Amongst the many innovations that Headmaster Hugo Harper introduced at Sherborne School, the role of School Custos is perhaps the one that 150 years later is still as vital to the running of the School as it was when it was first introduced in 1870.
By 1870 Harper had been headmaster at Sherborne for twenty years and the School was thriving. The School roll had risen dramatically from just 40 pupils in 1850 to 252 in 1870, and the size of the School site had grown considerably with the acquisition in 1851 of the former monastic buildings and the land to the north-west of the original schoolroom (now the OSR). Harper was keen to stake out the boundaries of the enlarged site and in 1853 a gateway and Lodge were built adjoining Abbey Road at the north entrance to the Courts.
The evident need for someone to guard the gates of Harper’s growing empire was set out in a letter written in September 1869 by assistant master, Mungo Travers Park, in which he described the School’s relaxed attitude to security: ‘They have rather a good system here of having no bounds and no locking up. Any boy can go out wherever he likes and pretty nearly at all times.’
On 3 May 1870, Harper wrote to the School Governors proposing the appointment of Charles Scott as ‘School Porter’. He recommended that Scott should be paid a salary of £40 a year and live at the Lodge, which had recently been vacated by the School gardener.
Harper had known Charles Scott since 1855 when as a seventeen year old he had come to Sherborne from Westoning in Bedfordshire to work as Harper’s private servant. Charles proved to be an excellent appointment and for the next 40 years, until his retirement in 1910, he served the School faithfully, working under five headmasters (Harper, Young, Westcott, Wood, and Smith) and two monarchs (Queen Victoria and Edward VII).
The word ‘custos’, according to the Revised Medieval Latin Word-List means a keeper, warden or guardian, but as a job title it was not used at Sherborne until the 1890s, prior to which the job title was ‘School Porter’. It seems highly probable that the title of Custos was introduced to Sherborne from Harrow in 1892 by the new Headmaster F.B. Westcott. According to Tace Fox, the Harrow School archivist, the role of Custos, which still exists at Harrow today, dates back to at least 1817. The Custos would have been very familiar to Westcott who was not only born at Harrow but his father, the Rev. Professor Brooke Foss Westcott, also taught there for many years. Surprisingly, despite the high profile of the role, it was not until 1938 that an official uniform was adopted at Sherborne for the Custos when Headmaster Wallace provided Sergeant Norton with a black suit and a peaked cap.
The first five School Custos
1870-1910 Charles Scott
1910-1938 Arthur Scott
1938-1965 Walter Campbell Graham Norton
1965-1978 Alwyn Edward Lugg
1978-1992 Frank R. Hutton
The Lodge
Since 1870 the Lodge has been the home of the School Custos. All eight of Charles and Elizabeth Scott’s children were born at the Lodge, although their little daughter Clara sadly died there in 1877 from convulsions caused by teething and whooping cough. Their third son, Arthur was born at the Lodge in 1873 and from the age of 13 worked at the School as a laboratory demonstrator. In 1910 Arthur succeeded his father as Custos, a position he held until 1938, and Arthur’s daughter Kathleen later continued the family’s long connection with the School working as an assistant to the Bursar.
From 1965 to 1978 the Lodge was the home of School Custos Alwyn Lugg and his wife Nell. For many years Alwyn served on the Urban District Council and its successor the Sherborne Town Council. He ran a number of his election campaigns from the Lodge and in 1965 handed out campaigning leaflets emblazoned on the front with the words ‘Vote for Lugg’ and on the back with ‘Published by A. Lugg, Entrance Lodge, Sherborne School’. During the summer of 1968, when Goodbye, Mr Chips was being filmed at the School, the actor Peter O’Toole, who starred in the film, would regularly drop by for tea at the Lodge with Alwyn and Nell, and for a number of years afterwards sent Christmas cards to them at the Lodge. From 1974 to 1975, Alwyn was Mayor of Sherborne and, to date, is the only Custos to have combined both offices.
In March 1998, the Lodge was converted, with offices upstairs and the Custos’ office and staff pigeon holes downstairs. The majority of internal fixtures and fittings were added after the building was converted, although the mid-19th and early 20th century door and window fittings have been retained. Today, the Lodge is also home to the School’s reception area. It is a Grade II Listed Building.
Duties
The duties of the School Custos have over the last 150 years been many and various and the current holders of the role will no doubt be relieved that they no longer have to tidy up after the School ravens who enjoyed scattering textbooks and hymn books around the Courts, or teach boys how to swim by dangling them in a harness over the outdoor swimming bath.
