As might be expected my recent experience at Stockwell was a prominent topic of conversation between the seniors, and Mr Stanford promised to make enquiries with reference to a good school for the completion of my education, with the result that the High School at Bishop Stortford was selected on account of the excellent reports that were forthcoming of the qualifications of the Rev. Godfrey Goodman the head master.
I have never had the least reason to regret the choice, for I spent three very happy years there, while Mr Goodman, though not a man of lofty attainments or high degree, was really great as a teacher, and the way he could either enforce a moral principle or interest boys in their studies was remarkable.
The High School was founded, according to a paper that I have in front of me, in the sixteenth century, and a list of Preachers and Stewards from 1696 is in existence, though there is a break from 1768 to 1850 during which time the school was in abeyance.
In the latter year through the energies of the Rev. F. W. Rhodes, the father of Cecil John Rhodes, who was Vicar of the Parish and a man of much educational zeal, the school was reconstructed.
Mr Rhodes would seem to have been associated in the matter with Mr John Archer Houblon the principal land owner in the district, who acted as Steward at the 1850 Speech Day and President of the School while I was there, liberally supporting our Sports.
The school was a very popular local feature at the time receiving much support from the officers and troopers of the First Herts Light Horse who had a strong squadron in the town. Among the former I recollect Major Odams, Captain Fourman, Lieutenant Percy Taylor and Adjutant Launcelot ; both these and the privates figure in my memory as a very smart and excellently mounted body of cavalry. Their marches out with band playing caused great excitement among the boys who cheered them heartily; this feeling was reciprocated by the support given to any school enterprise that we had on hand. Mr Percy Taylor had a good cricket eleven who played an annual match with the boys.
At the time of my entry I do not think there were more than sixty boarders at the newly built school in the Hadham Road; it was even at that time a commodious building on up to date lines with large dormitories, ample supply of baths, etc., while outside there was an excellent pleasure and kitchen garden, reserved for the head master, and good open and covered play-ground for the boys.
A field across the road provided us with football and hockey in Winter and a practice ground for cricket in the Summer, our cricket matches taking place in the excellent cricket field of the Bishop Stortford Club some distance away from the school.
When I first went there, Michaelmas term 1862, the school seemed to be invariably termed the “High School”, but from examination papers of 1865, my closing year there, I see that it is called Bishop Stortford School, as I imagine because the Nonconformist Grammar School, that is now such an important educational centre, had been opened and that there was a quite natural desire on the part of those connected with the old foundation that it should not lose any of its prestige through the coming of the new institution.
The two schools were situated close together and the High School boys looked upon the others as intruders so that at first there was some friction and a few fights, but as our boys walked down from the school house to the class rooms on West Hill in “crocodile” formation this state of affairs did not last for long.
My memory of Mr Goodman is of a rather stout man of less than average stature with a mass of jet black hair rather “fuzzy” in character; his mobile face was indicative of kindness. He was described on the earlier prospectus of the school as Associate of King’s College, but while I was under him the then Bishop of Rochester Dr. Money-Wigram conferred the degree of Doctor of Divinity upon him. This gave great satisfaction to the boys and their parents and was widely welcomed in the neighbourhood, so that the position of the school was strengthened thereby.
Dr. Goodman was a churchman of an evangelical type, but his views had broadened out in advance of Dr. Colenso’s writings, and he had with his own hand ruled out certain statements made in Pinnock’s Scripture Reader that he thought were ungrounded and were made in the effort to reconcile recent scientific discoveries with the early chapters of Genesis.
The head master of the school was also a Chaplain of the Union at this time, and just before leaving I went with him on several Sunday afternoons to the Workhouse and read the lessons. On one of our walks there I used the world “altar” in reference to the communion table, and he said “I do not think Brooks I would use that word, for the altar implies a sacrifice whereas I delight to look at the Sacrament as a Commemorate Sacred Feast” and my Churchmanship ( I spell it with a big C ) has always remained of the order that that remark suggests.
Among my very pleasant memories the classical master the Rev. T.C. Pallett holds a prominent place. He had been educated at the Blue Coat School whence he proceeded to Lincoln. I used to call him to his face a “dear little soul” and although he has been dead many years that is the aspect in which I still regard him.
