Looking Back

As we mark the 150th Anniversary of our move from London to Godalming, it seems fitting to reflect on the principles of service, leadership and generosity that have underpinned each generation of Carthusians. The impact of this can certainly be seen throughout our School’s history and across our beautiful campus.

There can be no more visual a representation of both the collective sacrifice and generosity of the Charterhouse community than our Memorial Chapel.

The Charterhouse Memorial Chapel was the inspiration of Frank Fletcher (Headmaster 19111935), who began fundraising for a new chapel in August 1917, prior to the end of the First World War, when OC loss of life had already overtaken the number of boys attending the School at that time.

The collective national feeling for the need for tangible witness to the awful nature of the Great War was felt throughout the land in the years after 1918. To that end, memorials can be seen on every village green and Church. Indeed, the disproportionately large casualty rates amongst public schoolboys, who, as junior officers, led from the front, made this feeling exceptionally strong at Charterhouse. Designed by Sir Giles Gilbert Scott and funded by private donations from parents, Old Carthusians and staff, the Memorial Chapel’s Foundation Stone was laid on 17 June 1922 by the Archbishop of Canterbury and the completed chapel was consecrated on 18 June 1927.

The names of 687 of the Old Carthusians who died in the First World War are commemorated on panels at the west end of the Chapel on the west facing wall. The names of those 340 OCs who gave their lives during the Second World War were later added to the east facing wall.