OLD PERSEANS
Archivist’s Account
We (Almost) Never Close The partial closure of the school site during the summer term, due to the Covid-19 pandemic, is almost without precedent in the school’s history.
B
ut not quite. The longest comparable shutdown came in the autumn of 1666, when the plague forced George Griffiths to close the school for up to two terms. The records are few, but deaths occurred in
the families of several pupils, and presumably some boys also died. The town experienced restrictions similar to the 2020 ‘lockdown’: Stourbridge Fair was cancelled, pest houses were set up on Coldham’s Common for the infected, armed watchmen prevented travellers from entering the town, public meetings were prohibited, and undergraduates were sent home. The Spanish ‘flu pandemic of 1919 had no observable impact on the
School; it is not even mentioned in the school magazine or the minutes of the governors’ meetings, and no precautions were thought necessary, beyond the already existing statement in the prospectus: ‘Boys who have suffered from, or who have been accidentally exposed to, infectious illness of any kind, cannot attend the School without the Head Master’s consent, for which a Medical Certificate is required.’ The outbreak of war on 3 September 1939 delayed the start of term by a week, while classrooms were reinforced to serve as air-raid shelters. Chairman of the Governors A.B. Ramsay announced: ‘The most patriotic thing you boys can do is to carry on as usual, as far as possible.’ He added that the coming months would be a test of the nation’s character. There was no evacuation, since sustained bombing of Cambridge was not expected; yet in January 1941, the night before the start of term, The Perse was hit by incendiary bombs. Astonishingly, Headmaster Hubert Wootton had the school open within three days, lessons taking place in the nearby Technical College. The school carried on through the severe winters of 1947 and 1963, when the country was snow- and ice-bound for months. But in 2002, and on subsequent occasions, relatively light falls of snow have closed the school: pupils now come from further afield, on busier roads, and it takes very little to impede travel. The ‘flu pandemic of 1957–8 killed children PHOTOGRAPHS
of school age in particular, and a new strain
FROM THE SCHOOL
of ‘flu in 1968 was also severe, but on
ARCHIVE CAPTURING
neither occasion was the school shut. The plague that caused the first closure
THE TREMENDOUS DAMAGE TO SCHOOL
of the School had been a regular visitor for
BUILDINGS CAUSED BY
decades, but we might find it reassuring
THE 1941 BOMBINGS.
to know that after 1667 it vanished, seemingly of its own accord. David Jones joined The Perse in 1974 as a history teacher and was House Tutor at School House until 1982. He retired from teaching in 2008, but has continued at the School in his role as Archivist. 12
