Churchers College Petersfield

A Memory of Petersfield.

I was a at school as a boarder at Churcher's College from 1945 to 1951. The immediate post war years in England were a time of great hardship and rationing. I remember vividly the bad winter of 1947, when Heath Pond froze over and we all went ice skating on it. I remember the hilarious scenes of ducks trying to land on the ice and skidding out of control. The following are a portion of my memoirs of life at Churcher's during that period.

CHAPTER THREE
School Years - Churcher’s College -  1945 - 1951

In September of 1945 mother and I travelled down to Petersfield so she could enroll me in school. Churcher’s College was founded in 1722 by the will of a Richard Churcher who made his fortune in the East India Company and left money to educate a number of boys in the Village of Petersfield. His very specific intentions were expressed in his Will. The College was to provide free board and lodging for twelve boys who were to be instructed in 'the arts of writing, arithmatick and in the mathematicks, chiefly that part of it which relates to navigation'. Eventually a successful petition was made by the Trustees to Parliament in 1744 to alter the conditions of the will, which resulted in the College being managed under an Act of Parliament from 1745 to 1835.  The first school built six years after the death of the founder was a red brick edifice built in the Georgian style in the town itself. This building is still standing with the following cut into stone above the entrance 'Churcher’s College' and under that '1729'. Many years later a large parcel of land was purchased on the top of the hill from one of the Governors, a Mr William Nicholson. The College was stone built in the Gothic style and was opened in 1881 with 43 boys of whom 15 were boarders. It was planned to accommodate one hundred day boys and fifty boarders. There were 120 boarders in 1947 when I was there with my brother. Over the years it was expanded and the grounds developed to include the main cricket ground and five other pitches for cricket or rugby. The school took pride in having an army cadet corps and a full military band. It also possessed a shooting gallery. The boys were divided into four houses. They were named Drake, Nelson, Grenville and Rodney, all named after famous English admirals. I was assigned to Drake House as was my brother.

The place that I would be living in the first instance was Mount House, a large Victorian residence purchased in 1935 when Mr Hoggarth was Headmaster, where the junior boys stayed. As they got older they would eventually move over the road to the main College. The house was run by the second master Mr Cottle and his wife. Jack Cottle had two daughters who were identical twins. On reflection, I do not know how he and his family could live in such close proximity to 50 little boys and at that age particularly, but they did. They were a musical family; Mr Cottle played the big bass in the school orchestra and Mrs Cottle the cello. They used to practice in their living room after we had gone to bed. That was about the limit of their privacy. Mr Cottle joined the school in 1923 and stayed for 43 years, he was a mathematics teacher. He was a strict housemaster and he put the fear of God in us.

On Sundays we went to a church in the village of Steep in the morning and in the afternoon all the boys had to leave the school grounds until 4:00PM. We could go for a walk with or without companions, ride a bike, walk downtown to the local sweetshop (candy store) hire a boat and go rowing on the small lake on the nearby heath. You were pretty much left to your own devices. The local movie house however was out of bounds.

When I was 13, I joined the Cadet Corps, learned how to shoot and strip down a Bren gun and marched about, had parades and went on manoeuvers, where we happily shot at each other in the woods with blank cartridges. It was a lot of fun. We studied map reading and how to use a compass, to break down and rebuild a bren gun, we learned to drill a squad and at the end we took our Certificate 'A' exam. This would give us immediate entrance to officer training after basic training, in the army when we were called up. There was conscription at that time so all boys were eligible when reaching the age of 18.  The school started an Air Corp Unit, and always being interested in flying, I transferred to it. One of our trips was to visit a Royal Air Force air base and the highlight of the trip was a ride in a RAF bomber.  I made sure that I was the first on the plane, where I immediately headed for the co-pilot's seat. The pilot (a young man) asked me where I wanted to go, so I said "Let's fly over our school". On the way there, the pilot let me take the controls. I was in seventh heaven. I really wanted to become a pilot in the RAF but it was not to be. My ear problem came back to haunt me and I could not pass the physical.

In 1950 we heard that Sir Winston Churchill would be driven past the school on his way to Portsmouth to receive the Freedom of the City. The school posted an honour guard outside the school gates and, with the entire college watching, Sir Winston had his car stopped and he got out and shook hands with the headmaster, Mr Schofield, and other masters.