1 9 18
School House boarders, 2 June 1918
‘The smaller boys wear Norfolk suits and the others
mostly grey suits like mine…We have lockers in the
lobby in which to put our boots at night and they are
cleaned by the next morning.’
Remarkable photos from the
home front at Sevenoaks School
in the final year of WW1
1918 is remembered as the year in which the
Armistice was signed, after four years of rapacious
battle in the ‘war to end all wars’. Sevenoaks School
suffered the privations and personal tragedy of the
conflict, which left its 48 pupils and headmaster
George Heslop (known to the boys as ‘the Old Man’)
war-weary and despondent. Yet a recent find in the
school archives shows the indomitable spirit which
still existed, and which would ultimately ensure the
school’s revival in the following decade.
The 11 negatives left to the school reveal a series of
informal shots taken 100 years ago by a Fifth Former,
Francis Leslie Freeland, with his Kodak Brownie box
camera. The photos show his school friends and the
surroundings in which they lived, worked and played.
Contemporary correspondence home from two pupils
confirms that a routine of school life continued and
124
the boys found much to enjoy in the midsummer
sunshine, as yet unaware that the war would indeed,
as originally hoped, be over by Christmas.
In April 1918 George Heslop had written to Freeland’s
father: ‘My own belief as to this war is that the Central
Powers will not tackle another winter. I am more
afraid of our people bungling the peace than of their
failure in the fighting.’
Post-war, the process of rebuilding began when Heslop
was replaced as headmaster by Geoffrey Garrod in
1919. The Sennockian, which had ceased publication
during the conflict, was revived. In the first of the new
issues, in 1921, the editor looked forward to ‘a new
era’ while paying homage to a unique generation of
Old Sennockians:
‘Now that the dark days are past and a new era is
dawning, it behoves all those who have the true
interests of the school at heart – boys, parents, old
boys and masters – to work together loyally and
harmoniously for the good of the school, for the
realisation of those ideals of honour and esprit de
corps which were revealed in the Spirit of Sacrifice
shown by the Old Boys during the war.’
Sally Robbins
Above: Francis Leslie Freeland, Solefields, 23 May 1918
Freeland came to Sevenoaks in 1916, aged 11, and Heslop quickly recognised that he
had potential: ‘Leslie is most plucky…he bids fair to become a youngster to be proud of –
sturdy, brainy and straightforward, in want nothing more.’
Above right: School House (now Old School), with the Cottage Block in
the background and the Assembly Hall (now the Upper Swanzy Block) in the
foreground, 16 May 1918
‘On Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday we have breakfast at 8 and start school at 9.
We end morning school at 12 o/c and have dinner at 1 o/c. We finish dinner at 1.30 and
have till 2.15 to ourselves. We finish school at 4.15 and have tea at 5 o/c…we have from
after tea till 7.30 to ourselves when prep starts and goes on till 9. On Wednesdays and
Saturdays we are free from 12 till 7.30…but we must go out in the afternoons.
In the evenings we play billiards, chess and draughts or write letters. On Sunday we get
breakfast at 8.30…and have the rest of the time till 10.30 to ourselves when we get
ready for church. At 1 we have dinner and are then free till 5 o/c…in the evening we go
to church again.’
Right: George Betts and Harry White under the school bell, 27 May 1918
‘The next discovery is that on Sunday we are supposed to wear top hats in winter and
strawyards in the summer. I have got my school cap which is black with 7 acorns on a
shield on the front.’