Mr Pallett was a very diminutive man with an enormous head, in appearance not very dissimilar to Professor Huxley, but with a nature that suggested Tom Pinch; the liberties that he would allow myself and certainly others to take with him surpassed belief, but he never tolerated mere rudeness. He evinced a profound interest in my commercial instincts, picked up at the Birchin Lane Stamp Mart, and winked at certain illicit dealings that he perhaps ought to have suppressed for I had not been there long before I had a definite agency for a stamp dealing firm who wrote from Bath.
Among other thing that were “taboo” I took up an agency for a man named Latrielle hailing from Walworth who sold an elixir for “producing hair on the smoothest faces,”- I can but feel that I did it for the fun of the thing, but in any case the effort was a complete failure and not a single order was booked, but when as a final effort I induced my mother to let me take back as a play-box a hair trunk decorated with brass nails that had been my grandmother’s and solemnly declared that it was the deal box of last term after a period of treatment, he joined in the fun of the thing and called me a “sophisticated commercial traveller”. Mr Pallet was very much inclined to spoken Latin and Greek so that we took Cicero and Terence for Latin at a much earlier stage than is usual, and from the latter he and I used to get much fun by knocking up dog-Latin at which he certainly was very proficient.
The head master showed his practical nature by the importance he placed on Chemistry, not nearly so much taught at that time as now, for which study we had a very able teacher in Mr E.V. Gardner, who had preceded Professor Pepper of Ghostly fame at the old Polytechnic in Regent Street.
He gave us lectures with experiments to which the public were sometimes admitted, while certainly for one term Mr Gilbert of Harpenden, the associate of Sir John Lawes, gave lectures on the Chemistry of Agriculture: but the countrybred boys sons of prominent farmers as many of them were, laughed him to scorn, and at the close of the series he announced that he should not continue next term as only the two boys, Letts the son of the Diarist and myself, had made the least use of the instruction given.
The attitude adopted by the boys towards the subject was that they could learn what was necessary of practical farming from their fathers; but although many of our ancestors have excelled us in the Arts and Crafts this does not hold good in those progressive fields in which Science is concerned, where the only safe rule seems to be “if it was good enough for my father it is not good enough for me”.
It would appear that on joining the school I was placed in the third class for I received a prize in that form for general proficiency in regard to Lent Term 1863. It was entitled “Wild Sports of the West”[correction:...of the World], by James Greenwood whom I afterwards knew quite well as a Pressman and the author of a series of Articles in the “Pall Mall Gazette” under the pseudonym of “The Amateur Casual”. The coloured plates were by W. Dickes, one of George Baxter’s licences, after drawings by Zwecker the animal painter. I was very proud to be able to point out to Dr. Goodman that the maps were engraved by my father, and on my return to explain to him that they were executed by an entirely new process, of which I shall speak hereafter, by which each letter was stamped in, and the very animals with which the maps were studded were executed in the same way.
At this time I must have been putting in some good work for at Christmas of the same year I passed the Junior Local Examination at Cambridge with two other boys one of whom was named Burder and became an architect of repute, but I have lost trace of him, to my regret, for many years. I recollect that we were mightily proud of ourselves for we were deposited by the Doctor at rooms in Downing Street approved by the Examination Syndicate, so that we felt ourselves budding undergraduates and frolicked in our comparative freedom from school restraint. Our breakfast was sent to us each morning, and having on the first occasion made the acquaintance of the Cambridge Sausage, we were never inclined to attempt any variation during our short stay, and a habit was formed that even now has not lost its hold upon me.
This success led to a very handsome prize, a volume just issued before the Speech Day of 1864 entitled "A Chronicle of England”, written and illustrated by James E. Doyle and published by Messrs Longman & Co.; the numerous coloured illustrations mingled in the text were the work of the late Mr Edmund Evans and are beautiful examples of the work of the period.
With over forty-five years of colour printing experience I raise my hat to that work and am amazed and ashamed that so little progress has been made in the art of book illustration. The cost must have been very great and I should doubt whether the book ever paid, but the great publishing houses of that day used at times to “let themselves go”, and a magnum opus such as this was the result.
On the same occasion I received a couple of other prizes, including Mr Archer Houblon’s for History and geography: it took the form of a well fitted leather-covered writing desk by Leuchars of Piccadilly and that it was a good one may be judged by the fact that I am writing on it now.
