Unofficial Christ's Hospital Forum

Inspired by the thread on Johnson, it suddenly occurred to me that during my 7 years in Barnes B, we had fairly frequent changes in Housemaster.
This during the period when some were appeared to be permanent fixtures in their houses.
Maine A - Tom Keeley
Barnes A (Thin streak of misery who ran Dining Hall and the RAF, but whose name escapes me at the moment)
Lamb B - Rock Rae
Col B - Bogey Fryer
Mid A - Arthur Rider
Peele ? - Peto

I'm sure there were other, but in Barnes B during the same period, between Housemasters and Junior Housemasters we had
Cherniasky and Paddy Cullen
Miller with first Neil Simms and then Pete Brotherton
Then Johnson and Bwana Goodall, I can't remember who was Housemaster.
These latter 2 appeared to be for the changeover to a Junior House which happened the year after I left.

The question is, what was more usual, permanence or temporary, and what was it like in Hertford?

Most of the Ward mistresses seemed to have been in post since the Foundation! The exception was the assistants in 1s (I don't know what happened in 5s, the other junior house with an assistant) It could be that they couldn't get on with Miss Robertson, who was a real misery of the (very) old school. The only other change I remember was in 8s, in about 1947ish when thay got a young woman (?war widow?) She quickly gained the reputation of being horribly house proud eg putting a finger on the highly polished dayroom table was almost a hanging offence. Miss Lomas in 6s seemed more laidback than most of them, and in 3s we had Miss Norris, who poked and pried into everything.

jhopgood wrote:Inspired by the thread on Johnson, it suddenly occurred to me that during my 7 years in Barnes B, we had fairly frequent changes in Housemaster.
This during the period when some were appeared to be permanent fixtures in their houses.
Maine A - Tom Keeley
Barnes A (Thin streak of misery who ran Dining Hall and the RAF, but whose name escapes me at the moment)
Lamb B - Rock Rae
Col B - Bogey Fryer
Mid A - Arthur Rider
Peele ? - Peto

I'm sure there were other, but in Barnes B during the same period, between Housemasters and Junior Housemasters we had
Cherniasky and Paddy Cullen
Miller with first Neil Simms and then Pete Brotherton
Then Johnson and Bwana Goodall, I can't remember who was Housemaster.
These latter 2 appeared to be for the changeover to a Junior House which happened the year after I left.

The question is, what was more usual, permanence or temporary, and what was it like in Hertford?

"Pongo" Littlefield is the Barnes A Housemaster you are thinking of.

Tom Keeley was Maine A Housemaster when I arrived but if I remember correctly I was told that he took over from Armistead (? spelling the maths teacher) that same year. In September 1966 Basil Gregory succeeded THK (who decamped to Peele B) as Maine A Housemaster and remained there until his death in the mid seventies as far as I know.

Ron Lorimer took over from Arthur Rider as Middleton A Housemaster in September 1968, the year I entered Middleton A. I met him at a wedding in 1978 or thereabouts and he was still Housemaster then, 10 years on.

We had five during my eight years at Hertford, can't remember if that was typical or not. There did seem to be some semi-permanent fixtures such as Pot (Miss Scott-Haughton) in 6's and Lil (Miss Thompson) in 3's. Oh, and Bessie (Miss Summers) in 4's.

In 5's, we had:
Mrs Curtis (The Goat) - probably only for my first year, I think. Don't remember a great deal about her except that she was a bit stern and not very sympathetic to desperately homesick new girls. But at least she wasn't vindictive or barking, which was quite something at the time
Mrs Ford - for a couple of years - a bit simple, I think - good natured but allowed herself to be taken advantage of, and then threw wobblies and meted out punishments indiscriminately
Miss Screen - again for a couple of years - possibly the less said the better - I would hate to be sued for libel
Mrs Campbell - three years, I think - the most humane so far, but with a short fuse and an impressive ability to sulk
Mrs Cooke - my final year, though I believe she was there for some time after that. What happened? We finally got someone normal.

In my whole time at CH (8 years), some houses kept the same housemasters throughout:

Peto at MaB
Littlefield at BaA
Kit Aitken at ColA
Harry Spurrier at MidB
Arthur Rider at MidA
Pop Beaven at PeA

John Page was housemaster of ThB for about 14 years before moving to ThA when he got married. And ALJohnstone must have been at LaA for years (he retired from that at the end of my penultimate year).

Junior housemasters tended to come and go -- after all, who'd want to be a junior housemaster? But Rev. Lloyd Whitfeld was at MaA all these 8 years, I think.

