Esmeduna

COPIES AVAILABLE

The Association has in its Archives copies of the School Magazine (Esmeduna) from 1909 to 1978. However, it is not a complete set and efforts are being made to obtain any of the missing copies. A list is given below of the copies in our possession and if you have a copy of the  magazine, which is not listed, its donation to the Association would be very much appreciated. If you are reluctant (understandably) to part with your copy, a photocopy would be most acceptable - the cost of which the Association would be happy to reimburse.

We decided to pass these copies to the Liverpool Record Office for safekeeping and access for reference purposes.  However, we found that they do have sets of copies already (some of which are in bound volumes) and we intend to keep our copies and base a new section of the Website on them.

If you have a missing copy could you send it please to David Williams, Secretary, Collegiate Old Boys` Association, 5, Kent Road, Birkdale, Southport, PR8 4BJ.

List of copies of Esmeduna held by the Association :-

*Magazine Review

SNIPPETS FROM THE PAST - These are excerpts from issues of the magazine, at the date shown :-

  July 1958 Edition

STAFF NOTES

The Staff is losing many well-known figures this term: Messrs. Jennings, Whincup, Scale, Banyard and Hanley are retiring after long service to the School – we wish them a long and happy retirement; Mr Hayes has been compelled by ill-health to resign; and Messrs. G.S. White, Hall, Bartaby, Cross and Parry leave for posts elsewhere. We thank them for all they have done for the School and wish them happiness in their new appointments.

Mr. E.T. Scale

Mr. Scale joined the Staff in September. 1924, honouring us by his preference of the Collegiate School to Merchant Taylors, Crosby. where he had spent the previous two terms. We soon knew that we had in our midst an interesting, forceful personality, brimful of good humour and bonhomie. He entered upon his duties as a teacher of Mathematics with a zest and thoroughness, which has characterised his teaching throughout the thirty-four years he has been with us. His pupils soon came to realise that hard work is the only sure road to success. While the playground might be a place for games and noisy frivolity, the classroom is meant for quiet, sustained effort. It is a lesson many boys must be glad that they learnt. 

Yet no one could find greater pleasure and be more active on the games field than Mr. Scale in the years of his youthful vigour. To him more than to anyone else the School owes the fostering of Rugby on its introduction into the School. Week in, week out, during the winter months, he coached and encouraged the First XV, until we were able to turn out one of the finest matchwinning school teams on Merseyside. Many of its members left to become leading figures in their University teams and to play for their County. It was an achievement made possible by the continued inspiration and enthusiasm of Mr. Scales. Advancing years, as they have a habit of doing, forced him to hand over the work to younger men, but it must be a source of great pleasure to him to see the game to which he devoted so much of his time and energy still flourishing in all its old-time glory.

The time has now come for him to retire. but he will know that his sturdy figure, "stern to view", maybe, and slowed down in its motions in these latter days, will be remembered long and affectionately by Collegiate boys, as will his genial manner and hearty laugh by the Collegiate staff. May the years of his retirement be long and happy!

Mr. H.H. Whincup

Thirty-eight years ago an young man joined the Staff of the Liverpool Collegiate School after teaching for some time in Dunstable and Norwich. That young man was Mr. Whincup, and in those thirty-eight years he has left his mark on the School. For generations of boys have come to know through contact with him what is meant by a scholar. His erudition is enormous, so that in his pupils year after year “still the wonders grew, That one small head could carry all he knew”

Beginning his University career as a Classical scholar, he was led to the study of Philosophy, and in both gained high honours. Many a Sixth-former has received from him his first introduction to Ethics and Metaphysics. His war service in the First World War took him to Marseilles on Intelligence work, and French became his passion, and has remained so. Then came a desire to read his beloved Kant and Hegel (with Goethe as a side-line) in the original German, while Spanish too claimed a share of his attention. But never to the exclusion of his Homer and Plato.

Nothing would be more false, however, than the assumption that his interests have been confined to languages – no one could have a keener zest for the fine Arts and literature, music, painting, architecture, as again many a Sixth-former will know. Yet whatever the subject of his study he has brought to it thoroughness, persistence, a fine discrimination, and enthusiasm – qualities of scholarship with which he has infected many a pupil.

When in addition his teaching has been enlivened with the quips and witticisms of his own particular brand of dry humour and with the odd twists of his tart cynicism, it is a little wonder that one of the first enquiries made by Old Boys is about the well-being of “Old Harry”. All of us, present boys as well as old, are pleased that he has made such a good recovery from his present illness and wish him in his retirement good health, good fortune, and good reading.

Mr. N. Evans

It is with sorrow that we have to announce the death of Mr. N. Evans, who after a long and distressing illness, passed away on June 17 th . 

Mr. Evans came to the Collegiate School from Oxford in 1925 and remained here for the whole of his teaching career.

In 1957, his gradually failing health made it necessary for him to relinquish his post. During the months of weakness which followed, he never lost interest in the school and its activities, and was always eager to hear about those events in which he could no longer take a part. On the 17 th June, 1958, suddenly but peacefully he passed away.

No man can spend so long a period of his life at one school without making some deep impression. During the whole of his career he remained Form Master of 4A. Throughout the School he taught mainly Latin, Greek and Divinity. He was associated with the Rugby teams and with what is now known as the C.C.F, but latterly he was in charge of the text-books, a task which brings little reward but also a tremendous amount of work behind the scenes. To this undertaking he brought his characteristic energy and thoroughness, so that at the beginning of each new school year, boys came to their forms already equipped.

His kindness and helpfulness were among his outstanding traits. No request seemed too trivial for his consideration, and no effort too great to carry it through. His phenomenal memory for names and events could always be relied upon in matters relating to the School or Old Boys. Nor will it be easy to forget his stocky figure sitting in the Common Room every morning going conscientiously through the seemingly never-ending pile of exercise books, in his genuine concern for those he taught. 

Outside the School, his main interest lay with his Church, which he served so faithfully and with such acceptance.

Mr. H. Jennings

In 1917 there came to this School from Bristol University a young master who, after forty- five years here, will be leaving us at the end of this term, wearing his years remarkably well.

Mr. Jennings immediately entered upon his work with enthusiasm which has persisted throughout his professional life. Not only in the Physics Department, where he expected and insisted upon as high a standard of performance as his pupils could produce and where he himself set a high example, but in the many varied activities of extra-school life he has displayed characteristic keenness and vivacity. School games, especially cricket, the Natural History Society, the School Choir – all have shared his unflagging interest, while for many years no School Camp would have  been complete without him.

Many boys and Old Boys will remember him as the supervisor of school meals, where he dealt firmly but justly with late-comers; others, his watchful but not unkindly eye while deputising for the Vice-Principal during his absence through illness; his colleagues, his unfailing good humour and genius for crosswords.

As he goes into well-deserved retirement, which we hope may be long and happy, he carries with him the best wishes of his colleagues and pupils, whose memories will be of a man of high principles, firmness of purpose, integrity and industry.

More to follow on the retirement of Messrs. Scale and Banyard

December 1974

“The gloom at the beginning of the school year was deepened by the lack of central heating. The new boilers still await their burners. Portable heaters were no match for our large rooms with their high ceilings - during the coldest and wettest September for many years. That lessons continued in such conditions says a great deal for the goodwill - and the stamina - of staff and boys”