Commemoration Day (Commem)

The Rev. E.M. Young, Headmaster 1878-1892.

Since the first Commemoration Day was held at Sherborne School on 30 July 1878 it has become a permanent fixture in the School calendar, with the format of the day, an Abbey service followed by prize-giving, remaining the same from 1878 to the present day.

Commemoration Day was instigated in 1878 by headmaster Edward Mallet Young (1839-1900) to recognise the benefactors of the past and to make the School more conscious of its history. Young was determined ‘to make Sherborne a school of the very first rank’ and introduced to Sherborne many school customs, including the school song ‘Carmen Saeculare’ for which he wrote the words (in Latin). Better known today as ‘The Carmen’, the school song was sung for the first time at Commemoration Day in 1887.

The day of the first Commem on 30 July 1878 began at 11 am with a service in Sherborne Abbey where the sermon was preached by the Bishop of Pretoria, Henry Bousfield, from Proverbs 3: 9-10 – “Honour the Lord with thy substance, and with the first fruits of thine increase; so shall thy barns be filled with plenty, and they presses shall burst out with new wine” – which he selected because it offered rules for the guidance of the young.

Thankfully, the weather was fine and after the Abbey service, while the School Governors held their meeting in the Oak Room library in School House, the visitors assembled on the lawn in front of School House where the Musical Society (founded in 1871) gave a promenade concert and several part songs were sung by the younger scholars.

Prize-giving was held in the ‘densely crowded’ schoolroom (the room now occupied by the Upper Library) and ‘every available seat was speedily occupied’. The headmaster opened the proceedings by saying that their gathering on this occasion ‘was in one sense a commencement and in another a conclusion’ – it being the first occasion on which they had met for a prize-giving day service in the Abbey and, he hoped, that it would be the last occasion on which they would gather under the ‘dusty timbers’ of the school room because by next summer the new hall would be finished (the Big Schoolroom was officially opened by the Earl of Shaftesbury at Commem on 3 July 1879).

The following prizes were then presented by the examiner in classics, Mr John Edwin Nixon, Fellow of King’s College, Cambridge, and the examiner in divinity, the Rev. Walter Lock, Fellow and Tutor of Keble College, Oxford:

Sherborne Exhibition – Henry John Lloyd (School House 1872-1878)
Classical Medal – Henry John Lloyd (School House 1872-1878)
Mathematical Medal – Alfred North Whitehead (School House 1875-1880)
Leweston Prize – Henry John Lloyd (School House 1872-1878)
Parsons Prize for Divinity – Arthur John Galpin (Abbeylands 1872-1879)
Houghton-Cardew Prize – Henry John Lloyd (School House 1872-1878) and William Lowndes (School House 1871-1878)
Latin Prose Prize – Henry John Lloyd (School House 1872-1878)
Latin Verse Prize – Henry John Lloyd (School House 1872-1878)
English Essay Prize – Ralph St. John Ainslie (School House 1873-1880)
Modern Languages Prize – Garnault Henry Norman Stephens (The Green 1874-1878)

Professor James Buckman of Bradford Abbas also presented two new prizes for carpentry work in the School workshops:
Turning – Spencer Edward Simms (Price’s 1876-1878)
Carpentering – James Shanks (Abbey House 1875-1878)

The Headmaster presented the swimming medals and thanked the Captain of the Games, Francis Eden Lacey (Abbeylands 1872-1878). F.E. Lacey went on to Caius College, Cambridge, where he was a cricket blue and afterwards played for Hampshire. Lacey went on to become Secretary of the MCC (1898-1926) and was the first man to be knighted for services to cricket.

With prize-giving over the boys ‘dispersed with hearty cheers for the Governors, the Masters, and the Examiners.’ Luncheon was then provided for 200 guests in a marquee on the lawn, after which the guests made their way to the Upper to watch the final day of a two-day cricket match between Past and Present Shirburnians and the County of Dorset, which ended in a draw. The teams comprised:

Past and Present Shirburnians: C. Sainsbury, H.P. Price, F.E. Lacey, A.B. Crosby, H.S. Crosby, C.G. Barton, C.S. Whitehead, H.M. Merriman, E. Gerrish, W.M. Barnes, E. Bristow.

County of Dorset: Rev. G. Vandermeulen, Mr W.S. Baldock, Mr D. Pontifex, Green, Mr T.W. Wilson (housemaster of The Green), Parmenter (Sherborne School cricket professional and groundsman), Mr C.R. Vaughan, Mr A.R. Aspinall, Mr T.E. Raven, Mr B. Woodforde, Mr E. Cassan.

At 7 pm the Musical Society gave their 44th concert, with a choir of 100 voices and an orchestra conducted by the director of music Louis Napoleon Parker. At the end of the concert, just before singing ‘God Save the Queen’, the headmaster read out the results of the Upper Fifth Form examination, the marks of which had been sent by mistake to Sherborne in Yorkshire and had only reached him that evening. House suppers followed and ‘great mirth prevailed’, bringing ‘the day’s proceedings to a most successful close.’

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