FALCONBURY2

FALCONBURY SCHOOL

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This page is for Old Falconburians
Please send any comments to mail@colinredfern.com
If you have any old Falconbury photos that you'd like to see added to this page, please e-mail them in jpeg format or contact this page for a mailing address. I'll be happy to scan them in and return them to you.

School group photo from 1963 added February 26, 2008
Scroll down to the bottom of the page for a link to film clips of Sports Day, 1963 and rugby and football games from 1962-63

A few words of introduction:
I was at Falconbury from 1947 to 1952. Out of interest I searched the Web for Falconbury last year and was a bit saddened to find that there were hardly any references to the school. In an attempt to remedy that situation I added this page to my existing website and scanned in the few photos that I had of my time at Falconbury. Since then it's been a pleasure to hear from other Old Falconburians, some of whom have kindly contributed photos, and it's also rewarding to know that some old friends have renewed contact with each other as a result of this page. With this in mind, I do have one request - if you do email me with comments and/or photos, please let me know whether it's OK for me to use your name and email address. I'll only print your email address on this page if I have your permission, but it will obviously make it easier for old friends to contact you.
Colin Redfern

CONTACT LIST
Hopefully this Contact List will grow over the coming months. If you'd like your name and email address to be added, let me know at mail@colinredfern.com
Name	Years at Falconbury	Email address
Nick Cox	1960-1965	jscox@bigpond.net.au
Robert Cox	1962-1967	robcox5@tiscali.co.uk
Jasper Dale	1961-1966	jjhd@jjhd.fsnet.co.uk
Mike Grosvenor	1947-1952	rgrosvenor05@aol.com
Piers Lightfoot	1965-1968	piers4954@wanadoo.fr
Charles Oliver	1964-1968	charles.oliver@baesystems.com
Stephen Perrott	1935-1940	jenny.stephen@paradise.net.nz
Tom Rainey	1947-1952	thomas.rainey@virgin.net
Colin Redfern	1947-1952	mail@colinredfern.com
Bill Richardson	1936-1940	subill@talktalk.net
James Sebesta	1965-1968	james.sebesta@tnt.com
Phil Stone recently added	1960-1963	philstone@mac.com
Rupert Stringer recently added	1950-1955	Stringer@thestringers.force9.co.uk
Mike Wykes	196?-1968	michaelwykes@btinternet.com

A BRIEF HISTORY of FALCONBURY SCHOOL
George Mannings Faulkner (1871-1951). Photo courtesy of N. E. G. Faulkner.
Falconbury School was founded by G. M. Faulkner in 1899. The original school was at Bury St. Edmunds.
1903/4	Falconbury moved to Purley, Surrey
1930	Falconbury moved to Little Common, near Bexhill-on-Sea, Sussex. The school buildings at Purley subsequently became the location of the John Fisher School - (www.johnfisher.sutton.sch.uk)
1940 - ?	Falconbury relocated to Astrop Park for the duration of WWII
1968	Falconbury was amalgamated with Claremont School at St. Leonards-on-Sea - (www.claremontschool.co.uk)

FALCONBURY at PURLEY

Falconbury relocated to Purley, Surrey in about 1903 and remained there until 1930. Thanks are due to Nigel Faulkner, grandson of the school's founder, who contributed these rare photos of Falconbury at Purley. The original captions for the photos below are Riding Lesson, Drill, A Class Room, Dining Hall, Boys' Gardens and Swimming Bath.

FUTURE AUTHORS at FALCONBURY
At least two pupils at Falconbury in the early part of the 20th century became well-known authors in later years. Both were at Falconbury when the school was located at Purley.
Digby George Gerahty (1898-1981) went to Falconbury in about 1906. He later wrote several books under the pseudonym Robert Standish. His best known work was probably "Elephant Walk", which was made into a film in 1954, starring Elizabeth Taylor.
Leslie Charles Bowyer-Yin (1907-1993) attended Falconbury from 1919-1922. He was to become much better known as Leslie Charteris, creator of "The Saint". Nigel Faulkner writes that for some years his grandfather would receive copies of books by Leslie Charteris signed "To G. M. Faulkner from his former Pupil", and the postcard reproduced below was sent in 1936 when Charteris and his wife were passengers on the transatlantic maiden voyage of the "Hindenburg" - (not the ill-fated crossing that was to take place the following year).

Peter Scawen Watkinson Roberts, VC, DSC
Peter Roberts (1917-1979) went to Falconbury in the 1920s. He was awarded the Victoria Cross in 1942 for an act of great valour while serving as a lieutenant aboard H. M. Submarine Thrasher. The artwork below depicts the incident, details of which, together with the citation, can be found at the Thrasher site.

