How old is winchester college

Progress was hardly smooth: "archaic methods and obsolete traditions" persisted for some time yet Oman 44 ; in particular the notorious "Tunding Row" of winter exposed the widespread and sadistic practise among the prefects of "tunding" or thrashing juniors with a ground-ash. However, especially under the headship of George Ridding , dubbed, though of course not in any formal sense, "the second founder of Winchester" Kenyon and Curthoys , conditions improved tremendously.

Lord Alfred Douglas — Oscar Wilde's "Bosie" — entered the school at just this point, and seems to have established himself happily there, being "generally liked" and co-founding and editing a magazine called The Pentagram , to which he contributed humorous pieces Hyde Note: For a flavour of Winchester College at the end of the period, see offsite G. Copley, Terence. London and New York: Continuum, Hyde, Harford Montgomery. Lord Alfred Douglas: A Biography. London: Methuen, Kenyon, F.

Viewed 16 December Murray, Nicholas. A Life of Matthew Arnold. London: Sceptre, Oman, Sir Charles William Chadwick. Pevsner, Nikolaus, and David Lloyd. Hampshire and the Isle of Wight. The Buildings of England series. London: Penguin, Those applying to College do not take the normal entrance examination but instead sit a separate, harder, exam called "Election": successful candidates may obtain, according to their performance, a scholarship, an exhibition or a Headmaster's nomination to join a Commoner House without remission of fees.

Admission to College is on academic merit, as measured in the Election examination, regardless of financial means, though the original statutes specified that the foundation existed for poor scholars and required entrants to take an oath that their net income did not exceed a figure chosen as the average income for the time.

Scholars enjoyed a remission of fees, amounting for much of the 20th century to two-thirds of the total. This remission has since been progressively reduced, and is due to be abolished altogether. Traditionally, the prefectorial system was intended as a way to maintain order within the school, as well as train senior boys for future roles of responsibility, often times with the idea of the civil service or colonial administration in mind.

In modern times, the prefects and officers of Winchester College are, in descending order of seniority:. Following in seniority are the College Officers, of which there are four. The College Officers are nominally senior to the Heads of Houses Co: Praes, Commoner Prefects , though in practice Heads of Houses often have more responsibility regarding the running of their Houses, whilst College Officers' responsibilities are essentially limited to their respective Chambers in College.

The Heads of Houses are in turn ordered in ascending order from the oldest to newest House. Traditionally there were always 18 prefects in College, though since the midth century there have been fewer, 10 to 14 being typical. Of these, five later increased to six hold salaried offices. Historically, these were as follows, in descending order of seniority:. The post of Jun: Cap: Prae: junior chapel prefect has recently been abolished and has been replaced by Ollae Praefectus Oll: Prae: , which literally translates as "prefect of tub".

This is the revival of an ancient office, which was suppressed in the 19th century when the office of Bib: Prae: was created.

The duties were to do with catering, especially the disposal of uneaten food from College lunch, which was collected in a special wooden vat and given to the poor. This vat or tub is still on display in College Hall. Each Officer, in addition to his specialized duties, has charge of a College Chamber day-room. Thus when IVth Chamber was reopened, increasing the number of chambers to six, a sixth Officer was created, the Coll: Lib: Prae: , in charge of Upper Coll: Lib: the fiction library available to Collegemen.

The post had previously existed informally, but the holder used not to rank as an Officer. Formerly, there were one or two originally five further prefects "in full power", invariably, though improperly, known as Co: Praes.

Officers and Co: Praes had authority throughout the school; the remaining prefects had authority only in College. Nowadays, while there are still six officers, they have little to do with the running of the school and are mainly responsible for their respective chambers, and there are no other College Co: Praes. In practice, only the Prefect of Hall has significant duties outside College. The present practice is for all fifth-years in College to be prefects. Each officer nominates a prefect from those members of his year who are not officers to act as his deputy within his chamber; any prefects left over are sometimes known as "Jemimas" reason unknown.

The seven senior inferiors non-prefects in College are known as Custodes Candelarum tollykeepers , but this is a purely nominal dignity. The next senior person in a chamber after the prefects and tollykeepers was once known as the in loco , and kept the accounts for Chamber Tea. Nowadays, there is generally only one Co: Prae: per house, who acts as the senior house prefect. In addition, each house has a number of House Prefects, with authority only in that house.

