D.H.Lawrence (ON 1898-1901

D.H.Lawrence in the Archive

The Nottingham High School Archives were started by Samuel Corner, a master at the school from 1877 until 1914, Second Master for 24 of those years and librarian of the school.

He was an author whose writings have given offence to some, but to judge from the words of other critics, such a one, that in time to come it may be our proudest boast that he was educated at the school.

Corner, known

affectionately as Sammy, an early member of Nottingham’s Thoroton Society, was wellknown in the city archives, and his research on the very beginnings of this school was published in the first school magazine, The Forester, which he edited, for many years.

He also instigated the collecting of School Lists, later the School Record, which minutely detail every boy, class and achievement for each year since 1869 and are invaluable to the Archive but alas no longer created by the school. It was his idea to collect names and information on every known past pupil and teacher who was serving in the Great War, most of whom he had known personally, and he remained at the school after retirement to do so while supporting the school as it lost other masters to the Armed Forces. Like his contemporary at the school, T.B.Hardy VC, he tried to join up in 1914, but was turned down on account of his age (57). It was almost certainly him who started our fine collection of Local History books and who commenced the

unique and complete collection of school magazines, preserved the Charter and protected the Admissions Registers. A.W.Thomas acknowledges Corner’s early research as the foundation for his History of Nottingham High School. His hand can be seen on so much that we hold and use in the archives today. It was under Headmaster Dr James Gow and Sammy Corner that David Herbert Lawrence (ON 1898-1901) gained a scholarship to the school, only the second boy from a mining background. Lawrence caught the train to school from Eastwood and walked up the hill from Victoria Station. That he was a bright student not only in the context of his village school but also here is evidenced in the prizes he was awarded which are noted in the school lists and also, in the one book prize we have received back into the archive at some point during the intervening years. His name is in the admissions book among those of boys from very different backgrounds and experiences, sons of surgeons, vicars, lace machine builders, a butcher and the manager of a chemical works. Ten years later we also have the record of the young Charles Montague Weekley, Frieda Lawrence’s only son, who was swiftly removed to boarding school when the Lawrence scandal broke.

When Lawrence died in 1930, the writer and ON Geoffrey Trease (ON 19201928) wrote in The Nottinghamian obituary that there “was tragedy in the stilling , so early, of a voice so magnificent and insistent in its challenge”. He was the first and still bestknown writer to put the accent and speech of Nottingham on the page and into great literature. In the words of the Headmaster at that time, C.L.Reynolds at Prize Giving, “He was an author whose writings have given offence to some, but to judge from the words of other critics, such a one, that in time to come it may be our proudest boast that he was educated at the school”.

We are currently in the process of commissioning a blue plaque in recognition of D.H.Lawrence’s time at the school. Whilst the plaque is being funded by the school we would welcome any donations. These can be made in the usual way, through our website, oldnottinghamians.co.uk All proceeds to the Nottingham High School Bursary Fund.