action projects – social, environmental and educational – reflects contemporary concerns and the voice of pupils themselves to a far greater degree. Indeed, whilst Jere- my Baker notes in his chapter that ‘some of these boys became inspired with a mission spirit’, one is left with the impression that historically it was primarily through fundraising that College boys supported the Club, and that it was OAs who had a particular hands-on engage- ment (though in contrast with, say, Bradfield College or Lancing, the overseas religious missionary impulse at the College was never particularly strong). Perhaps the greatest continuities lie in two areas. Looking at the map of the projects across South London in which our pupils participated on School Service Day last year, one is left with a clear sense of the enduring force of locality: the College continues to look to serve the com- munity of which it is a part and through which it is linked via geography and human encounter, and this also finds expression in its enduring commitment to networks such as the Southwark Schools’ Learning Partnership, South- wark Community Education Charity (Saturday School) and its partnership with E-ACT Academy at City Heights in Tulse Hill. The collection of essays also indicates that the need for service must be reasserted and reformulated anew in face of the challenges faced by every generation. As the Princess Royal writes at the conclusion of her preface, ‘The needs of the disadvantaged may have changed since 1869, but they are still present today.’ In our case, the
proaches’. The first part of the book’s title is a reference to a well-known Victorian hymn; and the book includes an eloquent chapter by Jeremy Baker OA on the Hollington Club, which draws upon material in the College’s archives to highlight the chronological milestones of the Club’s his- tory, including the formation of an associated Scout Troop in 1907, the admission of girls in 1964, and the rebrand- ing as the ‘Hollington Club for Young People’ in 1997. The club’s building on Comber Grove was demolished in 2016 and there was a plan to build a new and improved club on the same site. This has not proved straightforward, nor is it certain that a club of the sort envisaged then will best serve the youth of Camberwell in the 2020s and beyond. What is not in doubt is that funds acquired from the sale of the Comber Grove site will be put to the benefit of the young people of this part of Camberwell, encompassing the Walworth Road where the club was originally based in the 1880s. Before reading these essays one might have assumed the overall arc of this narrative was already clear: one be- ginning with a broadly Christian impulse to help the poor through ‘outreach’, which was at stages gradually over- taken, with the First World War as a catalyst, by various forms of secularisation, particularly the development of a comprehensive welfare state, the proliferation of local government after the Second World War and, from the 1960s, the changing preoccupations of teenagers. Indeed, in a thought-provoking epilogue, the present Bishop of Worcester asks whether ‘without the single gold thread of faith, the whole thread may unravel’. Having read the book, one might suggest a somewhat less conventional reading: that the late Victorian engagement with the urban poor did not reflect the zenith of religious faith, but rather its twilight; and that the many vicissitudes of the various missions it describes prior to the First World War reflect a rearguard phenomenon which was under-resourced and over-dependent (for good or ill) on personalities. There were periods of revival and redefinition, as well as crisis and stagnation. Writing nearly a century after the Korean royal visit we mentioned at the start of these reflections, we can in fact detect complementary elements of both change and continuity. Change, clearly, in that pupils now support a far wider range of charities and causes; that there is an appreciation of the benefit of reciprocal partnership over one-sided outreach; and that the range of community
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