Unofficial Christ's Hospital Forum

Hi does anyone know what Little Erasmus means?
My parents are wondering why I don't know as I am a LE.

As I recall --- from some 65 years ago-- when I was in LE,
Little Erasmus (LE) and Great Erasmus (GE) are named after the famous philosopher of that name --- look him up in the Dictionary.
CH has some odd names for the various Forms, Lower Fourth and Upper Fourth (Broadies) are pretty obvious, and Grecians are because they used to be the only ones studying Greek.

I may be wrong about all this ---- and if so someone on this Forum will correct me ----

They always do !!!

I can claim the onset of Dementia !

As a matter of interest, does anyone know the first recorded use of "Grecian" and "Erasmus" in this sense? And why "Erasmus"? (He died 17 years before CH was founded, but this sort of naming after recently dead celebrities is surely a modern phenomenon.)

Presumably this is the same guy after whom the International student exchange is named.

If I remember rightly then Neill is right.The LE and GE are supposedly named after Erasmus the philosopher.As for why they are named so I do not know.Now the story behind the naming of those particular years would be of interest.

From Christ's Hospital G.A.T. Allan Revised by J.E. Morpurgo (p19)

....."The names of many of those individual benefactors who, in its first two centuries, followed the example of Crown and City, are recorded only in Christ's Hospital's archives and in its more detailed histories but one name, that of Erasmus Smith-he whose generosity was largely responsible for the great building-programmes of the late seventeenth and eighteeth centuries- has rare currency. Still to-day as they make their way up the School, progressing from form to form graced according to Christ's Hospital's unique nomenclature, most Blues would echo the mystification expressed more than a century ago by Leigh Hunt in his Autobiography.

The Upper Grammar School was divided into four classes or forms. The two under ones were called Little and Great Erasmus; .........We used to think the title of Erasmus taken from the great scholar of that name; but the sudden appearance of a portrait among us, bearing to be the likeness of a certain Erasmus Smith, Esq., shook us terribly in this opinion and was a hard trial of our gratitude. I believe he was a rich merchant and that the forms of Little and Greater Erasmus were really named after him.".......

So ---- another possibility !

TBA has pointed out, that if I was in LE 65 years ago ------ I would have been 17 ----- !!!!!
I told you dementia was approaching !
I know I was "Thick" at CH --- but not THAT Thick !!

Neill the Notorious wrote

CH has some odd names for the various Forms, Lower Fourth and Upper Fourth (Broadies) are pretty obvious, and Grecians are because they used to be the only ones studying Greek.

There's only an Upper Fourth now, which has always struck me as odd. Presumably there must originally have been a Lower Fourth as well; does anyone know how and when this was lost?

ailurophile wrote:Neill the Notorious wrote

CH has some odd names for the various Forms, Lower Fourth and Upper Fourth (Broadies) are pretty obvious, and Grecians are because they used to be the only ones studying Greek.

There's only an Upper Fourth now, which has always struck me as odd; was there ever a Lower Fourth, and if so how did it come to be 'lost'?

Yes the Lower Fourth (LF) was alive and well in my day.

At that time one went LE, GE or alternatively LF, UF, GE.

In the modern vernacular one took GCSES ("O" levels in the dark ages) at the end of either Year 10 or Year 11 depending on your route.

I don't know when it changed.

Creaking of bones and cries of "Nurse Nurse" -----

I started in the Third Form and took School Certificate (Matric Exemption) at UF "Bright ones" went on to "Higher" !!

viewtopic.php?f=18&t=838

This thread has a bit about form structures both at Hertford and Horsham.

From the dates of "Sport!" and "Great Plum" I would hazard a guess that the LF disappeared sometime in the eighties.

Someone such as Craig , Chaz or our Esteemed leader might be able to pinpoint an accurate date as they were at CH in the eighties.

I started at CH in 1988 and there wasn't a Lower Fourth then,it went 2nd Form(lovingly called Squits),3rd Form,Little Erasmus(LE),Upper Fourth(UF),Great Erasmus(GE),Deputy Grecians(Deps) and finally Grecians.

gsjones wrote:I started at CH in 1988 and there wasn't a Lower Fourth then,it went 2nd Form(lovingly called Squits),3rd Form,Little Erasmus(LE),Upper Fourth(UF),Great Erasmus(GE),Deputy Grecians(Deps) and finally Grecians.

If there was no LF when you started in 1988 perhaps it disappeared at the time of the merger between Hertford and Horsham in (?)1985.

I guess it would have been a logical time for a change to form structure.

Mid A 15 wrote:it went 2nd Form(lovingly called Squits),3rd Form,Little Erasmus(LE),Upper Fourth(UF),Great Erasmus(GE),Deputy Grecians(Deps) and finally Grecians.

That's what it was in 1985 when we moved to Horsham.

From all of this, I deduce there was never a 1st Form.

(There was, of course, a 5th. Parallel to Deps (the 'natural' 5th). Basically for thickies (or in some cases the purely lazy) who were allowed to re-take O Level. I can remember one who made good and became a Grecian, but for most, the 5th was the end.)

I must say, even when I started, I could never understand why the first year was called the (Lower) Fourth, or why there were three whole years between it and the 5th.

In school stories, forms always had funny names, most famously in Billy Bunter, who was in something called the "Remove". (And wasn't there a "Shell" at Greyfriars?)