The Blues

"Lord," cried the ailing young King Edward VI, as he signed his name to the charter, "I yield Thee most hearty thanks that Thou hast given me life thus long, to finish this work to the glory of Thy name." A few days later, the King was dead. But the work he performed that day in 1553 lived and flourished. The charter which he signed was a "passinge dede of pittie" to incorporate a school for the children of the poor. Last week all of London was helping to celebrate the 400th anniversary of Edward VI's Christ's Hospital--the only "public school" in Britain whose doors are still open solely to the poor.

Purges & Vermin. When it first opened its doors, the school seemed anything but permanent. Its vermin-ridden boys died off like flies, and the school itself barely escaped being closed down by the religious purges of Bloody Mary. Gradually, however, it gained a firmer footing. It won the right to license and control all the carts and carmen in London (retained until 1838); it became a favorite charity of various London guilds--the Skinners, the Dyers, the Innholders, the Tallow Chandlers. In 1673 Charles II founded the Royal Mathematical School in Christ's Hospital, to teach navigation and thus supply the Navy with apprentice officers. Samuel Pepys, Secretary of the Admiralty, sponsored it and Sir Isaac Newton wrote its syllabus. Peter the Great of Russia borrowed two of its students ("King's boys" or "Mathemats") to help him found a similar school in Moscow.

In spite of their lowly backgrounds, other Old Blues had careers even more spectacular. Charles Lamb went to C.H.; so did Coleridge and Leigh Hunt. Three Old Blues rose to be Lord Mayors of London; another, Sir Henry Cole, helped to found the Victoria and Albert Museum and Albert Hall; still another, Lord Seaton, led the charge which routed the Old Guard at Waterloo. The school that these men attended changed little over the years. In matters of custom and costume, it was much the same in the more recent days of Critic Middleton Murry and Actor Michael Wilding as it had been back in 1553.

Narrowies & Broodies. Today, through the corridors of 14 red brick buildings in Horsham, Sussex, 840 boys swarm from class to class in their historic, monkish robes. Those robes have the same number of buttons (one large, six small) as they always had, and there are the same narrow belts ("narrowies") for the young boys and the same "broadies" for the older ones. When a boy becomes a "Grecian," i.e., gets ready to try for a scholarship to a university, he gets 14 large buttons and a coat with upturned velvet cuffs. The coats have yellow linings that date back to 1683, when the "lynnings . . . as well as ye petticoats" were dyed to discourage vermin.

Though its curriculum has kept pace with other public schools, Christ's Hospital still gives a heavy dose of the classics. No matter how dull a boy is, he may stay on until he is 16, but C.H. has rarely been bothered by dull boys. The boys live the old Spartan life: they sleep on boards covered only by a thin mattress, eat cold gag (cold meat), crug and flab (bread & butter), kiff (tea), slosh (boiled rice) and taff (potatoes). Their top Grecian still has the privilege of delivering a special address to each new British sovereign, and each year the whole school marches to the residence of the Lord Mayor to receive for each boy a brand-new shilling and for each Grecian a guinea.

But of all the traditions of Christ's Hospital, none has been more carefully guarded than the mission first set for it by Edward VI: after 400 years, the school can rightfully boast that it "has been practicing the democratic principles of admission which have only recently been applied to English education generally." Sang the Blues in St. Paul's last week:

Praise the Lord for our Foundation . . . For the Royal Founder King, For the Ancient House providing Shelter 'neath her kindly wing.

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