C E L E B R AT I N G T H E 1 5 0 Y E A R A N N I V E R S A R Y O F T H E S C H O O L’ S O P E N I N G AT W AT F O R D 1
CONTENTS I N T R O D U C T I O N ................. 3 I N T H E B E G I N N I N G ............ 3 T H E N E E D T O M O V E ........... 4 K E Y S U P P O R T E R S . . ........... 5-7 BUILDINGS & P L A N N I N G ....................... 8-9 S C H O O L L E A D E R S ............ 10 R O YA L PAT R O N A G E ..................... 11 P U P I L S ........................... 12-13 I M PA C T O F WA R ............... 14 M O R E I N F O R M AT I O N ...... 15 A C K N O W L E D G E M E N T S ... 15
Cover: 150 year-old sculpture by Felix Martin Miller, sited on main building, encapsulating the concepts of care, compassion and education
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Clock tower today
INTRODUCTION July 20th 2021 marks the 150th anniversary of the official move from Clapton in East London to Watford in Hertfordshire of Reed’s School, or the London Orphan Asylum as it was known then. This booklet commemorates the move and highlights some of the key individuals who supported the School at this transformative time. It is thanks to their support that Reed’s remains a thriving school today with a strong charitable Foundation at its heart, whose purpose is as important now as it was when it was founded over 200 years ago.
Statue of Rev Dr Andrew Reed, Founder of Reed’s School, Cobham
IN THE BEGINNING
“The role and impact of the Reed’s Foundation is as important today as it was when it was founded over 200 years ago”
Back in the early 1800s, as a young Minister of the New Road Chapel in Stepney, Rev Dr Andrew Reed found himself holding the hand of a dying parishioner. The man’s wife had passed away and his final wish was that his two young daughters would be cared for after his death. Reed’s own mother had been left a penniless orphan and, recalling this, he agreed to help. The granting of this simple wish would lead the way to a life dedicated to philanthropy and to change the futures of thousands of children over the next 200 years.
In his search to find suitable care for the girls, Reed visited many orphanages and was appalled at the circumstances he found. He believed that a better solution must exist so with the help of a small but committed group of supporters who all shared his vision that those in acute need should not surrender their dignity in the face of poverty, he resolved to make it a reality. The outcome was the founding of a charitable foundation called the London Orphan Asylum in 1813: the word Asylum was carefully chosen to signify a place of shelter, safety and education for vulnerable children. It was originally sited in Shoreditch and moved to Clapton in 1825. 3
THE NEED TO MOVE In 1867, the Governors of the London Orphan Asylum concluded it was necessary to seek an alternative location to Clapton, based on three key factors: •
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The first, and still fresh in the minds of all those associated with the School, was the Typhoid outbreak in the winter of 1865, during which 214 children out of 461 were struck down by the fever, of whom 15 died. Second, it was clear that Clapton was being hemmed in by a growing number of private dwellings and the ever-increasing small and mediumsized industries. When Andrew Reed first came across the site in 1821, Clapton was semi-rural, an ideal place to protect and educate vulnerable young children. By the 1840s housing developments began to claim some of the surrounding area and by the 1860s the only open space left was behind the School, but even here roads had been laid out in advance of yet more development. The third reason was the Governors saw a financial opportunity to sell the site and use it to help fund a new acquisition, one that could house an increased number of orphaned children.
Finding a suitable location was key and it was one of the School’s Governors, William Fellows Sedgwick, a surveyor from Watford, who proposed a 36 acre plot of land adjacent to Watford Junction Railway Station which was purchased for £6,500 (approximately £614,000 today).
Etching of site at Clapton, 1828
Map of Clapton site, 1860s
KEY SUPPORTERS OF REED
“I am here tonight at the request of that great man, Dr Reed, whose wishes are to me law and whose entreaties I felt as a command it was impossible to resist.” Field Marhal Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington, KG, GCB, GCH, PC, FRS Former Annual Appeal President
Funding this charitable foundation was a constant challenge, however, Reed refused to be daunted. His resolve and resourcefulness saw him appeal to wealthy members of the Stock Exchange, the gentry and the Royal Family. He knew that their patronage would bring prestige to the charity and, also, instil confidence in its other supporters. Throughout the School’s history it has always benefited from the generosity of individuals keen to preserve Andrew Reed’s vision and legacy. That generosity has manifested itself in monetary donations, the giving of personal time
or in some cases both, not only to the School but also to several other charitable institutions Reed founded, including the Royal Hospital for Incurables in Putney (now the Royal Hospital for Neurodisability), the Infant Orphan Asylum in Wanstead and our own London Orphan Asylum in Clapton.
Arthur Wellesley 1st Duke of Wellington The ability to purchase the land was due to the farsightedness of one of the School’s greatest supporters, His Grace, the First Duke of Wellington KG.