Mid A 15 wrote:

jhopgood wrote:Inspired by the thread on Johnson, it suddenly occurred to me that during my 7 years in Barnes B, we had fairly frequent changes in Housemaster.
This during the period when some were appeared to be permanent fixtures in their houses.
Maine A - Tom Keeley
Barnes A (Thin streak of misery who ran Dining Hall and the RAF, but whose name escapes me at the moment)
Lamb B - Rock Rae
Col B - Bogey Fryer
Mid A - Arthur Rider
Peele ? - Peto

I'm sure there were other, but in Barnes B during the same period, between Housemasters and Junior Housemasters we had
Cherniasky and Paddy Cullen
Miller with first Neil Simms and then Pete Brotherton
Then Johnson and Bwana Goodall, I can't remember who was Housemaster.
These latter 2 appeared to be for the changeover to a Junior House which happened the year after I left.

The question is, what was more usual, permanence or temporary, and what was it like in Hertford?

"Pongo" Littlefield is the Barnes A Housemaster you are thinking of.

Tom Keeley was Maine A Housemaster when I arrived but if I remember correctly I was told that he took over from Armistead (? spelling the maths teacher) that same year. In September 1966 Basil Gregory succeeded THK (who decamped to Peele B) as Maine A Housemaster and remained there until his death in the mid seventies as far as I know.

Ron Lorimer took over from Arthur Rider as Middleton A Housemaster in September 1968, the year I entered Middleton A. I met him at a wedding in 1978 or thereabouts and he was still Housemaster then, 10 years on.

Ron was still housemaster when I left in 1984!! So a long spell for "ZOB"!

Mr Eagle - Prep B.

Mr Jones. Prep A.

Both in situ for all my time at Horsham.

J.R. wrote:Mr Eagle - Prep B.

Mr Jones. Prep A.

Both in situ for all my time at Horsham.

And for quite a time before that, I think. (I wasn't thinking of the Prep when I made my list above.)

Peter Austin Jones unusually moved from being a junior housemaster in the Prep to being a master in the Upper, and became a junior housemaster of ThB -- where he made a complete contrast to Richard Fry, the other junior housemaster.

michael scuffil wrote:In my whole time at CH (8 years), some houses kept the same housemasters throughout:

Peto at MaB
Littlefield at BaA
Kit Aitken at ColA
Harry Spurrier at MidB
Arthur Rider at MidA
Pop Beaven at PeA

John Page was housemaster of ThB for about 14 years before moving to ThA when he got married. And ALJohnstone must have been at LaA for years (he retired from that at the end of my penultimate year).

Junior housemasters tended to come and go -- after all, who'd want to be a junior housemaster? But Rev. Lloyd Whitfeld was at MaA all these 8 years, I think.

Littlefield and Spurrier (maybe Aitken too but not so sure about him) were still in place when I left.

I think when I was at CH, the maximum term for being a housemaster was 10 years... I'm sure Dr Stuart (MaA) beat that as he was housemaster there on my squits (1992) and finished in 2004/5ish? Are the Robinsons still houseparents of LHB?

Otherwise, most houseparents where there relatively permanently... Dad was housemaster of MaB (1992-1995) and PeA (1995-2001 (I think!) )

Lionel Mahon Carey, was my housemaster for 6 years, until the Army, desperately ,needed me (See my other Posts !)
I remember we had a very elderly Junior Housemaster (Probably about 65 -- Elderly ?) who was the Reverend Featherstonehaugh, pronounced FEESTONHOE, it being Wartime, Young Masters were in short supply !
I believe that L.M.C moved to Maine later, but pehaps someone remembers.
The last I heard of him, he had been a Housemaster at Sherborne, which I only found out when on a Channel Ferry with the Head of that school, Small Worrld ain't it. I would have liked to visit him, since I also live in Dorset, but he must have been really old, by then (Listen who's talking !) and probably would not have remembered me.

Mid A 15 wrote: Tom Keeley was Maine A Housemaster when I arrived but if I remember correctly I was told that he took over from Armistead (? spelling the maths teacher) that same year.

Not quite. Armistead retired as housemaster of MaA long before (in about 1950 I think). The next two housemasters of MaA were Messrs Tod and Barker, both classicists as it happened, like THK.

Great Plum wrote:Are the Robinsons still houseparents of LHB?

Yep.

I think Bill Armistead had been Master of the Royal Mathematical School (to give 'head of maths' its proper title) and deputy to The Oil since at least the forties.

Fryer took over Col B when Chinky Buck, who had been there since 1930, was sacked in 1955 (?56). About 1950 Mid B went to Gad Malins, who had at various periods been junior hm in Col B.

At this time Bl..dy Johnnie ran Lamb A, in his own style which included not having house colours. Th.B (?Th.A) had Fred Haslehust who chose orange and purple (?) as their house colours, why I dread to think.

In 1946/7 Eagle was deputy to Mr Pink in PyB.

Not a word against Pongo Littlefield who put me up for an RAF Flying Scholarship, something for which I'll be forever grateful, even though I paid out the flying club where my 30 hours was booked by breaking their Tiger Moth and the RAF by joining the RN (which I had been going to do since I was 3 anyway).

postwarblue wrote:

In 1946/7 Eagle was deputy to Mr Pink in PyB.

The same Mr Eagle that was head of Prep B when I joined in 1958 ?

(A.E. Eagle, if memory serves !)