OB out of House of Commons

[michael scuffil]

One victim of the election was Martin Linton (Thornton A 55-62 or thereabouts), former MP for Battersea. I don't know whether there are any OBs in the Commons now.

[kerrensimmonds]

Hope he / she does not either earn too much and / or is fibbing on the financial statements to the school....... I realise that MPs basic salaries are just that, but there seems to be an awful lot of room for monetary enhancement.

[michael scuffil]

I don't think children are removed if their parents start earning more. In the 1940s and 50s it was conspicuous that numerous war widows suddenly seemed to acquire high-earning husbands soon after the child got a place.

[sejintenej]

I don't think children are removed if their parents start earning more. In the 1940s and 50s it was conspicuous that numerous war widows suddenly seemed to acquire high-earning husbands soon after the child got a place.

That was school policy in the 1950's. However fees were set on the increased income.
That said, I'm not sure how that statement might be read in the current political climate. Generwlly a widow got the estate of her husband which was often almost nothing. Usually she didn't have a job and had to finds some source of income - I kne one woman who worked as a canteen cook to make ends meet.
By comparison, husbands with jobs were "rich" and those with real money had their pick of the grieving lovelies. Often however the claimed wealth couldn't be found afterwards.

At that time it was a totally different world to what today's generation can understand. No tele, radio running on a battery which had to be recharged in the shop, no electricity, coal stove to cook on - no other heating, we had the luxury of a soda (Corona for those who remember it) shared between 5 at Sunday lunch.

[Hannoir]

Wow, bad times. However delighted to hear that CH produced a Labour MP. Seems that most OB's end up as Tories...

[Mid A 15]

Wow, bad times. However delighted to hear that CH produced a Labour MP. Seems that most OB's end up as Tories...

CH has produced more Labour than Tory MPs I believe.

Michael Stewart was foreign secretary and deputy leader under Harold Wilson in the sixties.

He is arguably the most eminent politician CH has produced, to the best of my knowledge anyway.

[Hannoir]

oh I do stand corrected. to be honest I haven't really looked a whole lot - I make the assumption based on the number of OB's I know that have Tory leanings.
Will look that chap up.

[NEILL THE NOTORIOUS]

Hannoir --- There are some of us, but not of Parlimentary level who are certainly NEITHER Tory, nor Labour !

There are jokes on another Thread abot my Family's "Whiggery"
I was a Liberal and subsequently Lib Dem, and enjoyed it !!

BTW "Our Girl" got in, but with a majority reduced from 5000 to 191 ----

I remember an old County Chief Executive saying "Remember -- it's only a Game !! "

[Rex]

...delighted to hear that CH produced a Labour MP. Seems that most OB's end up as Tories...

Hannoir, may I quote something I wrote in The Old Blue two years ago, in an item about two influential Tory backroom boys, Steve Hilton (Ma A 81-83, La A 83-86) and Stephan Shakespeare (Kukowski, Pe B 68-75)?

"But is there a right-wing bias among OBs generally? As far as we know, there hasn't been an Old Blue Tory MP since the retirement and death of Sir Duncan McCallum (CH 1899-1904) in 1958, since when we've had a Labour Foreign Secretary (Michael Stewart, LaA 18-25), another senior minister in a Labour government (David Simon, MdA 50-58, Senior Grecian, Governor & Almoner) and at least three other Labour MPs, Stuart Holland (LaA 51-59), Martin Linton (ThA 54-62) and Bryan Magee (BaA 41-48) (though Magee eventually joined the Social Democrats). We've also had two members of the TUC General Council, John Edmonds (MdB 54-62) and Paul Mackney (PeB 60-67), not to mention our brace of polemical left-wing entertainers, Mark Thomas (ColB 74-81) and Attila the Stockbroker (Basil Baine, LaB 68-75)."

In one respect this paragraph was compressed to the point of being misleading. David Simon wasn't an MP nor indeed a politician, nor did he serve in Cabinet - he was an industrialist brought into government by Tony Blair and given a specially-created minister-of-state job, straddling two departments.

CH has produced more Labour than Tory MPs I believe.

Of the ten Old Blue MPs I'm aware of, six were Conservative/Unionist and only four were Labour, but none of the former (apart from McCallum) sat in the Commons after 1930, so in our lifetimes the bias seems pretty clear.

Michael Stewart was foreign secretary and deputy leader under Harold Wilson in the sixties.
He is arguably the most eminent politician CH has produced, to the best of my knowledge anyway.

He's certainly the most eminent known to me. He went on to be the leader of the first British Labour delegation to the European Parliament.

[Jo]

In about 1972 our history teacher, Miss Coles, took the O Level history group on a visit to the House of Commons (as our O Level syllabus was C19 political history). She asked us all to contact our MPs to ask about visitors' tickets but in the meantime she also wrote to Michael Stewart, who arranged everything for us and gave us a tour of both chambers. It was very interesting and he was a very gracious host.

[jhopgood]

Michael Stewart came to CH, Horsham for a chapel service, just after he had been made Foreign Secretary in 1965.
I can remember him being there but have no idea of the reason.
It must have been a memorial service, but whose?

[Katharine]

I can remember seeing a picture of him (Michael Stewart) in Housey on TV when he was appointed, or as part of the election results that time. It was in our October holiday 1965. My Dad was thrilled to see it.

[NEILL THE NOTORIOUS]

Ah ! ---- Brian Magee --- Didn't he write a book about his experience at CH, which was hardly flattering to the SChool ?

I see that he became a Lib Dem ------------


We are a broad Church

[Foureyes]

Ah ! ---- Brian Magee --- Didn't he write a book about his experience at CH, which was hardly flattering to the School ?

I have read Magee's book several times and have it in front of me as I type this. I quote his feelings as he left: "...I do not think it occurred to me to doubt that Christ's Hopspital was the best school in the country. It was an ignorant opinion, of course, But there can have been no other that offered so good a boarding-school education, leading to such excellent life chances, with no consideration whatsoever of money or social class..." (page 319).

Magee gives a well-rounded and fair description of the school, analytical and critical where it needs to be, but overall certainly not unflattering. In fact, I believe that Neill is mixing this up with another book, written about C.H. at the same period, but by somebody else. Magee certainly felt that the school gave him an excellent start in life - as, in other respects, did the attentions of the night sister in the Sicker (lucky chap)!

[michael scuffil]

I was going to say, before foureyes beat me to it, that Magee's book was VERY flattering to CH in general, in spite of a few home truths (what he has to say about Derrick Macnutt, for example, would get the man put on the Sex Offenders' Register these days).

Michael Stewart did indeed turn up at CH for a memorial service the day after his appointment, which got CH pictured in the papers. He was appointed after George Brown spectacularly resigned, which was what caused the press interest. If I remember rightly, the memorial service was for ACW (Teddy) Edwards, who'd been Michael Stewart's housemaster in Lamb A.

The politically most influential OB, though never an MP, in recent times was possibly David Norgrove (ThB c. 1960-68, SG), who was Mrs Thatcher's private secretary for a while.

Incidentally are there any OBs apart from David Simon in the House of Lords?