Frank Sidgwick

December 31st 1921

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Captain JG Smyth VC MC

The past term’s edition of ‘The Draconian’ (due to be published shortly) includes this colour picture of a painting of Jack Smyth, the work of Old Dragon George Drinkwater, and done specially for our magazine.

George was at the OPS from 1889-94 and went on to Rugby School and then Wadham College, Oxford. When his friend from OPS days, Eric Macfadyen, enlisted as a trooper at the Queen’s Own Oxfordshire Hussars’ headquarters in New Inn Hall Street, he went off and did likewise. They were joined by four other Wadham men and a further two from other colleges and together formed half a troop in the 2nd Service Squadron (the 1st, formed the previous vacation, included OD Maurice Church, who was destined to become a war casualty).

After the Boer War George returned to his studies and the river: he was a noted rower, being in the Oxford eight in the University Boat Races of 1902 and 1903. Since 1906 he has been the rowing correspondent for the ‘Daily Telegraph’.

In the Great War, George gained a commission in the Royal Artillery and went with his battery to France. He was promoted to Staff Captain in 1916 and was then sent to Egypt and Palestine, where his services were recognised by his retention as Brigade Major for a year after the Armistice. He was twice mentioned in dispatches and was awarded the Military Cross in 1918.

In civilian life he has followed the architectural profession of his father, Harry Drinkwater, and has also met with success as a portrait painter, having a picture hung in the Royal Academy in 1913.

We were delighted to see George back for last year’s reunion dinner and he is seen here alongside his old schoolboy chum, Frank Sidgwick:

Frank Sidgwick and George Drinkwater

 

August 7th 1920

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As the summer edition of the ‘Draconian’ is assembled and I come to the examinations section, I recall that there may be a number of you interested in the the results of the English Literature Paper set by Frank Sidgwick towards the end of term.

He duly furnished us with the marks (out of 100) which ranged from 85-21. The joint winners were JM Huggins & Isabel Fausset-Farquhar (85%) with J Betjemann (75%) third.

For those of you who attempted the paper at home, here are some of the answers:

1 (a) Charles Kingsley (b) Erskine Childers (c) Rudyard Kipling (d) Alfred Lord Tennyson (e) Sir Walter Scott (f) Charles Dickens  (g) William Blake (h) John Masefield (i) Edward Fitzgerald (j) George Chapman.

2 (a) ‘The Pickwick Papers’ – Charles Dickens (b) ‘Kidnapped’ – Robert Louis Stevenson (c) ‘Peter Pan’ – JM Barrie (d) ‘The Pirates of Penzance’ – WS Gilbert (e) ‘Hiawatha’ – HW Longfellow.

6 (a) And never brought to mind,/Should auld acquaintance be forgot/For the sake of Auld Lang Syne? (Robert Burns, ‘Auld Lang Syne‘) (b) ‘All things both great and small,/For the dear God who loveth us,/He made and loveth all’. (S. T. Coleridge, ‘The Rime of the Ancient Mariner’) (c) The captains and the kings depart:/Still stands Thine ancient sacrifice,/An humble and a contrite heart. (Kipling, ‘Recessional‘) (d) A thing of shreds and patches,/Of ballads, songs and snatches,/And dreamy lullaby (W. S. Gilbert, ‘The Mikado’).

Frank Sidgwick also provided these comments regarding answers to the other more general questions:

“The paper was not so much a test of knowledge of the facts of English Literature as an attempt to probe general literary intelligence and thought: this was particularly the purpose of questions 3, 4, and 5 which gave scope for the display of literary history, and the comparison of ancient and modern literatures…

In question 3 most showed good sense, but this was often nullified by bad expression… Isabel, Betjemann and Vernon did particularly well.

Question 4 was rather a disappointment in the result. Nearly everyone proposed to ask Shakespeare whether he wrote his own plays, and which he thought his best play. Burton suggested asking him what he thought of the OPS performances, and others had original ideas; but on the whole the opportunity was missed. Somebody ought to note that that Elysian Fields do not mean the Champs-Élysées.”

Indeed!

July 1st 1920

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It is at this time of year that we invite Old Dragons to set examination papers for us. The General Papers will be provided by Jack Haldane and his sister Naomi MItchison, together with Mr Vassall.

The English Literature paper for the top forms has been set by Frank Sidgwick and you are now invited to see how you would do!

English Literature Paper, July 1920.

