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Winchester College

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Winchester College is a public school in the city of Winchester in Hampshire, in the south of England. Officially known as Collegium Sanctae Mariae prope Wintoniam, or St Mary's College near Winchester, the college is commonly referred to as "Win: Coll:" or just "Winchester". Winchester has existed for over six hundred years - the longest unbroken history of any school in England. It is one of the original nine English public schools as defined by the Public Schools Act 1868.

Contents

History

Winchester College was founded in 1382 by William of Wykeham, Bishop of Winchester and Chancellor to Richard II, and the first seventy poor scholars entered the school in 1394. It was founded in conjunction with New College, Oxford, for which it was designed to act as a feeder. This double foundation was the model for Eton College and King's College, Cambridge some 50 years later, and for Westminster School, Christ Church, Oxford and Trinity College, Cambridge in Tudor times.

In addition to the seventy scholars and 16 "Quiristers" (choristers), the statutes provided for ten "noble Commoners". The Commoners were paying guests of the Head Master or Second Master. Other paying pupils, either guests of the Masters or living in lodgings in town, grew in numbers till the late 18th century, when they were all required to live in "Old Commoners" and town boarding was banned. In the 19th century this was replaced by "New Commoners", and the numbers fluctuated between 70 and 130: the new building was compared unfavourably to a workhouse, and as it was built over an underground stream epidemics of typhus and malaria were common. In the late 1850s four boarding houses were planned (but only three built, namely A, B and C), to be headed by masters: the plan, since dropped, was to increase the number of scholars to 100 so that there would be "College", "Commoners" and "Houses" consisting of 100 pupils each. In the 1860s "New Commoners" was closed and converted to classrooms, and its members were divided among four further boarding houses (D, E, G and H, collectively known as "Commoner Block"). At the same time two more houses (F and I) were acquired and added to the "Houses" category; a tenth (K) was acquired in 1905 and allotted to "Commoners". (The distinction between "Commoners" and "Houses" is now of purely sporting significance, and "a Commoner" means any pupil who is not a scholar.) There are therefore now ten houses in addition to College, which continues to occupy the original 14th century buildings, and the total number of pupils is almost 700. Plans for a twelfth boarding house were recently scrapped.

In 2003, it was revealed to be involved in a fee fixing scandal with 49 other independent schools and was found guilty of anti-competitive practices in 2005.

The headmaster is currently Dr Ralph Townsend, formerly of Sydney Grammar School and Oundle School, who took over from T.R. Cookson in September 2005.

Boarding houses

Every pupil at Winchester lives in a boarding house, chosen when applying to Winchester. It is here that he eats and sleeps. Each house is presided over by a housemaster (who takes on the role in addition to his academic duties) and a number of house tutors. Houses compete in school competitions, and in particular in sporting competitions. Each house has an official name, used mainly as a postal address, and an informal name, usually based on the familiar name of an early housemaster. Each house also has a letter assigned to it, in the order of their founding, to act as an abbreviation.

 Houses
Official Name Informal Name House Letter
Chernocke House [Furley's] A
Moberly's Toye's B
Du Boulay's Cook's C
Fearon's Kenny's or Kennaez D
Morshead's Freddie's E
Hawkins' Chawker's F
Sergeant's Phil's G
Bramston's Trant's H
Turner's Hopper's I
Kingsgate House Beloe's K

The scholars live in the original buildings, known as College; individual scholars are known as "Collegemen". College is not usually referred to as a house, except for the purposes of categorisation: hence the terms 'housemaster of College' and 'College house' are not generally used. The housemaster of College is known as the 'Master in College'. Within the school, 'College' refers only to the body of scholars; 'Winchester College' and 'the college' refer to the school as a whole.

College does not have an informal name, although the abbreviation Coll: is sometimes used, especially on written work. It also has a letter assigned to it, X, but it is considered bad form to use this except as a laundry mark.

Win: Coll: Notions

A notion is a manner or tradition peculiar to Winchester College. The word notion is also used to refer to unique and peculiar words used (with diminishing frequency) in the school. Examples include "bogle", meaning bicycle, and "foricas" (more commonly "fo:"), meaning toilet.

The Notions Test was until recently an important tradition in most houses, where Jun (new) men were required to answer questions about notions. Although now banned under various pretexts including the European human rights conventions, the test was usually administered to new boys during their first term at the school by more senior boys, and aimed to test and demonstrate their familiarity with the vocabulary, history and traditions of the school. College was the last boarding house / institution to continue the ceremony (until 1999), though in the last few years before abolition, the focus was on asking the junior boys unanswerable questions so that they could be pelted with food.

Winchester College Football

Winchester College has its own game, Winchester College Football (also known as 'Win: Co: Fo:' or, more recently, 'Winkies'), played only at Winchester. It could be considered a cross between football and rugby, but neither of these comparisons is helpful to the spectator or the tactician. Winchester Football is above all else a court game in its rules and tactics: volleyball with the feet and especially tennis are the most helpful analogies. The game can be played by teams of 6, 9, 10, 15 or 22 men.

Former pupils

Famous former pupils () include the following, classified by date of birth:

Fourteenth century
Fifteenth century
Sixteenth century
Seventeenth century
Eighteenth century
Nineteenth century
Twentieth century

Old Wykehamists in fiction

Winchester quotations

Manners makyth man
- William of Wykeham Motto of Winchester College and New College, Oxford

Broad of Church and broad of mind, broad before and broad behind,
A keen ecclesiologist, a rather dirty Wykehamist.
- John Betjeman "The Wykehamist"

Leader in London's preservation lists
And least Wykehamical of Wykehamists
Clan chief of Paddington's distinguished set,
Pray go on living to a hundred yet!
- John Betjeman "For Patrick" (about Patrick Balfour, 3rd Baron Kinross)

You can always tell a Wykehamist, because you can't tell him anything
- Anon.

O, Eternal God, the Life and the Resurrection of all them that believe in Thee, always to be praised as well for the Dead as for those that be Alive, we give Thee most hearty Thanks for our Founder, William of Wykeham; and all other our Benefactors, by whose Benefits we are here brought up to Godliness and the studies of good Learning; beseeching Thee that we, well using all these Thy Blessings to the Praise and Honour of Thy Holy Name, may at length be brought to the Immortal Glory of the Resurrection, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
- "Thanksgiving for the Founder" as at present used on commemoration days

Bibliography

External links

 

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