In fact, His Grace took on the mantel of the Annual Foundation Appeal President on five separate occasions at the personal behest of Reed - quite a feat for a Minister to be commanding a Field Marshal! It was the Duke, who in 1842 proposed creating a fund initially to help build a separate accommodation for the girls. The Governors thus recommended putting the ‘Wellington Fund’ to good use in the purchase of the land at Watford.
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London Orphan Asylum, Watford
Grocers’ Company
Merchant Taylors’ Company
Mercers’ Company
Goldsmiths’ Company
Watford Residents
Edward Bousfield
The new location was seen as perfect for a school with train links to London and elsewhere in the country, good soil on which to build with easy means of drainage, open countryside all around and a warm welcome from the inhabitants of Watford. This was demonstrated by a letter to the School Secretary, “I have pleasure in sending a cheque for 100 Guineas (approximately £10,000 today) towards the Building Fund, and shall feel both pleasure and duty in collecting from my friends any further amount in my power especially if the whole Building is proceeded with.” The estimated building costs were £63,000 (approximately £6m today).
Bousfield had been a benefactor of the School for many years. An auctioneer and land surveyor by profession, he became a financial subscriber to the School in 1865 and was elected on to the Board of Governors four years later. A partner in the firm of auctioneers and surveyors, Edwin Fox & Bousfield, he was instrumental in helping the sale of the Clapton site to go through which assisted the financing of the Watford development. Through Bousfield’s endeavours, the School raised £23,500 for the sale of the Clapton Estate (about £2.8m today) and a further £1,911 (£226,000) for its fixtures and fittings.
City of London Livery Companies
Thomas Marriott
Even with the money that had been donated to the Wellington Fund, more funds were needed to complete all the building work. By 1869 £10,000 had been contributed towards the fund. Of the money already collected, £3,000 was a gift from The Grocers’ Company to build one of the eight school houses; £300 by The Worshipful Company of Goldsmiths, £200 from The Worshipful Mercers Company, £105 from The Fishmongers Company, £100 from The Merchant Taylors Company, £105 from The Salters’ Company and various sums from several religious congregations.
Edward Holroyd Bousfield
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James Capel, the Chairman of Governors and of the London stockbroking firm bearing the same name, donated £210.
Another significant supporter was Andrew Reed’s long-time friend, Thomas James Marriott who had worked with and offered sound business advice to Reed from the very beginning of the charity. He was on the Board of Managers from 1823 and maintained a close relationship with the Asylum right up until his death in 1880. A partner with a ship and marine insurance company, Moss Charles & Co, Marriott generously donated enough money to build an accommodation wing for the girls at Watford.
Matilda Brandenberger The School was again fortunate when another long-time supporter stepped forward with an offer the Governors were delighted to accept. Matilda Brandenberger had been a pupil at the School between 1832 and 1839 and, following a period where she was a Governess and teacher, she returned to the London Orphan Asylum in 1853 as the Girls’ School Headmistress. She was very highly regarded as a pupil and as a Headmistress and so it was with mixed feelings when she left in 1864 and married a Governor of the School, George Peckett, a London stockbroker. Peckett died in November 1866, but from this sadness Matilda resolved to honour her late husband’s memory and association with the School by offering to pay for the construction of a Chapel at the new site at Watford. The total cost of the new Chapel was £5,000.
Matilda Peckett (née Brandenberger) with husband, George
“It would, indeed, be a source of gratification to me to feel that, while raising a Memorial to one of the best of men, I should at the same time be benefitting that Institution which I shall ever remember with affection, as the home of my childhood.” Extract from letter written by Matilda Brandenberger to the School Governors dated 12th January 1869
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BUILDINGS & PLANNING
Original print of School site
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With the fundraising well underway, the design of the buildings started to take shape. A series of pavilions were to be built laid out in quadrangles with the administration building to be sited centrally containing the Board Room, visitors’ room, library and other offices, as well as a temporary infirmary (the intention was to build a We work withaway over from 30 state primary and once proper infirmary the main buildings secondary schools from disadvantaged funds were available). areas providing enrichment activities and To educational the right of opportunities the central block stood the Girls’ for hundreds quadrangle. This was expected to house a music of their pupils each year. room with space for separate practicing by the Withtogether fundingwith generously donated by and a pupils a school room, offices several forcity companies, trusts and residence the Headmistress. A Girls’ playground was also included in the designs. liveries, this unique outreach programme works collaboratively with headteachers, To the left of the central building stood the Boys’ teaching and support staff to share section. The pavilions forming the quadrangles resources, skills and facilities and to were divided into what were described as “Houses,” offer a range of enrichment activities each one containing the sleeping facilities for fifty that raise aspirations and improve the children as well as the school room and living performance of young people facing quarters for the Matron. There was a swimming hardship within their schools. pool measuring 62 by 37 feet incorporated inside one of the Houses. Supporting our own teaching and coaching staff block, in delivering The administration referred to asthese the Central programmes are a range of our Building had a clock tower rising fromForum it to a height include: Footballmaking of partners 125 feet,that visible from aChelsea great distance Foundation, Primary Engineer, TheEntering it Club the building’s most notable feature. Worshipful Company TallowatChandlers through the large doubleofdoors the base of the andrevealed The Harlequins Foundation. tower the vestibule and principal staircase behind which was the dining hall. The hall was 108 In addition, the work of the Forums feet by 50 and was an imposing 36 feet in height allows our staff, pupils and, divided in some with a visitors’ gallery. This was from the case, Old Reedonians, to contribute to and main body of the hall by a screen of columns supporting the wider Reed’s community arches. as well as the providing the opportunity Underneath hall was a basement containing to find ourthe next generation of deserving culinary arrangements on an extensive scale for Foundation pupils. cooking and baking. Lifts were used to bring the food to dining hall level.
