A Necessity and an Opportunity
The origins of Westminster Under School
For most of Westminster School’s past there were no fixed rules about the age at which pupils should join the school. As a result, boys were enrolled whenever their parents thought they were ready to attend – and some started at a very young age. Jeremy Bentham, who went on to become a famous philosopher, joined Westminster aged seven, alongside others twice his age. Forms were organised by ability and pupils would move up, and sometime down, according to how well they performed, not how old they were. All the forms were taught together in School – the large hall which was once part of the monastery of Westminster Abbey. The lower forms, which tended to include the younger pupils, were based at the south end of the room, while the upper forms were based at the north. The two were sometimes separated by a curtain which hung from an iron pole spanning the room. This bar is still present, but is better known for the role it plays in the Shrove Tuesday Greaze, when a pancake is thrown over it by the school chef. The boys taught at the southern end of the school came to be known as the ‘Under School’ – ‘Under’ comes from the Under Master and is a direct translation of the ‘Hypo’ bit of ‘Hypodidascalus’, the Under Master’s title as given in the 1561 Elizabethan Statutes.
In the early 20th century school practices became more formal and the age at which boys joined Westminster became fixed at 13. New pupils were drawn from a number of different preparatory and feeder schools. It is likely that this would have continued to have been the case, were it not for the Second World War. The conflict was very disruptive for the school, which had to be evacuated away from London. It moved first to the south coast and then to Exeter before finally settling in the villages of Whitbourne and Bromyard, on the boundary of the counties of Worcestershire and Herefordshire, in 1941. The school became exclusively boarding, and pupil numbers fell, dropping from 339 in 1938 to 146 in 1942. The worst of the blitz was then over, but many of the school buildings in central London had been damaged, including School and College Dormitory. Westminster was rapidly entering financial difficulties, and it was necessary for the Head Master, John Christie, to come up with a plan to ensure school’s survival
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Christie first mentioned the idea of a ‘junior department’ to the school’s Governors in June 1942, but it wasn’t until 1943 that he truly embraced the idea. It was hoped that this new school would help grow pupil numbers in preparation for Westminster’s return to London when the war finished. It also provided employment for teachers who were increasingly redundant as the school had shrunk. The Under School was established in September 1943 in No. 2 Little Dean’s Yard, a building which had been requisitioned by the Government but was released back to the school that year. It accepted boys between the ages of 9 and 14 and was run by Arnold Willet, an Old Westminster. Willet had been due to retire, and agreed to work as Master for free to help save the school money. The prospectus noted that ‘in the present shortage of supplies it is difficult to insist on uniformity of dress, but the regulation School dress will consist of grey flannel shorts, with grey flannel coats to match, shirts of grey or khaki flannel, detachable collars are recommended’.
The Under School was a great success and had 75 pupils aged 8 to 13 by the early 1950s. Pupil numbers also steadily increased at the Great School, particularly after it returned to Westminster in September 1945. Many boys who had started at the Under School in 1943 continued to the Great School when they were the right age. Initially both schools ran alongside one another using the buildings around Little Dean’s Yard, but by 1952 this situation was no longer workable. The school considered a number of possible locations for the Under School, including the top floor of Lambeth Palace and sharing Westminster Abbey’s Choir School building. Ultimately new premises were found in Eccleston Square (the buildings cost the school £11,272 for a 99 year lease and £14,950 was spent on renovation). Thus, in 1953, 10 years after the Under School has been founded, it completed the move away from Little Dean’s Yard.
The success and growth of the Under School necessitated a further move in 1980, when the school acquired the former Grosvenor Hospital, which closed in 1976. Appropriately, the building had started out life as dispensary for women and children and was used as the gynaecological wing of St Thomas’s Hospital following the foundation of the NHS.
Over the past five years we have been working to secure and enhance the archival record of the Under School. Sadly, its records have been the victim of neglect and sometimes destruction as the school moved site from Little Dean’s Yard to Eccleston Square and finally Vincent Square. Basic resources, such as a list of alumni from 1943 to the present, have been difficult to locate. Thankfully we have received some generous donations from alumni and others associated with the Under School which have filled some of the gaps in the archive, and a written history of the school is currently being compiled.
