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150 Years in Godalming
Charterhouse Hill, winter 1873-4
Library c1882
First pupils at Charterhouse in Godalming, 18 June 1872 This year we are marking the 150th anniversary of Charterhouse School’s move to Godalming. Our Gothic-style buildings look as though they have been here for many centuries, but they were in fact designed as a brand new, purpose-built school in 1872. Nor have they remained unchanged since then: institutional buildings are constantly altered and adapted to meet the new demands of each generation and our School buildings bear testament to 150 years of rapid social and educational change. Even the past twelve months have seen exceptional amounts of building work, with the opening of two new boarding Houses and multiple alterations to existing buildings.
It was on 18 June 1872 that Charterhouse pupils (117 transferring from the London Charterhouse and 37 new boys) walked up Racquets Court Hill for the first time and saw the shockingly new buildings, made from raw, freshly-cut sandstone, hewn from the hillside just beyond Big Ground. The boys must have been thrilled, and perhaps a little over-awed, by the wide-open spaces and quietness, compared to the hustle and bustle of the big city. 19th century London was so polluted by coal burning that every surface was covered in black soot and ‘pea-souper’ smogs frequently reduced visibility to just a few yards. The fresh country air and green fields of Godalming provided a complete contrast.
So, what was life like for the first pupils in Godalming? There was the excitement of camping in the (almost) finished buildings until furniture arrived from London. For the staff there was the stress and upheaval that goes with any house move, and plenty of problem solving to be done: an infestation of rats was solved by allowing the boys to keep pet ferrets! Not only had the furniture not arrived on time, but the Chapel had
1872
not been built, which meant that the whole School had to march two miles over to Shackleford church every Sunday morning. However, every cloud has a silver lining – in London the pupils had Sunday morning hashes before Chapel, but this was abolished to allow time for the walk to Shackleford and was not reinstated when the new Chapel opened in 1873.
The site was open heath and farmland with no playing fields, so instead of playing sports for the first summer the boys were permitted to explore the countryside and swim in the River Wey. Carthusians took to swimming so enthusiastically that the School soon built a concrete landing stage with diving boards and changing cubicles. The Carthusian described the “annual swimming and canoe races” of August 1873, presided over by the Headmaster, which included not only speed swimming, but also a canoe race, a tub race, and “fancy swimming” (a trial of skill, entailing 1. Floating, feet first, and propelling with the hands. 2. Swimming on the back, and kicking with the feet and splashing, the use of the hands being optional. 3. Swimming on the back and propelling with the feet, the use of the hands not being allowed). Clearly the boys and beaks of 150 years ago knew how to have fun!
The Godalming school buildings incorporate numerous references to the School’s origins in London. The same London Charterhouse place names were re-allocated (Gownboys, Saunderites, Verites, Brooke Hall, Big Ground, Green, Wilderness etc) and the same iconography (Sutton’s shield and the greyhound). Perhaps Hardwick was referencing the Carthusian monastic cloisters in his design of Scholars’ Court and a whole archway was dismantled from the entrance to the Gownboys dining hall in London and reconstructed in the Godalming school.
Three boarding Houses had been included in the original design (Saunderites, Gownboys and Verites) and a central hall with hashrooms opening off
Hodgsonites old showers 1974 Gownboys common room River Wey bathing place 1908
End of term packing in Verites dormitory
it, providing similar facilities to the School in London. The new site in Godalming was so popular with parents, however, that pupil numbers soon doubled, more teaching and boarding facilities were needed and, as funding had run out, beaks were encouraged to buy land adjacent to the School and build boarding Houses at their own expense: eight Houses were all built in this way in the Twycross Road/Charterhouse Road area and were run by the housemasters as private businesses. Parents paid boarding and food bills separately to the Housemasters, who employed their own domestic staff and set their own catering budgets. Each House had its own dining room (as was still the case until 2019) and its own cook. The House butler served all the meals, assisted by one or two young ‘Buttery Boys’ and he also cooked a snack high-tea each evening and sent the bill to parents at the end of each Quarter (hence the name ‘Home-Bill’).
