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St Cyprian's School

October 15, 2023

For other schools, see Cyprian (disambiguation) § Schools.

St Cyprian's School was an English preparatory school for boys, which operated in the early 20th century in Eastbourne, East Sussex. Like other preparatory schools, its purpose was to train pupils to do well enough in the examinations (usually taken around the age of 13) to gain admission to leading public schools, and to provide an introduction to boarding school life.

St Cyprian's School
Location
Eastbourne
,
Sussex

England
Coordinates50°46′07″N 0°15′51″E / 50.7685°N 0.2641°E / 50.7685; 0.2641
Information
TypePreparatory School
Boarding school
MottoForsan et haec olim meminisse juvabit.[a]
Established1899
FounderL.C. Vaughan Wilkes
Closed1943
GenderM
Age4 to 14
Enrolmentc. 90
Colour(s)Green, pale blue, black
PublicationSt Cyprian's Chronicle
General Cheylesmore addresses the school's Cadet Corps after they won the Imperial Challenge Shield in 1917[1]

History Edit

St Cyprian's was founded in 1899 by Lewis Vaughan Wilkes and his wife Cicely Comyn, a newly married couple in their twenties. It originally operated in a large house in Carlisle Road,[2] but by 1906 had grown sufficiently to move into new purpose-built facilities with extensive playing fields behind Summerdown Road. The school ran with the prevailing ethos of Muscular Christianity which had typified private education since the time of Thomas Arnold of Rugby, and placed much emphasis on developing self-reliance and integrity ("Character"). In these and many other respects St Cyprian's was little different from the other leading prep schools of the time. The school submitted itself annually to an independent academic assessment, conducted by Sir Charles Grant Robertson fellow of All Souls College, Oxford. The school uniform was a green shirt with a pale blue collar, corduroy breeches and a cap with a Maltese Cross for a badge.

The high success rate in achieving scholarships to leading public schools including Eton and Harrow attracted ambitious parents. However, the Wilkeses appreciated that public school scholarships were really intended for talented children from less well-off families, and so they provided places at St Cyprian's at significantly reduced fees for deserving cases, in the hope that they would attain these scholarships.[3] Two further features distinguished St Cyprian's. The first was the proximity to South Downs, which was fully exploited to give opportunities to the boys for running wild, studying natural history, walking, picnics, riding and even golf on the adjacent links. The second was the overwhelming impact of Mrs Wilkes (known as "Mum"). She was in total control of the school and in the days before female emancipation this made a great impression on her charges. The resulting ambivalence was exacerbated by a fiery temper and by the way her mood flipped between firm discipline and generous indulgence. Mrs Wilkes was a great believer in history teaching and saw the Harrow History Prize as an opportunity to bring it into the classics-dominated curriculum.[4] Mrs Wilkes also taught English, and stimulated generations of writers with her emphasis on clear, high quality writing. In addition to Mrs Wilkes, a major influence was the second master R. L. Sillar, who joined the school staff soon after it opened and stayed for 30 years. With his interest in natural history, his skill at shooting, his art teaching and his magic lantern shows he broadened the curriculum considerably and is revered in Old Boy's accounts.[5]

 
The St Cyprian's playing fields, now used by Eastbourne College. The main school building was on the high ground on the left. Only the swimming pool building remains (centre)

In its fortieth year, the school building was gutted by fire on 14 May 1939, and a housemaid died in a fall from an upper window. Emergency accommodation was arranged at Ascham St. Vincent's School, the buildings of a preparatory school in Eastbourne which had recently closed.[6] On 20 July 1939, St Cyprian's moved to Whispers, near Midhurst in West Sussex. It stayed there for 18 months until the building was requisitioned by the army during World War II. As a result of this double blow, numbers dwindled and after a brief combination with Rosehill School in Gloucestershire the remaining boys went with the then-headmaster, W. J. V. Tomlinson (Bill), to join the old rival Summer Fields School, in Oxford.[7] The school playing fields were sold to Eastbourne College.[8][9]