The security of the School has always been the Custos’s primary concern. Traditionally, as ‘the keeper of the keys’, the Custos has been responsible for locking and unlocking the School site and ensuring the safety of the boys and staff.
In February 1871 it was Charles Scott who rescued assistant master William Hetherington from the School House Studies (now the Headmaster’s office) when a fire broke out in the building, and during the Second World War the Custos Sergeant Norton not only acted as an Air Raid Warden, manning night fire watches from the top of the entrance gateway, but also played a crucial role after the bombing of Sherborne in September 1940 by ensuring that everyone was safe and giving the ‘All Clear’ when the siren failed because the electricity supply had been cut.
During the summer of 1955 Sergeant Norton encountered a new adversary in the form of a gang of Yeovil Teddy Boys who he evicted from the School’s outdoor swimming bath. According to The Shirburnian, Norton meted out the ‘same solid treatment to these vagabonds as he is reputed to employ towards invading courting couples.’
During the late 19th and early 20th centuries, enforcing School discipline also fell within the remit of the Custos, with Charles and Arthur Scott being required to assist the headmaster when birching boys in the Upper Library.
H.B. Stallard, the ophthalmologist and middle-distance runner who won a bronze medal at the 1924 Olympic Games, recalled in a humorous speech he gave at an OSS Dinner in 1964 how the boys believed that Arthur Scott’s role during the birchings was ‘to maintain elevation of the victim’s shirt tails and later callously to mop up the trickle of blood which flowed gently down the library steps from the site of execution.’
Thankfully, over the years the Custos’s role in enforcing School discipline evolved to the less odious task of being responsible for the detention and tardy books.
The Custos have always taken a pride in their place of work and enjoyed showing visitors around the School. Headmaster Robin Macnaghten recalled how in 1974 Alwyn Lugg showed him around the School when he came on an undercover visit before applying for the headmastership. Robin recalled that it was ‘the enthusiasm and devotion with which he [Alwyn] spoke of the school and the warmth of his welcome made us both feel at once that here was a place where we would be happy to live.’ Rob Lloyd, however, had a slightly different experience when he joined the School in 1962 and was shown around by ‘Old Norton’, who had been Custos since 1938. Norton had evidently developed the knack of putting new members of staff at ease and asked Rob, “Are you sure you are coming to this school, not the prep school?”
It obviously helped if, like Arthur Scott, the Custos enjoyed an audience. Arthur was known at Sherborne as a ‘great wit and a master of pantomime’ who would sometimes enter a classroom ‘wearing a face of doom, as if some terrible affair was impending, when he was bringing the announcement of an extra half holiday. Or sometimes when malefactors were being summoned to the Headmaster’s presence, standing outside the master’s range of vision, but fully visible to the form, he would indicate by vivid and appropriate gestures the fate that was deemed to be in store for them.’
In 1905, Arthur was able to give his theatrical side full vent when he appeared as a townsman in the Sherborne Pageant. Arthur was also well-known for his public readings of William Barnes’s Dorset dialect poems and as a young boy remembered seeing William Barnes in his trademark long coat and breeches, presumably this was in June 1880 when Barnes attended the School’s Commemoration Day.
Alwyn Lugg was also not adverse to performing in front of an audience and in 1969 appeared, as himself, in the film Goodbye, Mr Chips, which was filmed at Sherborne School in 1968. Julie Harris, the film’s costume designer, was concerned that Alwyn’s costume should be correct and in May 1968 wrote to Headmaster Robert Powell asking, ‘What did the Lugg of the day wear in 1924?’ To which Powell replied, ‘I think you have a fairly free hand there. The frock coat is probably a safe bet. There is also the possibility of a military type tunic with a collar buttoning at the neck (so that there was no collar or tie) and some brass buttons. Lugg has a peaked cap, which I think you have seen. If you are going to have a peaked cap, I think the peak should be much narrower for 1924 than Lugg’s present one. The great thing, if I may say so, is to avoid a “commissionaire” look.’ Alwyn, along with the Headmaster and Chair of the School Governors, was invited to attended the Royal Premiere for Goodbye, Mr Chips, which took place before the Queen on 24 November 1969 at the Empire Theatre, Leicester Square, London.
