TREASURE
Marking milestones over 175 years
T he editor of the Christ’s College Register , reporting on the 75th anniversary celebrations, asked a very important question: “Why do we seem to pause at the 50th, 75th, and 100th anniversaries of the school’s career? We may perhaps liken these epochs of 25 years to laps in the great race, when we take a new breath and breathe in new vigour to forge further ahead – with a machine that goes more and more in time.” 1 Christ’s College is about to pause again, 175 years since the planning for its existence began. So, it is time to reflect on how it has paused in the past. In 1875, the Warden, Bishop Harper, still chaired the Board meetings and Archdeacon William Wellington Willock, Charles Robert Blakiston, and William John Warburton Hamilton, whose names are on the first page of the Board Minutes book, were still making decisions about College life. Although Henry Jacobs, the first
Headmaster, had moved to St Michael and All Angels and then to the Deanery, he was still much involved as Sub-Warden. These men, and those boys, now men, whose names are at the beginning of the Enrolment Book, still held the beginnings of College in their memories, so it is perhaps understandable that the only formal acknowledgement of the first 25 years was a short address delivered by Bishop Harper at prize-giving “in which [he] touched on the early history of the College and contrasted
its old positions with its present status”, before handing over the handsomely bound books on the table. 2 Fifty years on, there were still individuals who had shared those early days. So, in August 1899, the Christ’s College Register recorded “it is apparent that the College was contemplated in the very early days of the Canterbury Association, and that in its primitive form, it is contemporaneous with the Province itself”, and it was for this reason that “it would seem
George Liddell Twentyman (578) was presented with Natural Philosophy for General Readers and Young Persons by E Atkinson. Christ’s College Prizes Collection.
1 Christ’s College Register April 1926 2 Lyttelton Times 16 December 1875
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PHILANTHROPY
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