In May 1956 THE TIMES mobile printing unit prepared the following article for the front page of their ‘demo’ paper.

There was also a picture of the school as it was in the 1950’s

 
(Click to enlarge)

(written in May 1956)

St. Bartholomew's Grammar School, Newbury

IT is the fortune of few schools in England to be able to contemplate the celebration of their quincentenary, but Saint Bartholomew’s Grammar School, Newbury, is already looking forward to 1966. For it was on March 2, 1466, that Henry Wormestall, besides endowing a Chantry in the Parish Church, set aside in his will the sum of £12-2s.-4d. yearly for ” teching gramar scole of the whiche that toune hath grete nede.”

During the next eighty years, the rich clothiers of Newbury, among them John Winchcombe, the famous ”Jack of Newbury”, did much for the Church but little for education. The reign of Edward VI, however, brought a new school-house and apparently new endowments. Both came from a hospital for the poor and infirm, probably founded by King John and dedicated to St. Bartholomew, a fact which caused its dissolution, in error, by the Protestant Government. But the reign of Elizabeth saw the error corrected and in l599 the management of the Hospital was vested in the recently incorporated Borough of Newbury. Thenceforward Schola Sancti Bartholomaei and the Hospital went forward inseparably, and their endowments maintained four almshouses and educated six poor children free of charge. There came a further benefaction on September 29, 1624, by John Kendrick, a name of blessed memory in Newbury, and the Master of the School required an assistant to cope with the increasing number of pupils.

A PERIOD OF DECAY

At the end of the eighteenth century, decay set in and for nearly fifty years the School was moribund, But the age of reform and the settlement of a protracted suit in Chancery at length brought it to life again in 1849. Previous to that time the School had been held in the nave of the Chapel of The Litten, but in 1849 it was entirely rebuilt to accommodate sixty boys, and nothing was left of the old Litten except the chancel. Some of today’s oldest surviving Old Newburians were members of the School when The Litten buildings were still being used. At last, in 1883, a new scheme was drawn up under which the endowments of the Kendrick boys were amalgamated for the support of the Grammar School, and a site belonging to the Kendrick foundation in Enborne Road was used for the new buildings. Accommodation was provided for 150 boys, of whom 30 were to be boarders, and the School under its Headmaster, the Rev. J. Atkins, who gave it vigour and strength, moved into its new home in 1885. (Although this is the first time a Headmaster has been named, it should be pointed out that there is a complete list of names from 1550 onwards.)

With the help of the State, now interested in Secondary Education, the School gradually gained in importance, and in particular it had from 1902 until 1924 a Headmaster, Edward Sharwood Smith, who had insight and vision and who saw what possibilities there were in such a school. He was not blessed by the grants which have come to educational establishments during the last thirty years, but he was an evangelist of the ”new learning” and under his guidance a surprisingly large number of his boys gained scholarships and entrances to Oxford and Cambridge where they won high distinctions. His own ideals are recorded in his book, The Faith of a Schoolmaster, which gives his views on his own aims and achievements. In it he speaks of his early realisation that ” the life of man primarily consists in service to his fellows; in the subordination of private interests to the interests of the whole; in the gradual discovery that his own talents, his own individuality, are not his private possessions, but to be cultivated for the general good.”  Grammar School education in England owes much to Sharwood Smith, and St. Bartholomew’s in particular would not be holding its present high position in the scholastic world had he not been there to guide it. The Memorial Service in 1954 – he died with his intellect unimpaired in his ninetieth year – brought together a large body of Old Newburians in all walks of life who had come to pay silent tribute to their friend and adviser.

When Mr. Sharwood Smith retired in 1924, he was succeeded by Mr. T. Rutherford Harley, who at once tackled the School’s greatest need and was successful in getting new buildings added: in 1929 a dining hall and dormitories made fresh provision for the boarders so that the Headmaster was once more able to return to his house and live on the School premises; in 1935, just fifty years after the School had moved to Enborne Road, the new pavilion was opened; in 1936, the new gymnasium and workshop were completed; and in 1938, the new hall and science laboratories – the most valuable of the additions – were used for the first time. The hall met the needs of a growing School – in 1924 the numbers were just over 200 and there were now some 350 boys in the School. Even these buildings proved inadequate to hold the influx which the war brought to Newbury, but, with the introduction of the new Education Act, the Preparatory School broke away and became independent, and the pressure was eased for a time. Mr. Harley retired in 1948 and took Holy Orders: he was given the living of Highnam, Gloucester, but his time there was short as he died in 1954, so that the School lost its two ex-Headmasters within the space of four months.

TRADITION MAINTAINED

Mr. Harley was succeeded by Mr. J. A. Ballantyne who has carried on the tradition established by his two predecessors and has seen the School growing steadily under the urge for higher education. He had hoped that the number of boys might remain at the round total of 400, but with the growing population of Newbury this will not be possible, and plans are already prepared for more buildings which will raise the total to about 500. Mr. Ballantyne has appreciated the opportunities offered to boys who wish to enter Universities: the Sixth Forms now number some seventy boys whose work each year wins for them Open Scholarships, and there are at present at the Universities some fifty Old Newburians. The Classical tradition of the School remains; to it has been added through the years a capable Modern Sixth; and the Science Sixth, so important in these days, has produced physicists and chemists who have made a name for themselves, as well as many doctors and dentists.

The boys of the School are drawn from Berkshire, from the northern part of Hampshire and the east of Wiltshire, and there is a leavening of boarders who come from further afield and do not allow the outlook of the day-boys to become too parochial.,

SPORTING ACTIVITIES

Games have always played an important part in the life of the School; There is a workmanlike Cricket XI and the Rugby XV has gained a high reputation among its opposing schools: three members of the fifteens have played for the English Schools against Wales and France during the last six years. (The School changed from Association Football as long ago as 1913.) There is a useful Shooting Eight. The many Societies ensure that no boy shall be without interests, whether it be in the Debating Society, the Scientific Society, the Chess Club or the Archaeological Society (which has done much useful and interesting excavation in the district). And the Dramatic Society which was founded by Mr. Sharwood Smith in 1905 has just celebrated its jubilee: it has performed plays, usually by Shakespeare, each year almost without a break since its inception, and has recently transformed itself into an Operatic Society to stage its fiftieth production in March of this year,

The School has always been prepared to try out new ideas and to adopt them if they have proved worth while: indeed it has always kept its motto Ad Lucem before it. Long may it continue to give inspiration to its boys who in their turn will carry the torch out into the world around them.