Bradfield College
Encyclopedia : B : BR : BRA : Bradfield College
-->Bradfield College is a public school located in the small village of Bradfield in the English county of Berkshire.
The college was founded in the nineteenth century by Thomas Stevens, Rector and Lord of the Manor of Bradfield. It now has some 500 male and 120 female pupils.
Overview
The school, which admits peoples between the ages of 13-18, has been co-educational throughout since September 2005. All first years pupils (fourth formers) enter a first year boarding house (Faulkners) and then, from the second year (the shell), they move to their main boarding houses for the remaining four years.
-->
The Greek Play
Bradfield is most renowned for its Greek amphitheatre and triennial Greek play, which is performed on a three-year rota in conjuction with Cambridge University and Oxford University respectively. Started to save the school from bankruptcy, the school has been staging Greek plays for almost 150 years. The students who act in it receive no formal training in speaking Ancient Greek, and have only nine months to learn the lines and direction, as well as keeping up with their other studies. Many of the students who participate in the play are taking major public exams during rehearsals and even performances. The 2006 play was Euripides’s Medea, directed by John Taylor, which received exceptional reviews, some stating it to be the best Greek play any of the three participating companies has performed. It has been noted for its groundbreaking advances, including the addition of projected subtitles and the bold decision of incorporating the orchestra into the skene using a ramp covered in sand and flooded to symbolise the sea and Medea's situation of being "between places".
In the News
In 2005 the school was embroiled in the so-called “Sevenoaks survey” fee-fixing scandal, exposed by The Times. They were eventually found guilty, with fifty other schools, of breaking the Competition Act (1998).
The Commission for Social Care Inspection, which routinely inspects standards at both private and state boarding schools, praised Bradfield, in an otherwise damming report, for its "safe and caring environment" and for endeavoring to "develop a more modern approach to boarding". The Daily Telegraph reported that, ‘against the relevant 47 standards, Bradfield achieved 16 gold stars. In only two areas was it judged to have "minor shortcomings”.
Trivia
Former footballing hardman turned Hollywood actor, Vincent Peter Jones, known as Vinnie Jones, once worked in the kitchens at the college. 'He got me in at a boys’ public school, Bradfield College, near Reading, Berkshire. Neil’s dad, Tom, was the hairdresser who called at the school a couple of times a week. He went to see the bursar and got me a job: washing pots and pans!' explains Jones in his hard-hitting autobiography Vinnie: My Life (Headline Books 2001). Although at the time Jones was at a particularly low-ebb – the Bradfield days appear in a chapter entitled ‘Life in a Bin Liner’ – he writes with some tenderness about the friends he made, and the room in which he lived: 'It was built on a corner and overlooked the gardens and the sports field, which was lovely, and there was a river [the pang] at the bottom.'
In 2005, girls taking German A-level at Bradfield scored the highest results of any independent school in the country.
Notable Old Bradfieldians
- Archibald Robertson (1853–1931), Bishop of Exeter
- Stephen Coleridge (1854–1936), author, anti-vivisectionist and co-founder of the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children
- Cecil Tyndale-Biscoe (1863–1949), missionary in Kashmir
- Gordon Craig (1872–1966), theatre director, stage designer and wood engraver
- Zachary Nugent Brooke (1883–1946), historian
- William Ormston Backhouse (1885–1962), agricultural geneticist
- Cyril Falls (1888–1971), military historian
- Admiral of the Fleet Bruce Fraser, Baron Fraser of North Cape (1888–1981), Chief of the Naval Staff
- George Grey Wornum (1888–1957), architect
- Air Chief Marshal Sir Guy Garrod (1891–1965), Royal Air Force officer
- Air Chief Marshal Sir Roderic Hill (1894–1954), Royal Air Force officer
- Brigadier Mike Calvert (1913–1998), Chindits and Special Air Service commander
- Terence Reese (1913–1996), bridge player and writer
- Vivian H. H. Green (1915–2005), historian and Rector of Lincoln College, Oxford
- Morrice James, Baron Saint Brides (1916–1989), High Commissioner in Pakistan, India and Australia
- Sir Martin Ryle (1918–1984), Astronomer Royal
- Richard Adams (born 1920), author
- Marshal of the Royal Air Force Sir Andrew Humphrey (1921–1977), Chief of the Air Staff and Chief of the Defence Staff
- Tony Hancock (1924–1968), comedian
- Michael Marshall (born 1930), politician
- Sir John Nott (born 1932), Secretary of State for Defence
- Sir Cyril Townsend (born 1937), politician
- David Owen, Baron Owen (born 1938), Foreign Secretary and co-founder of the SDP
- Graham Roope (born 1946), Surrey and England cricketer
- Nick Clarke (born 1948), journalist and BBC Radio 4 presenter
- Louis de Bernières (born 1954), novelist
- Peter Ainsworth (born 1956), Conservative Member of Parliament for East Surrey and member of the Shadow Cabinet
- Mark Nicholas (born 1957), cricketer and TV presenter
- Charles Tannock (born 1957) Conservative Member of the European Parliament
- Richard Benyon (born 1960), Conservative Member of Parliament for Newbury
- Claudia Harrison, actress
- Kaddy Lee-Preston, TV weather presenter.
See also
- List of schools in the United Kingdom
- List of UK Independent Schools
- Bradfield Slang and Terminology
External links
From Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. Original article here. Support Wikipedia by contributing or donating.
All text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License See Wikipedia Copyrights for details.