1. 1940 Panorama

Mollie Weaver

Brenda Swinbank

Jean Burton

I’d like to give a special Thank you to three ladies – Mollie Weaver , Brenda Swinbank and Jean Burton. Over the past few months, these Hilmians have sent numerous letters to me, and each other, in the combined project to provide us with the names on the 1940 Panorama. While they have all mentioned how enjoyable they found the task, nevertheless they each willingly gave a great deal of their time to help us, and deserve a sincere and grateful acknowledgement for this mammoth task. Without their help, we would be reading numbers instead of names.

Sheila Kelsall

2. The School Office 1937-39

In those now distant days, when the Grammar School had a teaching staff of 22 and a pupil population of about 420, the salary scales ranged from the Head's £640 to the Assistant Secretary's £20 per annum. The School Office had a staff of two. The Secretary's salary was £50 p.a.The two secretaries were responsible for the typing of all correspondence, the greater part of which was from the shorthand notes they made from the Headmaster's dictation. The Assistant Secretary was responsible for the maintenance of all class registers. "Presence" was not recorded at all. Absence was entered in red ink using the list of absentees written by a class monitor and verified by the teacher taking the first class each morning and afternoon.The Secretaries maintained the milk registers - "free" and "paid for", the latter at the rate of one half-penny per bottle. Orders for milk were likewise the responsibility of the office staff. Notwithstanding the fact that the Secretary was only 17, 18 or 19 years of age he (or she) was required to produce the school time-table (16 or 17 classes, 35 periods per week) once the Headmaster had determined (normally in each May ) which teachers  would take which classes and the number of periods per week per subject per class. Ignoring split classes (e.g. boys P.E. whilst the girls took R.E.) between 500 and 600 rectangles had to be 'filled in', checked to ensure that members of staff were not expected to be in two places at once and finally rooms allocated. Fortunately it was rare for more than two staff changes to take olace in a school year so it was possible for the Secretary to extract individual teachers' timetables and post them to homes or holiday locations in mid-August and to have class timetables ready for form teachers on the first day of the school year. As office appointments were restricted to a one year tour of duty as Assistant Secretary followed by another year as Secretary, the producer of the timetable had only one year's experience to go on before he undertook the task himself. It was easy inadvertently to allocate Class 1b 4 perlods of French in the afternoon and only one in the mornIng when a ratio a.m./p.m of at least 3:2 was desired and at the worst 2:3 would be most reluctantly acceptable! Schools of 2,000 pupils, 80 classes, 120 staff and 3,000 rectangle computer-designed timetables were not even distant clouds on the horizon!

In the second half of each term the two secretaries typed, proof-read, duplicated, collated, bound and helped with the selling of the School Magazine priced at sixpence a copy. The duplication alone required twenty-two thousand revolutions of the hand-operated Gestetner (500 copies of 44 pages) with every page 'interwoven' to prevent printer's ink from marking the back of every sheet. From the total receipts of £10 to £20, depending on the number of advertisements and complimentary copies, the Secretary was awarded five shillings and his Assistant half-a-crown plus several excellent evening teas produced by the wonderful school cook, Mrs Cliff, the caretaker's wife, whenever overtime on the magazine was necessary. Collation, for example, could be done only when the Technical Drawing Office (in the old coach-house) was vacant. 500 copies meant 500 journeys round that room picking up one copy of every sheet.

During the second half of the weeks allocated to magazine work, the Office Staff were busy typing and duplicating examination papers and keeping an eye on the steady circulation of the pupils' report books to make sure that every book was ready for the Headmaster's perusal, written final comments and signature. In the third term other duties were the checking, packing and despatch, to all parts of Britain, of the external examination scripts in accordance with the lists of markers' names and addresses supplied by the Northern Universities' Joint Matriculation Board. Every knot on every envelope had to be wax-sealed otherwise the local postmaster would refuse to accept it for registration. Another hefty task given to the Secretary early each October was the completion and despatch to London of the very detailed forms required by the Board of Education. The Board Forms set out the weekly work-load of every class below the Sixth Form expressed in periods per week per subject and for the Sixth Form by individual pupil depending on his or her selection of subjects at Lower and/or Higher School Certificate level. As my successor has no recollection of these documents I can but assume that they were abolished very soon after the declaration of war.

The ability of 16 or 17 year olds to undertake the fairly onerous resonsibilities in the school office was the outcome of a very good general education augmented in the Fourth and Fifth Forms by three periods a week in each of Shorthand and Book-keeping, both taught by Mr Collette and one half-hour per week after school teaching oneself touch-typing on one of the two 1924 Remingtons in the small room on the right of the half-landing of the main staircase. The office itself was the small room facing the massive oak doors in the centre of the front of Hemsworth Hall, ie separating the boy and girl prefects' rooms.
W.G. Branford (former Head's Secretary)

HGS Secretaries 1949

Image from Gordon Clarke and Marie Johnson. Thank you.