FALCONBURY at LITTLE COMMON, BEXHILL-on-SEA

The building that many of us remember was built in 1927 on the site of a previous school, St. Wilfrid's, which had been destroyed by fire, and was purchased soon after its completion by George Mannings Faulkner. With the exception of the years spent at Astrop Park during WWII, it was the location of Falconbury School from 1930 until its closure in 1968.

Most photos are reduced to thumbnails. Click on a thumbnail to enlarge, then click your
"back" button to return to this page.

These six photos were probably taken in the 1930s:

Assembly Room Dormitory Billiards Gym Grounds Drill

The three photos below date from the same era, and the two pages in the right-hand frames are reproduced from a school prospectus that was still in use in 1965.

FALCONBURY in the LATE 1930s
Bill Richardson and Stephen Perrott, who were both at Falconbury in the late 1930s, have individually sent several group photos from those years, and I'm combining them here. Bill has supplied some names for the cricket and football photos, and Stephen has supplied many of the names for the school groups, explaining that about 70 years ago he pencilled the names onto the brown paper that covered the backs of the frames ! These lists may contain some errors and there are still some gaps to fill in, so additions and corrections are welcome. All names are listed from left to right, and the dates are as near as can be determined.
1935	Front row (seated): Hine 1, Mackay, Perrott, Butler, Bryan, Thomas, Bartlett, Rackham, Hildreth, Wright, Lockie, Goodchild, Cooper 2.
	2nd row: Barlow, Stroud, Daniel, Wilsdon 3, Lazarus, Harris, Ross-Watt, Phillips, Mackinnon, Collett, McKay-Forbes.
	3rd row: Serrancke, Wilson 2, Spauk (?), Cooper 1, Thurston, Brendon, Tatham, Fox, Beaumont, Warshaw, Coles.
	4th row: Heymann, Hilliard, Lock, Stuart, Greenland, Rivers, duHeaume, Rivers, Hunt, Brassey, Thompson.
	Back row: Panchaud, Deane, Wooley, Isaac(s), Marsh, Machin, Shaw(?), Goldschmidt, Overaqq(?)
1936-37	Front row (on ground): Bryan 1, Richardson, Rackham, Wilsdon 3, Adley, Summers, Beale 1, Abrahams, Beale 2, ?Fox, Cohen, Wright 2
	2nd row (seated): Marks, Lazarus, Thomas, Perrott, Hine 1, Harris, Postlethwaite, Lockie, McKay-Forbes, Goodchild, Hildreth, Bartlett, Wright 1, Cooper, Beaumont 2, (?)
	3rd row : Ross-Watt, Wilson 1, duHeaume, Brassey 1, Warshaw, Stuart, Hilliard, Hunt, Lockie, Greenland, Sharp(?), Goldschmidt, Heymann, Collett, Phillips.
	Back row: Baker 1, Mackinnon, Thompson, Stroud, Brendon, Coles, Spark(s), Gay, Barlow, Serrancke, Daniel, Fox, Strickland, Cuthbert 1, Beaumont, (?).
1939	Front row (on ground): Hine 2, Goodchild 2, Beaumont 3, Beale 2, Summers, Exshaw, Buckley 1, Stickland 3, Buckley 2, Huelin 2, Wilsdon 4, Horton, Mann, Wesson, Posey, Perrott 2, Jackson.
	2nd row (seated): Beaumont 2, Ellis, Corlett, Beale 1, Marks, Raine 1, Beall, Brassey, Raine 2, Leighbarn ?, Bedell ?, Rosieu, Ridley ?, Stickland, Mousell, Brian, Sparrow.
	3rd row: Ross-Watt, Postlethwaite, Davis, Lazarus, Bean, Hine, Mackinnon, Barlow, Stroud, Gay, Cuthbert 1, Baker 1, Cuthbert 2, Baker 2, Jones.
	Back row: Wade, Scott, Richardson, Wilsdon 3, Bartlett, Heulin 1, (?), Perrott 1, Cooper, Wright 1, Mackay, Lockie, Goodchild 1, Thomas, Rackham, Garrett 2, Abrahams.
1938 Football	Sitting: Wilsdon, (?), (?), Ross-Watt, Richardson
	Standing: Cuthbert 1, Bean, Barlow, (?), Mackinnon, Cuthbert 2.
1939 Cricket	Sitting: Bean, Wilsdon, Cuthbert 1, Richardson, (?)
	Standing: Lockie, Mackinnon, Barlow, (?), Baker, Cuthbert 2.
Sports Day, 1939	Sack race	Obstacle Race	PT display

