THE PADFIELD YEARS

 THE PADFIELD YEARS

When Rev Atkinson, the Principal since 1891 passed away in 1907,  Mr. John Herbert Robertson, ICS , Collector, Magistrate and Additional Sessions Judge at Ootacamund and the Vice Chairman of the School Committee was assigned the task of finding a suitable replacement for him. 

Interim arrangements made for the management of the Institution saw Major-General G. Simpson, C.B. act in the appointment until July 1907. He was then relieved by the Rev. Canon J.W.Foley M.A.who agreed to undertake the office until engagement of a permanent Principal. 

Advertisements were placed by the Committee both in England and in India and much effort was made to identify the right person. They found him, not in England but in the foothills of the Himalayas at Murree, in the Punjab. He was eminently suitable for the position having since 1904 been the Principal and Secretary of a sister school, the Lawrence Asylum/Memorial School  at Ghora Ghalli , near Murree (founded in 1860). 

His name: The Rev. William Herbert Greenland Padfield. MA.

This was the man to whom much of The Lawrence School's future successes would be attributed. Former School Archivist Nitya C. Matthai has called Rev Padfield “The Renaissance Man" who brought in many improvements over the years. 

Rev Padfield changed the tone and tenor of the school and gave it a military bearing. No one can see the future and in making the choice, the Committee perhaps would not have imagined that the new person at the helm of the asylum’s affairs would lead the institution for the next 24 years. He more than repaid the Committee’s judgement in his selection in that he achieved what most would have thought impossible, shepherding the progress of an asylum which provided shelter, food and a rudimentary education to orphans of British soldiers in India, to attain the status of a “Royal Military School". One of just four in the British Empire. 

The dawn of the 20th century saw the British still enjoying the privileges of living in what was famously called the Imperial Century. This lasted from 1815 to 1914. The British Empire was the most powerful in the world. Queen Victoria was on the throne as she had been since 1837. 

Most in the Empire had lived under no other monarch and more pertinent to our story, India was now considered the jewel in the British crown. Reflecting this, Queen Victoria assumed the title of Empress of India at the first Grand Durbar, popularly called the “Proclamation Durbar” on January 1, 1877. It was presided over on her behalf by the Viceroy and Governor General in India, Lord Lytton, who visited Lovedale later that year. 

But as they say, The Reaper comes for all, prince or pauper, and when the much lamented Queen passed away in 1901 she was succeeded by Edward VII who had been created Prince of Wales sixty years ago. He had been Heir Apparent for as long as most people could remember. His coronation was again celebrated with a Durbar in Delhi in 1903. 

Edward VII did not attend this in person but deputed his brother HRH Prince Arthur, The Duke of Connaught to represent him.  As our story unfolds, we shall see how His Royal Highness Prince Arthur became associated with the School, consenting in later years to become the Patron of the School.

The early years of the new century saw a considerable improvement in the ratio of girls to boys at The Lawrence Asylum, now in Lovedale. You will recall this Asylum had been established on September 6, 1858 in memory of Major General Sir Henry Lawrence, KCB. 

In 1904, a hundred girls were transferred from the Female Military Asylum in Madras just as earlier in 1871 the boys had been from the Male Military Asylum. The Girls then resided in what we now know as the Prep School. The “Red Fort “( as the current Girls School is called) was as yet unbuilt.

The Rev Padfield, was just 33 years old in 1908 when he moved to Lovedale. He held a MA from Cambridge. His nomination was duly confirmed by the Government of Madras in order No. 692 Educational, Dated 11^th  October 1907  and he assumed office on February 4, 1908. 

The year of Padfield’s joining saw the School being raised to a High School.  This is to be seen in the context of only 8 % of India’s population being literate even more than a decade later in 1921.The institution was divided for teaching purposes into three departments, namely the Boys School,  The Girls School and the Kindergarten. 

The first landmark of the Golden Jubilee of the Asylum was celebrated in 1908. Fifty years had flown past since the Lark Hill and Stonehouse days. Addressing the audience at the Golden Jubilee, an important milestone in the history of the school, the Rev Padfield said the Lawrence Asylum had 465 children on its rolls. He went on, “ In respect of climate, space for play-grounds, buildings, surroundings, and contiguity to the Railway, the Ootacamund Asylum can, without fear of challenge, claim to hold the first place amount all schools on the Indian Hills. 

During the half century that has elapsed since the foundation of this Asylum, the 2,149 boys and 458 girls who have passed through it, have, for by far the greater part, been housed, fed, clothed, and educated gratis and have, to a distinctly appreciable extent, been taught, by their residence in it, habits of obedience, discipline, and method. 

I venture to think that their appearance will amply testify that they have here a home such as I feel sure that Sir Henry Lawrence would have desired for them. Their proper upbringing is the constant and anxious care of those to whose charge they have been committed, and it is the steadfast aim of the staff of the Asylum to, in the present, as in the past, do their duty by them in all things, and in doing this to teach them one and all, to do theirs; not only now, but also after they have passed from within these walls into the battle of life.”

There are many iconic landmarks in Lovedale that date back to the Padfield era. The Flagstaff and the 67 Steps that lead up to the senior school from the Junior School number among them. They were built in 1910 the year Britain got a new King when in May 1910  King George V succeeded his father, King Edward VII. In the next year the new chapel - The Church of the Ascension- was built for the Church of England replacing the old one in the main school building ( our current Large Hall). 

