The Chapel.
House of Commons Library,
March 1, 1897.
Dear Style,
I have an idea in my head of offering to build the School a
Chapel with a Dome as an architectural experiment, employing
Jackson, the famous Oxford Architect. One would call it the
Diamond Jubilee Memorial. Site the knoll in the Cricket Field.
We have very few domes in England and it might give a hint to
others.
But I should like to hear any suggestions of yours. A Domed
Building on the site should look well. It would need much
thinking out as we do not understand Domes. The Round Church at
Cambridge gives some hints.
Yours truly,
W. MORRISON.
Rev. G. Style.
This letter was received by the Headmaster on March 2. The effect of
such news coming without any previous warning can be imagined. The
difficulty of commemorating the Diamond Jubilee year had seemed
overwhelming and this unexpected offer from Mr. Walter Morrison
dissipated the troubles in a moment. In the second place a School Chapel
had alone been wanting to complete the seclusion and privacy of the
School, and hitherto the prospect of such a building had seemed
unattainable. It was now offered as a gift.
[Illustration: WALTER MORRISON J.P.]
Mr. Morrison had recently returned from travelling in the East and had
been greatly impressed by one particular feature of Eastern
Architecture. The dome is almost universal in Palestine, and Mr.
Morrison desired that an architectural experiment should be made in
England. He wished to see the School Chapel built in the Gothic Style
but with a dome. Mr. T. G. Jackson, R.A., was approached upon the
subject and remembering that his former Master, Sir Gilbert Scott, had
always hoped to undertake such a work, he gladly made his plans.
The aim of all the best Architecture is to construct a building of such
a kind that it will withstand the ruin of the ages and will prove an
opportunity for doing well whatever it is built for. The purpose of a
house is that a man should be able to live in it. The essence of a
church is that it should provide a place of worship. It is easy enough
to construct a four-square building with accommodation for a required
number of people but brick walls are not sufficient. Utility does not
consist only in adequate space; it has many other features, closely
inwoven with it. Fitness is the keynote of beauty. Taken by themselves
there is little beauty to be seen in two parallel straight iron lines
running through the country-side, but conceive of them as railway lines,
adequately and without any unnecessary waste of material performing the
office for which they were made, and few sights can be more charged with
the very essence of beauty. The purpose that underlies the construction
and the complete fulfilment of that purpose is beauty.
But a Church cannot be content only with a building sufficiently
well-built to hold its worshippers and sufficiently in tone with its
surroundings to express the unity of art and nature. It has a further
form of expression that it must satisfy. It is a religious building, and
as such its characteristics and its form must exemplify religious
tendencies and thought. A barn can be supremely beautiful, but it does
not radiate the atmosphere of worship. A Church must be characterized by
certain great and instinctive elements of grandeur, it must breathe the
spirit of reverence, it must, as Ruskin says, "speak well and say the
things it was intended to say in the best words." Giggleswick School
Chapel may justly be said to fulfil all these conditions. It is in
harmony with its surroundings, and it is a structure of great
architectural beauty, that is to say, it expresses its purpose in the
best way.
[Illustration: THE CHAPEL EXTERIOR.]
Every style of Architecture makes its own peculiar appeal to mankind.
One kind of Church seems better adapted to the needs of Englishmen;
Eastern peoples prefer a different style. Mr. Morrison proposed to take
a distinctive feature of each and make them one. For the general
building he chose the Gothic style because, though not native to
England, it has imposed itself to an overwhelming extent on the Parish
Churches and Cathedrals of the country, and to it he added a Dome. There
is one feature that these two apparent opposites have in common. Gothic
Churches vary greatly, but many of them are notable for their appearance
of loftiness. The clustered columns seem to lead the eye upwards to the
roof, as if men naturally went about the world cramped and confined, and
were now bidden turn their gaze to the heights. A dome has a somewhat
similar effect: it carries on the gaze and it gives an increased and
unexpected vision. The bold union of the two has created a School
Chapel, which satisfies every wish. It is suited to the surrounding
country, it is possessed of great beauty, and it breathes the atmosphere
of worship.
