WELLINGTON COLLEGE, BERKSHIRE

'Wellington College', the national monument to the Duke of Wellington, is an English co-educational public school located in the Berkshire village of Crowthorne. The school was granted its royal charter in 1853 as the ''Royal and Religious Foundation of The Wellington College'', and was opened in 1859. Its first Master (Headmaster) was Edward White Benson, later Archbishop of Canterbury. The college's Visitor is Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II. Wellington has approximately 800 pupils aged between 13 and 18.

Contents

Architecture

Sport

Location

Former pupils

Slang

Combined Cadet Force

Press

Houses

The Old Wellingtonian Society

See also

Southern Railway School's Class

References

External links

Architecture

The college was designed by John Shaw Jr (1803–1870) and was the finest design in his
career .^[1] It is located in Crowthorne, a large village in the Royal County of Berkshire in south-east England. For its time, the design of the college was unusual compared to the popular form, but Prince Albert who helped choose the architect was more interested in Shaw's classical approach as he had already seen his design for the old Royal Naval School in New Cross, London. It had been noted a few years before the college's design that Shaw's architecture reflected the work of Christopher Wren. He was related to one of London's finest 19th century architectual families, Shaw and Hardwick.

Sport

Famously, pupils are at Wellington to "learn how to live", and correspondingly the College excels at both academic and leisure activities. Wellington College was one of the 22 founding members of the Rugby Football Union, and historically, pupils at the school have excelled at rugby, Field Hockey and Cricket. The school has one of only around 20 racquets courts in the UK, and until recently three Eton Fives courts. The under-15 and under-18 rugby teams both recently reached the Daily Mail Schools' Cup semi-finals, and the senior rugby sevens team won the Surrey sevens tournament. Wellington college could be considered a specialist at Rugby Sevens, winning Rosslyn park (The National Schools 7's Festival) 5 times in the last 9 years including a 4 year unbeaten run in the tournament between 1999-2002, missing out on an unprecedented 5 in a row losing narrowly to Cheltenham in the 2003 final.

Location

Wellington College is located in a 400 acre (1.6 km²) estate in South East England, in the Royal County of Berkshire, approximately 30 miles (50 km) from Heathrow Airport and close to the town of Reading, Berkshire. The grounds of the college are notable in that they contain many unusual ant species, and were frequented by the entomologist Horace Donisthorpe, who collected extensively there. The main buildings were designed by John Shaw Jr in a style loosely termed "French Grand Rococo" and the chapel was designed by George Gilbert Scott.
Henry Eastman owns the majority of the estate in shares, after rival irish entrepreneur, and major stakeholder Nicholas Bethell-Collins, was killed during a house-fire . The school is involved in Round Square, driving its students beyond academic excellence, to personal development, taking responsibility and serving others in need, along with other shcools, on international 'conferences'.

Former pupils

The school has a diverse and extensive range of distinguished former pupils including novelist George Orwell, architect Sir Nicholas Grimshaw, impressionist Rory Bremner, Adolphus Cambridge, 1st Marquess of Cambridge, author Sebastian Faulks, billionaire Felix Prettejohn, political journalist Robin Oakley, actor Christopher Lee, poet Gavin Ewart, composer John Gardner, world champion motor racing driver James Hunt, notable aeronautical engineer Thomas Robinson, Opposition Leader of the House of Lords Lord Strathclyde, journalist and television presenter Peter Snow and the UK Pop Idol winner Will Young, and Senior Marketing Executive T-Unit, to name but a few. It has been claimed that Lord Archer, who was actually educated at the less prestigious Wellington School, Somerset, falsely claimed that he had been to Wellington College.

Slang

Common to other public schools, Wellington has its own peculiar slang. These include "Brews" for the in-house kitchens, "Grubbies" for the school shop, "Bims" for inter-house junior sporting leagues and "Bigside", "Derby", "Rockies" and "Turf" for playing fields. Wellington's slang has many similarities to that of Rugby School, where Wellington's first Master, Edward White Benson, began his career.

Combined Cadet Force

The Wellington College Combined Cadet Force (CCF) has existed in its various forms since 1880. Commissioned members of the teaching staff who serve as CCF officers are attached to The Duke of Wellington's Regiment. The Commanding Officer of the Wellington College CCF is Lieutenant Colonel Eddy Heddon (REME). The College also traditionally has two teams of Field Gun runners, and two runs are made annually at the College Speech Day.

