15516 RGS ONA Magazine 90_PRINT 30/01/2014 15:00 Page 10
A HISTORY OF THE RGS IN ITS PEOPLE by David Goldwater (51-62)
School House names most familiar to younger readers at large are Gryffindor, Slytherin, Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff, but since 1930, it is to Collingwood, Eldon, Horsley and Stowell that RGS students have pledged their loyalty and galvanized their best efforts in sport, music, debating and other areas. David’s cap with the Horsley emblem
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Houses named Reds, Greens, Browns and Blues, indicated by varied colours in the cord trimmings on the school cap, were first established on the school’s move to Jesmond in 1906. In 1925, ER Thomas had presided over a ceremony marking the fourth centenary of Thomas Horsley’s will when the portraits of Lords Eldon and Stowell were unveiled in the school’s Main Hall (see photographs). In 1930, as the old crests conjoined of those of Queen Elizabeth I and the City of Newcastle were unified into a new crest granted by the College of Arms, the houses were renamed Eldon, Collingwood, Horsley and Stowell. Today, the house colours remain, adopting the symbols from the 1930 Coat of Arms, Eldon in green, symbolized by the castle, Horsley in blue, taking on the head of the horse, Stowell in red represented by the lion whilst Collingwood now bears the brighter colour of yellow, adopting the Fleur de Lys. Enthusiasts of the House system may be interested to know that last year the overall House Competition was won by…Eldon! Initially, the Houses were geographically allocated, but with sons and brothers allocated the same House, this became less consistent. The original allocation was roughly Gateshead and south of the river, the preserve of those in Stowell. Collingwood’s area was Gosforth and Ponteland. Eldon was for those in Heaton and east down to the coast and Horsley boys lived in Jesmond and Fenham. So who were these worthy men, honoured in perpetuity in the RGS House system? Chronologically and showing no bias (though a Horsley boy am I), Thomas Horsley (1462-c1545), the school’s founder was a corn merchant who lived through the reigns of Edward IV and V, Richard III, Henry VII and VIII. Outdoing London’s Whittington, he served as Mayor of Newcastle five times during the reign of Henry VIII. In 1525, he made his will, endowing money for the establishment of a free school in Newcastle on his death and that of his wife. He was a hugely powerful man and did much to establish Newcastle as the wealthy and influential town it had become by Henry’s reign. In these Renaissance times, the foundation of our school was a reflection of that influence. Later, in 1600 when Newcastle obtained its ‘Great Charter’ in the reign of Queen Elizabeth, the charter included directions for the establishment of a ‘Royal’ Free Grammar School, ‘a body corporate by the name of ‘The Master and Scholars of the Free Grammar School of Queen Elizabeth in Newcastle upon Tyne’’.
