Figure 1.--We believe that this Eastbourne preparatory school was photographed about 1902-03. This is the front of the school. We are hoping to eventually identify the school. |
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Unfortunately we do not know the name of the school, although we hope to learn which one it was because the portrait was taken in the front of the main building at the school. Of course it is possible that the school no longer exists. Many prep schools were owned by the headmaster and did not survived when he retired. Many other prep schools closed in the difficult economic times after World War II. Prep schools along the southern coast in places like Eastbourne were almost all evacuated during the War. But perhpas one of our HBC readers will recall the front of the school. And this is just what has had happened. A reader writes, " I have just been looking at the photos of the pupils and staff at the "Unknown Eastbourne Preparatory School" that you have posted. I have a feeling that these are taken at the Eastbourne Prep. School called Hydneye House, which was in Church Street, Willingdon. The School was founded in about 1890 and was in Eastbourne until 1918, when it moved, having outgrown its existing premises. I am sending you a postcard I have of the school, taken in about 1910 by G & R Lavis of Eastbourne. The critical picture of the building is the one on the extreme left of the montage, which shows an oblique view of the front of the building. The building was an unusual shape with somewhat asymmetric wings. The front of the building was Ivy-clad and it would have been simple for the photographer to have been slightly below the entrance (as in your photos), as the building was on the top of a gentle rise. The woodwork, window and door surrounds are also white. I think that the way the photos you display are shown, I can detect the forward-projecting right hand bay of the main house, in front of which are draped several boys and smartly attired staff (on the "caps" page). Do you have the complete picture of the school, staff and pupils, in addition to the smaller, bite-sized ones? What do you think? In my pics, there are several boys in evidence, but they are very small in size. They are not wearing formal suits, but breeches. If this set of pics is of Hydneye, then the school colours were red and white. In the 1960's (just before the school's ultimate closure), despite red/white being the school's colours, the pupils always wore black ties, and the prefects wore red/white ties. The school caps were red with white lettering and the "colours" caps had the red/white reversed.' This may well be the case. It is very likely that by the late-1910s that the uniform would have cnged.
Roberts, Stuart. E-mail message, May 4, 2012.
Related Chronolgy Pages in the Boys' Historical Web Site
[The 1880s]
[The 1890s]
[The 1900s]
[The 1910s]
[The 1920s]
[The 1930s]
[The 1940s]
[The 1950s]
