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  • 21 Aug, 2019

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Stubbington House
Stubbington House School was founded in 1841 as a boys' preparatory school, originally located in the Hampshire village of Stubbington, around 1 mile (1.6 km) from the Solent. Stubbington House School was known by the sobriquet "the cradle of the Navy". The school was relocated to Ascot in 1962, merging with Earleywood School, and it closed in 1997.

History

Donald Leinster-Mackay, an academic researcher into the history of education, has said that "No school had stronger ties with the Royal Navy in the nineteenth century than Stubbington House." The school was founded in 1841 by the Reverend William Foster, who had been born around 1802 and was an alumnus of Trinity College, Cambridge. He had married Laura, a daughter of Rear-Admiral John Hayes, and it is probable that this accounts for the connection with the navy that the school developed. Another factor affecting its primary purpose was the introduction in 1838 of an entrance examination for the Royal Navy: although initially an undemanding test for most, this decision encouraged the development of specialised educational establishments, of which Stubbington House was a very early example. In addition, Hampshire has a historically close connection to the navy, and the closure of the Royal Naval College at Portsmouth in 1837, together with the deployment of HMS Britannia as a cadet training ship proved to be timely.

The original building was "a square Queen Anne house with a mid Georgian façade of 5 bays and 3 storeys in grey brick with red dressing and an open pedimented porch". It was situated in around 50 acres (20 ha) of parkland, of which half was used by the school. The building had been constructed around 1715, supposedly with proceeds from contracts to supply the army and navy. In due course, it was extended to meet the demands of the school as the number of pupils increased. The site eventually included two separate sanatoria facilities, as well as a gymnasium and various other structures.

Beginning with 10 pupils, the school had around 40 a few years later, and 21 in 1871. William Foster died while away from home at Leamington in 1866. He was succeeded by one of his sons, Montagu Henry Foster, and by 1883 the school roll had increased to around 130 pupils. This increase is in part attributable to the efforts of Montagu's brother, the Reverend Courtenay Foster, who opened a department to train boys for entry to the army via Woolwich and Sandhurst, for which aim the boys stayed at the school for a longer time. Charlotte Mitchell, a senior lecturer in English Literature, has analysed surviving bank statements of Charlotte Mary Yonge, the writer. Mitchell has speculated that payments made by Yonge to a Mr Foster may relate to school fees for one of her nephews, Maurice Yonge, who was at Stubbington House when the 1881 census was taken. There were payments in 1880 of £59 12s. 8d. and £59 11s. 9d., followed in 1881 by payments of £61 13s. 5d. and £60 2s. 1d. Finally, in 1882, there was a payment of £66 0s. 2d.

Montagu Foster was involved in legal action on at least two occasions during his headmastership. In 1883 he lost an action brought by a former master that related to constructive dismissal, during the proceedings of which several witnesses commented on the lack of discipline at the school. Subsequently, in 1897, The British Medical Journal reported that he had successfully sued a parent in relation to monies owing for out-of-term care of a pupil who had fallen ill. He also found his school among a handful that were subjected to criticism by the Association of Preparatory School Headmasters, who, in 1901, were successful in persuading the Admiralty that the official recognition of this small number as naval entrance examination centres gave an unfair advantage.

The school uniform around this period was "... an Eton type jacket with long sleeves and a waistcoat. [The] trousers were black and grey striped—long or short according to age. Caps bearing the MHF (Montagu Henry Foster) school badge were worn. In winter bowlers were worn for church with boaters in the summer."

Montagu died in April 1913, leaving an estate that was valued at £163,140. According to Alumni Cantabrigienses, his son, Montagu Richard William Foster (1870–1935), had taken over as headmaster in 1903 and continued in that role until 1928, the same year that he received a knighthood. However, Leinster-Mackay says that the change of office took place at the time of Montagu's death in 1913.

Montagu junior had been born and educated at the school, and subsequently he had taken his degree at Trinity College, Cambridge. He had taken over running the army department upon the early death of his uncle, Courtenay, but closed it in 1913 and thus reduced the school roll by around 50 pupils. Changes in government policy, which came about primarily because of the escalating naval rivalry between Britain and Germany, also affected the school population. A reduction in numbers came with the closure of the Britannia cadet training facility, causing pupils to leave at an earlier age for the Royal Naval College at Osborne House on the Isle of Wight. The outcome of these changes was that there were 77 pupils in 1913.