1. Who wrote:
   (a) Westward Ho!
   (b) The Riddle of the Sands
   (c) Puck of Pook's Hill
   (d) In Memoriam
   (e) Old Mortality
   (f) Dombey and Son
   (g) a poem about a tiger
   (h) a long poem about fox-hunting
   (i) who translated Omar Khayyam into English verse
   (j) who translated Homer into English verse

2. In what work, by what author, do the following characters 
   appear?
   (a) Sam Weller
   (b) David Balfour
   (c) Captain Hook
   (d) General Stanley
   (e) Minnehaha

3. Write not more than one page on either 
   (a) the difference between prose and verse, or 
   (b) the difference between poetry and verse.

4. What are the first six questions you would ask William 
   Shakespeare if you met him in the Elysian Fields?

5. Write a short essay on the Choruses in Henry V. Why do you 
   think Shakespeare put them in? Why were they called Choruses? 
   Mention any parallels you can think of.

6. Continue for not more than three lines, giving author and work:
   (a) Should auld acquaintance be forgot...
   (b) He prayeth best, who loveth best...
   (c) The tumult and the shouting dies...
   (d) A wandering minstrel I...

When Frank Sidgwick has marked the papers and submitted his report, you shall know the answers and can see if you did better than our young Dragons!

 

 

June 18th 1920

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O.D. Dinner – June 12th 1920.

The Old Dragons have had their say on our reunion, now it is my turn!

It was the greatest pleasure to meet 115 of my Old Boys and the staff at dinner in the School Hall on Saturday. I am rather proud of having only in one case made a mistake in identification. If I failed to have a yarn with each individual it was for lack of time and not for lack of will. It was strange and delightful to feel that I am the one link between them all – that in the whole wide world there is no-one else who has known them all personally from their boyhood.

Walter Moberly (left) was one of our most distinguished Old Boys in the War, being twice mentioned in dispatches and winning the D.S.O in an action that sadly cost the lives of two other Old Dragons, Will Scott and Gifford Turrell. He has now returned to Lincoln College, where he is a Fellow, lecturing in philosophy.  Frank Sidgwick (right) continues to prosper with his publishing company Sidgwick & Jackson, having had particular success with the works of the war poet, Rupert Brooke.

Geoffrey Freyberg (left), having survived the battle at Jutland and witnessed the surrender of the German High Seas fleet in November 1918 on HMS Valiant, is now the King’s Harbour Master at Plymouth.  Geoffrey Rose (right) is in the process of writing up the history of the 2/4th Oxfordshire & Buckinghamshire Light Infantry in the War, to be published later this year. Having been called to the Bar in 1912, he is returning to a legal career.

Philip Frere (left) provided the ‘Draconian’ with an account of the retreat enforced by the Germans’ Spring Offensive of March 1918 and Nevil Norway (right) having as a 17-year-old witnessed the events in Dublin of Easter 1917, served the final months of the War as a private soldier in the Suffolk Regiment.  He is now up at Balliol College, reading Engineering Science.

Maurice Campbell (left)  ended the war with typhus and malaria and was invalided home. Last year he was awarded the OBE for his services with a field ambulance and has now returned to Guy’s Hospital as a medical registrar. Pat Campbell (right) having gone straight into the Army from Winchester in 1917, has now returned to Oxford to study for a degree at Brasenose College.

Roger Mott, it may be recalled wrote to us back in 1915 of his “Balkan Find” – a memorial tablet from the time of the Emperor Hadrian, and I understand that it is now the proud possession of the new Imperial War Museum, officially opened on June 9th by King George V at the Crystal Palace.

Geoffrey Carpenter spent the War with the Uganda Medical Service and wrote to us following the Battle of Tanga, known as the Battle of the Bees. He has now returned to Oxford and is working as a Specialist Officer for the control of sleeping sickness in Uganda. He is bringing out a book later this year, ‘A Naturalist on Lake Victoria, with an account of Sleeping Sickness and the Tse-Tse Fly’, about his time there (1911-14), the introduction written by his friend an mentor Prof. EB Poulton (father of Ronnie Poulton).

Sydney Carline, whose experience of being shot down over the Somme in 1916 was reported to us by his brother George,  enjoyed the final months of the conflict as a war artist. Having returned from his tour of the Middle East for the Imperial War Museum with his brother Richard last year, they have both enjoyed a successful exhibition of their work in the Goupil Gallery in March.

Jack Gamlen was one of the most prolific of our ‘war correspondents.’ A regular guest critic of our school plays before the War, he was particularly missed here when we were putting on ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’ in 1915 and he sent the boys a most witty verse.  We were delighted to have him back to review last term’s production of ‘Henry V’, even if his judgments were not always generous!

