SCHOOLS 



to serve for both schools. Hence the ex- 

 traordinary lack of cohesion and concentra- 

 tion in the plan of the school buildings ; the 

 class rooms on either side being separated by 

 long corridors, covered at the top only, from 

 the central block, while a long walk in the 

 outer air is interposed between the science 

 class rooms and the boys' library. The hall is 

 fine, but the central building as a whole is 

 overloaded with ornament. There is a great 

 waste of ground between this part of the 

 buildings and the road ; but fortunately the 

 ample space of the playing fields behind, some 

 thirty-five acres, prevent the waste of half a 

 dozen acres in front from being felt. 



In point of fact the Lower School never 

 occupied the premises designed for it. So 

 rapid was the growth of the Upper School, 

 the fees being raised to £i^ at once, that 

 there was never any room for it. 



When in 1872 the Endowed Schools 

 Commissioners came to publish their first 

 scheme for the school, it was already out 

 of date. They proposed to assign only 

 ;£i,8oo a year to the college, while giving 

 ;£30,ooo capital and ;£2,200 a year for four 

 schools, two to each sex, in Camberwell ; 

 and ;Cio,ooo and ;Ci,ooo a year to each of the 

 three other parishes, Cripplegate, St. Savi- 

 our's Southwark, and Bishopsgate. In 1874 

 an amended draft proposed to give £75,000 

 to other schools and £2,600 a year to Dulwich 

 College. But Dr. Carver appealed against 

 the scheme, then fathered by the Charity 

 Commissioners, and his appeal was allowed 

 by the Privy Council. 



After some more years of negotiation a 

 scheme received the royal approval on 18 

 August 1882. This provided an income of 

 £4,000 a year for the school, now solemnly 

 christened Dulwich College, with another 

 £1,000 a year in certain events, which have 

 since happened ; while a Lower School, under 

 the name of Alleyne's School, was to be 

 started, with £12,000 capital and £1,500 a 

 year, and a glorified amplification of the 

 Charity School, now James Allen's Girls' 

 School, was given a site, £6,000 for building 

 and £1,000 a year. £2,000 a year and 

 £65,000 capital were assigned to the other 

 ' privileged parishes,' the indomitable rector 

 of Bishopsgate carrying off £50,000 as his share 

 of the plunder. Dr. Carver finished his career 

 in the moment of victory over his Governing 

 Body, retiring gloriously with a pension of 

 £1,200 a year, but having put it beyond the 

 power of any chairman to stay the progress of 

 the school. He was succeeded by Dr. James 

 Edward Cowell Welldon, now ex-bishop of 

 Calcutta, and canon of Westminster, who. 



U. 



209 



after a successful career of two years, passed 

 on to Harrow. The present headmaster, 

 Mr. Arthur Herman Gilkes, was appointed in 

 the summer of 1885. Educated at Shrews- 

 bury school, a junior student of Christ Church 

 at Oxford, where first classes in Moderations 

 and Final Schools rewarded his efforts, he 

 returned to Shrewsbury as a master in 1873. 

 When he entered on his duties as Headmaster 

 there were 506 boys in the school. It has 

 now in May 1904, 699, of whom 92 are 

 boarders residing in four private boarding 

 houses. 



In 1886 the school finally asserted its place 

 among Public Schools by winning the Ashbur- 

 ton Shield in the Public Schools shooting 

 competition at Wimbledon. Dulwich takes 

 its rifle corps and its rifle corps band seriously. 

 It honoured its dead in the South African 

 War by the erection of a school library which, 

 by its congested condition at all available 

 hours, shows that it meets a long-felt want. 

 It now possesses all the usual institutions, 

 including a school paper, the Alleynian, and a 

 Debating Society. At speech days since 1895 

 Dulwich has paid Bradfield College the flattery 

 of imitation by performing a Greek Play,' but 

 it cultivates the comic not the tragic Muse. 

 It plays Bedford, St. Paul's and Tonbridge 

 Schools at cricket and football. It ranks 

 second only, and not always second, to St. 

 Paul's in the number and variety of the 

 scholarships and exhibitions it wins at the 

 University. The year 1900-1 was a record 

 in this respect, comprising nine at Oxford and 

 seven at Cambridge: the Oxford list being 

 headed by three Balliol scholarships, the first 

 and third in classics and a Brackenbury science 

 scholarship. 



The Alleyne School, under the Rev. J. H. 

 Smith, a London B.A., opened in 1883, rose 

 to 489 in 1899. Mr. Smith retired in 1902, 

 and was succeeded by Mr. H. B. Baker, for 

 fifteen years a master at the College. After 

 barely a year he was preferred to a Professor- 

 ship of Chemistry at Oxford. The present 

 master is Mr. F. Collins, M.A., of Caius 

 College, Cambridge. The school now num- 

 bers 588 boys, paying nine guineas a year, 

 taught by 26 masters. It is conducted as a 

 school of science getting grants from the 

 Board of Education. Greek is only taught 

 to those who specially ask for it ; Latin and 

 German are alternatives, while French is 

 compulsory on all. Its buildings are perhaps 



1 It used yearly to perform a play of Shake- 

 speare, a most appropriate function for a school 

 founded by an Elizabethan play-wright and man- 

 ager. But this was stopped in 1886. 



27 