Press

Like many of the major public schools, Wellington College is no stranger to press attention. Newspapers have covered numerous stories involving the school, most recently the victory of the school's U18 side over Truro in the quarter final of the Daily Mail Schools' rugby tournament. Wellington is also now advertising in newspapers and other publications its move to co-education under the 13th Master of the College, Dr. Anthony Seldon.
The school was also involved in huge press coverage when former pupil, now england rugby player, James Haskell created a sex tape of himself with a girl in his dorm-room, along with other accomplices, including pupils Robert Sidders and Rhys Howells.
In April 2006 the college attracted widespread publicity when it became the first school in the UK to introduce 'happiness lessons' to the curriculum,^[2] in conjunction with a team at Cambridge University lead by Nick Baylis. The move continued a long tradition of pastoral care at Wellington, including religious education and 'Personal and Social Development' classes.
Wellington has also attracted interest due to some of the guest speakers at the "Master's Letures". Guest spreakers have included George Galloway MP, and Simon McDonald whose son is at school at Wellington.

Houses

There are 15 houses at Wellington. Every house contains boarders and a small number of day pupils. Each house is either an 'in-house' or an 'out-house'. In-houses are located within the main school buildings and quads, whilst out-houses are located elsewhere on the grounds. Each house has aspects which distinguish it from other houses, such as its own colours, emblem and a defined house spirit.

House	Colours	Emblem	Gender	Type
Anglesey	Maroon/Blue	Star	M	Out-house
Apsley	Blue/Black	Pineapple	F	Out-house
Benson	Pale Blue/Silver	Rose	M	Out-house
Beresford	Light Blue/Black	Horseshoe	M	Out-house
Blücher	Black/White	Feathers	M	In-house
Combermere	Blue/White	Dragon	F	In-house
Hardinge	Green/Brown	Anchor	M	In-house
Hill	Purple/Silver	Skull and Crossbone	M	In-house
Hopetoun	Yellow/Blue	Moon and Star	M/F	Out-house
Lynedoch	Navy Blue/Black	Iron cross	M	In-house
Murray	Purple/Black	Moon	M	In-house
Orange	Orange/Black	Double-headed dragon	F	Out-house
Picton	Pink/Brown	Eagle	M	Out-house
Stanley	Red/Blue	Unicorn	M	Out-house
Talbot	Maroon/White	Iron Cross	M	Out-house

The Orange was previously a boys' house, but it was changed to a girls' house in 2005. The boys in the Orange moved in with the Beresford to become an out-house. The Combermere has been turned from a boys house into a girls house with the boys moving out of the Combermere and joining the Hardinge.
There are also traditional rivalries between houses on the sports field. Most noticeable is the rivalry between the Hill and the Murray - the two houses are located next door to each other in the West Block. However the top House in the school is the Lynedoch, so called because it is "on the top of the Hill". This however is rubbish as Benson is the best house by far as it wins every trophy that is of any distinction.
Recently there have been two new houses added to the traditional 15, these are the Wellesley and White Cairn.

The Old Wellingtonian Society

The Old Wellingtonian Society (OW Society) is the alumni society for the college and was founded in 1890. The Old Wellingtonian Society was set up to further the interests of the College and its past and present members, and to keep former pupils in touch with each other and with the school.
The Old Wellingtonian Society maintains a register of names of all who have passed through the College since the school's opening in 1859 and the addresses of all living alumni.

See also

★ List of notable Old Wellingtonians

★ Wellington Monument - other monuments to Wellington

Southern Railway School's Class

The School lent its name to the third steam locomotive (Engine 902) in the Southern Railway's Class V of which there were 40.This Class was also known as the Schools Class because all 40 of the class were named after prominent English public schools. 'Wellington', as it was called, was built in 1930, along with the rest of the initial ten locomotives in the class. Wellington was number 4 Eton was number 1. The locomotive bearing the School's name was withdrawn in the early 1960s.

References

1. The Shaws - Like Father Like Son
2. True happiness is a lesson well taught

External links

★ Wellington College website

★ Website in memory of John Shaw the architect

★ Website for Old Wellingtonians

★ Website of Old Wellingtonian Lodge #3404