In April 1997, Eastbourne Civic Society (now The Eastbourne Society), in conjunction with the County Borough of Eastbourne, erected a blue plaque at the house in Summerdown Road which was connected with the school and which was Mrs Wilkes's residence in later years.[10]

Former pupils Edit

The school was attended, among others, by:[11]

Former teachers Edit

Accounts and recollections Edit

The school's three most prominent writers included accounts of the school in their works. Connolly recalled his time at St Cyprian's in Enemies of Promise, published in 1938 with the name of the school disguised as "St. Wulfric's". With wry humour, he mocked the Wilkes and the ethos of "Character building", writing "We called the headmistress Flip and the headmaster Sambo. Flip, around whom the whole system revolved, was able, ambitious, temperamental and energetic." Connolly questioned the practice of British parents sending young children to boarding preparatory schools but concluded "Yet St [Cyprian's] where I now went was a well run and vigorous example which did me a world of good."[12]

His friend, George Orwell, disagreed and wrote disparagingly and bitterly of the school in the quasi-autobiographical essay Such, Such Were the Joys, first published in the Partisan Review (Sept.- Oct. 1952). By Orwell's own admission this was too libelous to print and under British libel laws could not be published while the people described in it were still living.[13] It appeared in print in the United States in 1952 with the name of the school changed to "Crossgates", but not in the United Kingdom until after the death of Mrs. Wilkes.[14] The thrust of Orwell's criticism was directed at the system of boarding school education that sent children away from their homes when they were no more than 7 or 8 years old, and at the unreflective elitism and classism of Britain before the First World War. This is evident from one of the closing passages of Orwell's essay.

"How would St Cyprian's appear to me now, if I could go back, at my present age, and see it as it was in 1915? What should I think of Sambo and Flip, those terrible, all-powerful monsters? I should see them as a couple of silly, shallow, ineffectual people, eagerly clambering up a social ladder which any thinking person could see to be on the point of collapse."[15]

Orwell attacked the presence of "nouveaux riches" and aristocrats at the school, who he thought received preferential treatment. In contrast, Gavin Maxwell's parents had chosen the school because it was less elitist and aristocratic than older prep schools. Maxwell found the school tough, but left primarily because he felt he was the target of resentment because of his aristocratic parents with their Scottish estates.[16] Longhurst, who had great admiration for the school and for Mrs. Wilkes, described these authors' accounts of the school as unrecognizable,[17] and would frequently defend "a very fine school" in response to reviewers of Orwell's work.[18] His views were shared by W J L Christie, Indian Civil Service, who wrote a riposte to Orwell in defence of the school in Blackwood's Magazine (owned and edited by Douglas Blackwood).[19] Both were particularly incensed by what in their opinion were totally inaccurate accusations against the Wilkeses.

Cecil Beaton, who was at the school with Orwell, had a different reaction, describing the work as "Hilariously funny – but exaggerated".[20] Orwell's essay has been dissected in detail and its reliability questioned by Pearce.[21]

Nearly all accounts of former pupils declare that the school gave them a good start in life but views of Mrs. Wilkes vary. David Ogilvy[22] is critical, but Alaric Jacob[23] praises her teaching, and Foote,[24] Rivett-Carnac,[25] and Wright[26] refer to her with great affection. It was Connolly who, after reading his parents' papers, wrote apologetically: "The Wilkes were true friends and I had caricatured their mannerisms ... and read mercenary motives into much that was just enthusiasm" and he described Mrs. Wilkes as "a warm-hearted and inspired teacher".[27]

Walter Christie's cap and other items are currently displayed at the Chalk Farm Hotel in Willingdon.