Stephen Perrott has sent photos of two artefacts from Falconbury in the 1930s. On the right is his napkin ring, "duly notched for the number of terms I was at the school".
And here is Stephen's Falconbury badge. Stephen explains that each week one could lose points for bad behaviour of one kind or another. At the end of the week those who had lost a given number of points "lost their badge" for the next week. Losing one's badge a certain number of times during a term resulted in "more serious punishment".
Thanks also to Stephen and his brother David for showing us what the well-dressed young Falconburian was wearing in 1935-40. School uniforms at that time included straw hats and Eton collars.

FALCONBURY at ASTROP PARK

In May of 1940 Falconbury was relocated to Astrop Park, near Banbury, Oxfordshire, and remained at that country house until the end of the war. Thanks are due to Nigel Faulkner and to Stephen Perrott for photos and recollections of Astrop Park in the early 1940s.
	Eric G. B. Faulkner, son of the founder, was headmaster of Falconbury at this time. He was known to everybody as Mr. Eric, and is shown here (left) in September 1940 with his son Nigel at Astrop Park. Mr. Faulkner's wife Muriel, known to the boys as Mrs. Eric, oversaw the catering and domestic staff, and is shown here in a family group with Mr. Faulkner and children Nigel, Janet and Pam. The photo was taken by the lake at Astrop Park in August, 1942.
Stephen Perrott and his brother were together at Falconbury in 1940, and both appear in the following photos taken at Astrop Park in July of that year. Apparently the owners of the house preferred the idea of a school occupying the premises to the possibility of it being used for military purposes, and consequently Falconbury found itself in relatively luxurious surroundings. Stephen remembers marble bathrooms and enormous chandeliers and mirrors, and recalls that only pencils were allowed to be used, thus avoiding the inevitable ink spills. As shown in these photos, the grounds were extensive, and included a lake.

Stephen revisited Astrop Park in October of 1986 and took this photo of Astrop House, which shows all that remained of the building at that time.
Astrop House was built in about 1735 by Sir John Willes and remained in that family until 1865, when it was sold to Sir William Brown of Brown's Ship Building. He added a second storey to the (now demolished) wings and sold the building in 1929 to Capt. Gerald Guiness, who owned the property at the time that Falconbury was located there during WWII. After the war the house was bought by Earl Beatty, son of Admiral Beatty, and has since changed hands several times.

December 8, 2006
Tony Abrahams, who was at Falconbury from 1940 to 1946, has kindly donated a copy of the March, 1940 issue of the school magazine, "The Falconburian". It provides a rare glimpse of Falconbury in the early years of WWII, and here are a few quotes:

"It was on February 15th that some boy dared to ask whether it was possible to buy a Yo-Yo, and before long the old craze had come back in full swing".
"On Tuesday, February 21st, we had the fourth in our series of Educational Talkie Films".
"On Wednesday, March 15th, Germany decided to break the Munich agreement, and gas masks, which had almost been forgotten, were now talked of once again".
"On the night of Saturday, June 3rd, an old servant, in the person of Bodle, who had been a gardener at the school for a great number of years, passed away after an operation. The boys sent a very nice sheaf of flowers in sympathy".
"It looks rather like a slump in boxing. Quite a number of boys take up this most valuable part of their training, and on finding out they cannot have things their own way, promptly come to the conclusion that there is something they do not like about it. Of course there is. That is partly one of the reasons they should stick to it. Probably the most important feature about boxing is that it teaches one to take a knock or two without curling up".
"Probably some of you read an article by an Old Falconburian in the Evening News, at the end of last term, concerning the arrival of the present boys of Falconbury at Victoria Station, to return home for the Christmas Holidays. The writer of the said article made a most uncomplimentary comment on the worthless pieces of carpentry carefully carried by some of the boys. I can assure you that I resent the remarks very much, as I make it my aim to see that, whatever a boy attempts to make, it should never be quite worthless".
"For the past year we had been living in a state of wondering how events were going to turn out in Europe, and it was in the summer holidays that matters came to a head. On Sunday, September 3rd, Mr. Chamberlain broadcasted the news that this country was at war.....In consequence of this the three weeks of holiday that remained were somewhat disturbed, and boys began to drift back to school to spend the rest of their holidays in a safer area".
"We were very sorry to lose Miss James, who left a few weeks before the end of term, to take up duties on the land".
"An Old Falconburian tie has now been on the market for some time. This tie, which is of a grey background bespotted with small cerise Falcons, is obtainable at Messrs. Peter Robinson, Ltd., price 5s. 6d."

