The 1970s was a decade of change at Sherborne School.
In July 1970 Headmaster Robert (‘Bob’) Powell retired after 20 years’ service. Bob and Charity Powell moved to Childe Okeford where for 14 years Bob taught classics and English at Hanford Prep School. In September 1970 Headmaster David Emms and his wife Pamela arrived at Sherborne and moved into Abbey Grange in Hospital Lane, leaving the former Headmaster’s house at Abbot’s Acre to be converted into a much-needed extension to the Music School. Robin Macgnathen succeeded David Emms as Headmaster in September 1974 and with his wife Petronella served the School for the next 14 years.
At the start of the decade the teaching staff was 100% male but by 1979, thanks to the appointment of Ursula Dedek, Jen Kershaw and Juliet Wilkinson, 4.2% were women.
The school roll peaked in Michaelmas term 1977 at 669. The boys were divided between eight boarding houses: School House, Abbey House, The Green, Harper House, Abbeylands, Lyon House, Westcott House and The Digby, and one waiting house, Elmdene, which in 1978 was made a full boarding house and renamed Wallace House.
Lent term 1970 saw a relaxation in the School uniform with the introduction of ‘Blues’ for the Lower School, replacing the weekday wear of grey suits and black school ties with an open-neck navy blue Aertex-type shirt, navy blue sweater and grey trousers. For the sixth form duffle coats (supplied by Harrods or Freemans) became regulation wear, with a light navy blue plastic mac and umbrella optional. Sixth formers were also permitted to wear elastic-sided or non-lace shoes, but not ankle boot or any kind of footwear with high heels… The wearing of boaters (or bashers) was gradually phased out during this decade.
New buildings and developments on the School site included the erection in 1973 of ‘Medway’, a prefabricated block of temporary classrooms that survived until July 2021 when they were demolished to make way for the Sports Centre extension. In 1975 the School gymnasium was converted into a central dining hall and new kitchens were built to the north on the site of the School tuckshop (the Toey). The introduction of ‘central feeding’, as it was termed, transformed the school day as boys were no longer required to return to their house for every meal. In May 1975 work began on ‘the creation of a modern and luxurious sports centre’ on the site of the former School House vegetable gardens which was officially opened on 28 September 1976 when Headmaster Robin Macnaghten dived into the swimming pool.
In January 1970 membership of the Combined Cadet Force (CCF), which had been compulsory since it was formed in 1888, became voluntary. Additional activities now available to the boys included aero-modelling, amateur radio, archaeology, beekeeping, bridge, canoeing, chess, community service, drama, equitation, fly fishing, geology, orienteering, parascending, photography, pottery, printing, railway modelling, sailing, and screen printing.
School clubs and societies included The Agora (5th & 6th form Arts Society), Alchemists (6th form science), Biology Society, Chataway Society (5th form and below debating), Concert Club, Duffers (6th form literature), European Club, Geography Society, The Globe (5th & 6th form drama improvisation), Gramophone Society (classical records), Green Ribbon Club (6th form history), Hell fire (lower 6th history), Interpretes (Upper 6th Classics), James Rhoades (Upper 6th play reading), Madrigal Society (choral singing with Sherborne Girls), Music Club, Natural History, The Philatelist, Les Philosophes (6th form discussion), Poetry Workshop, Polyglots (6th form modern languages), Science Society, Theatre Workshop, Turing Society (6th form computing), United Services (lower 6th form), Whitehead Society (6th form mathematics), Wildman Society (6th form debating), not to mention The Blue Room…
Among the Editors of The Shirburnian during the 1970s were such future literary luminaries as John Wilkinson (g 70), Robert McCrum (b 71), James Ferguson (d 71), Giles Tillotson (c 78), and Anthony Lane (c 80), as well as pioneer of organic and no dig gardening Charles Dowding (a 76).
See also:
- For house photographs see School Boarding Houses
- Sports team photographs
- Jeremy Love (b 76), 1976 The Day we Changed the Abbey Clock Hands (pdf)
- Patrick Francis, Fifty Years On – recollections of Sherborne School in 1976 (pdf)
- Sherborne School in the 1980s
Photographs of Sherborne School in the 1970s (click on a photo to enlarge):