The Custos have also played an important role during Royal visits to the School. Charles Scott was on duty in October 1908 when Mary Princess of Wales visited the School, as was Arthur Scott in July 1923 when her son the Prince of Wales (later Edward VIII) came to Sherborne. In June 1950, when King George VI and Queen Elizabeth visited the School as part of the Quatercentenary celebrations, Sergeant Norton was introduced to the Royal couple. Alwyn Lugg met both Prince Charles and the Queen Mother in 1974 when they visited Sherborne on separate occasions, the first being an informal visit made by Prince Charles to the School in September 1974 to watch a performance in the BSR of The Bartered Bride, during the interval of which Alwyn entertained the Prince in the Conference Room, and the second being in November 1974 when, as Mayor of Sherborne, Alwyn lunched with the Queen Mother during her visit to Sherborne Girls’ to celebrate their 75th anniversary.
Portraits and Poems
The high esteem in which the first School Custos, Charles Scott, was held at Sherborne was demonstrated in 1905 when the School celebrated his 50 years of service. At Commem that year he was presented in the BSR with an illuminated address and a ‘massive’ silver tea and coffee service, after which the School gave him ‘three rousing cheers’. Charles’s service was also recognised in verse in the Commemoration Day Prologue:
‘Nor, ere I end, must unremembered be
The year wherein Charles keeps his jubilee;
Charles, who ‘tis said (so ancient tales relate)
Once as a lad did serve our grateful state;
And still factotum in these ancient halls
Prompt springs responsive to a thousand calls.
When studies blaze before the affrighted view
For whom goes up the cry but, Charles, for you?
When ravens wildly strew the littered court,
‘tis Charles that has to rue their frolic sport;
When morals totter – discipline is slack;
Charles helps to bring the erring brother back.
In fine, where much is dubious, this is not
We should not be ourselves, without Charles Scott.
Friends one and all, who cherish Sherborne’s name,
If one compendious wish ‘twere mine to frame,
Where could I find a happier prayer than this,
May we all do our work, as our old friend has his!’
In 1908, Henry Hudson, the School’s art master, displayed at the Commem art exhibition his portrait of Charles Scott which it was said was presented to the School. But where is it now? Charles may also appear in a watercolour painting of the School made in 1880 by 15-year old pupil Percy Buckman. Could Charles be the man wearing a cloak and hat seen standing outside the entrance to the Courts?
On the 31 July 1910 Charles Scott retired as School Custos, having worked at the School for a total of 55 years, with 40 of those as School Custos. Headmaster Nowell Smith said he ‘had served the school with loyalty and dignity’, and the editor of The Shirburnian describing him as ‘an historical figure in the annals of the School’, who would be ‘remembered as one of the most imposing features of the place by many hundreds of Old Shirburnians’, whose ‘memory of the School stretches back further than that of anyone else connected with it, and we must feel that when he is gone a strong link with the past will be broken.’ It is perhaps fitting that Charles Scott’s last Commem was attended by Canon Westcott, the Headmaster who brought the title of ‘Custos’ to Sherborne School.
Charles spent the remaining seven years of his life at ‘Highbury’ in Coldharbour, where he was looked after by his daughter Lydia. He died on the 15 October 1917, aged 79, and his funeral service was conducted by two ordained masters on the School’s staff, the Rev. Henry Dunkin and the Rev. Henry King. Charles was buried in Sherborne cemetery alongside his wife who had died in 1901. Perhaps the next time you are passing Sherborne cemetery you might like to call in and pay your respects to Charles Scott, the first Custos of Sherborne School?
When Steve Read retired in June 2025 having served as School Custos for 27 years, Headmaster Simon Heard wrote the following poem in Steve’s honour which he read out at Commem:
‘For twenty-seven faithful years you stood,
A quiet strength in coat and hood,
The Lodge your post, the gate your care,
A watchful soul, forever there.
Through storm and wind, through dusk and dawn,
The Courts were safe, whilst curtains drawn;
Keys in hand and purpose clear,
You held your charge with quiet cheer.
No trumpet called, no banners flew,
But all who cared to speak still knew,
That calm endured, that peace held fast,
Because you kept it, to the last.
When doors were locked and lights were low,
You walked the paths where sixth form go.
Not just a warden, more than guide—
You kept the spirit safe inside.
You knew the boys, the staff, the stone,
And made this ancient place your own.
With kindness firm and humour dry,
You watched the world go rolling by.
Now as you leave, the clock may chime,
But Steve, you echo through this time:
A keeper, yes, of walls and keys,
But more—a thread in histories.’
See also:
- A.B. Gourlay, A History of Sherborne School (Sherborne, Sawtells Ltd., 1971)
- Former Headmasters and School Staff
Rachel Hassall
School Archivist
29 August 2025
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