School House

a-school-house-1860
School House, 1860. (Sherborne School Archives)

School House has been in continuous use as a School boarding house since 1860.

The cornerstone of School House was laid on 26 June 1860 by Anthony Ashley-Cooper, seventh earl of Shaftesbury.  The new building was designed by William Slater and built by John Guppy for an initial cost of about £5,000, and was the first purpose-built boarding accommodation at Sherborne School.

The private side was occupied by the Headmaster who until 1946 was also housemaster of School House.  In 1903, a bay window was built onto the west side of the Lower Study to mark the School once again attaining a total of 200 pupils after a fall in numbers in the 1890s during E.M. Young’s headmastership.

Subsequent additions and improvements to School House include the castellated bay window on south side of Headmaster’s study (1884); drying room (1898); merger of dormitories (1898), shower room (1903); inner bike shed, the gift of J.B. Carrington (1905); changing room, the gift of J.B. Carrington (1909); east windows in dayroom (1912); bathrooms, the original bathroom was on the ground floor on left of boys’ entrance (1912); lowering the wall between School House and School House Studies (now the Headmaster’s building) (1928); enlargement of bathrooms (1935); re-flooring of dormitories (1936); dayroom yard (1937); west window in House Tutor’s study (1958); back garden (1959); and the dormitory extension to the east (1970).

School House is a Grade II Listed Building.

In the late 1920s, Mr & Mrs A.B. Garrett presented to School House a replica of a mid-16th century chair of the period of King Edward VI to commemorate the school days of their three sons who were all in School House. Since that date the ‘Garrett chair’ has been in the Old School Room where it was used by subsequent housemasters during meals and at evening prayers.

Much of Alec Waugh’s semi-autobiographical novel The Loom of Youth (1917) is set in School House.  School House has also featured as a film set in The Guinea Pig (1948), Goodbye, Mr Chips (1969), A Murder of Quality (1991) and The Imitation Game (2014).

Former School House boys have included Charles Bathurst 1st Viscount Bledisloe (Governor-General of New Zealand), David Bednall (composer, organist, pianist), Emmanuel Didier Berény (artist), Percy Buckman (artist), Alan Campbell Orde (pilot and aviation consultant), Clive Carey (singer, composer, opera producer, folk song collector), Arthur Carr (England Test cricketer), Derman Christopherson FRS (engineer and university administrator), Richard Court (musician, singer and songwriter, known in Brazil as Ritchie), Geofry Courtenay (Scotland Hockey International), Ron Cunningham (escapologist, stage-name ‘The Great Omani’), Nigel Dempster (journalist, author, broadcaster), Peter Devitt (RAF pilot,  Deputy Lieutenant of Surrey), Thomas Devitt (England Rugby International), Charles Dick (Scotland Rugby International), John Durnford (author, poet, soldier, schoolmaster), Robert Key (politician), William Bruce Knight (Welsh scholar, ecclesiastic and theologian), Jason Lewis (adventurer and author), Geoffrey Lunt (Bishop of Salisbury), Rupert Maas (art dealer and BBC TV Antiques Roadshow presenter), Richard Madley (auctioneer for the Indian Premier League (IPL) and BBC TV Bargain Hunt presenter), Simon McCoy (journalist and presenter on BBC TV News at One), Ian Messiter (BBC Radio producer and creator of Just a Minute), Henry Ruthven Moore (Commander-in-Chief of the Home Fleet, ADC to King George VI), Brian Moynahan (journalist, historian and biographer), Herbert Arnould Olivier (artist), Lance Percival (actor, comedian and singer who appeared in That Was the Week That Was, several Carry On films, There’s a Girl in My Soup, and provided the voices of Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr for The Beatles cartoon series and of ‘Old Fred’ in the Yellow Submarine film), Michael Pertwee (playwright, screenwriter, wrote with his father The Grove Family, the first soap opera on British television), Littleton Albert Powys (British Army Officer), Timothy Spicer (British Army Officer), Antony Thomas (documentary film-maker), Julian Thompson (British Army Officer and author), Paul Tyler (Liberal Democrat peer), Torsten Ullman (Swedish pistol shooter), Alec Waugh (author of over 40 books including The Loom of Youth and Island in the Sun), Arthur Waugh (author, literary critic, publisher), George Weldon (orchestral conductor), Alfred North Whitehead OM, FRS, FBA (mathematician and philosopher, co-author with Bertrand Russell of Principia Mathematica), Roland Young (Academy Award nominated actor who appeared in Topper, The Philadelphia Story,  And Then There Were None).

School House crest.

House letter: a.

House colours: magenta and black.

House motto: Dum vivo, spero (while I breathe, I hope).

House magazines: The Criterion, The Parish Magazine (the journal of the parish of St. Ted’s in the Court).

House cricket team (played local villages): The Agriculturalists.

Housemasters:
Until 1946 the Headmaster was in charge of School House
1946     Arthur Bellyse Gourlay (1907-1976)
1961     Lionel Bruce (1917-1993)
1969     Peter Boissier (1921-2004)
1979     Michael Higginbottom
1983     George Facer (1937-2023)
1990     Stephen Meek
1995     Carlo Ferrario
1999     Peter Watts
2010     Kester Jackson
2021     Robert Harris

School House. (Sherborne School Archives)

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For further information about the Sherborne School Archives please contact the School Archivist

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