RWH and his two secretaries in 1949.
L to R: Marie Johnson, RWH, Marjorie Oxley

The secretaries spent two years as RWH's secs. First year as Junior Secretary and then one year as a Senior Secretary. Marie Johnson was Junior Secretary in 1949.
Cheers,
Gordon Clarke, HGS 1943-50

Miss Maureen Cooper (HGS Assistant Secretary) about 1958.

"The attached photograph was taken one morning by Mr. Leonard, about 50 years ago. He just popped his head round the door of the small office, and said, "Smile!" Click! and he was gone!"
Maureen Cooper

 

3. Russell William Hamilton

Headmaster of Hemsworth Grammar School 1937 -1967

The opening sentence of the School Magazine for the autumn term of 1937 reads:

"Last term marked the end of the first chapter of the school's history." Major Jenkinson, the school's first Headmaster had retired in the July and Miss Griffiths, the Senior Mistress, died in the following month. Mr. R. W. Hamilton, whose death at the age of 92 was announced in November 1993, had come from Bishop Auckland to take over the headmastership and Miss Shortridge replaced Miss Griffiths.

Insofar as I was concerned the summer of that year marked another major change. Mr Jenkinson had informed me that I was to be the School's new Assistant Secretary and I realised that I would receive my first dictation as an employee from two equally new office holders.

The tall, young, begowned and very energetic former Senior Classics Master from Bishop Auckland, County Durham, settled in quickly. He took the school motto, 'Labor ipse voluptas' in his long stride - 'work with pleasure' was certainly his belief too. Initially there were very few surprises in store for his office staff but I well remember in that first term having to race down from the main building to the games field to interrupt the Upper versus Lower Sixth form rugby match to let the mud-spattered referee know that the Governors were assembling in his room for the term's meeting. R.W.H. enjoyed his sport, preferably in the thick of it. By the spring of 1938 he was having matches with two of South Kirkby and Ackworth's cricket teams and within twelve months he was captaining one of them. On several occasions he even dictated letters to me as I sat by his bedside when he was recovering from a sporting injury.

To keep track of his many duties Mr Hamilton kept a small, thick note-pad on his desk. Every job to be done was listed and numbered from 1 to 99 before recommencing at 1. some of those notes were in English, a few in Latin and many in what was to me an absolutely unknown tongue. When the work was completed the note was crossed off. Twice a day the list was checked methodically to ensure that the day's commitments had been carried out. The school ran like clockwork.

Russell W. Hamilton's mighty signature, invariably written by means of an extremely broad-nibbed fountain pen, was precisely ten centimetres in length. The only time County Supplies in Wakefield telephoned Hemsworth 66 during my two years in the School Office was to query, respectfully and tentatively, the requisition we had submitted for the enormous signature stamp in readiness for the Head's first Speech Day in the Hippodrome in November 1937. Within a fortnight the gigantic stamp was supplied exactly as requested. in this, as in all other matters, R.W. Hamilton was as firm as a rock!

In those two opening years of his thirty year stay at the of the Grammar School the new Headmaster took leading roles in both of the annual staff plays, "A Chinese Puzzle" and "The Mystery at Green Fingers. A few years earlier his predecessor had taken the title role in "One Hundred Years Old". Like Mr. Hamilton, Major Jenkinson lived to celebrate his ninetieth birthday and both got well on the way to their one hundredth.

Within a few months of his arrival in Hemsworth, Mr Hamilton, as a past President of the North-Eastern Esperanto League, arranged that one of the several talks which traditionally were given in the course of every year to the assembled school should he given by a leading figure in the Esperanto movement. Thereafter scores of booklets which outlined the international language were sold at the office door at twopence each. After several years of struggling to translate letters from, and compose letters to, French pen friends it was most heartening to find oneself, within a few months, corresponding with Hungary, Sweden, Iceland, Russia and Bulgaria.

A few time-table changes were made about the middle of Mr Hamilton's first term. In addition to sharing with Mr Scourfield the sixth Form Latin he took over two of the Lower Sixth's "free" periods for Esperanto and in the second term he began to teach the subject twice a week to the first form. The utility of the international language was soon seen in action when the Headmaster of Finland's largest Technical School and later an educationist from the Far East came to Hemsworth for several weeks to study British secondary school organisation and teaching methods. I have no idea whether either could speak any English. All their conversations with Mr Hamilton were in Esperanto. We found it all most exciting - a Finn (Sinjoro Vilki) and an Oriental (Sinjoro Kubo) in Hemsworth (most probably the very first!)

During the summer holiday of 1933 Miss Walker, one of the French staff, was invited by the Headmaster to learn Esperanto herself in order that she too could participate in the teaching of that language to the September 1938 intake. I believe His Majesty's Inspectorate at some future date looked askance at the introduction of the subject into a grammar school.

The parting of our ways came at the end of July 1939. RWH's next six years at Hemsworth would be very different: within weeks he would be responsible for the conversion of the cellars into air raid shelters, for the digging of trenches near the games fields for staff and pupils who might find themselves outside the main building during a sudden air attack, and for the liaison with billeting officers dealing with many hundreds of evacuees from the Leeds area. The grammar School was the distribution point for all these bewildered children before they were dispersed throughout the district to what were effectively foster homes.

