The Court of Governors and McClure 1913

On 16 July 1913, the Court of Governors met at 6pm in Common Room 12 of the House of Commons. In the Chair was Sir Albert Spicer, Bart MP. The Chairman moved and the Vice Chairman seconded: ‘that the Court of Governors Offers its hearty congratulations to the Headmaster upon the honour recently conferred upon him by His Majesty, and desire to express its contuniued appreciation of the services tendered by Sir John McClure to Mill Hill School and to the education throughout the country’.

This was carried unanimously.

Sir John McClure was to be one of only six Headmasters of Headmaster Conference schools to be knighted. At the 2 October 1913 meeting of the Court, the Governors reiterated their congratulations to Sir John personally and welcomed him back from his sabbatical.

The Great War years 1914-18

What is striking about the business of the Court during World War I is the normality of the agenda. Sir John continued to report on matters in a similar vein to pre-war meetings remaining sharply focused on maintaining the pupil population at pre-war levels, School and University entrance scholarships, teaching staff remuneration and the implementation of a Masters Retirement Fund. He always commented on the health of the School in his report and from time to time there was a report on dental hygiene and the percentage of pupils with tooth decay.

In fact, the size of the pupil population was remarkably unaffected by the war, despite pupils being forced to leave school prematurely due to call up for military duties. Nevertheless, McClure expressed his concern to the Court that pupils were leaving ‘earlier than desirable for their selfdevelopment’ and that he was appointing less able and mature prefects and monitors.

In October 2015, three Belgian boys entered the school following a request from the War Refugees Committee. The Court then authorised Sir John to admit a maximum of 10 sons of Belgian refugees as day boys, free of charges, provided they had access to acceptable guardians.

The number of pupils actually grew in the latter war years and there were a record number of entries in Spring 1919.

Maintaining the quality of teaching staff became an ever-increasing challenge as masters were called up for the forces and difficult to replace. In February 1916, all masters holding commissions in the Officers Training Corps (OTC) were asked to sign a document whereby they accepted liability to serve in any place outside the United Kingdom.

Sir John reported to the Court that the War Office made repeated demands to the Headmaster’s Conference that only those officers should be spared whose goings ‘would impair the efficiency of the school both military and scholastic’.

Subsequently McClure was authorised by the Court to appeal for the total exemption of Housemasters who were of military age. For the most part, this appeal only delayed the inevitable call-up.

In 1916, the Court requested that the names of the fallen Old Millhillians serving with Colours be added to the report with details of any distinctions gained. These names were not recorded in the Court minutes but comprehensive records were kept, as current pupils will know from the Gate of Honour and the reading out by incumbent Heads during the Remembrance Day Service in chapel of the names of the fallen – just as Sir John did during Sunday chapel services at that time.

The 15 June meeting minutes refer to the death in battle of R A Lloyd, Scholar of Peterhouse College, Cambridge, holder of one of the Wills scholarships but perhaps surprisingly, there is little hint in the minutes of the emotional trauma that the Headmaster must have suffered as he learned of the deaths in battle of former pupils he had known and taught. Scholarships to the school and to universities remained an important focus for Governors and the Headmaster.

McClure saw fit to initiate discussion with the Court on the future of the curriculum. Greek was compulsory for entrance into Oxford and Cambridge at this time but ‘Modern’ subjects –Chemistry, Physics, Biology and Botany – were increasingly important in newly created local Secondary schools and Germany was already sowing the seeds of its now formidable apprentice system through Vocational and Technical schools. McClure saw the need to place more emphasis on ‘the Modern Side’ but was equally concerned that such pupils ‘failed to show an intelligent interest in History, Literature and the great Ethical and Cultural questions’.

As with all matters affecting education, he took the emerging importance of Science very seriously. He instigated in 1916, and subsequently in 1919, various options for the creation of what we now refer to as the Crick Building (aka the Science Block). He sought and got Court approval in October 1918 for him to join the League for the Promotion of Science in Education.

McClure routinely reported to the Court on the health of the School and the occasional incidences of rubella, measles, chicken pox and even one case of small pox, which was traced to a source in Finchley. In mid-July 1918, there was an outbreak of what turned out to be Spanish Flu that affected over half the School – 145 pupils in total. Isolation measures were put in place and ‘healthy’ boys sent home. Exams were abandoned. A subsequent wave returned in February 1919 – familiar territory!!

War ended on the 11 November 1918 and the Court met on 27 November. The Agenda was business as usual. The 1919 pupil numbers, including a record 45 at Belmont, were 314. On 7 November 1919, the Governors received the following report from the Inspector of the Board of Education:

‘Dr Cookson, the Chief Inspector, stated that the work that Sir John McClure had done – not only at Mill Hill but for education as a whole was very well known. The Governors were to be congratulated on possessing a