Unofficial Christ's Hospital Forum

I keep seeing Steve Hinton, the PM's (ex) policy advisor and Old Blue described as having "won a scholarship" to CH. Was this something different from what many pupils get now - a level of financial support from the Foundation?

If Mr Hinton received support in the usual way while I would gratefully acknowledging the financial contribution from the School/Foundation I am not sure I would describe my own two children as being "CH scholarship pupils". Is it just me being too picky or is there a failure of the press to understand the CH system? Or do they all quote his Wikipedia entry?

CH Dad wrote:I keep seeing Steve Hinton, the PM's (ex) policy advisor and Old Blue described as having "won a scholarship" to CH. Was this something different from what many pupils get now - a level of financial support from the Foundation?

If Mr Hinton received support in the usual way while I would gratefully acknowledging the financial contribution from the School/Foundation I am not sure I would describe my own two children as being "CH scholarship pupils". Is it just me being too picky or is there a failure of the press to understand the CH system? Or do they all quote his Wikipedia entry?

As I understand it Steve Hilton and his family came to this country as immigrants.

I suspect he entered the School via one of the normal channels but the family were probably poor enough for him to receive 100% assistance with the fees although I do not know this.

Your average lazy journo would probably use the term scholarship to describe this state of affairs and, in fairness, it is arguably as good a summary as any.

Not sure how it worked in Hinton's day, but I got an LCC scholarship, as did most of my London contemporaries.
Not sure what happened to LCC scholarships but they must have been replaced by something.

I was awarded an LCC scholarship too, and assumed that they disappeared along with the LCC (that's the London County Council for our younger readers).

I thought that we were all at Hertford courtesy of one scholarship or another.

This is going to get confusing, I am CHDad and the original poster on this thread is CH Dad, we are not the same person!

CH Dad wrote:I keep seeing Steve Hinton, the PM's (ex) policy advisor and Old Blue described as having "won a scholarship" to CH. Was this something different from what many pupils get now - a level of financial support from the Foundation?

If Mr Hinton received support in the usual way while I would gratefully acknowledging the financial contribution from the School/Foundation I am not sure I would describe my own two children as being "CH scholarship pupils". Is it just me being too picky or is there a failure of the press to understand the CH system? Or do they all quote his Wikipedia entry?

I can't find a Wikipedia entry for this Steve Hinton so I doubt that the source of the word is there: I do suspect that newspapers keep copies of their competitors' output and might even use such a background note even if the originator got things wrong. Being highly cynical about everyone involved in politics I wouldn't put it beyond someone like that to dress up their CV a tad.
The word "scholarship" suggests that he is exceptionally brainy (he just might be but I don't know) so I agree that the word should not be applied where CH is funding his education but there are a few bodies which have competitions for pupils to use the few presentations which they hold (I think Evans is one such winner) so in such case it might be a valid reference.
We need more background information to make a judgement.

sejintenej wrote:

CH Dad wrote:I keep seeing Steve Hinton, the PM's (ex) policy advisor and Old Blue described as having "won a scholarship" to CH. Was this something different from what many pupils get now - a level of financial support from the Foundation?

If Mr Hinton received support in the usual way while I would gratefully acknowledging the financial contribution from the School/Foundation I am not sure I would describe my own two children as being "CH scholarship pupils". Is it just me being too picky or is there a failure of the press to understand the CH system? Or do they all quote his Wikipedia entry?

I can't find a Wikipedia entry for this Steve Hinton so I doubt that the source of the word is there: I do suspect that newspapers keep copies of their competitors' output and might even use such a background note even if the originator got things wrong. Being highly cynical about everyone involved in politics I wouldn't put it beyond someone like that to dress up their CV a tad.
The word "scholarship" suggests that he is exceptionally brainy (he just might be but I don't know) so I agree that the word should not be applied where CH is funding his education but there are a few bodies which have competitions for pupils to use the few presentations which they hold (I think Evans is one such winner) so in such case it might be a valid reference.
We need more background information to make a judgement.

HINTON is a typo. The original poster means Steve HILTON.

Here is his Wiki entry:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Hilton

Mid A 15 wrote:

CH Dad wrote:I keep seeing Steve Hinton, the PM's (ex) policy advisor and Old Blue described as having "won a scholarship" to CH. Was this something different from what many pupils get now - a level of financial support from the Foundation?
HINTON is a typo. The original poster means Steve HILTON.

Here is his Wiki entry:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Hilton

Thanks. I still suspect that the reference to "winning" is gilding the lily. I just wonder who wrote than write-up

I think this should read Hilton not Hinton.
Chris. Bartlett

Just to clear things up:

Steve Hilton is the son of Hungarian immigrants (as is President Sarkozy, incidentally).

LCC/GLC places at C.H. were ended by Ken Livingston. The story I heard was that when he became mayor of Greater London he became ex officio an almoner, attended a couple of meetings, was appalled by what he saw of his fellow almoners and the school (snobbish, upper class, etc - usual Livingstonian rubbish) and ended the LCC/GLC places immediately. He had, of course, totally misunderstood the situation and the benefits places at C.H. had given to many generations of London children. Silly fellow! To the best of my knowledge they were not replaced by anything - they simply stopped - but there are still a fair number of places in the gift of livery companies, specific parishes and the like.

"Scholarships at C.H." Must be written by someone with little knowledge of the school. I suspect that what is meant is "was awarded a place."

But I, and many of my contemporaries, did win a place that was hotly contested.

I endured five years at Hertford because I was 'so lucky and so clever' as to have been awarded a scholarship, and until I joined the Forum I thought that we all were. I don't understand how I could have been under such a misconception, or was admission to Horsham so very different?

It is/was my understanding, that children at CH who did not have a presentation were all 'scholarship' / competetive. That was the terminology used on my daugthers ucas report when she left CH almost 3 years ago

CHDad wrote:This is going to get confusing, I am CHDad and the original poster on this thread is CH Dad, we are not the same person!

It's just the space between CH and DAD that has allowed this to happen.

Yes, places were known as LCC scholarships and Open scholarships as they were really competitive before one had ones interview at 26 Great Tower Street (now the pub Hung, Drawn and Quartered)