Pock 500 ed.4 - outer low - Pocklington School

Issue 4, August 2010
EDWARDIAN DEBATE
Current pupils dressed as 1908 debaters
School will soon have the very first archives room
in its history. As part of the preparation for this a
number of presentations are being given in the
Stoppard Theatre, to which all are welcome. The
latest one, held on May 4th, explored some of
the discoveries and the fruits of recent research.
Some of the subject matter was dramatised, and
the liveliest item was the recreation of a debate
held at school in 1908.
The first debating society was founded in 1894
and school magazines report the meetings,
occasionally in considerable detail. This enabled
us to recreate a debate using only the words
given in the article. The boys discussed women’s
suffrage a number of times over the years, the
final one being in 1913, when it was defeated
by 22 votes to 8, almost exactly the same figures
as in 1897 when the motion was first debated.
In spite of a staunch defence of votes for women
by Messrs Wardroper and Brown, the rhetoric of
Sterling and Turnbull carried the day. For the
Opposition Sterling maintained that, “Women
have no brain power. They were never intended
to think, or to cultivate their brain which could
never conceive anything great, being intended
rather for the house than for the House”. The
report states that there were tears and cries of
Shame! from the back when Sterling asserted,
“Their attempt to obtain votes is merely an
advanced stage of their eagerness to copy men
in dress, sports, and alas too often in vice”.
However, he was challenged from the Floor
when he claimed, “I am a scientific man and I
know that woman’s brain weighs four ounces
less than that of man.” Crick, on a point of
information, stated that, “Mr Sterling is guilty of
technical inaccuracy. Woman’s brain, though
lighter than that of man, is much richer.”
Looking at the entrenched position taken by
most of the boys one can only admire Mrs
Pankhurst and the Suffragettes all the more for
having to battle against such reactionary views.
It was ironic that in 1924, just eleven years after
the last debate rejecting female suffrage, the
nephew of Mrs Pankhurst came as a boarder to
Pocklington. He was Stephen Bach, son of an
Austrian diplomat. His mother was Mrs
Pankhurst’s sister, and she too for a while was
imprisoned for her actions as a Suffragette.
Whilst Stephen was at Pocklington his famous
aunt came to live with the family, and he was
said to have been much influenced by her.
Thank you to parents, OPs, governors, staff,
former parents, former staff and other
supporters who have contributed to the archive
appeal so far by either making a donation or by
attending (or hosting) one of the Pocklington
500 events that have been organised to help
raise funds. To date just over 30% of the
£50,000 target amount has been raised which
is an excellent start. If you would like more
Hutton with his prefects
ARCHIVE APPEAL UP-DATE
information about the appeal or you would like
to make a donation please contact Rachel Dare
in the Pocklington 500 Office:
darer@pocklingtonschool.com or visit
www.justgiving.com/project-archive-1514
which is the Just Giving page for the appeal.

PATRONS
We are delighted to announce that a
number of friends of Pocklington School
Foundation have kindly accepted the
Headmaster’s invitation to become a
patron.
The Honourable Mrs Susan Cunliffe-Lister,
Lord Lieutenant of East Yorkshire, was the
guest of honour at our prizegiving in 2009. She
was appointed High Sheriff in East Yorkshire in
2001, the first woman to hold this office since
its origin in Anglo Saxon times.
Professor Christopher Dobson is professor of
Chemical and Structural Biology at the University
of Cambridge, and has been Master of St John’s
College since 2007. The school’s foundation
charter is held in the college library and is a
testament to the long and active relationship
between school and college.
Mr Brian Fenwick-Smith is an OP,
entrepreneur and school benefactor. He has
assisted the school in ‘masterplanning’ recent
developments to the campus and his generosity
allowed the school to build a very fine and much
admired senior boys’ boarding house.
Fenwick-Smith House was opened in 2007.
The Right Honourable the Earl of Halifax is
a Governor of Pocklington School Foundation
and a Deputy Lord Lieutenant for East Yorkshire.
Lord Halifax is also High Steward of York Minster
and a J.P. Lord Halifax has been a close supporter
of the school over many years.
The Very Reverend Keith Jones, Dean of York.