But there is another consideration. One of the most striking
characteristics of boy-life is the feeling of personal possession.
Everything that is of importance has a personal aspect. Whatever a boy
sees belonging to his own School is at once invested with a curious
sanctity and defended with all the armour of pride. It is of supreme
importance that the side of school life, the religious side, which
sometimes appeals to a boy with a greater force than any other, should
have a building of its own. The Parish Church can never lay claim to the
same devotion, and therefore can never exercise the same influence. A
School Chapel develops a feeling of unity and brotherhood; such unity is
less possible in a Parish Church.
Buildings and surroundings have a power to mould character. It is the
big, silent things of life that often really move a man: the walls that
he can learn to love and know, and invest with life and memory. These
feelings are not recognized at the time, and it is well that they should
not be. Emotionalism and probing self-analysis are dread dangers. But
the memories of school in after life are not in the first instance
memories of friends, but of the places where those friends were met and
the friendships made. A boy's life is made up of moments and
impressions, and many of the indelible impressions of his youth are
formed in the School Chapel. Hence the gift of a beautiful School Chapel
is the greatest gift a man can give. Boys at Giggleswick have at their
right hand the natural glories of the Craven District, they have now
also a supreme example of the architect's skill and courage and success.
Environment is the keynote to the development of character. These boys
have the twofold opportunity of profiting from Nature and from Art.
The mind must go back three centuries in the history of the School to
find a parallel to this gift, and even then no individual example will
stand comparison. The difficulties of the work were great, but were
surmounted with complete success. The Chapel is a striking and beautiful
landmark. The Building was begun in 1897, and the foundation stone was
laid with some ceremony on October 7, by the Duke of Devonshire, and
work proceeded for four years without interruption.
There are many interesting features about the building, and no expense
was spared to get the very best material. In the interior all the
fittings and seats were made of cedar wood imported direct from Tucuman,
a Province in the Argentine. Two Bronze Statues, one of Queen Victoria
and one of Edward VI were designed by Mr. George Frampton, A.R.A., and
placed in niches over the west door. A cast of the one of Edward VI was
given by the sculptor and placed in Big School. The main feature of the
interior is one broad aisle in the centre, balanced on either side by
two passage aisles, and the centre of the broad aisle is paved with
black and white marble. At the West end are eight stalls with carved and
pierced standards to the canopies.
The Organ was the last instrument built under the direction of Mr. Henry
Willis--Father Willis--and its construction was superintended by Sir
Walter Parratt. The outside pipes are made of spotted metal, and the
organ has three manuals. The Pulpit was put in later standing at the
North-West end of the Choir it is visible to the whole congregation.
The Dome was constructed in a way, hitherto probably untried in Europe,
it was built without centering, on a principle of interlocking blocks of
terra cotta. The outside is of timber covered with copper; inside on the
lower part with a gold background are mosaics of sixteen angels. They
are slightly over six feet high, and are represented as playing musical
instruments; their wings cross one another and give a fine pattern of
colour. In the pendentives are seated figures of the four Evangelists.
These were all worked, not from the back as is usual, but from the face,
and each was fixed on the vault bit by bit.
[Illustration: JAMES CARR.]
[Illustration: THE CHAPEL DOME.]
The glass has special interest. The East Window contains subjects from
the Life of our Lord, and the South Transept Window contains figures of
James Carr, Edward VI, Josias Shute, Archdeacon Paley, the Headmaster
and Mr. Morrison. The Clerestory Windows contain in groups of threes,
Christian worthies of various times.
NORTH SIDE. SOUTH SIDE.
1. MARTYRS. 4. WARRIORS.
Sir Thomas More. Sir Philip Sidney.
King Edmund. King Alfred.
Bishop Latimer. General Gordon.
2. DIVINES. 5. MISSIONARIES.
John Bunyan. Henry Martin.