The Foster family line of ownership and headmastership continued with Hugh Richard Montagu Foster, who took over from his father in 1928. In 1930, the school was advertising that it had 130 pupils, and Hugh continued in charge until near to his own death in July 1959. Hugh's obituarist in The Times noted that this was the end of the male line, although there were plans to continue the school, and that

The school was pre-eminent in passing boys into the Royal Navy, and, in the days when Hugh Foster's grandfather ruled there, it could claim as former pupils perhaps 30 or 40 per cent of the successful candidates for the Senior Service, apart from those boys who went into the Army and, in later years, the Royal Air Force.

The arrangement of the business was adjusted in 1958 with the creation of a charitable trust but the Foster family remained as owners until 1963, paying a headmaster to run the school. A combination of death duties demanded from the family and also the high cost of maintaining the buildings caused the school to move to Ascot in 1962. There it merged with the long-established Earleywood School before subsequently closing on 7 July 1997. A limited company, Stubbington House Earleywood Limited, had been formed in 1963.

A few of the school buildings still remain in Stubbington, although most became derelict within a year of them being sold to Fareham Council, for £97,000, in 1962. The main school house was demolished in 1967. The site and the surviving buildings are now a community centre. There is a memorial to the family in the 12th-century Rowner Parish Church of St Mary the Virgin, PO13 9SU.

Notable alumni

A to D

E to K

L to R

S to Z

See also

References

Notes

  1. ^ Even possessing a single sanatorium was a pioneering development at the time.
  2. ^ Hampshire County Council says that Laura, the wife of William Foster, ran the school for seven years after his death and that her own death then caused control to pass to her son, Montagu; a court report of 1883 says that Montagu took over on the death of his father. Leinster-Mackay agrees with the court report but puts the year as 1865.
  3. ^ Montagu Henry Foster had at least one elder brother: the death of Major W. J. Foster, the eldest son, was announced in The Times in November 1910. The youngest daughter of William and Laura Foster, Mary Caroline Foster, married Arthur Percy Douglas. Douglas was himself involved with the Royal Navy and became Under Secretary for Defence, New Zealand, 1895–1903, as well as being the fifth baronet of the Douglas of Carr line.
  4. ^ Montagu Henry Foster had at least four sons: General Sir Richard Foster (1879–1965) was, like his brother, educated at Stubbington, and Lieutenant Archibald Courteney Hayes Foster was killed in action in British East Africa on 20 September 1914. There was also at least one daughter: the engagement to be married between Fanny Elizabeth Foster and Captain J. L. Jackson, RAMC was announced in February 1918.