If you would like to have access to the entire issue of The Falconburian from March, 1940, please
click here.

Thanks to Bill Richardson, who recently contacted this webpage. Bill was a student at Falconbury from 1936 to 1940, and briefly went to Astrop Park when the school was evacuated there. He returned to Falconbury in the early 1950s as a teacher, and taught English, history and geography for a year - [see the 1951 school photo further down this page - Bill is seated third from the left]. Bill tells us that he also spent quite a few hours repairing the swimming pool, "which was probably more of a contribution than my teaching !". He married Ruth Thompson, who was Mr. Devitt's secretary at the time, and remembers Pat Dolloway and Mrs. Gleason. He also recalls an incident at Astrop Park when a boy named Corlett, returning from a run, got one of his legs stuck in a cattle grid. Bill wonders what became of Sgt. Clarke, the PT instructor, who managed to free the trapped leg with the aid of some (rationed) butter. Bill would enjoy hearing from anybody who remembers him from his Falconbury years, and can be contacted at subill@talktalk.net.

FALCONBURY in the LATE 1940s and EARLY 1950s
Thanks to Christopher Vincenzi, who sent these five photos taken around 1950. Who can help with some identifications ? On the right in Photo 1 is the younger Carmichael brother (Robin ?), who also appears in Photo 2 with Mr. & Mrs. Devitt's dog Roddy. Photo 3 is taken by the swimming pool - is that Moore on the right ? Mrs. Devitt is in Photo 4, possibly with Miss Dolloway. On the left in Photo 5 is Christian Stringer, possibly with Houchen on the right. Please send any information to mail@colinredfern.com.
1948
1950
1951		Thanks to Tom Rainey, who has supplied the following names to accompany this photo:
		Front row (on ground): Weeks 2, Stanishas, Bross, Blake, Woodhams, (?), Thompson, (Roddy), White, Merrylees, MacGlashan 2, (?), Weeks 1, Wyatt, Romilly 2, Raikes 2.
		2nd row (seated): Spooner, Mr. Robertson, Mr. Richardson, (?), Cdr. Pasco, Mrs. Gleason, Mr. & Mrs. Devitt, Mr. Wotherspoon, Miss Mayes, Mr. Brooks, Miss Lea, Mr. Webb, Stringer.
		3rd row: Copplestone, Widdop, Grosvenor, Redfern, Winkleman 1, Read, Darval, Dodds, Harris, Wallace, Lee-Thompson, Burrows, Vincenzi, Kennedy, Rainey, MacGlashan 1.
		4th row: Raikes 1, O'Meara, Barber, Foster, Dutko, Cole, Grosche, Burrell, Scott, Justice 1, Moore, (?), Carmichael 1, Weenan, Whitelaw.
		Back row: Carmichael 2, Knight, Winkleman 2, Romilly 2, Justice 2, Fairer-Smith, Romilly 1, Williams, Thorpe, Justice 2, Trinder, Wetherhead, Reeve, Taylor, Goodrich.
1952
1950 cricket	1951 cricket			1952 cricket
1949 rugger	Thanks to Tom Rainey for this photo and for supplying some of the names:
	Back row: Rainey 1, Vincenzi 1, Reynolds, (?), Williams, (?)
	Middle row: Bright, Aylen, (?), Patchett, (?)
	Front row: Dodds, Grosvenor, Lazarus, Spooner.
1950 rugger	1951 rugger		1952 rugger
1951 football
	Left to right: Spooner, Vincenzi 1, (?), Winkelman 1, Redfern, Heath, Aylen, Bright.

FALCONBURY in the 1960s
1963	Thanks to Phil Stone for sending this school photo from 1963. Phil has also supplied a link to a film clip taken on Sports Day, 1963, including events such as hurdles, high jump, egg-and-spoon race, etc., and good shots of the school, staff and parents. There is also some film of rugby and football games taken in 1962-63. Click on the link below to download Phil's films. Sports Day, 1963
Thanks to Robert Cox, who has sent this photo taken in the library at Falconbury around 1965/66. Robert is at the far end of the table, and on his left are Tony Loveday, Hugh Alexander and Roger Amery. Opposite Roger is Hume Popham. If Hugh Alexander, Roger Amery or Hume Popham should happen upon this page, please contact Robert Cox - (see Contact List above).