Edmund Fisher, 8 Loxley Road
Old Emanuel Association Notes
Mr. P. H. Head, of Attenborough, writes:
"I am a very Old Boy, as it was as long ago as 1885, 1886, 1887, and 1888 when I was at Emanuel. I remember Towsey, Macrae, Whealer (a very popular master and good sport), Butcher (another), Sheppard (a very good chap, who was a parson and stuttered badly), and Whitaker. The others I forget; they evidently did not create much impression on my infantile mind, though Towsey and Macrae did on my body!
When I was at the School there was only a very small and very despised band of day boys, who frequently got into trouble with town lads on the Common, and it was our privilege to climb over the wall — out of bounds — cross the line, and come to the rescue. I should like to know if any, of my time are O.E.'s and their names; it would be interesting."
[Overlap/compare with Edward Thomas?]
Published in Portcullis issue 180?, 1954
LADY DACRE AND EMANUEL SCHOOL
Sir Richard Sackville, Treasurer of the Exchequer, in 1558 gave his daughter Anne in marriage to Gregory Fiennes, Baron Dacre. Sackville's mother was a sister of Sir Thomas Boleyn, whose daughter Anne became the second wife of Henry VIII and the mother of Queen Elizabeth I. Thus Anne, Lady Dacre, was a second cousin to the Queen, whom she served as a maid of honour.
Lord and Lady Dacre lost their only child in infancy, and it was perhaps partly the desire to perpetuate their memory, as well as compassion for the poor, that moved them in old age to plan the establishment in Westminster of an almshouse to be called Emanuel Hospital for "the relief of aged people, and bringing up children in virtue and good and laudable arts." When Lord Dacre died in 1594 nothing had yet been done; but his widow in her will made ample provision for the Hospital before she too died on 14th May, 1595.
A charter of incorporation granted by Queen Elizabeth in 1601 established that "from henceforth for ever" Emanuel Hospital should provide for twenty poor old persons and for twenty poor children, and that the Lord Mayor and Aldermen of London should be responsible for its good management. The beneficiaries were required to offer thanks daily for the generosity of Lady Dacre and the Lord Mayor and Aldermen.
So the Hospital continued, with some vicissitudes, until 1870. Then the Endowed Schools Commission, appointed by Parliament some years before to reorganise the whole body of charitable schools, many of which had fallen into neglect and decay, produced a scheme for the reform and amalgamation of Emanuel Hospital and several other similar charities in Westminster. This was opposed by the Lord Mayor and Aldermen. The result was a long and fierce controversy, in which the Corporation of London was accused of attempting to use for the benefit of the citizens of London charitable bequests intended for the citizens of Westminster.
During 1871-73 the future of Emanuel Hospital bulked almost as large in the newspapers as the abolition of purchasing commissions in the Army and the authenticity of the Tichborne Claimant. It was debated several times, not without heat, in both Houses of Parliament, and eventually elicited from Mr. Gladstone, the Prime Minister, who was now entering upon his more radical phase, a notable and decisive speech, in which he dealt roundly with the Corporation of London.
The outcome was the establishment of a body to Governors, of whom the Lord Mayor was to be one ex officio, to direct the charity henceforth to be known as the United Westminster Schools. One of their tasks was to be to remove the boys from Emanuel Hospital to a boarding school on a suitable site within twenty miles of London. This they did not manage to do until 1882, when they bought for £33,000 the premises of the moribund Royal Victoria Patriotic Asylum for Boys, built only ten years before, with twelve acres of land. The girls were likewise removed to the Greycoat Hospital in Westminster, the benefits to old people were converted into charitable payments, and the old Hospital was demolished in 1894 to make room for a large block of flats.
Emanuel then existed in these premises for some thirty years as a boarding school which also took a fair number of day-boys, charging fees for both classes of pupils. By 1910, however, Wandsworth had already lost much of its once very considerable rural charm. It was therefore decided that boarders should be transferred to "the Free Grammar School of William Lambe in Sutton Valence," Kent, which had been acquired by the United Westminster Schools. Since then Emanuel has been purely a day-school, assisted in drawing boys from considerable distances by its sometimes uncomfortable proximity to Clapham Junction, and increasing during the sixty years from 470 boys of seven and upwards to the present total of some 870 between the ages of 11 and 19. Under the Education Act of 1944 it became a voluntary- aided school (a status which involves arrangements between the Inner London Education Authority and the Governors too complex to be explained here), and fees were abolished.
It should perhaps be remarked in passing that the spelling EMANUEL, often a stumbling-block to the press which inclines to the corrupt form used at Cambridge, derives from Lady Dacre's will.
The Dacre Building is of course only the latest of a long line of additions to the original premises of 1882. The most notable have been the New (now the Old) Hall and Science School (1895-96), the Library Block (1907), the Hampden Hall and adjacent Gymnasium (1937), the Exeter Building for woodwork and metalwork and the War Memorial Pavilion (1957), and the Fives Courts (1963). A new and more spacious Hampden Hall was opened in 1959, its predecessor having been destroyed by fire.
Meanwhile, in 1925, an additional playing-field of some 14 acres was acquired at Blagdons in Raynes Park, for the joint use of the School and the Old Boys. This has lately been embellished, through heroic fund-raising on the pan of the Old Boys, with a splendid new Clubhouse and Pavilion. The boathouse at Barnes, was opened in 1960, and has since been put to very good use. It was largely provided by the generosity of the three brothers Wates whose name it bears, but the Parents' Association also played a great part in the decoration and equipment.
During the last few years several minor improvements have been made within the main buildings, including the provision of more spacious changing-rooms and the conversion (just completed) of two classrooms into a much-needed second Chemistry Laboratory. In addition, four pre-fabricated classrooms, known as the Nursery, have been erected in the Wilderness to house the First Forms.
The Dacre Building, sad to say, has brought with it a change which may well seem as shocking to Old Boys of more recent date as did to their predecessors the removal in 1932 of the spire which used to crown the tower. Let it then be blurted out — the ancient cobbled yard has become an expanse of vulgar tarmac, less taking to the eye perhaps but also less dangerous to the ankles.
It has perhaps been these two radical changes which have so shocked the spectre known as the Tall Man, who used to haunt the drive, that he now appears seldom if at all: certainly an attempt by some of the younger boys to photograph him by flashlight in the small hours a year ago was a complete failure. Or it may be that he has been consternated by the sight of prefects and sub-prefects in short blue gowns, which have no origin in antiquity but were introduced by the present Headmaster five years ago. The theory that he cannot bear to see some of the senior boys with long hair and side-whiskers is hardly tenable; for, unless he is a very juvenile ghost indeed, flowing locks must seem more natural to him than short-back-and-sides.
The Dacre Building is intended to be used solely by the Sixth Forms, who usually number about 230. It provides them facilities both for private study and for recreation and entertainment. Unhappily, it has for the time being to be used for teaching much more than will normally be the case, so that the Sixth Forms do not have the exclusive use of it.
This state of affairs will, it is hoped, be remedied in about a year's time.
The building was designed by Laurence King & Partners, the school's regular architects; and it was built by Messrs. W. Loweth & Sons. The cost of the building was about £25,000, which was provided in part by the Governors but mainly by the Department of Education and Science. The furniture, carpets, curtains, and other minor fittings were provided by the School Equipment Centre of the I.L.E.A. The colour-schemes were chosen by a committee of senior boys.
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