The Co: Praes heads of houses meet weekly together with the Prefect of Hall and Head Master to discuss the running of the school. Until the s the predominant subject of instruction was classics, and there was one main schoolroom used as both the classroom and the place of preparation, under extremely noisy conditions: there were adjacent rooms used for French and mathematics.

Under the headmastership of George Ridding proper classrooms were built, and pupils had the option of joining "Parallel Div" for the study of history and modern languages. Later still a "Sen: Science Div" was added.

Science teaching at Winchester had a high reputation: one of the early science masters duplicated the experiments of Hertz about radio waves, the equipment for which is still preserved at Science School.

For much of the 20th century the senior forms were divided among three "ladders": the A ladder for classics, the B ladder for history and modern languages and the C ladder for mathematics and science. There was also a vertical division, in descending order, into Sixth Book equivalent to the sixth form at other schools , Senior Part, Middle Part and Junior Part: depending on ability, new boys were placed in either Junior or Middle Part.

The school now offers a wide range of subjects, and no longer has a system of ladders. In it abandoned A-level as its matriculation credential and adopted the Cambridge Pre-U on the grounds that this will strengthen the quality of the school's intellectual life. In addition to normal lessons, all boys throughout the school are required to attend a class called Division Div for short which focuses on parts of history, literature, and politics that do not lead to external examinations; its purpose is to ensure a broad education that does not focus solely on examinations.

At Pre-U, There were 36 Oxbridge offers; 18 at Oxford and 18 at Cambridge. Chemistry and physics are the most popular Pre-U subjects, closely followed by history and English literature.

Philosophy and theology are also popular. Situated on the south side of Chamber Court, the chapel is part of the original college buildings and retains its original wooden fan-vaulted ceiling. Built to accommodate just over people, it long ago became too small to accommodate the whole school currently boys. Additional seating installed in the re-ordering and extension carried out by the Victorian architect Butterfield allows the chapel to seat people.

On Sundays half the houses worship in Chapel, while the other half worship at the same time in St Michael's Church known as Michla , a redundant parish church central among the boarding houses, which the College took over in the last century. Weekly choral services are sung by the Choir in Chapel on Tuesdays and by the Quiristers on Thursday and Saturday evenings in Fromond's Chantry, which is in the middle of the cloisters.

A striking feature of the chapel is its stained glass. The East window depicts the stem of Jesse. Down the chapel's north and south sides is a collection of saints. A firm of glaziers in Shrewsbury was tasked with cleaning the glass in the s.

At that time there was no known process for cleaning the badly deteriorated glass and so it was copied, while most of the original glass was scattered or destroyed. Some pieces have been recovered. The south west corner holds the largest piece, bought and donated by Kenneth Clark. Five other figures bequeathed by Otto von Kienbusch and two more donated by Coleorton Church, Leicestershire were placed in Fromond's Chantry in Until Victorian times the chapel was divided into a chapel and ante-chapel, and had decorative panelling.

This panelling was recovered by the school in the s and used in the building of New Hall, the school concert hall, the design of which was specifically planned so as to house it.

The Chapel Choir sings regular services in the Chapel, as well as other venues. This consists of sixteen Quiristers who attend The Pilgrims' School and a similar number of senior boys and a few dons masters.

A non-quirister choir sings the services in St Michael's Church. The exterior of the Chapel and the Hall underwent extensive restoration of the stonework at the end of the twentieth century. Situated to the west of Meads, this cloister serves as a memorial to the Wykehamist dead of the two World Wars. It was designed by Sir Herbert Baker]and dedicated in and again in War Cloister occupies a strategic position on Kingsgate Street accessed via "South Africa Gate", which commemorates the Wykehamist dead of the — Boer War , so that most Commoners go through it on their way to and from class.

It emerged that the school had known in about claims of sadomasochistic abuse at the hands of John Smyth, a British QC who ran a series of Christian summer camps attended by its pupils, but did not report the claims to the police. This article is more than 1 year old. Reuse this content. Education Schools Teachers Universities Students.