The Headmaster was also responsible for the establishment of the Hemsworth and District unit of the Air Training Corps with himself as Commanding Officer. As Headmaster he had the grim task of notifying staff and pupils of the steadily increasing toll of casualties amongst former pupils, initially mainly old boys of the years of Major Jenkinson's headship, then boys he himself had known so well. Before the conflict was over lads who had been in the lower forms on his arrival in Hemsworth had made the supreme sacrifice. Over forty perished. Old Hilmians served in every theatre of operations and of course their casualties were especially high amongst those who went into the Air Force, some became fighter pilots and, most numerous of all, the bomber crewmen. Even ten years after hostilities ceased Mr Hamilton's first Secretary would finally succumb to the hardships he endured in the Sicilian campaign of 1943.

Looking back after over half a century that which one recalls most vividly about Russell Hamilton was his penetrating gaze, his almost piercing examination of the face of whoever was in conversation with him, be he or she a member of staff, a pupil or his own Secretary. Permanently he had an air of quiet, calm authority yet one knew that when he spoke it would he with a kindly voice whether in reply to a point raised or in giving his next instruction. It was this kindness and understanding that enabled me to write my shorthand in my notebook knowing that he would rarely begin the next sentence until he had seen me write each Pitman full stop. A classical scholar of his learning and eminence could have dictated his letters or his annual report for Speech Day at a much greater speed than my 80/90 words per minute. It is safe to say that when I was addressing Headmasters' Conferences north of the border in the 1970s I did not have Thomas Arnold of Rugby nor F.W. Sanderson of Oundle nor Edward Thring of Uppingham in mind. I amm sure I based my Ideas of great headmastership on Arthur Jenkinson and his successor, Russell W. Hamilton, M.A., M.Litt. (Durham).

With the death of Russell Hamilton in Exmouth in November 1993 yet another chapter has closed.

W.G. Branford ( Head's Secretary 1937-39)

4th January 1994

4. Facebook 

5. Transfers between schools 

On 24^th May 1929 a new policy of selection and rejection was introduced for the first time at Hemsworth Secondary School (later to become Hemsworth Grammar School ). The Director of Education for the West Riding at that time was Mr. J.H. Hallam, who wrote to the Governors saying.... 

6. Memories from Ruth Hudson 

It is so interesting looking at the photos.  They bring back many happy memories.  I wonder how many remember the Staff v School cricket match where 'Titch' Manning was wicket keeper and he was too near the wicket and was hit by the batsman and had to go and have some stitches in his forehead?  Or the Staff v School hockey match where Mr Hamilton hit a rising ball straight into the mouth of one of the prefects (Valerie?)  and she had to have some teeth removed.   Happy days - what?  Does anyone remember the owl that perched for a long time in a tree on North walk?  It was a source of interest for many days.  Who remembers the Film Club filming the spine-chiller "The Path Through the Woods"?  I wonder if a copy still exists?  
Ruth Hudson 1942-49

7. The Rugby Field

In creating the 1935 chapter of the School’s history I came across this little item of interest. Perhaps those rugby players like yourself might not have known that they were using a pitch which was created in the 1930’s!

The Field is a Positive Danger!         

 In October 1935 the Grammar School Governors discussed the levelling of a field attached to the School for the purpose of providing a suitable rugby ground. The cost would be about £350. Upon hearing of this proposal, the members of Hemsworth Urban District Council, some of whom were also School Governors, felt moved to air their views on this expenditure. Naturally those who were Governors of the School supported the proposition. Mrs. Dooley, Councillor A. Pawson and Councillor Nettleton had all voted in favour of the levelling at the Governors’ meeting, with Coun. Nettleton commenting that the present sloping field “was a positive danger”, but Councillor Isaac Burns (also a member of both committees) demurred, wondering if anyone had ever thought of spending £350 on a playing field for an elementary school. With some alacrity Mrs. Dooley answered in the affirmative,

 “We are going to give West End School as good a playing field as the land will allow, and there is already a playing field for elementary school children in Holly Bank.”

Councillor Grandidge asked that the money which was to be spent on levelling the School’s grounds should go to local unemployed labour.

The matter was metaphorically ‘kicked into the long grass’ by Coun. Nettleton who said the Council could rest assured that their representatives would do all they could to help the local unemployed, but the last word was with the County Authority.

The account above shows that the idea of levelling the field was first mooted in the Autumn of 1935, but records show that the School was still requesting funds to do the work in December 1936. In my search for a specific date for the completion of the proposed improvements, I can find no further direct references to the levelling as such; however in June 1938 it was announced at a Governors’ meeting that the West Riding Education Committee had accepted the tender of Messrs. Graham, of Castleford “for carrying out improvements to the school playing fields at a cost of £155.”  It is unclear whether this refers to the original major earth moving project, or perhaps additional work in other areas. It may even refer to new fencing of the playing fields. What we now need is someone with an excellent memory from those days who can tell us exactly when the new rugby playing field was created.

Sheila Kelsall
HGS 1955-62