Talk:Bedford Modern School

assess

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Where exactly is the Harpur are of Bedford? A decade at that school (the last year before girls) and i never heard of it. Frankly I'm shocked the marketing department havn't got their claws into this page yet...

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started alumni-tick... pics? refs? Could be a B... Welcome Victuallers 19:47, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

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monopolyfreak here. As of midnight July 30th, I am going to be doing a LOT of work on updating the Bedford Modern page. Any alterations to spelling, incorrect facts etc. will be greatly appreciated! Thanks!! and as far as I know, the houses were never related to where you lived...

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@monopolyfreak: I have no evidence but I thought that they were. Originally as the school was central in bedford students from bedford itself could be roughly evenly split into N,S,E or W and the other 2 are self explanatory.

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"Steven Smith, continued his campaign to withdraw any evidence of a school history and decided to do away with these traditional names and the houses were re-named Farrar, Tilden, Bell, Mobbs, Oatley, and Rose." Though I agree with you, a bit controversial? Plus, the new houses were definetely around before 2003, before girls.81.105.23.0 08:12, 28 September 2007 (UTC) Oh and this bit "(disgruntling the outright majority of boys but nevertheless fits in with the P.D. outfit the school has taken on)" 81.105.23.0 08:14, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

Notable alumni – suggestion

Editors interested in this topic ought to consider a separate article for the notable alumni. (And they should remove those alumni who do not have a WP article). – S. Rich (talk) 05:36, 7 September 2014 (UTC)

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When was B.M.S. Founded

There is a disagreement between two Wikipedians about the year Bedford Modern School was founded: 1566 or 1764. I have to say that the assertion of 1566 doesn't seem to have much to justify it. The school came into being in 1764 and celebrated its 250th birthday in 2014. The School did not exist before this.

To tie the foundation of the School to the origin of the Endowment is insufficient and leads to a Reductio ad Absurdum in that it implies all Harpur Trust schools, Bedford Girls' School and Pilgrims Prep School, could also claim to have been founded in 1566. The Harpur Trust was established to endow the Grammar School, no other school was envisaged at this point.

I'm an O.B.M. & I've no wish to upset anyone but I think 1764 is correct and should stand. Ndstead (talk) 23:07, 4 May 2020 (UTC)

• 1764 has been described as an amputation (Four Hundred Years of English Education, by W.H.G. Armytage, Cambridge University Press, 1970, p.128) which implies the school was part of the original endowment: four hundred years of english education. Please also refer to the wikipedia page for Alleyn's School which was similarly amputated from Dulwich College, the cover page of the first edition of Eagle News and hundreds of BMS prize books which state 1566, not to mention the clock on the BMS Cricket Pavilion AlexdeGrey (talk) 10:50, 2 June 2020 (UTC) AlexdeGrey (talk) 07:56, 3 June 2020 (UTC)

• • 1566 - An Almanack for the Year of Our Lord ... AlexdeGrey (talk) 06:48, 4 June 2020 (UTC)

• • • AlexdeGrey (talk) 17:31, 4 June 2020 (UTC)

• • • • AlexdeGrey (talk) 17:33, 4 June 2020 (UTC)

• • • • • 1566 - The educational advantages of Bedford as a place of residence: the schools, the town, and neighbourhood AlexdeGrey (talk) 15:01, 6 June 2020 (UTC)

• • • • • • 1566 - The Victorian School - Page Not Found

Hello Alex, I've read the excerpt from the Armytage book but I don't get the amputation analogy in any way (and I think he could have employed a nicer analogy) . The Act of 1764 allowed the Trust to enlarge its charitable objectives and this included the creation of a Writing School to teach English Round Hand. An amputation would involve a fundamental change to the original foundation, but this was neither the intention or the outcome; the Grammar School continued to meander in obscurity as before with the same arrangements, objectives, and curriculum. It would be better to describe the 1764 Act as the provision of an extra limb rather than the amputation of an existing one.

I don't think Alleyn's School is comparable with Bedford Modern; its creation was neither an amputation or an addition. In 1882 the original College of God's Gift was split in two, the Upper School became Dulwich College and the Lower School became Alleyn's, so both have every right to claim descent from Edward Alleyn's original foundation in 1619. Alleyn's establishment arose from the division of the existing school which had effectively been dissolved, so its WP entry: 'Established 1619 as part of Edward Alleyn's College of God's Gift' is correct; the same circumstances do not apply to Bedford Modern.

There are obviously quite a lot of schools that were secondary foundations, and looking through Wikipedia BMS is the only one which claims to have been founded at the same time time as the endowments that support them. All the others are happy enough with the year that their school actually came into existence. This is the case in instances where schools were created specifically to meet the charitable obligations that the original schools were no longer willing or able to fulfill. John Lyon School would be a good example of this; a nineteenth-century Harrow headmaster, I can't remember which one, but it was probably Butler, explicitly stated that no son of a Harrow shopkeeper would ever be educated at his school. John Lyon School thus inherited the objectives and obligations of the original endowment (1572) but states that it was founded in 1876. Other examples include The Judd School (1888)/Tonbridge (Sir Andrew Judd's Grammar School, Tonbridge [1553]), Trinity School (1882)/Whitgift (1596), and Lawrence Sheriff School (1878)/Rugby School (1567).

In examples where secondary foundations were established to meet new or extra demand, as with BMS, the same applies: for example the multiple King Edward Schools in the West Midlands; Camp Hill, Fiveways, Aston etc (all 1883) and all founded on the endowment that created King Edward VI School (1552). Bedford Modern is a lot older than these schools, and may well be the oldest secondary foundation in the country, I don't know, but that is not to enough to push back its origin any further than 1764.

The later claims originating from the school that you include are evidence of what people thought; ie, they were based on sentiment rather than fact. My feeling is that the name of the school was not that popular among many OBMs in the decades either side of 1900 as they felt that Bedford Modern did not properly reflect the status and prestige of the school, or its longevity. I remember reading a letter from one disgruntled OBM in an earlyish edition of the Eagle who proposed the name be changed to Bedford Tudor School. Obviously his campaign never got anywhere, but it does illustrate that OBMs at that time were keen to emphasize the link between the school and the ancient origin of its endowment.

As for the recent web-site example, I've no idea what that is based on; they could well have picked up 1566 from the school's Wikipedia entry, in which case you're going round in circles.

It is clear that Bedford Modern School in any of its iterations did not exist before 1764, I don't think anyone would argue with that statement, and I haven't seen anything that supports your contention that the school was founded in 1566.

Sorry for the long and boring essay.

Cheers

Ndstead (talk) 16:57, 7 June 2020 (UTC)

• • • • • • • wiki-whiff-whaff on the date. You've contributed some great OBM articles and it would be good to see some more ... so that history isn't entirely forgotten or rewritten AlexdeGrey (talk) 10:38, 9 June 2020 (UTC)

Thanks for that I'd like to, but I got out of the habit. There were a few more but I've forgotten a lot of the names and I'm always too busy to put the research in when it involved going to libraries etc. G.H. Archambault, War Correspondent in Vichy France for, I think, the New York Times, was one. He was later their African correspondent. There was a chap who won 2 or I think even 3 bars to his M.C. who died in the US in the 1920s. If memory serves me right he died as a consequence of surgery to remove shrapnel from his brain. I can't remember his name, but I do remember I couldn't track him down online. Ndstead (talk) 21:40, 11 June 2020 (UTC)