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St Edward’s:
150 Years
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Chapter 2 / Wardens
mains sewers, and interfered with lines
for gas and electricity. There are two
delightful cartoons by Common Room
member George Segar
(above and below)
showing the Mayor of Oxford attending
its opening. An extension of the Dining
Hall into the Quad, and the building of a
Laboratory block were next completed.
The Work Block, the Chapel extension,
the Squash Courts (where The Oxfordshire Health and Racquet
Club now stands), Cowell’s and Segar’s houses (now Cowell’s
and the English block), the Calvary and War Memorial Library
and Art School (now used by Information Technology as well)
were all also built during his time – an enormous programme.
At one point, just when Warden Kendall stated that he had
come to an end of his building plans for the present, the
Governors decided to build a new pavilion, which was ready
for use in 1933. Kendall himself, anonymously, also provided
funds for the Gallery in Big School (now the Library).
Kendall was a popular and energetic Warden, with his own
highly personal ways of getting things agreed and done. Once
he had decided something was for the good of the School he
was able to charm or talk those he needed to persuade into
doing what he wanted, and they ended up agreeing with him.
In his later years, as part of the process, he would say things
like ‘you must sometimes let an old man have his way’. He
certainly made innumerable friends at the School over the
years. Subsequent to his retirement in 1953, he became Rector
of St Mary Arches in Exeter and later returned to Oxford and
was a Governor of the School for the last six years of his life.
For the School’s centenary in 1963 he was asked to undertake
a tour of the world to promote the School and visit the OSE
who had so much appreciated him. He began the trip, but died
on board ship in April and was buried at sea.
there were trenches in the corners of the field and every
window was ready for blackout. By 1942 there were 24 School
acres sown with wheat and each House had an allotment
worked before and after games. Kendall was an inspiring leader
of the School community throughout these dark and difficult
years, during which so many OSE were killed in action.
With the possibility of invasion at any time there was
a need for schools in dangerous areas on the coast to be
re-housed. Warden Kendall offered Kenneth Harding, OSE
and headmaster of St Bede’s Prep School in Eastbourne, a
temporary haven for his school at St Edward’s, and in June
1940 the offer was taken up and the school duly arrived. By all
accounts this was a remarkably successful arrangement.
He was also the driving force behind many additions to
the School’s land and facilities during three decades. Apsley
Paddox, a house with ten acres of land north of the School,
between the Woodstock and Banbury Roads, was bought by
the School, very usefully, during his very first term in 1925,
and was first inhabited by Apsley; Field House was to move
there in 1931. Negotiations were undertaken with the Blenheim
Estates’ office for the 46 acres between the railway and the
Avenue, land that ran nearly as far as Wolvercote; this area was
duly leased and eventually purchased. In fact much land was
gradually acquired from the Duke of Marlborough’s estate, and
by 1934 the School’s freehold land had grown to 97 acres. In
1952 the Blenheim Estates finally agreed to sell the six acres
of the Avenue Field – and at that point every bit of the School
grounds was owned by it – all 110 acres. A strip of land south
of the Trout Inn was acquired for a boathouse, opened in
1927. A School shop and Armoury were both completed by the
summer of 1927. Next came the Subway, finally completed in
1929; this was not easy to build as it involved the redirecting of
Above: Aerial photo of the School,
1934.
Left: Apsley prefects, 1940.
Above right: Opening of Cowell Gates, 1939. Cowell had died in 1937 and the
School gates were put up to commemorate this great stalwart of the School,
who had ended his days in rooms in the Lodge. They were opened in 1939 by
the Princess Royal.
Below: Kendall in the late 1940s with Noel Hudson, son
of Warden Hudson and later Bishop of Ely.
Below right and above right: Cartoons by George Segar showing the Subway
opening in 1929.‘George Segar served the School from1918–51 andwas well
known for his wonderful cartoons of School Life and personalities. He was an
impeccable gentleman and dresser and taught French tomost of the School’s
pupils.Apopulareccentrichislessonswereoftennotplannedwellandwenton
for much longer than they were supposed to!’– Chris Nathan, Archivist.
Below left: The entrance to the Subway.