Floreat Etona: Anecdotes and Memories of Eton CollegeNevill, Ralph
History
Floreat Etona: Anecdotes and Memories of Eton College
Nevill, Ralph
Eton College
A far more sympathetic figure was the Rev. E. Hale, known to the boys
as “Badger Hale,” probably on account of his hair bearing some remote
resemblance to the coat of that animal. Besides being a cleric, Mr.
Hale was an officer of the Eton Volunteers. He was of great girth, and
when in uniform presented a really stupendous appearance, in which the
boys took great delight. At that time the Volunteers were perhaps not
taken so seriously as is the present Officers’ Training Corps, with its
more workman-like appearance and ways. Though there were occasional
field-days, the principal evolution of the 2nd Bucks was to march,
headed by its band, to the playing-fields. Founded in 1860, by the late
’seventies it had abandoned a good deal of its splendours, blue worsted
cord having taken the place of the original silver lace, whilst the
colours presented by Mrs. Goodford had ceased to be carried, the Eton
Volunteers being at that time a rifle corps. Now, however, that it has
become the Officers’ Training Corps, they have once more been taken
into use. The silver bugle given by Lady Carrington is presumably still
carried.
[SN: DR. WARRE]
The chief support of the Corps has always been its present Honorary
Colonel, the Rev. E. Warre, now Provost of Eton, who for many years
took a most active part in striving to maintain its well-being
and efficiency. Few have done so much for Eton as he; his whole
life, indeed, has been devoted to furthering the best interests of
the school. As an Assistant Master he was the avowed champion of
strenuousness and efficiency, whilst opposed to old ways and traditions
tending towards a slack state of affairs. A strong and dominating
personality, he was intensely popular with the boys in his own house,
but a good part of the school regarded him with a certain amount of
suspicion as entertaining revolutionary ideas, which it was said were
only kept in check by the firmness of Dr. Hornby, who in the last days
of his Headmastership was looked upon as the staunch defender and
champion of old Eton ways. In the minds of ultra-conservative Etonians
Dr. Hornby stood for Conservatism, as Dr. Warre did for change. Such
an estimate was not altogether without foundation, for after Dr.
Warre had succeeded to the supreme control of the school, a number
of alterations, some of them, no doubt, quite necessary, were made.
The general feeling amongst Eton boys at that time was Tory in the
extreme, and though we knew scarcely anything about him except that he
had flogged a good deal, I am sure that a great many of us would have
been delighted to hear that Dr. Keate, having returned to life, had
been entrusted with the task of reorganising the school with a view to
getting it back into the condition of the good old days.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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