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Chapter 1 / Origins and Earliest Days
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ORIGINS AND EARL IEST DAYS
O
ne hundred and fifty years ago, in 1863, St Edward’s
started life in rented property at 29 New Inn Hall
Street, Oxford.The School’s founder was the Revd
Thomas Chamberlain, Senior Student and Honorary Canon of
Christ Church, Oxford, who came from a modestly wealthy
family. His ordained father was described as a ‘landed proprietor’,
and Thomas was born in 1810 at Wardington, Oxfordshire.
Educated first at Westminster School and then at Christ Church,
Oxford, in 1831 he was ordained Deacon and Priest.
When Chamberlain was young the Oxford Movement had
grown to prominence and was highly influential, causing
a great deal of controversy both in Oxford and elsewhere.
This form of High Anglicanism, still very much in evidence
in Oxford today, was heavily influenced by such important
figures as John Keble, John Henry Newman and Edward
Bouverie Pusey. Followers such as Chamberlain argued for a
return to more beautiful churches and a concentration on the
sacraments; they wanted to enrich simple church services and
reintroduce robed choirs, incense and vestments. They also
wanted to decorate the interior of their churches elaborately,
to the glory of God, particularly the chancel, for example using
stained glass. There was great distrust of their ideas by many
who regarded them as too close to the Catholicism of Rome.
Chamberlain was vicar of St Thomas the Martyr in Oxford
and he arranged his services there in accordance with the
Movement’s ideas, despite the hostility he faced, including
physical violence on his way to church on occasion. He has
‘The acorn planted in the rubble
of New Inn Hall Street, was at
last ready to spread its roots.’
– R.D. Hill
Left: Thomas Chamberlain, founder of the
School, taken by his friend, Charles Dodgson
(the author Lewis Carroll), 1860.
Below: New plaque in New
Inn Hall Street, fitted 2013.
Chapter 1