FROM OUTREACH TO PARTNERSHIP A new collection of essays on the charitable enterprise of leading public schools of the 1870s to 1890s – Bright the Vision: Public School Missions from the Victorian Age (edited by Malcolm Tozer)* – gives the Deputy Master External, Dr Cameron Pyke, and the Chaplain, Reverend Tim Buckler, a chance to offer some reflections on service at Dulwich College in its historical and contemporary contexts
I n September 1927 Yi Un and Yi Pangja, the Crown Prince and Princess of Korea, spent several days in London visiting social welfare projects. This was part of a European tour sanctioned by the Japanese colonial government (Korea having been annexed by Japan in 1910). They were interested in the projects which they believed had been put in place for the promotion of social cohesion and they saw them as exemplifying a utilitarian approach to maximising the industrial and military po- tential of the British population. The royal couple visited, amongst other institutions, the headquarters of the Salva- tion Army and Dr Barnardo’s Homes, Toynbee Hall and a Docklands ‘settlement house’ in which university under- graduates and public school boys supported activities for the poor of the East End. The impulse behind these activities was not entirely as the Japanese government interpreted it. The mutual encoun- ter between different classes was viewed as authentic in its own terms, offering constructive relaxation for the poor after a day’s work and edification for the country’s future leaders; to its original authors, it also expressed Christ’s command to treat others as one would wish to be treated oneself and to embrace the poorest in society. Dulwich College’s own contribution in this area lay in the College Mission for the boys of Camberwell founded in 1885 when A.H. Gilkes was Master and benefitting from his weekly personal engagement. Following a merger with a mission founded by Trinity College, Cambridge, based in Hollington Street, in 1922, Dulwich’s mission became known as the Hollington Club, the name it has carried ever since. Dulwich College was not of course alone in establishing a mission. Malcolm Tozer has recently edited Bright the
Vision: Public School Missions from the Victorian Age. This is a valuable collection of essays encompassing 22 exam- ples, all in England and, with the exception of Cheltenham Ladies’ College, all undertaken by boys’ schools, which causes one to think afresh about this wider phenomenon and its curious variety of ‘conservative and radical ap-
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