The History of Millfield 1935‐1970 by Barry Hobson
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The History of Millfield 1935‐1970 by Barry Hobson 1. The Mill Field Estate. RJOM’s early years, 1905‐1935. 2. The Indians at Millfield, Summer 1935. 3. The Crisis at Millfield, Autumn 1935. 4. RJOM carries on, 1935‐6. 5. Re‐establishment, 1936‐7. 6. Expansion as the war starts, 1937‐40. 7. Games and outdoor activities, 1935‐9. 8. War service and new staff, 1939‐45. 9. War time privations, 1939‐40. 10. New recruits to the staff, 1940‐2. 11. Financial and staffing problems, 1941‐2. 12. Pupils with learning difficulties, 1938‐42. 13. Notable pupils, 1939‐49. 14. Developing and running the boarding houses, 1943‐5. 15. The Nissen Huts, 1943‐73. 16. War veterans return as tutors and students, 1945‐6. 17. The school grows and is officially recognized, 1945‐9. 18. Millfield becomes a limited company. Edgarley stays put. 1951‐3. 19. Games and other activities, 1946‐55. 20. Pupils from overseas. The boarding houses grow. 1948‐53. 21. The first new school building at Millfield. Boarding houses, billets, Glaston Tor. 1953‐9. 22. Prefects, the YLC, smoking. The house system develops. The varying fortunes of Kingweston. 1950‐9. 23. The development of rugger. Much success and much controversy. 1950‐67. 24. Further sporting achievements. The Olympic gold medalists. ‘Double Your Money’. 1956‐64. 25. Royalty and show‐business personalities, 1950‐70. 26. Academic standards and the John Bell saga. Senior staff appointments. 1957‐67. 27. Expansion and financial difficulties. A second Inspection. CRMA and the Millfield Training Scheme. 1963‐6. 28. Joseph Levy and others promote the Appeal. New classroom blocks and sports facilities. 1962‐70. 29. RJOM and ‘gifted children’. Further staff appointments. 1962‐7. 30. RJOM and various governors lock horns over development plans and related financial matters. CRMA becomes Acting Headmaster. 1967‐9. 31. The Appeal falters despite munificent gifts. RJOM’s gambling becomes an issue. CRMA is appointed Headmaster‐elect. 1969‐70. 32. RJOM leaves the headmastership early. The rise of McEwen Mason. 1970‐1. 33. CRMA struggles to establish himself, 1971. 34. A schism in the Millfield Society. CRMA develops his ideas. McEwen Mason retires. 1971‐3. 35. Punishments and the prefect system. Development of academic structures. Holiday courses. 1973‐9. 36. New sporting and academic facilities. Changes to boarding houses and billets for boys and girls. CRMA becomes Principal. 1971‐86. 37. Sport under CRMA. The growth of soccer. 1960‐7. 38. Teaching and Learning. Music, Drama and Art. CRMA continues to develop the school. 1972‐90. Chapter 1 The Mill Field Estate. RJOM’s early years, 1905‐1935. An astute guesser would probably place the site of the Street windmill, one of many in Somerset, as the area where the Chemistry Laboratories now sprawl, a few feet from the Somerton Road, and the highest point within easy reach of the centre of the village. It was near here that William Stephens Clark chose to build the family mansion in 1889. He had been, to all intents and purposes, in sole charge of the shoe‐making firm of C and J Clark for 10 twenty five years, and, canny Quaker that he was, had desisted from the temptation to invest his capital in bricks and mortar, an action which had helped bring about the downfall of the founders, Cyrus and James, and almost of the business itself. In 1864 Quaker friends and relatives advanced loans to the ailing firm on the understanding that the twenty‐four year old William, son of James, had absolute control. Their faith was well repaid financially, as well as by the solid and sure development of the business. By 1888 William felt secure enough to be able to spend some of his hard‐earned wealth on the design of a family home where he could exercise some of his foibles. Not many late Victorian houses have secret doors, staircases and bolt‐holes. William used his to 20 escape unwelcome visitors. The small estate included a stable‐block, a fine walled kitchen‐garden, with an adjacent cottage for the gardener, and a tiny gate‐lodge on the Butleigh road. A straight drive (how apt when one thinks of Millfield’s first two Headmasters!) led from the lodge to the main entrance of the house with lime trees planted along either side. A second avenue of limes crossed the paddock to the East of the house, ending at a second gateway on the Butleigh Road. Other individual trees and shelter belts were skilfully placed to create the privacy which William so obviously sought for his family and himself. 