A History of Harrow School 1324-1991

by Tyerman, Christopher

• ISBN13: 9780198227960
• ISBN10: 0198227965
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2000-12-14
• Publisher: Oxford University Press

Summary

Harrow School rose from being one of scores of local grammar schools founded in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries to become the second most famous school in the English-speaking world. Still shorthand for social exclusivity, its development supplies insights into British educational,cultural, and political history, as well as providing evidence for the study of public schools in general, one of Britain's most idiosyncratic yet successful social inventions. Avoiding polemic or apologia, this new history of Harrow, the first for over half a century, and the first to be based on unfettered access to the school and governors' archives, investigates the school's governors, masters, pupils, finances, social position, and curriculum, within the context ofshifting political, cultural, and educational circumstances. It is a contribution to the social history of Britain as well as a critical study of a famous school. Unusually for school histories, this book, supported by a full academic apparatus of source references, frankly confronts the school'sfailings as well as its successes; its financial, educational, and sexual scandals as openly as its well-publicized eminence as the school of Byron, Churchill (and six other British prime ministers), and Nehru.

Table of Contents

List of Plates	xii
List of Maps	xiii
Acknowledgements	xiii
Abbreviations	xiv
Headmasters of Harrow School	xv
Introduction	1	(4)
Part I The Foundation, 1324--1615	5	(38)
Origins	7	(11)
Creation	18	(18)
John Lyon
The Charter of 1572
The Statutes and Rules of 1591
Birth	36	(7)
Part II From Grammar School to Public School, 1615--1746	43	(52)
The Origins of a National Institution	45	(15)
The Early Masters
The Mastership of William Hide
The Restoration School, 1661--1691	60	(12)
William Home, Eton, and King's
Heirs and Graces, 1691--1746	72	(23)
The Chandos Connection
Thomas Bryan
James Cox
Part III The Ancien Regime, 1746--1844	95	(148)
The Classical School, 1746--1785	97	(16)
Eton Rules	113	(27)
Thomas Thackeray
Robert Sumner
The Election of 1771
Benjamin Heath
A Glittering Scene: Joseph Drury and Byron's Harrow, 1785--1805	140	(27)
Joseph Drury
Byron's Harrow
Decadence and Change, 1805--1844	167	(76)
Harrow's Nadir?
Holding the Line, 1805--1829
The Election of 1805
The Chancery Suit of 1810
George Butler
The Failure of Discipline
Towards the Brink, 1829--1844
Charles Longley
Christopher Wordsworth
Part IV Plenitude, 1844--1914	243	(160)
Charles John Vaughan, 1845--1859	245	(39)
Change
Staff
Locals: The `English Form'
Boys
Nemesis of a Head Master
Reform	284	(19)
The Cult of Harrow: Montagu Butler, Sentiment, and Success, 1860--1885	303	(52)
`A Harrow Hero'
The Head and his School
The Rise of the Federal School
The Beginning of Modern Studies
Reformed Harrows?
Athleticism
Songs
Imperial Harrow: The Origins of a Modern School, 1885--1914	355	(48)
Welldon
Wood
New Issues
New Learning
The Public School Profession
The Battle for the Houses
Rich and Poor
A Conformist School?
Part V Staying On, 1914--1991	403	(162)
Challenges Old and New: Politics, Governors, and Money in the Twentieth Century	405	(35)
Politics
Governors
Finance
Changing Identities, 1914--1991	440	(48)
War
Religion, Race, and Creed
Playing the Game
Sex, Obedience, and Violence
Status
Clouded Eminence: Teachers and Taught, 1914--1991	488	(77)
`Harrow' and Harrovians
`Rich and Slack', 1918--1934
Vellacott and the New House System, 1934--1939
Crisis Survived, 1939M--D1953
R. L. James and `a Confident Conservatism', 1953--1971
Modernization: Perception and Reality, 1971--1991
Conclusion	565	(2)
Select Bibliography	567	(8)
Index	575