N o .123
M ay 2017
More than a Gate:
the Legacy of George Ridding
150 years ago, George Ridding succeeded
George Moberly as Headmaster. Why
remember Ridding? The Editor, Tim
Giddings, asked Archivist Suzanne Foster,
and at the same time wondered what might
be prised out of our new Headmaster,
known for his interest in the 19 th century.
TEG:
SF:
What’s the basic biographical
detail, Suzanne?
Born 1828, the son of a Fellow.
Elected Scholar of Winchester
1840. Read Classics and
Mathematics at Balliol. Fellow
of Exeter College for 10 years.
Returned to Winchester as Second
Master in 1863 and became
Headmaster in 1867. Subsequently
Bishop of Southwell. Died 1904.
TRH:
TEG:
SF:
He was extremely generous to
the School, but also astonishingly
ambitious in reorganising it, I
believe?
Indeed –to such an extent that the
Warden of New College dubbed
him as the Second Founder. He
arranged for four new boarding
houses (D, E, G and H). By the
time they were finished in 1869, a
further two houses (F and I) were
in preparation. He installed the
library over the main archway,
thus vacating Chantry, which
he restored as a chapel. He built
Perhaps we should add that
he married the Headmaster’s
daughter, Mary Louisa Moberly
– who was probably born on
the lying-in couch you’re both
now occupying. Alas, she died
in childbirth after only a year of
marriage, and Ridding married
again in 1876, to Laura, Lady
Palmer, a distinguished and
intelligent woman of noble birth
and considerable private means.
1
new fives and rackets courts, a
gymnasium and Gunner’s Hole.
He bought the water meadows
south of Meads and drained and
levelled them to create New Field.
He restructured Chapel, and turfed
the Fellows out of the upstairs
rooms in College, which then
became bedrooms for the scholars.
TEG: Extraordinary. This is the place
that The Wykehamist in 1908 called
‘probably the most conservative
institution in the world’. So how
did Ridding manage such changes?
TRH: I’d say by an extraordinary
mix of reactionary nature and
revolutionary nurture. He had
the same crucial qualification that
Budge Firth thought fundamental
for Moberly: ‘He could hardly
have succeeded at all, had he not
himself been a Wykehamist. There
are always limits to what
Winchester will take from a non-
Wykehamist.’ Ridding’s father
had been Second Master and the
Warden was his godfather. He had
even been born in College. But
the lucky thing for us is that for
one crucial moment he fell off the
conventional conveyor belt, and
into Lady Fortune’s good lap. He
failed to get into New College and
so ended up at Balliol. The great