Noel Sergent, who sent us many descriptions of his time on the Gallipoli peninsula, together with a graphic account as to how he managed to escape drowning when his ship was torpedoed, we are delighted now to have on our staff, teaching French (of course) and mathematics. He is also a great asset on the river where he has been coaching diving.

Jack Smyth – whose array of medals impressed us all – was a regular correspondent in the War years. Who will ever forget the day to returned to the School with his VC? He has a busy time ahead – he is due to receive the MC on July 20th and be married on July 22nd,  but has kindly agreed to attend our Prizegiving on the 21st to give away the prizes!

There were many who were under Mr Clarke, my predecessor, and who had suffered from my mistakes and inexperience as a young teacher; and perhaps that meeting with an early generation of Dragons was of the greatest interest to me. They have had time to distinguish themselves, and many have done so…

And then, alas! there are so many whom we shall not see again at these gatherings, those who have so nobly given their lives for us.

(Of those mentioned above, a number had lost an Old Dragon brother in the War: Frank Sidgwick (Hugh), Geoffrey Freyberg (Lance), Maurice & Pat Campbell (Percy), for whom the day must have brought on very mixed emotions).

 

July 3rd 1919

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REPORT ON ENGLISH LITERATURE PAPER

As promised, here are the findings of Frank Sidgwick, who kindly marked the English Literature paper set for the top forms.

Marks were out of 150 and ranged from 124 down to 11. The top four were:

  1. Ellie Frere (124)
  2. Laurie Salkeld (100)
  3. Stella Joy (98)
  4. Hugh Gaitskell (91)

I note that George Hardman (44) would have been 5th, but his marks were halved for writing a silly poem.

In addition, Frank Sidgwick supplies the following observations:

“This paper was set by the Skipper, and I consider it fairly difficult.

Question 1 was well done except for the Lorelei and Kotik…

Question 2 unfortunately contained the word ‘illustrate,’ which two or three took to mean that a pen-and-ink sketch was required. Shylock is very unpopular; he was ‘a wolf in carnation,’ and ‘Shylock was medium in height… he was a very bloody man.’

Question 3. The quotations were fairly well known, except the last, which no-one got quite right, and the Swinburne one. It is news to me the ‘When shall we three meet again?’ was said by Cranmer, Ridley and Latimer, as they were being bound to the stake in Broad Street!

Question 4 was as interesting as it has been In former years. I congratulate Stella Joy on having grown out of a liking for ‘The Scarlet Pimpernel.’ F. Childe apparently dislikes Hans Andersen because he thinks he was a German. He ought to be made to apologise in public for this error and for the prejudice. Somebody else dislikes another book because the characters in it ‘always make Fo-pahs.’

Question 5. As before, Shakespeare (27) leads the way with the Bible (23), followed by Tennyson and Kipling (15 each), useful books (natural history, botany, cooking, etc), Dickens and volumes of ‘Punch.’ One precocious youth demands Boccaccio! Two really sensible boys put an Atlas on the list.

The poems [a love song for The Merchant of Venice’s Lorenzo to sing to Jessica] were most depressingly bad – except the six best, which were not nearly as good as I expected. There was this however:

The moon is bright - come, a little kiss! -
There's no one near - let me bend, so! -
It would be an eternal bliss
To your own dear loving Lorenzo.

Our marker concluded that the handwriting was generally bad (and Brunyate’s disgraceful!)

 

July 2nd 1919

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I thought the parents and friends of OPS pupils might light to try their hand at the examination paper set for the top 3 forms this term. The papers have been marked by Frank Sidgwick and we will publish his report together with the results tomorrow!

1. Write short notes on 'The Nibelungenlied,' 'The Twilight of 
the Gods,' Excalibur, Circe, Mulvaney, the Arethusa, Becky Sharp, 
Mr Pyecroft, Mr Jingle, the Divine Comedy, Kotik, the Tales of a 
Grandfather, Perdita, Ophelia, the Boojum, the Lorelei.

2. Describe and illustrate the character of Shylock.

3. Continue these quotations for not more than 3 lines, say 
from what work each comes, and by what author: 
a) Ah! Love, could thou and I with Fate conspire 
b) Taking one consideration with another - with another 
c) Nay, too steep for hill-mounting; nay, too late for 
   cost-counting 
d) From too much love of living, from hope and fear set free 
e) Yours is the earth - and everything that's in it 
f) And the Man of Blood was there, with his long essenced hair 
g) If you have tears prepare to shed them now 
h) Last scene of all, that ends this strange eventful history 
i) On the cabin roof I lie 
j) Forty years on when afar and asunder 
k) When shall we three meet again 
l) The lights begin to twinkle from the rocks

4. Describe carefully the story of a book which you used to 
like and now do not care for, and have not read for a long 
time. State your reasons for having ceased to care for it.