Each of the new boarding Houses reflected the taste and wealth of its founding Housemaster. The wealthiest Housemasters, such as the Revd. James Thomas Hodgson, built palatial residences with lavish private side facilities for themselves and their families, and substantial boarding facilities for their pupils. One wonders whether classics teachers today could afford such luxury! Those with more modest means, such as Music Master, George Robinson, and Classics beak, Gerald Davies, built smaller Houses. It is said that Bodeites was designed with little turrets, like a chateau, to remind the original Housemaster, Monsieur Buisson, of his home in France. All of these Houses (apart from Girdlestoneites) moved to new buildings on the Northbrook side of Charterhouse in the 1970s and the original sites were sold for redevelopment.
Today’s pupils enjoy cosy study bedrooms with central heating and plentiful hot showers. 19th century boarding was a more spartan experience: each House had two long dormitories divided up into individual cubicles by tall wooden partitions. Every cubicle contained a single bed, a bowl and jug for washing, and a chair. Only Senior Monitors had the privilege of their own studies. Bathrooms were in the basement of most Houses and pupils could take a bath once a week, with senior pupils washing first – the hot water supply was limited, so younger pupils were likely to have cold baths!
A DAY IN THE LIFE OF A 19TH CENTURY CARTHUSIAN
• The School day began at 6.45 when the House butler walked through the dormitories ringing a loud bell; pupils had to be up and dressed by 7.15 before their cubicles were locked for the day. Those who were quick enough could grab a biscuit and a glass of milk.
• Then it was off to Chapel at 7.30, followed by an ‘Early
School’ hash.
• Breakfast for the Under School at 8.30. Younger boys (known as fags) had to do menial tasks (fagging) for the
Monitors, including waiting on them for their breakfast at 9am (making toast, bringing tea etc).
• After breakfast it was back to hashes until 12.30, with lunch at 1.15 in winter and 1.30 in summer.
• Afternoon school and sport was followed by Homebill at 6.30pm.
• Under School pupils remained in their House common room for Banco, supervised by the Monitors, who were in charge of keeping order in House, with no adult supervision.
Pastoral care was an under developed concept – pupils who got into trouble were beaten.
• The Housemaster would only appear for prayers and Adsum at the end of the evening before the Under School were dispatched to bed at 9.30. The Upper School could then have bread and cheese and beer before bed at 10.30, while
Monitors could stay up as late as they wished.
Band
The curriculum focused heavily on Latin and Greek, as a classical education was still essential for entry to university. Those boys destined for the army joined the ‘Modern Form’, Studio barn based in C Block and were allowed to study more Maths, Science and modern languages rather then classics. Music and Art were optional extras for which parents paid separately. The first Art studio on the Godalming site was a in drafty barn located at the back of Duckites. Music was not an academic subject, but there was a choir, wind band and orchestra; weekly ‘Entertainments’ were held in Hall, ranging from visiting professional theatre companies and musicians to amateur performances by pupils and beaks. The empty fields along Peperharow Road and Charterhouse Road were slowly developed for housing, much of it occupied by the growing army of Charterhouse employees. Each boarding House had a matron, cook and butler to organise meals and cleaning, supervising a team of housemaids, scullery maids and buttery boys who did all the hard work of washing, scrubbing and polishing, in an age before the invention of electric washing machines and vacuum cleaners. Having left full-time education at the age of 12 or 13, many of these support staff were younger than the Carthusian pupils. The internal combustion engine had not been invented, so local tradesmen in horse-drawn vehicles delivered food and other supplies from Godalming every day. The lives of today’s Carthusians are very different from those of the pupils of 1872, who would be astonished by the extraordinary social and technological developments of the last 150 years. Charterhouse has continuously adapted to provide Carthusians with the best preparation to go out and contribute to the modern world and, no doubt, in the next century and a half there will be many more developments. And yet, there are many reminders of the past that link us to previous generations as we go about our everyday routines, studying in many of the same buildings and using some of the same unique ‘Lingua Carthusiana’. ■