Artist impression of Girls’House, 1868
Artist impression of Chapel, 1868
Artist impression of Boys’ House, 1868
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SCHOOL LEADERS When the London Orphan Asylum’s Foundation Stone was laid in July 1869, the Headmistress of the Girls’ School was Miss Emma Evans, another former pupil. By the time of the official opening on the 20th July 1871 ill health had forced her to resign, to be replaced by yet another former pupil, Miss Julia Kennaby, a post she held with some distinction until her departure in 1884. As for the Boys’ School, the Headmaster was a young, progressive and very well-respected teacher called Reverend Alexander Furnice Houliston, who had taken up his position in the summer of 1867. At the time of his appointment, he was age 25, by far the youngest Headteacher in the School’s history. However, illness in Victorian England was never far away. Before the move to Watford was completed, Houliston and his wife Maria had started a family and, as with so many families of this time, their fortunes were mixed. Tragically, their middle child born did not live to see her second birthday. Maria had contracted Consumption, now known as Tuberculosis, and gradually declined further, until she died aged 27 in January 1873. The loss was, of course, felt very deeply by Houliston, but he too had been suffering with consumption, longer in fact than his wife. Just over a year after Maria’s demise, Alexander Furnice Houliston died on the 7th February 1874. He was just 31.
Reverend Houliston’s death hit the School hard. In his short tenure he had transformed it and the Governors knew it. They wrote:
“From the day he came into residence until the end, he merited and obtained the confidence of the Board of Managers, the love of the children and the respect of all associated with him in everyday life.” This was praise indeed, but the comments went further:
Girls’ lesson
Miss Emma Evans
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School photo
“His sterling piety, his earnestness of purpose, and his upright character exercised an influence for good, ever to be remembered.”
R O YA L PAT R O N A G E On the 18th January 1870, the Chapel’s Foundation Stone was laid, six months after the School’s Foundation Stone ceremony had taken place attended by their Royal Highnesses, The Prince and Princess of Wales. The huge effort in getting the School funded and built came to fruition on 20th July 1871 when Her Royal Highness Princess Mary Adelaide, Princess of Teck inaugurated the, almost completed, buildings. The crowds were less than two years earlier when the Prince and Princess of Wales laid the Foundation Stone, but they were no less enthusiastic, and the event was a great success. Princess Mary was greeted at the entrance to the Chapel by the Board of Governors, led by James Capel, together with various nobles, clergymen and other dignitaries, including Charles Reed MP the third son of the Founder. Following a short service of dedication, the Princess and assembled party made their way, via the main building, to the Dining Hall where 450 guests attended a luncheon presided over by the Earl of Verulam. Speeches then followed during which those gathered heard how the necessity for increased space had brought about the change of location and that it was envisaged a total of 600 children (compared to the present 427) would be housed and cared for at Watford. The Princess’s Father, Adolphus, Duke of Cambridge, who opened the School at Clapton, and her brother, Field Marshall HRH the Duke of Cambridge, who had rendered great service to the School for many years, were both warmly thanked by the Earl of Verulam.
Their Royal Highnesses, The Prince & Princess of Wales
In a memoir based on the Princess’s private diaries, published in 1900 three years after her death, the following was recorded as her address given on that July day.
“It is with feelings of real pleasure that I have come amongst you today to inaugurate with you the opening of the new London Orphan Asylum, a ceremony which to me has particular interest from the fact that my Dear Father having opened the former House at Clapton. I thank you most sincerely for your intention of calling one of the Houses after his name, which is at once a touching tribute to his revered memory, and a pleasing compliment to my brother, who is, I am aware, a warm friend of the Asylum. Wishing continued and ever-increasing prosperity for so admirable a Charity, which I trust will carry on here the work of usefulness that has been for 58 years a source of blessing for so many, I now declare the London Orphan Asylum at Watford open for ever for the relief of the Widow and Fatherless.”