5. Supposed you had to live ten years alone on a desert island, 
what five books would you choose from the whole of the world's 
literature to read during that time? Say why you would choose 
them.

6. Write a love song in 12 lines, for Lorenzo to sing to Jessica.

July 30th 1918

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Today is the second anniversary of the death of Eric Leggett, who was struck down by the scarlet fever whilst on active service in France.

I have the fondest of memories of Eric, who was the first young Dragon to fulfil the role of cabin boy (KB) on my boat the ‘Blue Dragon’ in 1892. He wrote the Log of 1894, when he sailed with us from Portree on Skye to Eigg, Tobermoray, Oban, Fort William, round Mull to Iona and Staffa, and on to Plockton.

Eric joined the Royal Artillery in 1899, after which his military career took him to foreign parts, which explains the references to India and Mandalay in the poem below. It was written by Frank Sidgwick, when ‘The Log of the Blue Dragon’ was published in 1907.

To E.L.

Will you read this little rhyme,
Our K.B. of olden time,
There in India's sunny clime?
                   (Exiled, alas)
Still we sail the old B.D.,
Still we bend the old burgee,
Though we ship a new K.B.
                   (Who is an ass.)
While the hathi's piling teak,
While the dreary punkahs creak,
Can you hear your shipmates speak?
                   (Isn't this rot?)
Can you hear your shipmates say,
"Come you back from Mandalay,
Come you back to Oban Bay"?
                   (Probably not.)

 

 

(A ‘burgee’ is a flag bearing the colours or emblem of a sailing club, typically triangular;  ‘hathi’ – an elephant in Hindi; ‘punkah – a large cloth fan on a frame suspended from the ceiling, moved backwards and forwards by pulling on a cord by a ‘punkah-wallah.’)

 

January 25th 1917

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mnd-cast

Midsummer Night’s Dream

As is our custom, the term started last week with our annual Shakespeare play. We gave four performances of Midsummer Night’s Dream. The first was to an audience of teachers, boys and girls, from some of the Oxford Elementary Schools – an audience of about 350. Letters subsequently received showed that it was greatly appreciated and that Puck was specially popular.

The second performance was enjoyed by about 120 wounded soldiers, who were afterwards entertained to tea. On Saturday there were the usual afternoon and evening performances for parents and friends.

“It was indeed a welcome boon that the Dragons gave us this year,” wrote one of our reviewers, “to transport us for three hours’ space away from the sorrows and difficulties of this unintelligible war to the flowers and forest glades of Shakespeare’s Warwickshire…

While we were waiting for the play to begin, it was sad to notice the absence of ODs among the audience, and sadder still to reflect how many of them had consummated the great sacrifice for their country. Indeed Dragons, if any, will fully understand the meaning of the line –

‘We must be free or die, who speak the tongue
That Shakespeare spake.’

Many of the ODs now in the trenches were doubtless present with us in spirit that night and not only the writer of the noble prologue, which touched eloquently on the thought we all were feeling…”

The writer of “noble prologue” was Lieut. Hugh Sidgwick (RGA), whilst in a dug-out in France, and his words were delivered by Oberon:

Prologue
Think it not strange that at this hour, in a world of waste and wrath,
I come to lead your thoughts away by a wandering woodland path,
Far from the scarred terrain of war and the perilous haunted seas,
To the moonlight on the forest and the glimmer between the trees –
To light your steps in the murk and gloom by fancy’s fitful gleam,
From the dark, substantial winter day to a Midsummer Night’s Dream.

Not strange – they would not think it, our brother Dragons who stand
In the line in France or Flanders, on the deck or the desert sand.
They would not grudge our revels, or wonder that today
We come to enact before you the loveliest English play.
For all the cause they fight for, the things they hold most dear,
England, and Home, and Beauty – will you not find them here?

Hugh’s brother, Frank Sidgwick, also contributed a review to the ‘Draconian.’

“I needn’t tell ODs that everybody was word perfect. I think Theseus twice said: ‘For aye to be in a shady cloister mewed,’ and Lysander gobbed a difficult line in the afternoon, but got it right at night; the accents on ‘persever,’ ‘revenue,’ ‘edict,’ etc., were correctly given; and I think I heard ‘prehaps’ instead of ‘perhaps’ once or twice…”

One or two other faults were also noticed:

“Some of the actors were too fond of nodding and smiling at their friends in the audience. One of the characters, supposed to be lying asleep, actually clapped his hands in applause of a song by Puck!”

