Saltus Grammar School - Yearbook (Hamilton, Bermuda)

Page 12 text:

10 About the year 1885 feeling was strong that a fresh attempt should be made for the founding of a school likely to prove more thorough and enduring than the unfortunate Devonshire College, and further financial help was by this time in sight. A short time before, a Mr. Saltus, a merchant and ship-owner, had left a con- siderable sum of money for a school for white boys to be situated in Pembroke Parish. This amounted to a nominal £12,800 invested in Consols, which, however, then stood at far below par value. The executors and trustees of Mr. Saltus, Messrs. Henry and Richard Darrell, decided to use the money for a school that should be called the Saltuis Grammar School, and succeeded in coming to a happy agreement with the Devonshire College trustees. Between them they decided to try the project out in a temporary building before committing themselves to a permanent scheme. The Saltus Trustees sold out their Consols and by investing the money in island mortgages were able to nurse it up to its original figure of £12,800, and to provide a substantial yearly income for the new school and for scholarships in it for poorer boys. They agreed to rent the Pembroke Sunday School for the purpose, a hall on Angle Street composed at that time of a single large room. The next step was to secure a headmaster, and the Committee were fortunate enough to induce Mr. Thomas Waddington to come out from England for the purpose. It was for him a plunge in the dark, for there was as yet not only no school building, but no school; and the work would have to be built up from the very foundations. Fortunately, the co-operation of the two sets of trustees gave a measure of financial stabiHty to the project. But when all is said, it was certainly a brave step on the part of Mr. Waddington. The services of a young assistant were enlisted, a Mr. Callis, and on the opening day about thirty boys turned up for school. One of them tells of the awkward group they formed as they stood irresolutely at the door of the Sunday School building. At last one of them, F. Goodwin Gosling, determined to enter and thus was actually the first Saltus scholar enrolled. Others of that shy group were, I am told, E. H. Tucker, R. Dunkley, G. Gorham and R. Trimingham. Their number was soon increased and the Sunday School hall was filled to capacity. The total at any one time prob- ably never exceeded seventy-five and may have been rather less than that. Of these all were Bermudians except three or four Eng- lish boys of military families, and three or four from the U.S.A. and the West Indies. It was exceedingly difificult to find accommoda- tion for them all. The stage was used by the Headmaster as an ofifice in those rare moments when he was not actually teaching, and there were also classes going on there at the same time. There was no room for them elsewhere. The body of the Hall was oc- cupied with desks and a small space for classes of the younger boys.

Page 11 text:

9 Early Days of Saltus Rev. E. A. Annett It has been suggested that I might set down a few facts co n- cerning the earliest years of the Saltus Grammar School. My chief qualification for this is that I have been away from the Islands for fifty-two years, after having spent some three years as a scholar of the School. Coming back among old places and old faces, it is easier for me to recall things as they were just at that period of time than for those to whom those particular years were merely a part of a long and continuous experience. And then, too, I have made it my aim to talk it over with all I could find who were my school-fellows in 1889-1892; and thus I have secured a composite view including information regarding the School before I joined it in 1889. It is a fact worth noticing that out of the sixty or seventy boys of the School in its first years, no less than twenty are at present alive and well in these Islands. Their names may be of interest: F. Goodwin Gosling, Harry Dunkley, Reginald Triming- ham, William M. Conyers, Reginald Conyers, Stanley S. Spurling, Edward H. Tucker, Harry Lockward, George Gorham, A. Hutch- ings Frith, Archie Talbot, Ernest Astwood, Thomas Doe, Reginald Ingham, Cobham Peniston, Spencer Joel, Ashley Watlington, Ernest Darrell and Edward A. Annett. Beside these whom I have found to be in Bermuda just now, there are several who are living overseas — Oliver C. Spurling, Charles Graham, H. Outerbridge, Daniel Hinson, Clarence Hutchings and Clifford Peniston. The Saltus Grammar School began its course in the year 1887. It was not the first attempt made in Bermuda at regular secondary education. The first school of the kind was, I believe, Devonshire College, which was built with Government assistance in the early part of the nineteenth century. The college had a chequered history and eventually went on the rocks. The proper ty was sold at the instruction of the Government, and the Mental Hospital is housed today in the original buildings, which have been much en- larged. The money realised by the sale was divided into two parts, one being placed in the hands of trustees for the provision of a new school for boys of white families, and the other half for a school or college for coloured boys. The trustees who were to found a school for white boys purchased the Woodlands estate for the purpose. Meanwhile, two other schools were doing good work; Whitney Institute and Warwick Academy, though, so far as I can ascertain, with little to offer those seeking a High School education. It is probably true that, except for sporadic coaching given to individu- als at the schools run by Messrs. Clay, Oudney and Henry Hallett, there was little opportunity for either boys or girls to get advanced teach ing.

Page 13 text:

11 How Mr. Waddington and his assistant managed to keep going all the classes for boys ranging from seven years to nineteen was known only to themselves. And yet the work was done, and not at all badly. Discipline was naturally difficult, but except for special moments of trouble such as come to all schools, it was fairly maintained. Mr. Callis stayed only for about two years and then was suc- ceeded by another young man, a hot-headed and inexperienced Irishman named Joyner. With so little assistance, it was only the indefatigable energy of the Headmaster and his genius for his work that made progress possible, and he was well backed up by the boys, with whom he was popular. He had almost a genius for teaching, being able to turn from Greek or Latin or French to mathematics, history, geography, chemistry or other subjects. He was truly a versatile man. In the management of the school he was strict, but seldom unfair; indeed, he might in measure have deserved the encomium paid to the great Arnold of Rugby — a, beast, but a just beast! He was lame and always walked with a stick; and we used to reckon him as a reliable barometer, for when he stroked or rubbed his lame leg, we knew that stormy weather lay ahfead! In spite of his lameness, he was a good cricketer, the best in the School. Among the difficulties of those early days was the fact that a number of the boys enrolled had grown up with little or no school- ing, so that there were quite big fellows among us who were very backward in scholastic development. And also, it must be ack- nowledged that an unusually large proportion were not inclined to do any serious work, filling consistently the lowest seats of every class, and even glorying in the fact that they had no intention of learning. We had no playground. A Sports Ground was found in a field in Devonshire — ' ' Tucker ' s Field — almost a mile and a half from the School, a Sabbath day ' s journey to reach. Most of our play was done on the triangular patch of grass at the intersection of the roads outside the school. The triangle still remains there today, enclosed now by a fence but considerably cut down in ex- tent. And then over the high wall alongside was a small piece of land, the corner of the Tucker estate, which we used for games. I do not think there was any formal permission for this, but neither were we ever turned out of it. Georgie Tucker, to whose family it belonged, was one of us and as soon as classes were dismissed, there was a wild scurry for this playground, and the cry was last man over the wall! The only other outlet for superabundant energies was the marsh close by, where we used to disport ourselves in pole-jumping over the ditches. It was risky because of the deep mud in those water- ways in which the pole acted erratically. We always lived in the