Bernard Orchard - St Benedict's School

St Benedict's School

After 13 years at Downside its then-Abbot, Sigebert Trafford, instructed Orchard to take on the headship of Ealing Priory School. The school, which had been established in 1902 as a dependency of Downside, was by 1945 in a state in which closure rather than growth seemed the more likely prospect. Orchard, however, threw himself into the task of revitalising the school, which he renamed St Benedict's School, and by 1947 succeeded in achieving recognition by the Ministry of Education as efficient (thus enabling it to participate in the teachers’ pension scheme).

In 1951 Orchard was admitted to the Headmasters' Conference, giving St Benedict's the status of a public school, the only Catholic day school to achieve this position. By 1959, Abbot Rupert Hall of the by-then independendent Ealing Abbey, was concerned that Orchard's ambitions for the school exceeded the financial capability of the monastic community, and requested that Orchard resign his position as headmaster in 1960. The death of his successor after just one term and the resignation of his successor after five years resulted in Orchard being called upon to resume the headship of the school in 1965, a position he held until a further dispute over his ambitions for expansion led to his resignation a second time in 1969.