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34, NOT OUT Some things change – but not the essentials. David Smith reflects on his 34 years of teaching at the College “ The past is another country; they do things differently there” is a quotation often deployed in relation to history. Well, as I often tell my students, to some extent yes, although, upon close inspection, some things remain familiar. Certainly, when I think back to my first year at Dulwich College as a freshfaced member of the History Department, in 1991, a number of features of school life then have now disappeared completely, or only faint echoes remain. Chalk and blackboards have long since been superseded by multicoloured pens sliding across the sheen-like surfaces of wall-to-wall whiteboards, the fug of cigarette smoke in the Common Room is also a thing of the past, due to the College’s equivalent of the Clean Air Act, and the various House “Little Sides” tournaments are now a distant memory — with one notable exception… Addressing the boys by surnames was de rigueur (certainly “fifth form” (Year 11) students and below) and they were expected to stand when the master (teacher) entered the room, at the start of each lesson. It was, in many ways, a harsher environment; although there were among the staff a good number of very caring and sympathetic individuals, systematic provision of counselling, wellbeing lessons, and the like, were very much distant future concepts. Site Officers had not yet been invented. Instead, there was a “staff sergeant”, Mr Peter Wilkes, Yorkshireman and ex-copper, who was single-handedly responsible for College security. In an age before electronic gates, he would
BOXING AT DULWICH COLLEGE: A BRIEF HISTORY Boxing classes at the College were started by the Corps in 1879, almost certainly as part of military training. The reported that all cadets who were in possession of a uniform would be admitted free of charge and not have to pay the usual subscription that was an accepted part of all clubs and societies at the time. After the end of the First World War, the Public Schools Boxing Championships started and at the College, Boxing Colours were awarded for the first time.
occasionally be seen frog-marching across the gravel a local member of the local criminal fraternity, whom he had just chased and apprehended. Cherchez la femme was a title on which I was asked to speak to the Dulwich History Society a couple of years into my incumbency, reflecting upon the role of women in history. One might well have said that the phrase was also applicable to the College’s Common Room, given the male dominated environment. By contrast, the social mix of pupils was, I think, broader, given the existence of the Assisted Places Scheme, whereby central government (or, more specifically, “Mr and Mrs Taxpayer”) subsidised about a fifth of the school’s pupils, until the programme’s dis-continuation in the late 1990s. Younger readers may also be astounded to hear that this was a time without mobile phones, laptops, PlayStations, and – perhaps most shockingly of all for some – Premier League football. Indeed, when I first arrived, as a footie-mad twentysomething who had, to much consternation, formed a girls’ (!) football team at my previous school, I was initially perplexed to be constantly reminded that it was “soccer” to which I was referring, rather than rugby football. Soccer’s official status at the College was as a “minor sport” (along with any others, apart from Rugby, Hockey and Cricket – the “major sports”). With the vast majority of boys being expected to engage, for the most part, in ludis major, it was my job, as a Day Housemaster, to wheedle, cajole, beg non-squad boys to participate in the respective ‘Little Sides’ tournaments for each of the “big three”, played out over the course of the Michaelmas, Lent and Summer Terms, respectively. The end- of-term “Big Sides” tournament, by contrast, was the squad players’ opportunity to gain bragging rights over their mates for the year ahead. Are the boys any different? I am often asked. Well, as I traverse the campus and see them engaged in patball games, mock-wrestling, laughing, joking, locked in intensive study, maybe at a screen but maybe of a book, with pen and paper in hand, I see much that is familiar from my first days here. The school is, in my opinion, a kinder place (colleagues now even tolerate me as a member of the staff cricket team), and that is undoubtedly a good thing. In essence, though, many of the boys’ attributes which made this such a wonderful environment to be privileged to teach in over 30 years ago — namely, their intellectual curiosity, enthusiasm and humour — are still evident in spades. Speaking of enthusiasm and humour, did I mention the Upper School Little Sides Soccer Football Competition? Yes, some things have changed, though, in essence, not the essentials.
wound up by the mid 1960s although house competitions carried on until the start of the next decade. While it is difficult to pin down a date when boxing was finally abandoned at the College, there is a strong argument for its demise coming soon after
By the 1920’s, boxing (along with fencing) was an integral part of the ‘Quadrangular Tournament’ which was an annual sporting fixture held against Bedford, Eton and Haileybury. Boxing also found its way into the ‘Assault at Arms’, which originated in the 1890s and continued into the 1950s, much loved sporting and military entertainment often accompanied by the College band and seen as a way of promoting cohesion and public spirit. There were displays of fencing and the aerobic exercises with wooden bats known as Indian clubs and some comic interludes, including at least one occasion of blindfold boxing. As reported in The Alleynian ‘our renowned pair of blindfold boxers contented themselves with hitting the air to the great amusement of the crowd’. PG Wodehouse is known to have boxed at the Assault in 1898. In 1942 the College had a roll of 450 boys, by 1946, thanks to the efforts of the then Master Christopher Gilkes, that had risen to 800. The impact on all areas of College life was significant and very quickly the College recognised the need to accommodate much younger cohorts; boxing was no different. One response was the creation of a new competition for novices and even a weight division seemingly unique to Dulwich – the ‘Tissue Weight’ for those under 6 stone 6lbs (although by 1955 it appears to have been removed from the programme). The success of Dulwich Boxing in the post-War period was largely due to Wally Cromey, who arrived at Dulwich in 1947 and remained at the College until his death in 1971. He was a former Army Boxing Champion and a physical training instructor. He was an excellent coach and referee who, in house competitions, stopped fights early once he was sure who would be the winner. This encouraged boys to compete for their houses because they had total confidence in him. This growth in popularity of the sport at the College did, however, buck the national trend with support for the sport in schools generally declining during the 1950s (Eton gave up the sport early in the decade) as it was doing nationally. In the early 1960s, at a time when the College was in the process of constructing a permanent ring in the Covered Courts (the precursor to the current gym and located on the same site), Edith Summerskill MP tried to get boxing removed from the school sports curriculum. Her campaign won popular support and after many parents wrote to schools asking their children to be excused from classes involving boxing, the sport was gradually removed from schools across the country. The 1960s saw boxing abandoned by many schools due to medical and public opinion. At Dulwich, fixtures against other schools
a paper was presented by Richard Vanstone at an Open Meeting in May 1972 entitled ‘Whether Boxing should continue as a sport at Dulwich’. Richard laid out a comprehensive argument for why it should not. There is a picture of a boxing ring in the Summer 1972 edition of The Alleynian and discussion of the move of the sport to the Salle to accommodate the gymnastic and judo mat. With the death of Wally Cromey came the death of Dulwich Boxing. It was never mentioned again in print.
"I see much that is familiar from my first days here."
Dulwich produced a number of very good boxers: Terry Adams (47-54), a remarkably fine sportsman who was also in the First XV, put the shot and was a very good swimmer. He captained the Oxford University Boxing Team and later pursued a career in the Army. Adrian Hobart (45-52) captained Cambridge University and won the Canadian Golden Gloves Championship at the age of 35. Graham Ward (63-70) also gained a boxing blue at Oxford University. Won Boxing Blue in 1972, ‘73 and ’74 at Oxford. He was in the First XV at Dulwich College and also on the Basketball team. John Morris (49-53) was a longstanding, efficient and well-liked secretary of The British Boxing Board of Control.
"Intellectual curiosity, enthusiasm and humour are still evident in spades."
Trevor Llewelyn
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