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St Edward’s: 150 Years
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Chapter 3 / Houses
than before and a greater air of stability and permanence.
It also allowed Kendall to disseminate authority both to the
Housemasters and the House Prefects. Each House had a Head
of House who would also be a School Prefect assisted by six
to eight House Prefects. These individuals were empowered
to keep day-to-day discipline with the ability to administer
corporal punishment for certain offences or ‘lines’ for others.
Caning always had to have the Housemaster’s permission
beforehand. Each House had its own senior and junior
dayrooms with the prefects sharing a study, and was now able
to be, administratively, a separate entity. House Nurses came
later and then normally covered the needs of two Houses.
The Housemasters tended to be long serving: Macnamara
28 years, Tilly 27 years, Segar 25 years, Yorke 24 years. The
chief exception was Menzies’ House, where the Revd Kenneth
Menzies seems to have had a major falling out with the Warden
after ten years as Housemaster and was promptly replaced by
Gerry Segar in 1935; the House took the name of Segar’s from
this time, and the name Menzies House simply disappeared.
This was not, however, used as a precedent for future changes
of name on change of Housemaster.
House matches were very keenly contested and winning was
expected by each Head of House. House cups were competed
for in every sport, House singing contests and plays were
expected to be of very high quality, and the dreaded Athletics
‘Standards’ every Easter Term were perhaps the greatest test of
what was generally referred to as ‘House spirit’, and indeed of
fitness, as every member of each House was involved.
Under Kendall’s leadership the School’s premises grew at a
remarkable pace, with the number of pupils increasing rapidly,
‘Going to the Brecon Beacons and living in old
Nissen huts was something of an did
night exercises which were particularly exciting.
On one of these events I led a group of boys up a
mountain side to capture the enemy caught
them by complete surprise.The next day we realised
why.The side we climbed was steep and treacherous.
In the dark we could only see a few feet in front of us
and it did not seem would not even have
dreamed of doing it if we had seen it in daylight!’
– Christopher Hand (C, 1960–5)
at that time himself living in the original Victorian structure that
is part of today’s Corfe House, brought his existing Set C into this
same building and adopted the name ‘Field House’ when he did
so. Within the School’s main grounds, Arthur Tilly gave his name
to a new House, with his Set F moving into the Main Buildings
as Tilly’s House, with dormitories on the first floor, whilst Set A
was established on the floor above (i.e. above today’s Dining
Hall): this became Cowell’s House, with Freddie Yorke named
as the new Housemaster. He was of course in succession to the
previous long-term incumbent who, as Desmond Hill wrote, was
‘persuaded with extraordinary tact’ to give up his post after a 32-
year tenure but to allow the new House to be named after him.
The southern block of the Quad, including what was
originally called the ‘New Buildings’ (today’s Mac’s), together
with the later addition (opened in 1925) of the ‘War Memorial
Buildings’ (today’s Tilly’s), now took in three separate Houses:
a new venture – Menzies’ House (G) with the Revd Kenneth
Menzies as Housemaster, Sing’s House (the old Set B) named
after its original long-serving Tutor, subsequently Warden, but
now with Philip Whitrow in charge, and Macnamara’s House
(formerly Set D) run by Arthur Macnamara, whose name was
given to it. All of this may be a little confusing for the present-
day reader, in that by the end of 1925 six of the Houses that
we know today were already in existence under their present
names, but none of them was yet in the premises that are
familiar to us, except Macnamara’s, though it did not have
exclusive use of its building. The following pages will record
the various moves and additions that still had to be made to
give us today’s geography of the Houses.
For every boy within the House, the Housemaster was
the key figure in authority during his school days. Several of
these individuals became legendary, such as Freddie Yorke
at Cowell’s 1925–49, who was described by Desmond Hill as
running ‘one of the best Houses in any school at any time’,
and Arthur Macnamara, who is fondly remembered as eccentric
and old fashioned. Housemasters were usually bachelors, a
situation which changed gradually from around the 1950s.
The House arrangement proved popular and enabled the
School to grow more easily with fewer changes in leadership
Left: Sing’s Housemasters from 1924 to 1965
(lefttoright):PhilipWhitrow,GeorgeMallaby,
Eric Read, Leslie Styler, Stanley Tackley.
Below left: Sing’s Housemasters from
1965to2013.Backrow:VaughanAbigail,
David Corran, Matt Parker. Front row:
JohnDonald,FranPritchard,TomJames.
Below right: Ties for boys’ Houses,
2013.
Bottom:Boysrecuperatingfroma
flu epidemic, March 1933.
Above left: Arthur Macnamara in 1915.
Above right: Macnamara’s PT squad in 1927.