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St Edward’s:
150 Years
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Chapter 8 / Celebrations
Summer Gaudy fell into abeyance in 1915 due to World War I,
as Warden Ferguson felt it wrong to hold parties while so many
young men were dying. There were in fact no Gaudies in the
summer between 1916 and 1928, and prize-giving, which had
become associated with the event, also ceased, though there
was a small prize-giving in 1928 when Warden Kendall handed
out the prizes. Meanwhile, the Commemoration day of 1923
marked the 50th anniversary of the move to Summertown and
the 60th of the School’s existence, and Hill provides much
information about the event. On Saturday, 9 December, the OSE
defeated Radley at rugby football, after which a large gathering
of parents and OSE went to the Warden’s House for tea and
later 69 sat down to the OSE dinner at the Clarendon Hotel in
Oxford. The event continued through Sunday and Monday, on
which day the Dean of Winchester, attended by the Provost of
Lancing and Wardens Ferguson and Simeon, laid the foundation
stone for the Memorial Buildings (later to become Tilly’s),
using the same trowel and mallet used by Chamberlain for the
School’s first main buildings and by Bishop Mackarness for the
Chapel. In the lower part of the stone was a glass container
with the lists of the term,
The Times
of 10 December 1923 and
the December
Chronicle
. After lunch the OSE were defeated by
the School in a rugby match and that night Cowell presented
A Midsummer Night’s Dream
, using the main doors of the
Dining Hall for the majority of the entrances and exits. Puck
was played by Laurence Olivier. The following day was given
to an Inspection of the OTC.
In 1929 the Summer Gaudy was re-introduced, with prizes,
a garden party, and an evening entertainment. The event, on
15 June, was very similar to present Gaudies, with tea for 1,000
in the Quad and a concert. Cyril Allington, Headmaster of Eton
College, gave the prizes.
1933 was used as a Jubilee celebration of the move to
Summertown. The Summer Gaudy lasted two days. This
included a PT display and prize-giving on Saturday and
the cricket match on Friday, during which the Pavilion was
formally opened by Sir Russell Bencraft, OSE, a medical doctor
but known as a great cricketer and cricket administrator. There
were Diamond Jubilee Dinners in London and at the Randolph
Hotel in Oxford – which had been built by the same architect
as the School’s principal original buildings, William Wilkinson.
The Gaudy of June 1946, a year after the end of the Second
World War, was memorable both for a record 105 diners at the
London Dinner and because Douglas Bader was in the chair.
The photograph of a
c
.1950 Gaudy shows that there was no
marquee in the Quad and women were still wearing hats for
such an event. In 1953 the Gaudy celebrations were brought
forward into May to precede the special Exeat due to the
coronation of Queen Elizabeth II.
played in the winter and the cricket match in the summer, to
coincide with Commem and Gaudy respectively. It was not
until 2005 that the word ‘Commemoration’ or ‘Commem’ was
replaced by the ‘Special Gaudies’ – held for groups of OSE at
various times of year, sometimes in the autumn.
The form of the Gaudy in 1888 was not too unlike that
of today, though some aspects of the entertainment clearly
show a blatant disregard for ‘health and safety’. This is how
Desmond Hill records the programme of events in his 1962
History of St Edward’s
:
8am Choral Eucharist.
12.00 Service and Sermon.
1pm Luncheon and Speeches in Big School.
3pm Assault-at-Arms (at which the Instructor ‘did some
amusing things with the sword, such as chopping a
potato in half on a boy’s neck, etc.’).
Aquatic performances in the Swimming Bath.
Followed by Music and Refreshment in the Quad
(weather permitting).
Tea followed ‘at the usual time in the Library’.
8pm Evening Chapel.
We have a rare photograph of a Gaudy of 1904 taken from one
of what are now Apsley windows
(above)
, showing the Quad
with lush foliage in the centre and empty of buildings at the
south-east corner.
However, the earliest major Gaudy for which we have a
variety of photographs was that of 1913. This particular Gaudy
celebrated 50 years since the School was founded and the Bishop
of London preached at the event. It included a lunch, of which
there is a wonderful photograph
(top)
, showing the women in
impressive hats and many people crammed into Big School.
The
Oxford Times
said that 400 sat down to the meal both here
and in the Dining Hall and we have included a reproduction of
an invitation to the event
(above)
. Kenneth Grahame proposed
the health of Simeon, who was present as an honoured guest,
and here is how the
Oxford Journal
recorded the speech: ‘He
spoke of him as possessing in the days of his Wardenship all
the qualities needed for the execution of the task he set himself
– youth, enthusiasm, personal charm, a great single-minded
devotion to his work, and that magnetic quality by which one
attached the allegiance and secured the co-operation of men
and women, and even of boys.’ Warden Ferguson, about to take
over from Warden Sing in the following Autumn Term, said in his
speech that he ‘owed St Edward’s a debt for teaching him many
things about his profession. There was an atmosphere about
the place which gripped everyone who came in contact with it.’
Wardens Sing, Ferguson and Hobson attended the event.
Right: Jubilee lunch in Big School, 1913.
Below: Gaudy, 1904.
Simeon laying the foundation
stonefortheMemorialBuildings
(Tilly’s), in 1923.
Gaudy speeches, 1953.