In the early years of the school’s foundation the
Dean was one of the few individuals who could
discipline the Headmaster of Pocklington School!
In 2007 the school choir was invited by the
Minster to take part in its Wilberforce
celebrations and in the time ahead we
hope to strengthen the friendship.
We thank each of them for their support and
look forward to their involvement in our
celebrations.
Andrew Dawes
MAN. To show a dove above a man would be a
more satisfying rebus.
In a letter to the school in 1950, the Chester
Herald reported that “the original Grant of Arms
to John Dowman has been traced… The arms
are blazoned as follows: Azure a fesse dancette
between eight garbs or, banded gules, on the
fesse three doves of the field beaked and
membered.” That is a blue field with a gold
zigzag between eight gold wheat sheaves with
red bands round them. On the zigzag three
doves in their natural colours, with beaks and
feet.
THE FOUNDER’S COAT OF ARMS
The recent discovery of the school’s Foundation
Document of 1514 in St. John’s College Library
was an event of great significance for us. A
report of the document was given in the last
issue of ‘Pocklington 500’. The majority of the
text is in Latin, and this has been painstakingly
translated by two OPs, David Stather and Keith
Walls.
One intriguing aspect of the document is the
carefully ruled off blank square near the end.
Into this space at some point a coat of arms
has been drawn. The drawing is amateurish and
hurried – so very different from the beautiful
and assured script used throughout. In one
significant way the arms differ from the version
the school uses. But first it might be useful to
look at the arms we use today.
In 2007 the Somerset Herald wrote to the school
confirming the Dowman arms as ‘azure, a fess
dancetty between eight garbs or banded gules’.
This means a blue background to the shield with
gold zigzag across the middle and eight wheat
sheaves, four above the zigzag, four below, each
of them with a red band around it.
However, the arms in the Foundation Document
show three birds on the fess. These birds are
doves, and in the days before regularised
spelling, the family used a number of variants
for their name: Dowman, Dolman, Dowlman
and Doveman. It could be that this was the
version of the family arms created by our
Founder as his own.
Did he himself draw this sketch? If the coat of
arms had been granted to his father, or was
even earlier, was John Dowman seeking to
produce a difference in the customary way? The
space in the document certainly looks as though
it has been left for a coat of arms, but it has not
been professionally, or even competently, drawn.
The four garbs below the awkwardly drawn fess
are not spaced evenly as they are in all other
versions.
One intriguing detail is the smiley face added to
the left-hand side garb. Could this be Dowman
trying to create a rebus, that is a pictorial play on
his name - Dove - man? An account of the
school written in the nineteenth century says
that in the early 1800s there was a rebus on one
of the beams - below the three doves the letters
Almost the same information has come from an
early document seen by the school: Azure on a
fesse dancette between eight garbs or three
birds close of the field beaked and membered
gules. Crest on a bezant a bird as in the arms.
In addition, therefore, we learn that the birds’
feet and beaks were red, and that there was
also a crest - a bird on a gold coin. The latter is
certainly different from the crest shown on most
other examples of the family’s coat of arms.
In an attempt to sort out the school’s use of
the Dolman heraldry, Alan Heaven was asked
to examine the subject and produce a report.
He drew these three conclusions:
1. The arms which the school presently uses,
in various corrupted forms, are those of
the Dolman family.
2. The arms are not those of the founder,
John Dowman.
3. The school has been using arms to which
it has no right and has no grant of arms of
its own.
He added that “The closing line must be that the
school should petition for new arms”. The 500th
anniversary would seem to be a good time to do
so. There is, however, a cost to such an initiative,
and we have been advised it would be in the
region of £5,000. We will add this suggestion to
our wish list, a list we are soon going to need to
put in order of priority.
Copies of the full text of Alan Heaven’s
paper, ‘A Survey of the Heraldry of
Pocklington School’, can be obtained
on request.

FROM THE ARCHIVES
In setting up the new archives room we are not
concentrating solely on the written word. Other
aspects of the school’s heritage are being added
to the collections and cared for.