See also Edit

References Edit

  1. ^ (Latin) from Virgil, Aeneid: Book 1; Line 203. "Some day, perhaps, remembering even this will be a pleasure" (tr. Robert Fitzgerald)
  1. ^ The Illustrated war news Volume: 8, March 27, 1918, pp. 374–375.
  2. ^ UK Census, 1901
  3. ^ W H J Christie. St Cyprian's Days, Blackwood's Magazine, May 1971
  4. ^ C. Vaughan Wilkes, The Teaching of History: I. In Preparatory Schools History: The Journal of the Historical Association Volume 2 Issue 7 pp.144-152, October 1917
  5. ^ Maxwell, Connolly, Orwell as cited
  6. ^ Eastbourne Chronicle, 20 May 1939
  7. ^ Nicholas Aldridge Time to spare?: A History of Summer Fields 1989
  8. ^ Eastbourne Local History Society: Newsletters 37, 39
  9. ^ Eastbourne Society: Newsletter 130
  10. ^ Eastbourne Society: Newsletter 131
  11. ^ St Cyprian's Chronicle 1914–1930
  12. ^ Cyril Connolly, Enemies of Promise (1938)
  13. ^ George Orwell Letter to F J Warburg, 31 May 1947, The Collected Essays Vol 4 (1968)
  14. ^ The Collected Essays Vol 4, ibid. (1968)
  15. ^ p96 George Orwell, Such, Such Were The Joys, accessed online
  16. ^ Gavin Maxwell, The House at Elrig (1965)
  17. ^ Henry Longhurst, My Life and Soft Times (1971)
  18. ^ Evening Standard Letters: Henry Longhurst: "A grotesque travesty", 4 October 1968
  19. ^ W J L Christie, St Cyprian's Days, Blackwood's Magazine (May 1971)
  20. ^ Cecil Beaton Diary" July 1968
  21. ^ Robert Pearce. "Truth and Falsehood: Orwell's Prep School Woes". The Review of English Studies, New Series, Vol 43, No 171 (August 1992)
  22. ^ Ogilvy Blood Brains and Beer (1978)
  23. ^ Alaric Jacob, Scenes from a Bourgeois Life(1949)
  24. ^ Foote's interview with Michael Shelden (1988)
  25. ^ Charles Rivett-Carnac, Pursuit in the wilderness (1965)
  26. ^ Robert Hepburn Wright, Then the wind changed: Nigerian letters (1992)
  27. ^ Cyril Connolly, The Evening Colonnade (1973)