Ah well, we do not pretend to be prefect.

 

 

March 12th 1916

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Whilst so many Old Dragons are wielding the sword, there are some who have not entirely forsaken the pen and endeavour to keep our spirits up in these troubled times.

Some Verse – F.S

(Available for 2/6 from Sidgwick & Jackson)

Frank Sidgwick, the author of many of the verses in the various Logs of the Blue Dragon has in this little volume given us a collection of poems, a few of which have appeared in the Cornhill and other magazines.

One of them has given rise to considerable and learned discussion in the Times Literary Supplement – viz. Narrative Macaronic Verses. The VIth form learned this witty and amusing essai by heart and quote it constantly with enjoyment.

Narrative Macaronic Verses                                      

Charmer virumque I sing, Jack plumigeramque Arabellam.
Costermonger erat Jack Jones, asinumque agitabat;
In Covent Garden holus, sprouts vendidit asparagumque.
Vendidit in Circo to the toffs Arabella the donah,
Qua Piccadilly propinquat to Shaftesbury Avenue, flores.

Jam Whitmonday adest; ex Newington Causeway the costers
Erumpunt multi celebrare their annual beano;
Quisque suum billycock habuere, et donah ferentes,
Impositique rotis, popularia carmina singing,
Happy with ale omnes – exceptis excipiendis.
Gloomily drives Jack Jones, inconsolabilis heros;
No companion habet, solus sine virgine coster.
Per Boro’, per Fleet Street, per Strand, sic itur ad “Empire”;
Illinc Coventry Street peragunt in a merry procession,
Qua Piccadilly propinquat to Shaftesbury Avenue tandem
Gloomily Jack vehitur. Sed amet qui never amavit!

En! Subito fugiunt dark thoughts; Arabella videtur.
Quum subit illius pulcherrima bloomin’ imago,
Corde juvat Jack Jones; exclamat loudly “What oh, there!”
Maiden ait “Deus, ecce deus!” floresque relinquit.
Post asinum sedet illa; petunt Welsh Harp prope Hendon.

O fons Brent Reservoir! Recubans sub tegmine brolli,
Brachia complexus (yum yum!) Jack kissed Arabella;
“Garn” ait illa rubens, et “Garn” reboatur ab Echo;
Prositique tenax Jack “Swelp me lummy, I loves yer.”
Hinc illae lacrimae; “Jest one!” et “Saucy, give over.”

Tempora jam mutantur, et hats; caligine cinctus
Oscula Jones iterat, mokoque immittit habenas.
Concertina manu sixteen discordia vocum
Obloquitur; cantant (ne saevi, magne policeman)
Noctem in Old Kent Road. Sic transit gloria Monday.

May 10th 1915

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RWPP Oxford3

Ronnie Poulton

Rupert Brooke

Rupert Brooke

 

 

 

 

 

 

Yesterday, a service was held at Rugby School in memory of the lives of two of their old boys, Ronnie Poulton and Rupert Brooke (who died on April 23rd on his way to Gallipoli).

Rupert Brooke played alongside Ronnie in the Rugby School 1st XV in 1905, when Ronnie was aged sixteen.

Of Ronnie the Headmaster said, “We have given of our best. If we were asked to describe what highest kind of manhood Rugby helps to make, I think we should have him in mind as we spoke of it.

God had endowed him with a rare combination of graces and given him an influence among men such as very few in one generation can possess. What had we not hoped would come of it!”

* * * * * *

Rupert Brooke’s poem ‘The Soldier,’ which was quoted in the Times Literary Supplement in March and also used in the Easter Day service at St Paul’s, is due to be published shortly by our own Frank Sidgwick, under the title of ‘1914 and Other Poems.’

In 1911 Brooke wrote to Frank, who had four years previously set up his company Sidgwick & Jackson, asking him to publish his first volume, ‘Poems of 1911’, which he duly did. The agreement was signed at Brooke’s home, The Old Vicarage at Granchester, witnessed by a guest, Virginia Stephen.

Frank’s good taste and judgement regarding authors are not to be doubted, given that he has also published ‘The Log of the Blue Dragon II in Orkney & Shetland’ (1909-1910) and more recently, ‘To Norway & The North Cape in Blue Dragon II’ for me.

I remember these cruises with great affection, and all the more so at present as many of my old boys now corresponding with me from the various fronts of the war, joined the ‘Blue Dragon‘ as crew on these great adventures.

Blue Dragon

The ‘Blue Dragon’