HRH Princess Mary Adelaide, Princess of Teck
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PUPILS Sadly, there are few records from this time about life at the London Orphan Asylum, apart from one memoir that was written by Charles Edwin Pipe, some thirty years after he left the institution. It was given to the School by the grandson of Robert Henry Ward, a direct contemporary of Pipe’s who had no children himself. Pipe was born on new year’s day in 1853. His admission to the School in 1861 came about after the death of his father, Charles Joshua Pipe, who ran a draper’s shop in Market Street, Lichfield. Although this memoire paints a harsh picture of life as a Victorian orphan, there is no doubt that the boarding, victuals and education Pipe received helped him to establish a thriving grocery business and led him to marry the sister of Sir Edward Elgar.
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Similarly, Pipe’s school friend, Robert Ward, went on to have an interesting and very long life. After leaving the London Orphan Asylum, he became an apprentice watchmaker, was married to his wife for 51 years, had 10 children and worked for watchmaking company, Dyson & Company, with a key role of looking after all the clocks in Windsor Castle. He died just before his 100th birthday. We like to think that the outcomes of most of those orphaned children looked after by the London Orphan Asylum were positive; a legacy that we remain proud of today.
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I M P A C T O F WA R & WA T F O R D S I T E T O D AY The School remained at Watford for a total of 68 years during which time it experienced global depressions and the Great War. It was only when the Second World War started in 1939 that the decision was taken to evacuate the boys to Totnes in Devon and the girls to various locations in Northamptonshire and Buckinghamshire. When the War ended, the Governors had the immediate tasks of removing all the pupils from their various locations and the obvious proposal seemed to be to move them back to Watford, but circumstances and opinions had changed and an opportunity presented itself, the outcome of which was to have a significant impact on the next chapter of the School’s history. The Ministry of Works, which had requisitioned the Watford site for its wartime use, expressed its desire to retain the property as a Headquarters building for the Ministry of Labour and a long-term lease was negotiated. The Governors were happy with this arrangement: they had concerns about returning to Watford owing to the encroachment of industrial developments around the site and their wish to move away from the Victorian institutional buildings to a more conducive educational establishment. Not for the first time, the Board of Governors pondered the two questions, where and how? The ‘where’ was the purchase of Dogmersfield Park near Basingstoke for the girls’ school and the Sandy Lane site in Cobham for the boys. The ‘how’ was by selling the property at Watford to Guy’s 14
Hospital to raise additional capital to fund the large building projects. But why were there two locations? Historically, from the School’s original founding, the boys and girls had always been segregated. The only official times they were in the same place were during meals and for chapel services, albeit still kept apart. Other than these occasions a policy of strict segregation was upheld, although there were minor dispensations for brothers and sisters to meet twice a week! To break with the institutionalism of the past, it was deemed appropriate to split the two schools up. By the 1980s, the Watford site was no longer required by the Government so it was sold to property developer, Taywood Homes (part of Taylor Woodrow, now Taylor Wimpey). They transformed the former Victorian institution into 130 luxury apartments which today present a splendid looking residential development, with many road names still commemorating Andrew Reed and the School. The external integrity of the School’s former buildings have been maintained and, if one looks closely at the old “Central Building” with its distinctive clock tower, it is still possible to see the very fine 1871 sculpture in the brickwork created by Felix Martin Miller, a former pupil at the School between 1827-1833. The sculpture encapsulates very well the concepts of care, compassion and education which drove Andrew Reed to create the School in the first place.
The Infirmary, 1950s
Inside the Chapel, 1918
School building, 1918
School Entrance, 1922
The Chapel today
Central Building today
Girls’ House today
View from within main entrance today
Inside the Central Building today
Boys’ House today
The name lives on!
M O R E I N F O R M AT I O N To find out more about Andrew Reed, the history of Reed’s School and the continued work of its charitable Foundation, please visit: www.andrewreedfoundation.org.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Our sincere thanks go to Old Reedonian, Andy Wotton (Mullens 1975), for the time and effort he has invested in researching the history of the School which has allowed, not only this commemorative brochure, but other projects to be developed. We would also like to thank all the benefactors of our Founder’s charitable mission throughout time whose generosity has so kindly allowed us to be able to continue to help support vulnerable children to this day. 15
If you would like to find out more about the work of the Reed’s Foundation, please contact: Kathryn Bartram Director of Development & External Relations Reed’s School, Sandy Lane, Cobham, Surrey, KT11 2ES T: 01932 569025 E: kbartram@reeds.surrey.sch.uk
www.reeds.surrey.sch.uk www.andrewreedfoundation.org
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