External links Edit

  • Eastbourne Local History Society
  • Eastbourne Society

October 15, 2023
cyprian, school, other, schools, cyprian, disambiguation, schools, english, preparatory, school, boys, which, operated, early, 20th, century, eastbourne, east, sussex, like, other, preparatory, schools, purpose, train, pupils, well, enough, examinations, usual. For other schools see Cyprian disambiguation Schools St Cyprian s School was an English preparatory school for boys which operated in the early 20th century in Eastbourne East Sussex Like other preparatory schools its purpose was to train pupils to do well enough in the examinations usually taken around the age of 13 to gain admission to leading public schools and to provide an introduction to boarding school life St Cyprian s SchoolLocationEastbourne SussexEnglandCoordinates50 46 07 N 0 15 51 E 50 7685 N 0 2641 E 50 7685 0 2641InformationTypePreparatory SchoolBoarding schoolMottoForsan et haec olim meminisse juvabit a Established1899FounderL C Vaughan WilkesClosed1943GenderMAge4 to 14Enrolmentc 90Colour s Green pale blue blackPublicationSt Cyprian s ChronicleGeneral Cheylesmore addresses the school s Cadet Corps after they won the Imperial Challenge Shield in 1917 1 Contents 1 History 2 Former pupils 3 Former teachers 4 Accounts and recollections 5 See also 6 References 7 External linksHistory EditSt Cyprian s was founded in 1899 by Lewis Vaughan Wilkes and his wife Cicely Comyn a newly married couple in their twenties It originally operated in a large house in Carlisle Road 2 but by 1906 had grown sufficiently to move into new purpose built facilities with extensive playing fields behind Summerdown Road The school ran with the prevailing ethos of Muscular Christianity which had typified private education since the time of Thomas Arnold of Rugby and placed much emphasis on developing self reliance and integrity Character In these and many other respects St Cyprian s was little different from the other leading prep schools of the time The school submitted itself annually to an independent academic assessment conducted by Sir Charles Grant Robertson fellow of All Souls College Oxford The school uniform was a green shirt with a pale blue collar corduroy breeches and a cap with a Maltese Cross for a badge The high success rate in achieving scholarships to leading public schools including Eton and Harrow attracted ambitious parents However the Wilkeses appreciated that public school scholarships were really intended for talented children from less well off families and so they provided places at St Cyprian s at significantly reduced fees for deserving cases in the hope that they would attain these scholarships 3 Two further features distinguished St Cyprian s The first was the proximity to South Downs which was fully exploited to give opportunities to the boys for running wild studying natural history walking picnics riding and even golf on the adjacent links The second was the overwhelming impact of Mrs Wilkes known as Mum She was in total control of the school and in the days before female emancipation this made a great impression on her charges The resulting ambivalence was exacerbated by a fiery temper and by the way her mood flipped between firm discipline and generous indulgence Mrs Wilkes was a great believer in history teaching and saw the Harrow History Prize as an opportunity to bring it into the classics dominated curriculum 4 Mrs Wilkes also taught English and stimulated generations of writers with her emphasis on clear high quality writing In addition to Mrs Wilkes a major influence was the second master R L Sillar who joined the school staff soon after it opened and stayed for 30 years With his interest in natural history his skill at shooting his art teaching and his magic lantern shows he broadened the curriculum considerably and is revered in Old Boy s accounts 5 nbsp The St Cyprian s playing fields now used by Eastbourne College The main school building was on the high ground on the left Only the swimming pool building remains centre In its fortieth year the school building was gutted by fire on 14 May 1939 and a housemaid died in a fall from an upper window Emergency accommodation was arranged at Ascham St Vincent s School the buildings of a preparatory school in Eastbourne which had recently closed 6 On 20 July 1939 St Cyprian s moved to Whispers near Midhurst in West Sussex It stayed there for 18 months until the building was requisitioned by the army during World War II As a result of this double blow numbers dwindled and after a brief combination with Rosehill School in Gloucestershire the remaining boys went with the then headmaster W J V Tomlinson Bill to join the old rival Summer Fields School in Oxford 7 The school playing fields were sold