Reading Blue Coat School

Reading Blue Coat School is a boys' secondary school located in Holme Park at Sonning-on-Thames, England, which includes a co-educational sixth form. It was established in 1646 by Richard Aldworth, who named it "Aldworth’s Hospital".

History

Reading Blue Coat School is a public school for boys, with a co-educational sixth form, located in the village of Sonning along the River Thames. Established in 1646 at the height of the English Civil War, a wealthy London merchant, Richard Aldworth, left the Corporation of Reading the sum of £4,000, the proceeds of which were to be devoted to “the education and upbringing of twenty poor male children, being the children of honest, religious poor men in the town of Reading.” From this bequest, which in 17th century terms was quite substantial, originated the Aldworth’s Hospital charity school better known to us now as the Reading Blue Coat School.

Aldworth, who had been a governor of Christ’s Hospital in London, modelled the new foundation on his own old school, the boys being required to wear the familiar Blue Coat attire of gown, yellow stockings, and buckled shoes. Aldworth’s Will further stipulated that the Master of the new school should be “an honest, Godly and learned man” who for his “paines” would receive a stipend of £30 a year. His duties were to include the instruction of reading, writing and ciphering and to “teach the Catechism in the points of Christian Religion.”

The Talbot

The School was originally accommodated in an old building situated at the corner of Silver Street and London Street known as ‘The Talbot’ in one of the oldest parts of Reading. The house, once an old inn, had known better days. Owing to litigation in connection with Aldworth’s will, it was not until 1660, the year of Charles II’s restoration, that the first boys entered the School to be taught. Despite many difficulties at the outset, the School flourished and even received generous subventions from local benefactors such as William Malthus and John West. Malthus also left a certain sum for an annual sermon to be preached to the boys, a tradition still maintained in Reading at the end of each summer term.

In 1666, Sir Thomas Rich of Holme Park, Sonning, gave the Corporation the sum of £1,000 to “maintain six poor boys in Aldworth’s Hospital, three of whom were to be chosen from the parish of Sonning.” By a happy coincidence, in 1947 the new School was to find its existing home on the site of Rich’s estate. Indeed, the present Holme Park mansion is situated within a few hundred yards of Rich’s own manor house, an old residence which in turn had been built near an ancient but ruined palace that had belonged to the Bishops of Salisbury long before the Norman Conquest in 1066.

The ‘Talbot’ was a mean and uncomfortable building not at all suited to the needs of a growing school, and soon the Corporation, as Trustees, decided to replace it with a more modern structure in 1723. A place “where the rays of the sun never penetrate, and where the atmosphere must have been particularly noxious from want of circulation…” was hardly conducive to the healthy upbringing of youngsters. That the School’s reputation and circumstances stood at a low ebb is further confirmed by an order of the Trustees that “the Master of the Blue Coat School do not suffer the boys to play about the streets but that they be kept within the limits of the said School between and after School times, and that the Master go with the said children to the Parish Church of St Laurence every Sunday.” This they unfailingly did every Sunday until 1946. There the School was to remain until 1852 when it removed to more commodious premises at Brunswick House in the Bath Road. For nearly ninety years, generations of Blue Coat boys were to be educated there in ‘the three Rs’, many proceeding to a variety of local apprenticeships, trades and professions.

Changing times

The impact of the Second World War, combined with rising educational expectations, posed immense challenges to the School which was faced with the fate of eventual closure unless it removed to more extensive premises outside Reading and met the terms of the 1944 Education Act. Described by the Headmaster, Bernard Inge, as “an act of faith”, and following a local fundraising appeal sponsored by the Bishop of Reading, the Mayor, and Corporation, the Trustees acquired the Holme Park estate and the School began a new and initially uncertain lease of life. 150 boys, of whom a hundred were boarders, with nine teachers eventually made the move to Sonning on 21 January 1947, the headmaster’s forty-fourth birthday!

The early days at Holme Park represented something of a race against time. Buildings and facilities had to be updated in haste if the Ministry of Education’s stringent regulations were to be met and its much coveted ‘recognition of efficiency’ accorded. New classrooms were opened in 1955 and dedicated to the Dunster brothers, two Old Blues who had laboured so hard since 1947 to turn that ‘act of faith’ into reality. In 1961, the School’s first Sixth Form was opened. A major new science development was built in 1973, closely followed by a brand new Sixth Form Centre and enlarged library. Further classrooms including modern facilities for technology and computing were added in the 1980s in response to rising educational expectations and growing pupil numbers. In 2001, the new Allan Sanders Science Centre was completed and a brand new Sports Hall opened in 2004. In 2006, the School celebrated its 360th anniversary with optimism, and pride in its achievements. Proposed future projects include the complete demolition and reconstruction of the Dunster block, expected to begin within the next five years.

Alumni

Past pupils are known as Old Blues. Some of the better known Old Blues include:

• Matt Allwright, presenter of BBC's Rogue Traders
• Jon Courtney of Pure Reason Revolution
• Mike Golding, round-the-world yachtsman and OBE
• Richard Josey engraver, works include Whistler's Mother after James McNeill Whistler
• Jeremy Kyle, broadcaster
• Tom Rowlands of the Chemical Brothers

School as Location

Over its recent history, the school has been used as the location for a number of high-profile films, documentaries, and television programmes.

• Numerous episodes of Inspector Morse were filmed at the school
• 1971 film Unman, Wittering and Zigo was filmed at the school.
• 2002 film The Hole starring Keira Knightley was filmed at the school
• 2005 movie Goal! was also filmed at Blue Coat. The school mansion was used as Newcastle United's training centre, with the school rugby pitches also being used as practise pitches for the football team.

Trivia

• The School opened a new sports centre which is also available for members of the surrounding village of Sonning to use. The Sports Hall includes a gym, changing rooms and a multi-purpose hall.

• The School has its own resident orchestra, the Aldworth Philharmonic Orchestra (APO). APO was formed in 2002 by an Old Blue, Andrew Taylor. It consists of talented local musicians that gather together to rehearse only two weekends before each of its four concerts per season.

External links

• School website
• Old Blues website
• Boat Club website
• Aldworth Philharmonic Orchestra website

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