| Description | Summary
Administrative records
Partnership deeds, 1921-1939; entry books and lists of prospective pupils, 1883-1957; address books for pupils, staff and Old Boys, 1904-c.1970; school diaries and school lists, 1884-1997; school prospectuses, c.1909-1997; school syllabuses and schemes of work, 1931-1962; register of chapel music, 1956-1970; orders of service and service sheets for chapel, 1912-1997; school magazines, 1909-2020.
Miscellaneous papers
Papers collected to represent Lambrook School life during particular eras, including scrapbook and press cuttings relating to former pupils and of local and national events, 1870-1886; reminiscences of Lambrook in 1900 and from 1950-1955 with comments on staff and school life; papers regarding the admission of a new pupil, and bills for school uniform and school fees, 1952-1960; examination papers, 1898-1919, pupils' school reports, 1935-1936 and 1961-1964; information on inter-school sports matches (matches played between 1909 and 1976), cricket fixture cards and accounts of a cricket match at the school, 1906-1912; script of play, Vice Versa, performed 1926; pupils' reading lists (1970s) and project book, 1969; booklet on W O Bentley published to celebrate the centenary of his birth and information relating to his time as a pupil at Lambrook (from 1899 to 1901); information sheets for new pupils and their parents, (1990s); Old Boys' Newsletters, 1993-1996; notes on the history of Lambrook Chapel; papers relating to the activities of Lambrook Scout and Pioneer Troops, 1950s-1960s; architectural plans for alterations to basement floor of Lambrook, 1973; papers relating to school fund-raising events, 1971-1984; various photographs and sketches of the school and its grounds and of staff (20C).
Miscellaneous Photographs
Photographs of school buildings and school activities, c.1920s-c.1993; group photographs of whole school, 1899-1995; school choir, 1920s-1990s; cricket team, 1905-1990s; rugby XV, 1940s-1990s; soccer XI, 1908-1990s; cast of Christmas play, 1910. |
| Admin History | There has been a school at Lambrook since 1860, when Robert J. Burnside acquired the property (built in 1853 as the residence of one William Budd, esquire) and set up a preparatory school for boys there. Burnside, who had tutored boys at his home in Blackheath, London, wished to open a school in a location which might attract pupils from the Royal Court at Windsor (two of Queen Victoria's grandsons attended the school in the 1870s). He remained Headmaster there until 1883. Whilst no records survive relating to the administration of the school during his headship, he compiled a scrapbook, covering the years 1870 to 1886, which illustrates the social connections and life of the school at that time.
His successor, Edward Dillon Mansfield, previously head of the Preparatory Department of Clifton College, took over the Lambrook school in 1883. Committed to education, Mansfield served three times as chairman of the Association of Headmasters in Preparatory Schools, was instrumental in introducing the Common Entrance Examination, and remained active in education in Berkshire even after his retirement in 1904. He served on Berkshire Education Committee and on the Council of Reading University. His record keeping is represented by the school entry books, first created at the start of his term of leadership in 1883 and school lists (later school diaries) from 1884.
Mansfield's successor in 1904, The Revd Francis Deshon Browne, remained in charge of Lambrook until 1930, steering the school through the difficult period encompassing World War I. Browne introduced many practices which remained long after his departure. It was during his headship that the Lambrook Chronicle, Lambrook's annual school magazine, was begun (this continued until the school merged with Haileybury). He was also largely responsible for creating the Christian ethos of the school, and organised the building of the school chapel, completed in 1905. The chapel was regularly used for daily prayers and Sunday worship by staff and pupils, and also used occasionally for christenings, confirmations, marriages and memorial services. It was extended in 1959 and is still in use.
Browne appointed two former pupils as teachers, Guy Cameron in 1919 and Archie Forbes in 1920. They were to become partners in the school and served as headmasters, Cameron from 1930 to 1939, succeeded by Forbes, who ran the school until 1951. The school syllabus was begun during this period.
In 1951 a partnership of three serving teachers was formed to run Lambrook. However, this arrangement was not to last long, and Forbes bought back the school and resumed his former role as headmaster in 1952. He continued until 1956, succeeded by the Revd Philip Brownless, who had married Forbes' daughter Isla in 1948.
Brownless did much to secure the financial stability of the school, still run as a private institution. He steered the school towards the status of a charitable trust, achieved in 1967, and made many improvements to the school buildings. He left Lambrook in 1971 to return to the church, succeeded as headmaster by Thomas Vernon Clough, who continued the improvements to the fabric of the school and introduced, amongst other changes, a brighter-looking Lambrook Chronicle. His ideas for modernising the school were continued and built upon by a succession of headmasters who successfully guided the school through the difficult times of the 1980s and 1990s, when many public schools were less fortunate and some did not survive. But Lambrook changed with the times, first admitting girls and day pupils during this period. It merged with Haileybury Junior School, Windsor, in September 1997, to form Lambrook Haileybury School, and is still running as such, on the site which Lambrook School occupied.
The records deposited here represent the archive of a successful and well-regarded independent preparatory school. They show the administration of the school and the teaching syllabus which it followed. The concern for, and network of communication with, previous pupils of the school, is represented particularly in the Lambrook Chronicle.
The collection comprises records created and collected by staff, pupils and Old Boys of Lambrook School, covering dates from 1870, during the headship of Robert Burnside, to the merger of Lambrook and Haileybury Schools to form Lambrook Haileybury School, in 1997. They include those created in the process of the administration of Lambrook School and miscellaneous papers and photographs of the school and its various activities, including activities of the Scout (and later Wolf Cub) Troop, photographs of the whole school, and of sports teams and the school choir. Much of this miscellaneous material was collected by or donated to Isla Brownless, wife of a former headmaster at the School.
On the merger with Haileybury School, it was decided that these documents should be deposited at Berkshire Record Office.
[Source: Brownless, Isla: The Lambrook Legacy 1860*1997 A History of Lambrook School from starched collars to sweatshirts (Aldwick, Evergreen Graphics, 1997), copy in BRO library.] |