the School won the Parrish Cup three times in
a row, creating a new record at the same time. Teddies won
it again in 1974. In 1966 the School’s Athletics Squad and the
Harrier team were unbeaten throughout the season. In 1968
the School won the National Public Schools 4x110-yard relay at
Iffley Road for the first time. In the 1970s the School’s athletes
were dominant in their competitions, and 39 School all-time
records were established. In 1978 the School won the Achilles
Road-Relay Race at Iffley Road for the first time.
With coeducation there were boys-only and girls-only
athletic squads as well as mixed teams. In 1991 a girl pupil,
Anne Klusmann, was included in the School’s Harrier team as
she was so good. Four years later the School’s mixed teams won
both the Junior and Intermediate Oxford City Athletic events.
A complete record of all the individual and team athletic
records for boys has been meticulously kept to this day. The
girls’ equivalent is at present being put together.
In recent years it has become usual for 80 to 100 boys and
girls from the Fourth to the Sixth Form to choose to participate
in athletics as their games option in the summer term. The
athletes travel to the Sir Roger Bannister Stadium at Iffley Road
to train and their efforts are duly rewarded on the track and
in the field when it comes to match day. The athletics team
by J.K. Watkins, a fanatical fitness teacher of the times, and
well supported by Warden Simeon, to have a fully equipped
Gymnasium built, and its use by all pupils was to be compulsory.
Supported by financial help from parents and others, the
Gymnasium was built in 1886, and a qualified instructor, Mr
Adams, was hired to take care of the facility and to train the
boys. His fearsome reputation was to grow over the years!
The first steeplechase as part of the Sports Day was run
in 1888 and has continued until the present day. In 1894 the
School entered the prestigious Public Schools Challenge Shield
at Aldershot and would continue to do so for many years. A
year later a Sports Cup was presented for athletic achievement
by former Warden Hobson, for personal as well as Tutorial
Set achievement. In 1897 the existing Set Tutors themselves
presented the PT Shield for gymnastics excellence, although
from 1918 this was awarded for PT only.
In 1908, Wilfred Bleaden became the first OSE to take part
in the Olympic Games held in London. He participated in the
long jump. He was followed by J.H.R. Freeborn in the 1914
Paris Olympics in the Hammer Throw. The first OSE Oxford
Athletics Blue was H.S. Chessire in 1880 and for Cambridge
H.St.A. Lowe in 1896.
It was not until 1927 that the first Athletics Match was held
against another school, when Bromsgrove School were the
visitors, and in 1929 the first Standards Cup was introduced,
Chapter 7 / Sport and Outdoors
Left: Tennis, 1898.
Below left: Girls playing in the indoor courts on a
surface akin to grass with none of its downsides.
Below right: PT squad, 1928.
Above: Mass display at Gaudy, 1954.
Right: G. Blanchard – Inter Girls Javelin, 100m and Long Jump 2013;
County Champion 2012.
Left: Senior Girls
4x100m (left to right):
N. Hattingh, L. Skull,
A. Charlton, B. Burt –
2008 Achilles Relays
Team Silver Medalists.
Below:‘Gymn’shield from the archive. It was presented by the tutors in 1897
andhotly contested. Its coppermini shields round the edge are not inscribed
afer1938.Thefollowingshieldhastheyear1939onit,butitandtheremaining
shields lie completely empty, for obvious reasons.