John Wycliffe. Columba.
John Wesley. Livingstone.
3. TEACHERS. 6. POETS.
Alcuin, of York. Milton.
William, of Wykeham. Caedmon.
Arnold, of Rugby. Tennyson.
The West Window was designed by the Architect, and is a very curious
representation of the Creation, full of daring colour. The roof and part
of the walls are decorated with sgraffito work. The Chapel was opened
for use on October 4, 1901, by Dr. Warre, Headmaster of Eton, and
dedicated by the Bishop of Ripon, and has since been regularly used for
services on Sunday.
The generosity of Mr. Morrison did not stop with the Chapel, but at the
same time he constructed a fine stone Pavilion at the West end of the
Cricket Ground, and a Gate-house and Porter's Lodge at the entrance from
the public road. The enthusiasm aroused by the sight of this open-handed
generosity was so great that it was at once determined to open a fund
for a portrait of Mr. Morrison and hang in Big School. The subscribers
were nearly four hundred in number, and many of the old masters and
boys were among them. Sir Hubert Von Herkomer was commissioned to paint
the portrait, and on July 28, 1903, it was unveiled in the presence of a
large gathering of people. It is a striking portrait, and well suggests
the kindliness, humour, and generosity that are the distinguishing
features of Mr. Morrison's character.
It was close upon thirty-five years since Mr. Style had first taken over
the charge of the School. The year 1869 had been a most unpromising one
in the history of Giggleswick; the future was difficult and doubtful.
But courage is one of the first essentials in a Schoolmaster, and Mr.
Style had a full share. Every old School is steeped with tradition, but
much of it at Giggleswick was bad, and Mr. Style did his best to
eradicate and replace it. The boy of that period was a rougher boy than
is common in public schools to-day, and he needed sterner treatment. Mr.
Style was an awe-inspiring disciplinarian, but he was no Busby or Keate
in his use of the rod. The temper of Schoolmasters had been rapidly
improving, and there are no instances of the astonishingly unjust
punishments that were common in an earlier day. In the early part of the
century one of the masters had once thrashed a boy, and the apparent
injustice of the punishment had been so indelibly inscribed upon the
boy's mind that years afterwards he came back to the School, not with
the feelings of affection common to most men when they revisit the scene
of their boyhood, but filled with a fierce resentment against his former
master, and vowing that if he were alive he would thrash him within an
inch of his life. Mr. Style was of a different mould; he set before
himself the ideal of absolute justice, and this fact was recognized by
the School. On one occasion some boys had placed an elaborate "booby"
trap, consisting of two dictionaries on the top of the door of the end
"prep" room and awaited the arrival of their victim. To their horror the
door opened and crash went the dictionaries on the Headmaster's top-hat.
There was a moment of awful suspense, and he said, "I know that was not
meant for me."
With the building of the Hostel it was necessary to build up afresh a
complete system of school life. As the numbers increased he established
a monitorial system, by which many of the lesser breaches of discipline
were dealt with by the boys themselves. There was great opposition to
the innovation on the part of the boys, and as a consequence the system
never worked so well as it should have done. These head boys were called
Praepostors, a conscious echo of the two "Praepositors" of the first
Statutes of 1592. Fagging was allowed but was not unduly practised. It
consisted chiefly of running messages or blacking boots or boiling
water. Perhaps the most unpleasant duty of the new boy was the
compulsion that he was under to sing for the benefit of his elders.
On the second Saturday of term the senior boys in the Hostel were
assembled in the underground Baths and every new boy was put upon a
chair in their midst and made to sing. The penalty for singing out of
tune was a cup of salt and water but it is doubtful whether the penalty
was often enforced; even so there is no continuous tradition; it was
irregular and spasmodic. Another task for the new boy was to climb the
Scars a quarter of a mile from the School and place a stone upon the
cairn, called "Schoolboys' Tower."
[Illustration: CHAPEL, EAST.]