A catalogue of other items is being prepared
and will be useful when regular checks are
made. Most of these possessions are spread
throughout the school – portraits mainly in the
Library and Gruggen Room for instance, the
former railway clock in Lyndhurst, stained glass
in the Chapel and Music School, and so on.
Early photographs show other pieces that we
have so far been unable to trace. For example,
quite a number of fittings the school acquired
when the railway station was purchased can’t
now be identified.
We illustrate one piece of furniture we would
very much like to find – if it still exists. That is the
handsome lectern designed by OP Alan Foxley,
who was architect for what was then the school
assembly hall. From information we have
gleaned so far the lectern might have atrophied
gradually over the years until the last fragment –
the slope at the top – was also discarded. Or
could there be a different, and happy, ending to
our search? We would like to hear from anyone
who might be able to help.
MORE BIRTHDAY PRESENTS
Last year we expressed our thanks to David
Stather (OP 1949-1957) for his kind gift of a
valuable Wilberforce letter to the school archive.
Similarly we acknowledged with gratitude the
gift of a beautiful Georgian school desk from
Ian Turner (former parent).
We have since received two further delightful
presents both from Darrell Buttery (Governor)
and, sparing his blushes, I want to take this
opportunity to express our appreciation to
him on behalf of the school.
His first gift is a panel of stained glass now
hanging in a window of the school chapel. The
panel shows the parable of the talents and is by
Harry Stammers who is well known as one of the
twentieth century’s finest stained glass artists.
Do visit the chapel when you are next in
Pocklington and do take time to see the glorious
colour, rich fabrics and distinctive drawings.
In particular look out for the curiously modern
figure digging to bury his talents. When
compared to a photograph of Stammers it is
clear that this is a self-portrait – a nice touch of
humour given the reality of how he very much
used his talents and how they are displayed in
churches and cathedrals all over the world.
The second donation is a bisque figure of
William Wilberforce seated cross-legged in an
armchair, and after the famous painting by
Richmond which it copies in some details.
He holds his eyeglass in his right hand against
his chest. A pile of books underneath cleverly
supports the figure. By his foot lies a scroll
inscribed ‘Abolition slave bill’. It is said by
Bonham’s to be by Minton c.1840. It is currently
on display with other Wilberforce memorabilia
within the library.
Andrew Dawes

AN ELIZABETHAN MYSTERY: PART 1
EDWARD FAIRFAX (OP 1579-80)
Sometime in the year 1579, during the
Mastership of Anthony Ellison, a member of
a powerful Yorkshire family was admitted to
Pocklington School. He was Edward Fairfax, born
at Bilbrough near York in c.1565 and one of the
eight children of Henry Fairfax and Dorothy née
Aske.
His maternal forebears included John, Lord
Clifford, characterised by the Tudor historians
and Shakespeare as the murderer of the young
Earl of Rutland, brother of Edward IV and
Richard III, in 1460. Robert Aske, the Yorkshire
Leader of “The Pilgrimage of Grace” against
Henry VIII, who was hanged in chains
at York in 1537, was his mother’s great uncle.
His paternal forebears included Sir Guy Fairfax,
an eminent Judge and a Yorkist, who had fought
on the opposite side to Clifford at the bloody
Battle of Towton in 1461 and had survived.
Edward’s grandfather, Sir William Fairfax, High
Sheriff of Yorkshire, had in his youth carried off a
rich and beautiful young heiress, Isobel
Thwaites, from a nunnery at Nun Appleton. She
would become Edward’s grandmother and Sir
William would feature in five cases in the Court
of Star Chamber which involved complaints
against him, as High Sheriff, of lawlessness and
oppression. Later, in 1541, Sir William sat on
the grand jury which found a true bill of
indictment against Katherine Howard, 5th
Queen of Henry VIII, on charges of adultery.
Edward was first cousin of Sir Thomas Fairfax
“the younger” (later 1st Baron Fairfax of
Cameron) who would become the father and
grandfather respectively of the two great
Parliamentary Generals of the Civil War,
Ferdinando (2nd Baron) and Sir Thomas
Fairfax (3rd Baron).