In one way at least these prizes had an undesirable effect on me, for soon after my return from the summer holidays Dr. Goodman called me into his study and told me to take a seat. He then said that since I took those prizes last term I appear to have an exaggerated idea of my own importance and he felt that a course of Astronomy would do me good, for if I had but the smallest acquaintance with the wonders of stellar space I should come to the conclusion that if I was the only boy with any gifts in the school, or even the whole county, I was only a mere speck in the Infinite: “Yes”, said he in dismissing me, “I will speak to Mr Badham the mathematical master about the Astronomy.”
The lesson was perhaps a severe one but it did me a wonderful amount of good, the idea was so similar to what my father might have expressed that it seemed a case of heredity and environment pulling in the same direction, in which case something of importance is achieve as surely as the sun and moon on conjunction cause a high tide, or working in opposition cause a lowering of the level.
In the summer term of 1863 the occasion of the Prince of Wales’ marriage was a day of mark with us, I think in fact that we had two days holiday and that on the first day we were invited to a town lunch in a large meadow known as Silver Leys some distance along the Hadham Road: and that on the second we took our share in sports and rejoicing in the cricket grounds. Among the other items there were towards the close a pig-hunt and climbing of a greasy pole. The scholars were supposed to be home by this time but with one or two others I stayed behind and got into serious trouble by attempting the greasy pole. As I had a new suit of flannels on for the occasion and the effort necessitated the taking up with you a bag of cinders, it may be imagined that I was a pretty beauty when I arrived home and had the misfortune to meet the Doctor before any change could be effected in my appearance.
The period of my school life most fixed in my memory is that containing the Lent and Summer term of 1865, for it was then that Cecil John Rhodes became a member of the school, and my mind has frequently gone back to the time in consequence.
Rhodes was then under twelve when I was over sixteen, so that in ordinary circumstances I should not have seen much of him, this would also have been brought about by the fact that he was only a day scholar, but from the position of his father as Vicar and Visitor of the school as well as reviver of the foundation, Cecil’s joining was a welcome event to us, notwithstanding that his brothers Ernest and Frank had previously been in the school.
This was much added to by a charm of manner that I well remember: he was as I recollect him a fair-haired boy with blue eyes and a good physique. On one or two occasions I was brought into intimate contact with him.
The first of these was in the Lent term when I was being prepared for confirmation. The influence of Dr. Arnold on school life was at the time much affecting Dr. Goodman: the boys were put much more on their honour and given a larger measure of freedom, and it was remarkable how well the change worked. We were allowed at certain periods an opportunity of strolling about the town or going for walks in small parties: certain places and shops were called “inbounds” and certain other “out of bounds” while monitors were appointed of whom I was one.
The “Lent” was the great time for cross country runs and in my new capacity I took charge of one of these on a Saturday afternoon, our destination being Harlow. However on arriving at Sawbridgeworth one of my boys fainted and I was obliged to take him to an inn: assisted by the landlord and his wife I got the lad on a bed and applied the usual restoratives: the faint however was a prolonged one so that I felt it desirable to send for a doctor, who said that it was caused by too violent exercise after a meal. On getting downstairs again I was faced with another difficulty for some of the boys had been ordering “shandygaff” and one had clearly had too much. I at once decided that we must get home, so hiring a tumbral that was going back to Stortford empty I started the rest of the boys on their return run and got into the cart with my invalid and the culprit. But the jolting did not suit the latter and about half way home he made a bolt and jumped from the cart striking his head on the ground rather severely.
On getting home I sought out the housekeeper and we bound up his head and got him to bed: but on his round of the dormitories that evening the Doctor caught sight of him and was intensely angry with me but, as I now think very wisely – for I had been subject to a good deal of mental strain – said little that night. At the close of school the following morning, he sent for me: on entering he looked very grave and I felt at once that I was in for a special dressing down, but was scarcely prepared for the very serious aspect that the Doctor took of the matter.
The graveness of it was that I, being a monitor, had not been entirely frank with him: in vain did I point out the difficulties of the position and that I had done the very best I could for my two charges under the embarrassing circumstances, and that I felt he might have expelled the delinquent lad had the facts come to his knowledge. The Doctor remained quite unmoved. I was at the time preparing for conformation and he said he must withdraw my name as he could not possibly present me to the Bishop for that solemn rite after such serious conduct. On leaving I went downstairs from the library, we were at Windmill Hill, feeling very sad and on reaching the schoolroom I met young Rhodes. “What is the matter ‘flea” he said, and I told him the whole tale, and, junior that he was, he was most sympathetic. After a few minutes chat he suggested that I should ask Dr. Goodman to see his father on the subject, for as a Vicar he was preparing many boys and girls for the forthcoming Confirmation, “and meanwhile”, said Rhodes, “I’ll do a ‘bunk’ and square the Guv’nor.”