to Eastbourne College 8 9 In April 1997 Eastbourne Civic Society now The Eastbourne Society in conjunction with the County Borough of Eastbourne erected a blue plaque at the house in Summerdown Road which was connected with the school and which was Mrs Wilkes s residence in later years 10 Former pupils EditThis article s list of alumni may not follow Wikipedia s verifiability policy Please improve this article by removing names that do not have independent reliable sources showing they merit inclusion in this article AND are alumni or by incorporating the relevant publications into the body of the article through appropriate citations November 2016 The school was attended among others by 11 Sir Cecil Beaton 1904 1980 photographer stage designer Douglas Blackwood 1909 1997 Battle of Britain fighter pilot publisher Derwent Hall Caine 1891 1971 actor publisher and Labour politician Walter John Christie 1905 1982 British India civil servant Alan Clark 1928 1999 military historian Conservative politician and diarist Cyril Connolly 1903 1974 literary critic and writer John Edmondson 2nd Baron Sandford 1920 2009 naval commander clergyman politician Sandford Principle John D Eshelby 1916 1981 scientist in micromechanics Eshelby s Inclusion Henry R B Foote VC 1904 1993 Major General awarded the Victoria Cross for World War II service in North Africa Ian Fraser Baron Fraser of Lonsdale 1897 1974 World War I veteran who lost his eyesight at the Somme Chairman of St Dunstan s Charity MP BBC Governor first Life Peer citation needed Dyneley Hussey 1893 1972 war poet music critic Alan Hyman 1910 1999 author journalist and screenwriter Alaric Jacob 1909 1995 journalist writer David Kindersley 1915 1995 stonecutter letterer typographer Henry Longhurst 1909 1978 MP golfer golf correspondent Rupert Lonsdale 1905 1999 World War II submarine commander POW Anglican clergyman Seymour de Lotbiniere 1905 1984 BBC Director of outside broadcasting who initiated Test match commentary and masterminded the televising of the 1953 Coronation Patrick de Mare 1916 2008 British Army psychiatrist consultant psychotherapist who specialized in group psychotherapy John Marsden 1915 2004 British intelligence officer Eton schoolmaster and sculler Gavin Maxwell 1914 1969 naturalist writer E H W Meyerstein 1889 1952 writer scholar Anthony Mildmay 1909 1950 amateur steeplechase jockey who rode in the Grand National Russi Mody 1918 2014 Indian businessman Sir Cedric Morris Bt 1889 1982 artist horticulturalist Jagaddipendra Narayan 1915 1970 Maharaja of Cooch Behar Sir Hugh Norman Walker 1916 1985 Colonial Office official whose posts included Governor of the Seychelles and Colonial Secretary of Hong Kong Toby O Brien 1909 1979 public relations expert who led Britain s efforts to counter Nazi Germany s propaganda David Ogilvy 1911 1999 Advertising executive known as the Father of Advertising Sir David Ormsby Gore KCMG 1918 1985 politician British Ambassador to the USA George Orwell ne Eric Blair 1903 1950 writer journalist Spanish Civil War loyalist author of Nineteen Eighty Four Kenneth Payne 1912 1988 Olympic rower Alec Pearce 1910 1982 cricketer for Kent CCC MCC and Hong Kong Geoffrey Pidcock 1897 1976 World War I RAF ace H Q A Reeves 1909 1955 engineer Welrod secret weapon Charles Rivett Carnac 1901 1980 Commissioner Royal Canadian Mounted Police RCMP Robert de Ropp 1913 1987 biochemist cancer research writer on spiritual enlightenment citation needed James Collingwood Tinling 1900 1983 RAF Officer who co built the first jet engine Sir Charles Hyde Villiers 1912 1992 Businessman one time Chairman of British Steel Sir Lashmer Whistler 1898 1963 General in British Army at El Alamein Normandy landings and Operation Market Garden John Vaughan Wilkes 1902 1986 Warden of Radley College and clergyman Richard Wood MP 1920 2002 Conservative politician and minister Philip Ziegler 1929 2023 historianFormer teachers EditCharles Edgar Loseby National Democratic and Labour Party MPAccounts and recollections EditThe school s three most prominent writers included accounts of the school in their works Connolly recalled his time at St Cyprian s in Enemies of Promise published in 1938 with the name of the school disguised as St Wulfric s With wry humour he mocked the Wilkes and the ethos of Character building writing We called the headmistress Flip and the headmaster Sambo Flip around whom the whole system revolved was able ambitious temperamental and energetic Connolly questioned the practice of British parents sending young children to boarding preparatory schools but concluded Yet St Cyprian s where I now went was a well run and vigorous example which did me a world of good 12 His friend George Orwell disagreed and wrote disparagingly and bitterly of the school in the quasi