A STROLL DOWN MEMORY LANE

Our boys returned from the Christmas holidays to be greeted by a new installation in Covered Passage. A colourful timeline documenting the life of Radley College from 1847 until the present day stretches from the Library to Hall and shares stories from our illustrious history. We spoke to Clare Sargent, College Archivist, who curated the project to find out more.

How did the project come about?

Something along these lines was first suggested about five years ago. The decor of Covered Passage was becoming very tired, and it was no longer the primary hub for notices. The notice boards along it weren’t being kept up to date which gave a very sorry feel to a key thoroughfare in the school. We also had nowhere that told the school’s story. So redesigning Covered Passage became a priority as part of Radley 175.

How did you decide what to include and, most importantly, what to leave out?

The design morphed as we worked on it. Originally, the timeline was just one part of a more complex layout which focussed on the current four pillars — People, Place, Purpose, Partnerships — but as we worked on it, it became clear there was so much that could go into the timeline, and that the timeline itself told the continuing story of those four pillars, that we jettisoned the original plans to give ourselves something which was more fun and less ‘corporate.’

When I wrote ‘Untold Stories’ we had to cut the word count significantly. Five complete chapters were turned into five timelines — which became one of the methods of storytelling within the book. This meant that a lot of the groundwork on dates and significant school events had already been done. I began by researching lists of significant world events and matching them to what was happening in the school at the time — events such as the Cuban Missile Crisis and the escalation of the Cold War in the 1960s or the slow development of information technology and computers from the 1970s onwards that really impacts how we live, learn, and teach in 2023. Even the defeat of Napoleon at the Battle of Waterloo in 1815 impacts us because it allowed the Bowyer family to move to Italy and to put the Mansion up for rent: without that we wouldn’t be here as Radley College at all.

Gradually, those world events were removed from the timeline itself, but they influenced what was chosen from school history. I also wanted to make sure this was the story of the entire community — men, women, boys, girls, athletes, scholars, poets, scientists, gardeners. Many people suggested names and events — too many to fit in — and some influential people didn’t make the final cut!

Do you have a favourite period/section?

I love the landscape history. I’ve worked a lot on Capability Brown in the 1770s and the work of the Natural History Society in 1906 and 1912, so I included trees and biodiversity. You can trace the story of College Oak as it keeps appearing as a constant in the timeline.

Who is the most interesting person in Radley’s history?

That depends on who you talk to. Interesting people are not necessarily the household names. Among the sportsmen I would say Theo Cook, Captain of the England Fencing Team in 1906 and an early developer of the Modern Olympic Games. On the arts side, Harold Monro, poet and creator of the Poetry Bookshop in Bloomsbury — where TS Eliot, Ezra Pound and Wilfred Owen all stayed or gave their earliest poetry readings. Among the scientists, Charles Howard, Earl of Suffolk and Berkshire, rescued Europe’s only supply of heavy water from Paris as the Germans entered the city in WW2 — disrupting their nuclear programme.

What are your future plans for the installation?

Watch out for the QR codes which will link an online version of the timeline to articles about specific events and people. The next project will do the same for the grounds.