Commemoration, 1954

St. Peter's in the time of the Rev. William Tomlinson, who was Head Master from 1679 to 1711, when the School was housed in the Bedern.

A brief account of Aislabie's career is given elsewhere in this issue. We can hardly claim him as a famous Old Peterite. His contemporaries, no doubt, would have described him as infamous; and there was ample justification for the abuse which was hurled at him when his nefarious part in a swindle which brought ruin to thousands of English families was exposed to the light of day. The verdict of the historians is usually that he was an able and energetic minister who ruined his career by succumbing to the ambition of amassing quickly an enormous fortune. In those early days of stockjobbing the means must have seemed temptingly easy. John Aislabie has had a host of successors. There have been many since who have yielded to the temptation of large-scale financial jugglery, but none of them, so far as we know, has been a nursling of St. Peter's School. If Aislabie has no niche in the Hall of Fame but rather a place in the Rogues Gallery, we can console ourselves with the thought that in a history of more than 1,300 years the roll of Old Peterites must inevitably include some who are more notorious than notable. Of Dick Turpin, if his bona-fides can be established, there can be no two opinions. He was the rogue par excellence. Our one poetlaureate, Laurence Eusden, was a poor thing who, if his contemporary, Pope, is to be believed, drew his inspiration from the wine-bottle; and Guy Fawkes, of course, is a matter of taste. There may even be some today, particularly among those who have suffered more than most by the process of tightening the screw which Gladstone foretold, who question the financial morality of Sir William Harcourt who, by his revolutionary Death Duties, inaugurated the dubious economic practice of the State confiscating capital and spending it as income. Till recently Sir William Harcourt was believed to be our only Old Peterite Chancellor of the Exchequer. In John Aislabie he now has a fellow.

Speech Day this year will be on Saturday, the 24th July, when the prizes will be distributed by the Hon. Sir Thomas White, the High Commissioner for Australia in London. The Commemoration Sermon will be preached by the Provost of Newcastle. The festival as a whole will follow the usual programme, beginning on Friday, the 23rd, with the start of the cricket match, School v. Old Peterites, and, in the evening the Old Peterite Dinner. On Saturday the cricket match will be resumed in the afternoon, when there will also be the usual boat races between School and OR'. crews.

Following the practice of recent years, St. Olave's will have their own Prizegiving on the afternoon of the preceding Wednesday, 21st July. Lt.-Col. J. N. Blenkin, O.B.E., 'M.C., T.D., will present the prizes and address the boys and their parents. 2