The Praepostors had also the power of punishment by giving "lines" or by
thrashing but the latter was subject to proper control. Some years
previously the monitorial system in schools had been given a new lease
of life by Arnold at Rugby and it was in theory a legalised increase of
the natural power possessed by the Sixth Form; but it was often found
that intellect and strength of character did not always accompany each
other. At Giggleswick no position in the School gave a prescriptive
right to be a Praepostor. The choice lay solely in the hands of the
Headmaster and although more frequently those chosen were members of the
Sixth Form, it was by no means necessary, and the captain of the
Football Fifteen was almost always chosen among them.
In the early days the Athletics of the School needed much encouragement.
The Schoolyard for generations had provided the only opportunity for
games; Football and Cricket were in their infancy. In most matches
against teams, other than schools, Mr. Style took a personal part. He
was a keen wicket-keeper and a good bat and did not cease to play
cricket till 1890.
There were other ways in which his personal character greatly influenced
the boys. He spent a great part of each day, when not in School, in the
Governors' Room at the South end of the Hostel and there he was always
ready to see those who wished to speak to him on any subject. Many
received special tuition from him after Evening Prayers and one great
secret of the esteem with which the boys regarded him was the personal
interest that he took in their life. There is the story of a boy who was
particularly anxious to enter the School as a day-boy, but his
attainments were insufficient for his age and he knew no Latin. He came
himself to see Mr. Style and to press for admittance and at last he was
told that if he could learn some Latin before the entrance examination
of the following term, his age should not stand in his way. At the same
time Mr. Style advised him to come to him every now and then and tell
him how he was getting on. After a while the boy came and said that he
had learned the Latin Grammar as far as the dative of the relative. On
being asked why the dative of the relative had been his limit, he
explained that his teacher had not been able to pronounce it and so he
could go no further. He was put through some questions and could not
answer them but if asked to decline any word he would do it in this
fashion: _Mensa_ _mensae_ _mensam_ _mensas_ _mensae_ _mensarum_ _mensae_
_mensis_ _mensa_ _mensis_ and so on all through the Grammar until he
came to the relative and at the dative he failed. Mr. Style considering
that the memorising of the Latin Grammar in such a way implied some
quickness of mind told him to leave the school that he was at and come
to him at certain times each day. His time-table was however very full
and he could only give the boy half an hour a day at 6-0 a.m. and 7-0
p.m. This he did and he found the boy extremely quick and intelligent.
He passed him into the School the next term and seeing he had a distinct
gift for Mathematics encouraged him in every way. Eventually he sent
him up to S. John's College, Cambridge, with a Mathematical Scholarship
and hoped that at last he had prepared a boy who would be Senior
Wrangler. Unfortunately his health broke down and he came out seventh
but some years later in 1889 was made a Fellow of the College.
[Illustration: CHAPEL, WEST.]
Mr. Style was an early riser. Every morning at 6-30, without fail, he
was in the Governors' Room ready to talk over any necessary matters. He
took very full duty in School, and made himself chiefly responsible for
the higher Mathematical work; and in addition with some assistance from
Mr. Mannock or Mr. Bearcroft, he undertook most of the laborious
business work connected with the organization of the Hostel and the
School.
His Assistant Masters always look back to their days at Giggleswick as
some of the happiest they have ever spent. Mr. Style was naturally
anxious to keep his staff with him as long as possible, but he realized
that he could not expect to do this while the Trustees felt themselves
unable to guarantee salaries sufficient to enable a man to marry. He
gladly and generously helped them to find promotion. Many became
Headmasters. Mr. J. Conway Rees, who for years had been the most
painstaking and successful of men in making the Fifteen a match-winning
side, left to become head of a school connected with the Mohammedan
College at Aligarh. Mr. Rhodes went to Ardingly, and so on.