I at once took his advice and fortunate in catching the Dr. just as he was preparing to leave for the School House: he took my intrusion very kindly and bade me be seated. I then unfolded my suggestion on the grounds that Mr Rhodes took such an interest in the school and that my mother, who was very strict on such matters, would feel that I had committed some awful crime if I were withdrawn from confirmation. I then mildly suggested that he should as a personal concession take the second opinion on my conduct – that of Mr Rhodes.
Our scheme worked: Mr Rhodes, as my master afterwards informed me, laying stress on the care that I had of the sick boy, rather than justifying my conduct in shielding the other: so that in due course the Bishop’s hands were for good or ill laid upon my offending cranium.
There still existed at the time faint echoes of the Regency: one of these was that a number of pedestrians who had mostly become aged, wandered about the country-side doing exhibition runs. They received kindly support from the local press who gave free advertisement in the form of paragraphs, so that when a man was due to arrive there was, in most cases, a goodly crowd to receive him, and a wild rush of two or three hundred people of ten brought the weary man to his goal. The proceedings were generally followed by a collection, as many less mundane matters are.
At this time sport was rather in the air with us, for it was May and we were preparing for our Athletic Meeting, so I secured for myself and a couple of forms leave to go and meet a man named George Mountjoy who was due to arrive at Stortford one evening. He was a little behind scheduled time so that we got about four miles along the road before we met him: he turned out to be a very old man and his progression a mere “hobble”, but the veteran was much encouraged by what he felt was a polite attention, so that our “friendly” lead bucked him up and we finished up in good style, the number of company gradually increasing as we neared the town.
This took place on the Friday so that we were but poor qualified for the collection and as the man was staying in the town I invited him to come up to the school House playground on Saturday afternoon: when he came he brought some very worn out looking lithographed portraits of himself, which I was much gratified to find contained the imprint at the corner “Vincent Brooks Lith,” and he sold a fair number to us.
This increased my already growing interest in the old man. It is curious in this department as well as others what a bond of union grows up between you and the fellow to whom you have given a “friendly lead”, I noticed this many years after on the occasion of Weston’s first great endurance, “Go as you please,” at the Agricultural Hall where the American set up a record for a weeks’ walk and showed us the flat-footed method of progression, or “wobble” so essential for success in a prolonged effort.
Great interest was taken in this walk and the Sporting Press appealed for amateurs to form relays to keep him going especially in the night and early morning when the hall was so dreary and depressing: I was among those who responded, induced thereto by my friend Mr W.H.Leverell, one of the last Editors of Bell’s Life, and I remember how much I became linked up with the man and how rejoiced I was when the time came for my hour’s “trudge”. Weston, it may be mentioned, set up what was then a “go as you please” record of ____ miles_____ yards for the six days.
To [cut] this rather long story short we formed a small club and kept Mountjoy (for that was his name) in the town training us for our sports which took place on May 16th and by his attention he largely induced the success of those who had joined in the little scheme.
I reproduce here a copy of the Sports card as it will be of interest in recalling the names of some of the boys contemporary with Cecil Rhodes: it would be interesting indeed to use it as a roll call and to ascertain how many whose names appear are alive at the present time. Rhodes name will be noticed as running in the 100 yards for boys under twelve, but I am unable to say with what result. I see from a letter to my mother I did very well in these Sports taking the half mile and the hundred yards and coming in second for the mile. I well recollect the mile, for Silver had been showing such good form in practice that we all felt it useless to start, but pressure was put on me in order that this the most important feature should not fall through and in the race I put up so good a bid for victory that one of the Stewards sent me up a cricket bag as an additional reward.
