The Houses
The House system is a feature common to Public schools. The House systems have great advantages of breaking a large community into smaller, more personal units, and thereby building a sense of loyalty and competition.
The formation of Houses in Bishop Cotton may have occurred during 1910 since the Cotton Mill, 1910 makes a mention of "Puchi teams! Puchi marks!" . Pu-chi means insects. There were 125 students in school then and six teams were formed. The Pu-chi teams were named - Jerrimangalams, Bloodsuckers, Scorpions, White Ants and Cobras. Each team was led by a captain, and boys were grouped as 'big', 'medium sized' and 'little'. The Pu-chi teams were in place till 1933.
New houses were formed by combining -
- The Scorpions and Cobras as Pettigrew House
- The White Ants and Jerrimangalams as Pope House
- The Bloodsuckers and Mosquito as Pakenham-Walsh House
These names were assumed after the three pioneers of the school. Each team had a Head and a Captain of Games. In 1956, a fourth House was added which was named after Canon Elphick who was Warden from 1930 - 1955. Many boys volunteered to join the new House and all new admissions to the school automatically were added to this House. In 1996, a fifth House - Thomas House was formed.
- Pettigrew House The house is named after Rev. S. T. Pettigrew, Chaplain of St. Mark's Cathedral and founder of the school.
- Pope House The house is named after Rev. George Uglow Pope, the first warden of the School, 1871 - 1882. He came to the School from The Nilgiris and is remembered beyond the bounds of the School as a great scholar in Tamil. Rev. Pope gave the School its motto, "Nec Dextrorsum Nec Sinistrorsum".
- Pakenham-Walsh House The house was named after the Rt. Rev. Herbert Pakenham-Walsh in 1933. The Rev. Pakenham-Walsh left the wardenship of the School in 1913 and became the first Bishop of Assam in 1915.
- Elphick House Elphick House was formed in 1956 and was named after Canon Elphick, Warden from 1930 - 1955. Canon Elphick came to the School from Oxford Brotherhood in Calcutta, India.
- Thomas House This house was formed in memory of the late Rev. Iowerth Lowell Thomas who was the Warden from 1956 to 1970.
Read more about this topic: Bishop Cotton Boys' School
Famous quotes containing the word houses:
“To me heaven would be a big bull ring with me holding two barrera seats and a trout stream outside that no one else was allowed to fish in and two lovely houses in the town; one where I would have my wife and children and be monogamous and love them truly and well and the other where I would have my nine beautiful mistresses on nine different floors.”
—Ernest Hemingway (1899–1961)
“There is a distinction to be drawn between true collectors and accumulators. Collectors are discriminating; accumulators act at random. The Collyer brothers, who died among the tons of newspapers and trash with which they filled every cubic foot of their house so that they could scarcely move, were a classic example of accumulators, but there are many of us whose houses are filled with all manner of things that we “can’t bear to throw away.””
—Russell Lynes (1910–1991)