Citations

  1. ^ "EduBase - Stubbington House School". Department for Education. Retrieved 5 December 2012.
  2. ^ "The History of the Crofton Community Centre". Crofton Community Centre. Retrieved 30 November 2012. The village of Stubbington, in which the Centre is located, itself goes back a long way; its parish church at Crofton being mentioned in the Doomsday Book. More recently, it was where Stubbington House School educated fee-paying boys from age 8 to 18 years. They were prepared for Oxford and Cambridge, public schools and the armed forces, primarily the Royal Navy. Indeed the school was well known as 'The cradle of the Navy'. Its school outfitters were in London and its boys were not allowed to mix with 'the locals'.
  3. ^ Leinster-Mackay, Donald P. (1984). The Rise of the English Prep School. Taylor & Francis. pp. 66–68. ISBN 978-0-905273-74-7.
  4. ^ "Foster, William (FSTR819W)". A Cambridge Alumni Database. University of Cambridge.
  5. ^ Leinster-Mackay, Donald P. (1988). "The nineteenth-century English preparatory school: cradle and crèche of Empire?". In Mangan, J. A. (ed.). 'Benefits Bestowed'?: Education and British Imperialism. Manchester University Press. pp. 65–66. ISBN 9780719025174.
  6. ^ "Stubbington House, Stubbington". Hampshire County Council. Retrieved 30 November 2012.
  7. ^ Douglas, Sir George Brisbane (1905). The life of Major-General Wauchope. Hodder and Stoughton. p. 25.
  8. ^ Leinster-Mackay, Donald P. (1984). The Rise of the English Prep School. Taylor & Francis. p. 126. ISBN 978-0-905273-74-7.
  9. ^ "Deaths". The Times. London, England. 20 July 1866. p. 1. (subscription required)
  10. ^ "Schoolmasters and Insubordinate Scholars". The Manchester Guardian. 29 November 1883. p. 3. ProQuest 479147229. (subscription required)
  11. ^ "Deaths". The Times. London. 22 November 1910. p. 1. (subscription required)
  12. ^ "DOUGLAS, Sir Arthur Percy". Who Was Who. A & C Black, an imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing plc, 1920–2008; online edn, Oxford University Press. December 2007. (subscription required)
  13. ^ "Marriages". The Times. London. 21 November 1871. p. 1. (subscription required)
  14. ^ "Contracts, &c". The Times. 31 May 1886. p. 3. (subscription required)
  15. ^ Mitchell, Charlotte (2010). "Charlotte M. Yonge's Bank Account: A Rich New Source of Information on her Work and her Life". Women's Writing. 17 (2): 388. doi:10.1080/09699081003755185. S2CID 143938763.
  16. ^ "Medico-Legal: School Sanatoria". The British Medical Journal. 1 (1891): 824. 27 March 1897. PMC 2432951.
  17. ^ "Mr. Montagu Foster". The Times. London. 11 April 1913. p. 9. (subscription required)
  18. ^ "Deaths". The Times. London. 16 July 1913. p. 11. (subscription required)
  19. ^ "FOSTER, Gen. Sir Richard Foster Carter". Who Was Who. A & C Black, an imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing plc, 1920–2008; online edn, Oxford University Press. December 2007. (subscription required)
  20. ^ "Deaths". The Times. London. 25 September 1914. p. 1. (subscription required)
  21. ^ "Marriages". The Times. London. 2 February 1918. p. 9. (subscription required)
  22. ^ "Foster, Montagu Richard William (FSTR888MR)". A Cambridge Alumni Database. University of Cambridge.
  23. ^ "Legal Notices". The Times. London. 18 June 1930. p. 3. (subscription required)
  24. ^ "Obituary: H. R, M. Foster". The Times. 1 August 1959. p. 8. (subscription required)
  25. ^ Leinster-Mackay, Donald P. (1984). The Rise of the English Prep School. Taylor & Francis. p. 106. ISBN 978-0-905273-74-7.
  26. ^ "English school uniform: individual schools -- Earleywood Prep School". Historical Boys' Clothing. Retrieved 5 December 2012. Earleywood Prep School was a family-run prep school located at Ascot. We are not sure when the school was founded. It appears to have been some time in the late-19th century. We do notknow what happened during the Second World War. We know it was thriving in the 1940s after the War. Apparentlly the school was amalgamated with Stubbington School, another Ascot prep school, in the 1960s.
  27. ^ Reid, Alex. "Life Story of Philip Henry Stewart Reid: Earleywood School". Alex Reid. Retrieved 5 December 2012. The school buildings, designed and built for the present Principals in 1902, are situated near Ascot on the well-known 'Bagshot Sands' in a high and bracing locality.
  28. ^ "BFI - Film & TV Database - EARLEYWOOD SCHOOL, ASCOT, 1946". British Film Institute. Archived from the original on 23 April 2013. Retrieved 5 December 2012.
  29. ^ "Stubbington House School". Department for Education. Retrieved 3 December 2012.
  30. ^ "Stubbington House Earleywood Limited". Duedil. Retrieved 5 December 2012.
  31. ^ "Stubbington House, Stubbington". Retrieved 30 November 2012.
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Further reading

  • Prestidge, Colin (1996). A History of Stubbington. Warsash Press.

50°49′32″N 1°12′51″W / 50.82560°N 1.21406°W / 50.82560; -1.21406

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