Our cricket was done in grand style, and we always had a good lunch on he ground when we received visitors, the Doctor, however, especially spread himself when we went to other schools. During the summer term of 1865 I went with a second eleven team to Chigwell and acted as Captain: we, second eleven that we were, had a brake and four with postillions, and Rhodes was of our number. From a contemporary sketch that I made of the field I see that he fielded as shorts slip and that I kept wicket. After the match I have, unfortunately no note or recollection of the result: we had high tea at the school, I think it was called Forest School, and when the time for returning came we found that the post-boys had refreshed themselves unduly and there was nothing to be done but find a couple of boys to take their places. Rhodes was in great glee dancing round with excitement and claiming as the youngest boy that he was entitled to ride the leading horse. I conceded his claim to ride one of the horses but was inclined to ride the leader myself, and with a merry twinkle in his eye he said it would look “cock-eyed” for the taller boy to be in front, and further that it was a case where “seniores priores” did not apply. I very soon found that he had done this to avoid the inconvenience of the pole and he chaffed me unmercifully as to my discomfort all the way to Sawbridgeworth where we pulled up, and after a conference and in compliance with the pleading of the men we formally restored them to their office on the ground that they had attained to a reasonable level of post-boy sobriety.
Our School Professional was named Jefferies and he was umpire on that day, but I have some recollect that one of the Silcock family – I think it was Frank – used to give us special bowling in our practice.
I believe that I made good progress in the educational side of my school work at this time for I see by correspondence that the headmaster was making considerable efforts to induce me to continue at the school and compete for the Senior Mathematical Scholarship, but my father was rather unwilling to do this as he was feeling the strain of his hard work considerably and was desirous of my joining him in his business as soon as possible.
He, however, consented to my going in for the Scholarship and I secured it. It was tenable for two years at the school and was of the annual value of £30. But second thoughts prevailed and I did not take it up and trust that I did not deprive any one of it to whom it would have been of service. Had I gone to Cambridge as I had hoped, I think I should have made a special study of law which, otherwise than as a litigant, has always had a great charm for me. This prediction had arisen from the headmaster’s interest in the subject: he used to say that if a Frenchman arriving at Dover was supposed, as Blackstone asserted, to know the whole of British Law, how important was it that a well educated English boy should know the general principles of it and how it had been handed down to us.
The Scholarship to which I have referred, was taken next year by E.A. Beck who did so well at the ‘Varsity and who, I am glad to say, is now living and Master of Trinity Hall, the principle college for legal studies at Cambridge, so that it is quite probable that the same influence affected him.
We had at the school a visiting master of Elocution whose methods always appeared to me to be slightly those of a quack, for he advertised extensively in the papers that he taught “Members of Parliament and others” the English Language. He was very unpopular with the other masters especially the clerical ones for he was in the habit of giving examples of how he had heard the Bible and the Church Service read in Cathedrals and elsewhere.
Rhodes proved to be an apt pupil of his for he took the Professor’s Gold Medal in 1865, the first year of his presence at the school. I am afraid I was the Elocutionist’s particular aversion, for on that Speech Day, having retired to the back of the hall, I suppose to see how our voices travelled, and when I was repeating the line of Macaulay,
“Samothracial knows thee well,”
he exclaimed loudly, “Sammy, Sammy, Sammy, who?” I took the interruption quite complacently and afterwards was much congratulated by Dr. Goodman, the Vicar, and other, on my calmness. Mr Rhodes was especially cordial and after asking me if I were going home that night, invited me round to the Vicarage for the evening.
The only incident I remember was that I spoke rather disparagingly of a boy whose father was a prominent tradesman in the town. The Vicar took me up rather sharply with “Brooks! Brooks! That is unworthy of you! Had my father been a milkman the only point of any importance to me would be whether he sold good milk!” It is only of recent years that I found the remark was not so hypothetical as I thought, for it is now well known that Cecil Rhodes’ grandfather was a purveyor of milk in a large way of business in North London, and that he was an ambitious one is indicated by the fact that his business aim was to own one thousand cows!
After the summer holidays I returned to school but only to introduce a new boy and his father, both good friends of mine: and perhaps about seven years after I went down to, and played in, an old Boys’ Cricket Match, when I fancy the Captain of the school was of the well known Hereford Havegal family.
During the whole of my period at the school I heard much talk of George Porter, who had gone up to Christ College, Cambridge. He had apparently been a very popular head-boy and his career was followed with interest. At the commencement of my last term he left the University and became a master and I am indebted to him for many useful notes in regard to the school.
After a time Mr Porter went into the Church and took his M.A. degree, and many “Old Stortfordians” will be glad to know that he is residing in Bournemouth, and though retired from active duties is in fairly good health.
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