Edward had been attending Coxwold School
for eighteen months before his admission to
Pocklington. The reason for this move at the age
of 14 is not of course known. Maybe it was
because his elder brother Gabriel left Coxwold at
the same time to go up to Cambridge. In the
early 1570’s Pocklington had been a flourishing
school with 140 boys attending, but academic
standards were failing towards the end of
Ellison’s mastership which lasted from c.1558
to 1581.
An essential qualification would have been
Pocklington’s strong Catholic sympathies at that
time. Edward’s parents were Catholic recusants
and a list compiled in 1572 for Sir William Cecil
had noted Thomas Dolman of Pocklington and
Robert Aske of Aughton (Edward’s maternal
grandfather) as being “Lesse Evill” among the
Catholics.
From Pocklington Edward went up to Gonville
and Caius’ College, Cambridge in October 1580
as a ‘pensioner’ or ‘commoner’. Caius at that
time was a hotbed of popery attracting the
notice and concern of the authorities. Of the
Master, Dr. Legge, the Archbishop of York
complained to Cecil in 1582 that “all the popish
gentlemen in this country (i.e. county) send their
sons to him.” At Lent 1581 an ‘Edward Farfax’
matriculated as a ‘fellow commoner’ from Clare
College. Whether this was the same person
moving from one College to another (a not
unusual practice then) or another Edward Fairfax
cannot be established.
The next record of Edward is in the Visitation of
Yorkshire of 1584-5 by Robert Glover, Somerset
Herald, in which he is recorded (incorrectly) as
Henry’s ‘second’ son. After that he disappears
completely. There are records of every one of
Henry’s children except Edward after that date.
It would be natural to assume that he died
unmarried some time after 1584: but did he?
That question will be addressed in a further
article.
(To be continued)
David Stather (OP 1949 - 1957)
(This article is based on a larger paper by David
Stather, a copy of which is in the School Library.)
DINNERS
The first of the fundraising dinners in fine houses
was given a trial run at Knavesmire Lodge, York,
in March, and was judged a great success by
those attending. After a lively reception in the
Regency drawing room, guests moved through
to the dining room, designed by Walter Brierley,
the architect responsible for much of the older
part of school. Here, Darrell Buttery gave an
introduction to the house and its history.
The sixth form cabaret team, who entertained
guests so well after dinner, also did a splendid
job as waiters. The exceptional main course was
prepared on the spot by Andrew D’Arcy and
Gwen Walton, with delicious soup and desserts
provided by Jill Atkinson, and the host providing
the other two courses. Sales of antiques
contributed another £200 to the total of £1400
raised.
The second fundraising dinner was held at
magnificent Everingham Park, a Grade I listed
Georgian mansion by John Carr of York. The
owners of the house, Pocklington parents Helen
and Philip Guest, gave those attending a
memorable evening.
The event began with drinks on the lawn and
then the party moved into the astonishingly
grand chapel for an introduction to the house
and its former owners.
A superb five-course dinner was served to 70
people in three of the great reception rooms, the
sixth form cabaret team visiting each one in turn
to perform their light-hearted look at the school
in Edwardian times. The event raised just over
£2000 towards the school archive appeal.
Our thanks go to all who helped to make the
evening so successful, especially to the Guests
for coping with such an invasion so cheerfully.
Instead of a dinner, the next
Pocklington 500 event will be:
An evening of music, theatre and discovery at
Y o r k M e r c h a n t
Adventurers’ Hall
The finest surviving Medieval Guildhall in Europe
Wednesday 15th September, 7.00pm,
Tickets £15.00 each
Pimms and Jazz Reception on the lawn
followed by entertainment in the Great
Hall featuring Pocklington School’s
performance of the famous Merchant
Adventurers’ Mystery Play, ‘The Last
Judgement’ and musical items from
current pupils.
For tickets contact Rachel Dare
Tel: 01759 321307
email: darer@pocklingtonschool.com
Contacting us: If you’d like to be in touch with
us about any aspect of the 500th, then please
contact Rachel Dare at Pocklington School,
West Green, Pocklington YO42 2NJ,
Tel: 01759 321307,
e-mail: pock500@pocklingtonschool.com
Newsletter edited by: Darrell Buttery,
e-mail: pock500@pocklingtonschool.com
The Pocklington School Foundation - Registered Charity No 529834