HISTORY
‘Does the past exist?’ This is just one of the head- scratching questions we have endeavoured to answer over tea and biscuits on ever darkening Friday evenings at the weekly History Society meetings in the Masters’ Library. The Society also boasts a long and distinguished list of visiting speakers, ranging from leading academics, writers and documentary makers to those who have a direct personal link with great events of the past, recently including Dominic Sandbrook, William Shawcross, Huw Edwards, Miranda Carter and Jane Ridley, to name but a few.
The History Society’s publication, The Historian , collates articles from our best and brightest young historians, invariably drawn from the loyal attendees of the Society itself. It is published to be distributed on Founder’s Day, and has focused on a range of themes, such as Heroes of War. The History Society has two lower branches, in the Middle and Lower Schools. Middle School History Society meets weekly on Wednesday lunchtimes, where boys give their own presentations on a broad range of topics that interest them, ranging from the narrow (a history of British Airways) to the broad (the Chinese Dynasties). The presentations invariably delight and are followed with dynamic discussion and debate. The Lower School History Society is run by boys in the Remove, who gain as much from the experience as the younger boys. They oversee a range of activities, including video documentaries, quizzes as well as battle re-enactments. ‘At Lower School History Society, we view the education of young people about the past as critical to fostering the great minds of the future. Furthermore, by allowing us, the older boys, to impart our experience in
both curricular and extra-curricular history, the relationship becomes symbiotic.’ James Doran and Lasse Wendler, Year 12 School trips Each November all Year 8 boys spend a day at Hampton Court. This provides a fascinating insight into Tudor life, both ‘upstairs’ with the Great Hall, the Chapel Royal and the collections of paintings, and ‘downstairs’, which includes an entertaining and highly informative tour of the kitchens. Middle School boys enjoy a trip to the French battlefields of the First World War, which complements their study of the OAs who fell in the Great War for the Year 9 project.
History trips include a visit to the French battlefields of the First World War.
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