Every Sunday, in the early days, Mr. and Mrs. Style would ask the whole
Hostel and later, as the numbers increased, the upper forms to come into
the Governors' Room and there they would be regaled with sandwiches and
lemonade and a musical evening would be held. Bubble and Squeak the boys
called these evenings and they were much appreciated. Delicate boys
would sometimes spend a week or a few days living in the Headmaster's
house, and sometimes boys would be invited who were suffering from colds
or other slight illnesses, and thus in the middle of a term they would
find a short reminder of home life. In innumerable ways the boys were
made to feel that the Headmaster was no official pedagogue but a man
such as their own fathers, and they felt a corresponding affection for
him.
[Illustration: THE GATE HOUSE.]
Ascension Day was a whole holiday and for some years the Headmaster was
in the habit of taking the whole School, after a service, out for a day
on the hills. On one occasion they went to the top of Graygreth (near
Kirkby Lonsdale) on a very hot day. In the evening four boys were found
to be missing. The Headmaster taking two boys with him scoured the hills
till darkness drew on, but in vain. At last they came to a wayside inn
and made inquiries, at which a yokel remarked "You must be a fine
Master, if you can't look after your own boys." As a matter of fact all
four boys were in safe quarters at Kirkby Lonsdale, after losing their
way in a thick mist. This was the last occasion on which the Headmaster
ventured to take the whole School out. In future the boys went in
smaller bodies with their House Tutors.
What was the secret of his power and his success? First undoubtedly was
the keenness of his eye. "I have been all over the world and I have
never come across a man with as keen an eye as Mr. Style" said one of
his former pupils. He seemed to look quite through a man and there was
no thought of evasion with him. Then there was his thoroughness. He was
so absolutely devoted to his duty that his example was bound to affect
those who came near him. It was noticeable in everything he did. He
played a game of cricket as if it were the most important thing in life.
Thirdly he had another most necessary quality in a Headmaster, the power
of choosing the right Assistant Masters. Dr. Marshall Watts, G. B.
Mannock, Douglas R Smith, S. P. Smith, C. F. Hyde, Rev. J. W. Chippett,
A. W. Reith, are only a few among the many who helped him with every
quality they possessed.
As a teacher he was sometimes unable to restrain himself with a dull
boy. "Do you understand?" he asked a boy who was struggling with the
intricacies of Algebra. "No sir." "My good man! My fine owl! Now do you
understand?" But with the abler boys he was remarkably successful. In
October, 1896, there were twenty-six old boys at Oxford and Cambridge
and of these twelve were Scholars or Exhibitioners of their College, two
played for the Cambridge Rugby Fifteen, one rowed against Oxford, and
another gained his half-blue for Swimming. This year represented perhaps
one of the latest successful years. Between 1880 and 1894 nothing could
go wrong; numbers increased and Scholarships were gained but about the
latter year the School suffered a serious set-back owing to an outbreak
of scarlet fever and the numbers began to sink.
During the long period of growth Mr. Style was watchful over every
detail of the building that was going on, and was projecting much for
the future. "It is my opinion that the Headmaster is never happy, unless
he can hear the sound of hammer and nails," an Old Boy once said. He was
determined that the School should have the very best buildings and
fittings possible, although he was never at a loss to carry things on
when a makeshift was necessary.
"Some of the best Science work that has been done here was done in my
scullery," were his words.
This absorbing love of the School was a tonic to every one who was under
him. He came at a time when there was only a collection of boys with no
unity and no sound traditions. He left it united and loyal. He came to a
rich endowment, which was spending its resources with little visible
result. He left the School prosperous, and possessed of a reputation all
over England. He had been among the first Headmasters to acknowledge the
value of a training in Natural Science, and he showed men that a
thorough and efficient training in modern subjects could be given in one
of the oldest of England's Public Schools. He did not wait upon time, he
did not waver upon his path, but marched straight forward.
Prosperity grew step by step, buildings rose up, numbers increased, and
distinctions were won, but behind all the outward success was the
vitalising energy of the Headmaster, the inspiration of the optimist,
the personality of the man.