Chapter 2
The Oxford Preparatory School
That his Old Boys should still in their adult years have such close ties to their preparatory school in general, and to the headmaster, the Skipper, in particular, was extraordinary. Why was this so? The fact that the O.P.S. was a comparatively young and small school, principally serving the Oxford community, was certainly part of the answer. More importantly, the Skipper, who was just as interested in the children as he was in his school, forged this friendship, which was to make him one of the most loved schoolmasters of his generation. The story of this remarkable school starts in the world of Alice in Wonderland.
‘The Oxford Little Boys’ School’ In 1877 the Fellows of the Oxford Colleges were released from the celibate life by the recommendation of a Government Commission on the Universities. Prior to this only the Heads of Colleges were permitted to be married, although more and more College Fellows were in clear contravention of the rules as they then stood. As a result, in the same year, a school was founded by a 30-strong group of Oxford University people, including four Heads of College and seven professors. Among this body was the Dean of Christ Church, who duly sent his tenth and youngest child to be schooled at what was at first called ‘The Oxford Little Boys’ School’. He was Dr Henry Liddell, whose daughter Alice had been befriended as a child by a maths don at the college, Charles Dodgson. The stories that Dodgson told Alice, published in 1865, had become famous as Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, Dodgson having adopted the pen name of Lewis Carroll. Alice herself was a young woman in her twenties when the school opened in 1877, but her youngest brother Lionel was one of those 14 children who became the first ‘Dragons’. It was one of Lionel’s contemporaries, Clement Rogers, who claimed responsibility for the Dragon name. He described how it came about, after a game of football. The first game was not a success. There was no-one to coach us and we had only the vaguest ideas about the rules, so the game consisted of argument and soon petered out. So we foregathered under a tree to discuss things … Someone suggested our forming ourselves into a club. We all agreed … Left: Detail of the first school photograph with its headmaster Mr A.E. Clarke, 1881