30 In 1882 he had already built on the site a ‘Swiss’ chalet for the treatment and subsequent cure of a daughter suffering from tuberculosis. Later a second daughter qualified as a doctor and ran a free health‐service for Clarks’ workers and their families from the self‐same building. In 1909 an open‐air pool for swimming, along with a small boat‐house, was created at the bottom of the slope which falls away from the terrace and ha‐ha on the south‐facing side of the house. It was this charming and serene establishment which Canon Rollo and Mrs Arabella Meyer rented in 1935 and where they welcomed their son, Jack, the middle one of three, 40 and his wife, Joyce, who arrived from India with a group of princelings. The latter were to be prepared for entrance to preparatory and public schools and eventually to Oxford or Cambridge. This began a happy alliance between the dominant local family of Clark and the international family of Millfield School. At the age of thirty, Jack Meyer was already a well‐known personality in the sporting world, chiefly as an amateur cricketer of great ability, but recognition as a leading educationist was still a long way off. He was born on 15th March 1905 in Ampthill, Bedfordshire, a child of the Established Church of England, and was christened Rollo John Oliver. His father had played cricket for Derbyshire and love of the game was passed to his 50 sons. Canon Meyer could not have known that his particular passion would provide a passport for his younger boy to the realms of the Princes of the British Raj, to the foundation of schools, to the captaincy of Somerset County Cricket Club and to the appointment to his staff of the man who was to succeed him. In 1913 the young Meyer joined his elder brother at Stratheden School in Blackheath, and then followed him to Haileybury College in 1918. The latter was founded first in 1804 as a school for the sons of British employees of the Honourable East India Company, the old ‘John Company’, which looked after its people with paternal care. It was not advisable for European children to continue to risk, beyond the age of four, the deadly 60 diseases in the Indian subcontinent. After the Indian Mutiny of 1857 the British government took responsibility for administration away from the Company and closed its school in England. After five years it was reopened as an independent school and, although no longer linked specifically with India, continued to educate many boys from the Empire on which the sun never set. The role of the Public Schools in the late 19th and early 20th Centuries was seen to be the inculcation of their pupils with the idea of ‘Service’, either in the Church, or in the administration of government and law, both at home and abroad, especially in the colonies, or in the armed forces. Thus Jack came into contact with contemporaries whose aim was to complete their education and return to India where a man could live the life of a true gentleman, surrounded by servants and polo ponies. 70 At Haileybury Meyer’s talent for ball games made him one of a few outstanding athletes of the post‐Great War era, and one not without scholastic ability. He passed his matriculation examination before ‘going up’ to Pembroke College, Cambridge, in 1923, surprising only when it is realised that undergraduates at that time, especially good games players, could enter Oxford or Cambridge colleges with the main aim of gaining a ‘Blue’ and perhaps passing Responsions (also known as ‘Little‐go’). While at Trinity College, Cambridge, Hon. Lionel Tennyson, grandson of the poet, played cricket in trial matches (but was not selected for the Varsity side) without ever matriculating, let alone graduating. He subsequently became the hero of England when fighting against defeat by Australia in 1921, 80 batting one‐handed for an hour, having a split left hand. Jack himself said in 1978, “In those days there were very few who were trying to get both Blues and degrees, and it was rather easy to get offers of jobs.” What he had to offer in 1926 was a Blue for cricket, a Half‐Blue for Rackets, and an Honours Degree in English Literature. For a young man with such qualifications the world would seem to have been his oyster, but at that time there were certain constraints on a son of the Rectory, so that teaching, or perhaps the Church, if he felt the call, was the most likely profession he would enter. He had to make a living as most clergy could not afford to keep even one ‘gentleman’ in the family. There were many areas of employment which were taboo to people of his background and talent, trade being one of them, especially so at a time of severe financial depression. He had enjoyed driving a 90 lorry during the General Strike of 1926, but that did not solve his problem.