Blasts from the Past: Boarding at King’s

People are often surprised to discover that King’s was once, partly, a boarding school. I can understand why. The number of boarders was always relatively low. In the 1870s, the then headmaster, the Rev Dr Maclear, was proud to affirm that King’s was ‘becoming more and more distinctly a large Day-school.’ Fast forward 75 years, however, and the headmaster, now Hubert Dixon, was making an impassioned plea to the school governors to retain a boarding house. ‘If boarders disappear,’ he argued, ‘the school will be the poorer.’ By this date, fewer than five percent of pupils boarded (compared to around 15 percent in Maclear’s time). So why was Dixon so keen to protect this aspect of school life? It is hard to say. He may have been concerned about any drop in numbers. But I was delighted when a reader asked me to write something about the boarding house as I was curious to know more.

From the moment that King’s opened its doors to pupils in 1831, there were boarders. Both the headmaster, the Rev Dr Major, and the only other member of teaching staff, Rev Joseph Edwards, were both allowed to take in pupil boarders at their respective homes (‘upon terms, and under regulations, sanctioned by the [College] Council’). As the numbers of pupils – and masters – increased so too did the number of staff-run boarding houses. As a system, it worked. Teachers could supplement their income, and boys whose families lived abroad or outside London were still able to attend the school.

When King’s relocated to Wimbledon in 1897, the sharp drop in pupil numbers which had forced the move meant only three boarding options were needed: with Edward Brooksmith, senior mathematical master, at Glen Fern Tower, Lansdowne Road; with F.B. Speed, assistant master in the classical and mathematical division, at King’s Lodge, Ridgway Gardens; or with F.J. Jones, art master, on Cottenham Park Road. Before long, King’s Lodge was taken over by Henry ‘Daddy’ Price and Glen Fern Tower by Frederick Carrodus (the Cottenham Park Road property disappears from the records). When the notion of school houses was being introduced at the beginning of the 20th century, the Carrodians (colours: white and green) and King’s Lodge (light and dark blue) took their places alongside Wimbedon, West and East.

Then, in 1914, there was a shift. Price gave up running King’s Lodge and the school took over the lease of Carrodus’ house for use as the sole boarding house. By now, Carrodus was living at Glencairn (he had hoped to lease Rushmere, another neighbouring property, now owned by King’s, but the freeholder, Lady Mansel, would not allow him to take in boarders). Glencairn was perfectly situated. Just off the Ridgway, facing onto school playing fields, it was practically on site. The Carrodians and King’s Lodge were combined to become a single house: Boarders. Over time, as pupil numbers grew, Boarders would include day boys as well as residential boarders (when the senior school houses were changed in 1959, the resident boarders became part of Glenesk).

Indeed, there were only ever around 30 pupils, at most, living at Glencairn. They were looked after by a succession of house masters, the most notable of whom was Charles Dann. In charge of Glencairn from 1925 until 1948, so great was Dann’s contribution to school life in general that, after his death in 1969, a memorial gate was installed opposite Glencairn, funded by donations from former pupils and staff. Like the Windmill Theatre, Glencairn did not close during the Second World War. Or at least only for brief moments when, due to aerial bombardment, its residents were forced to stay with school friends whilst windows and ceilings were repaired.

In 1948 the lease on Glencairn came to an end. There was only one property which the head, Dixon, felt would work as a replacement, a house called Weycroft on Arterberry Road. He put together a proposal for the governing body, complete with projected costs, making the case for continuing with a boarding house. In this he asked the question: ‘Do the Governors wish to maintain the boarding tradition?’ They did, and the move took place swiftly. Dann might no longer have been housemaster but his successors at Weycroft were just as well liked: Tony Loveband, Peter Harwood, Brian Gibbons and finally Ian Stewart. The number of boarders crept up from 28 to 40. When an article about King’s appeared in the London Illustrated News in 1960, a photograph of pupils on the lawn outside Weycroft was the lead image. But what was it like to live there?

For one thing, resident boarders would go back for lunch instead of eating at the school. The food, by all accounts, was not good (whether that on offer at school was any better I do not know). Meatballs and fish and chips were not too bad but often meals were the same mutton stew jazzed up with either currants or curry powder to disguise this fact. Grace would be said, and boarders would be expected to attend short evening prayers and church on Sundays (St Mary’s or Christ Church). There was a room designated for supervised prep and another with newspapers and a black-and-white television. In those days, Saturdays were occupied with lessons and games. Sundays, after church, were largely taken up with preparing uniform for CCF activities on Monday afternoons, as described by a former Weycroft boarder: ‘weekends included our ironing of uniforms and blancoing of webbing, boot and brass polishing etc. in readiness for Monday afternoon parade. (Blanco came as a solid block of greenish 'mud' the size of a tin of shoe polish which had to be wetted and applied to webbing belts and gaiters and then left to dry.) Later this was changed for gel which was applied by brush and then polished. Similarly for those in the naval section the water soluble whitening for hats was changed for a non-soluble one so that in wet weather it did not pour all over your uniform.’ I am sure there must have been lighter-hearted moments too.

In 1973, it was announced in the school magazine that boarding at King’s was coming to an end. This was not strictly true. Although Weycroft was sold, the few remaining boarders were moved to a house recently acquired by the school, the Lodge on Woodhayes Road. The editors of the magazine were right, though, that the spirit of boarding would never be the same again at King’s. Dorothy Roberts, who had nursed generations of resident boarders as their matron, retired after 37 years. John Kirkland, the last ever housemaster of the boarding house, together with his wife Margaret, ran the Lodge as a ‘large well-fed family’ but King’s was by now firmly a day school and, in 1985, boarding ceased completely.

Do you have any memories of the boarding house? Is there an aspect of the school’s history about which you would like to know more? As ever, if you have stories to share, or questions to ask, please contact me at archive@kcs.org.uk.

Dr Lucy Inglis
School Archivist