The Rev Padfield stole a march over the redoubtable Rev Alfred H. Hildesley, Principal from 1884-1912 of the Lawrence Asylum, Sanawar the senior most of the Lawrence Schools by starting a magazine which he called most appropriately, “The Lawrencian” in 1911. “The Sanawarian” we know was first published in 1913. 

In April 1911, the newsletter was established, ‘for the purpose of chronicling the progress of the ….and thus keeping the ex-pupils in close contact with their Alma Mater. It would thereby, we trust, be the means of creating a strong bond of sympathy and fellowship among all those interested in the welfare of a very useful and honoured institution’ as stated in the Editorial of the inaugural issue. This was published quarterly with an annual subscription of Rs.1/- with Mr. F W Haughton as the Editor. 

The Rev Padfield with school staff in 1913. 

The period of tranquility would shortly be shattered with the First World War breaking out in 1914. 

During the First World War, Rev Padfield was the Hon Chaplain of the Nilgiri Rifle Volunteers, headquartered in Ootacamund with companies at Lovedale, Aravankadu, Coonoor, and Coimbatore. The Hon Colonel was Lord Pentland, then the Governor of Madras.  

We shall have more about Rev Padfield and his management of the School in the next blog post. 

EARLY YEARS AT THE LAWRENCE ASYLUM

 EARLY YEARS AT THE LAWRENCE ASYLUM 

September 6, 1858 was when The Lawrence Asylum was formally established in Ootacamund, in the picturesque Nilgiri Hills. 

Paul Porter, aged 12, son of Private Porter of the HAM Regiment was the very first pupil. He was admitted on October 1, 1858. The first girl was Isabella Wallace, the 11 year old daughter of Sergeant Major John Prince Wallace of the 2nd Light Cavalry, admitted in January 1860. 

 The Lawrence Asylum was initially located in a rented house called "Lark Hill" which had 12 boys and a Superintendent. In May 1859, the strength had grown to 40 boys and they moved to Stonehouse. As more girls joined, separate premises for the Female Asylum was taken at Lower Norwood, in June 1860.

 In the initial years, we surmise it was administered by the Secretary of the Committee, Mr E W Bird.  The first Principal was appointed in 1862: the Rev. T. Whitehouse, MA (Cantab). He was to be followed as Principal and Secretary of the school by many ordained priests of the Church of England all the way upto 1946.

As far as getting there was concerned, the road hadn't reached Ooty yet, and of course the railway was even further away. Horses were much in use. Horse-drawn and bullock carts ferried people and material. 

No one can tell the story of what it was to be a student of the Asylum better than someone who was actually there. A boy called George Andrew Webster was admitted on March 13, 1869 and left the Ootacamund Lawrence Asylum in 1880.

Webster wrote this article years later ( The Lawrencian, 1912) : “I venture to hope that readers of ‘The Lawrencian’ will find a good deal to interest them in this historical account of happening in school a decade after its foundation. I am descended from a family of soldiers. My father and mother married on equal terms, that is to say, he was a widower and she a widow, and each brought a son into the family. They had not a superabundance of this world’s goods, though there were expectations on both sides. I was born in the Nilgiris.” 

“….later in the day when a bullock coach drew up in the square it became apparent that we were on a journey bent-and so it proved- and that journey is one I shall never forget, because it landed my brother William and myself in the Lawrence Asylum at Stonehouse (Ootacamund). 

How was life for the inmates of this institution? 

Webster wrote 32 years after he left The Lawrence Asylum. "In those days we boys were called up at 05.30 a.m. and compelled willy-nilly to have a cold water bath every day, except Saturday when we bathed at 02:00 p.m. in the upper school boys’ cistern. I looked upon this as a terrible ordeal and no excuse was wanting to avoid it. I was either one of the detention class boys or had a cough or some thing like it, but the Sargeant- Major would have none of it. He generally ordered a big boy to hoist me on his shoulders and dip me, and when I was again above water I used to be gasping for breath. Fortunately, there was no society for preventing cruelty to children in those days.

The day following my admission I was ordered to attend the Quarter – Master’s Stores and, pursuant to order, I attended at 3.00 p.m., when that worthy official supplied me with two pairs of strap-buckle boots and a leather belt. He stamped a number on each of these articles and informed me that my number was 29. He then queried “What is your number?” and I answered “29,” whereupon he administered such a resounding box on my ear as to cause the organ to ring noon. To say I was surprised is putting it mildly. “Say 29, sir,” say he, and I replied “29, sir.” He then admonished me not to forget it. 

The nursery boys slept in a small room at the back of the aforesaid building, while the front rooms were used for dining and school purposes by upper and lower schools. The stores and upper school boys’ bed-rooms were located in a long, low building at the top of the hill and known as ‘Stonehouse’. 

The big boys were not without a sense of humour. One of them would ask, “I say, do you want to see London?” and you enquired “What good will it do?” he would say, “Oh! It’s a large place quite full of people and you would see the Queen of England and a lot of other things”. You would then signify your willingness to see this grand place, when that individual would place one hand of his under your chin and the other behind your head and lift you clean off the ground. You were then introduced to other boys as one who had seen London.

Life at Stonehouse was happy existence. We, boys, were allowed to ramble anywhere we pleased-only being expected to be present at meal time.”

Remember, "The Lawrencian" was first published in 1911, that is 110 years ago!