autobiographical essay Such Such Were the Joys first published in the Partisan Review Sept Oct 1952 By Orwell s own admission this was too libelous to print and under British libel laws could not be published while the people described in it were still living 13 It appeared in print in the United States in 1952 with the name of the school changed to Crossgates but not in the United Kingdom until after the death of Mrs Wilkes 14 The thrust of Orwell s criticism was directed at the system of boarding school education that sent children away from their homes when they were no more than 7 or 8 years old and at the unreflective elitism and classism of Britain before the First World War This is evident from one of the closing passages of Orwell s essay How would St Cyprian s appear to me now if I could go back at my present age and see it as it was in 1915 What should I think of Sambo and Flip those terrible all powerful monsters I should see them as a couple of silly shallow ineffectual people eagerly clambering up a social ladder which any thinking person could see to be on the point of collapse 15 Orwell attacked the presence of nouveaux riches and aristocrats at the school who he thought received preferential treatment In contrast Gavin Maxwell s parents had chosen the school because it was less elitist and aristocratic than older prep schools Maxwell found the school tough but left primarily because he felt he was the target of resentment because of his aristocratic parents with their Scottish estates 16 Longhurst who had great admiration for the school and for Mrs Wilkes described these authors accounts of the school as unrecognizable 17 and would frequently defend a very fine school in response to reviewers of Orwell s work 18 His views were shared by W J L Christie Indian Civil Service who wrote a riposte to Orwell in defence of the school in Blackwood s Magazine owned and edited by Douglas Blackwood 19 Both were particularly incensed by what in their opinion were totally inaccurate accusations against the Wilkeses Cecil Beaton who was at the school with Orwell had a different reaction describing the work as Hilariously funny but exaggerated 20 Orwell s essay has been dissected in detail and its reliability questioned by Pearce 21 Nearly all accounts of former pupils declare that the school gave them a good start in life but views of Mrs Wilkes vary David Ogilvy 22 is critical but Alaric Jacob 23 praises her teaching and Foote 24 Rivett Carnac 25 and Wright 26 refer to her with great affection It was Connolly who after reading his parents papers wrote apologetically The Wilkes were true friends and I had caricatured their mannerisms and read mercenary motives into much that was just enthusiasm and he described Mrs Wilkes as a warm hearted and inspired teacher 27 Walter Christie s cap and other items are currently displayed at the Chalk Farm Hotel in Willingdon See also EditKathy Wilkes Paget WilkesReferences Edit Latin from Virgil Aeneid Book 1 Line 203 Some day perhaps remembering even this will be a pleasure tr Robert Fitzgerald The Illustrated war news Volume 8 March 27 1918 pp 374 375 UK Census 1901 W H J Christie St Cyprian s Days Blackwood s Magazine May 1971 C Vaughan Wilkes The Teaching of History I In Preparatory Schools History The Journal of the Historical Association Volume 2 Issue 7 pp 144 152 October 1917 Maxwell Connolly Orwell as cited Eastbourne Chronicle 20 May 1939 Nicholas Aldridge Time to spare A History of Summer Fields 1989 Eastbourne Local History Society Newsletters 37 39 Eastbourne Society Newsletter 130 Eastbourne Society Newsletter 131 St Cyprian s Chronicle 1914 1930 Cyril Connolly Enemies of Promise 1938 George Orwell Letter to F J Warburg 31 May 1947 The Collected Essays Vol 4 1968 The Collected Essays Vol 4 ibid 1968 p96 George Orwell Such Such Were The Joys accessed online Gavin Maxwell The House at Elrig 1965 Henry Longhurst My Life and Soft Times 1971 Evening Standard Letters Henry Longhurst A grotesque travesty 4 October 1968 W J L Christie St Cyprian s Days Blackwood s Magazine May 1971 Cecil Beaton Diary July 1968 Robert Pearce Truth and Falsehood Orwell s Prep School Woes The Review of English Studies New Series Vol 43 No 171 August 1992 Ogilvy Blood Brains and Beer 1978 Alaric Jacob Scenes from a Bourgeois Life 1949 Foote s interview with Michael Shelden 1988 Charles Rivett Carnac Pursuit in the wilderness 1965 Robert Hepburn Wright Then the wind changed Nigerian letters 1992 Cyril Connolly The Evening Colonnade 1973 External links EditEastbourne Local History Society Eastbourne Society Retrieved from https en wikipedia org w index php title St Cyprian 27s School amp oldid 1141242537, wikipedia, wiki, book, books, library,

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