St Cyprian's School - History

History

St Cyprian's was founded in 1899 by Lewis Vaughan Wilkes and his wife Cicely Comyn, a newly married couple in their twenties. It originally operated in a large house in Carlisle Road, but by 1906 had grown sufficiently to move into new purpose-built facilities with extensive playing fields behind Summerdown Road. The school ran with the prevailing ethos of Muscular Christianity which had typified private education since the time of Arnold of Rugby, and placed much emphasis on developing self-reliance and integrity (“Character”). In these and many other respects St Cyprian’s was little different from the other leading prep schools of the time. The school submitted itself annually to an independent academic assessment, conducted by Sir Charles Grant Robertson fellow of All Souls College, Oxford. The school uniform was a green shirt with a pale blue collar, corduroy breeches and a cap with a Maltese Cross for a badge.

The high success rate in achieving scholarships to leading public schools including Eton and Harrow attracted ambitious parents. However, the Wilkes appreciated that such scholarships were really intended for talented children from less well-off families, and provided places at significantly reduced fees for deserving cases, in the hope that they would attain these scholarships. Two further features distinguished St Cyprian's. The first was the proximity to South Downs, which was fully exploited to give opportunities to the boys for running wild, studying natural history, walking, picnics, riding and even golf on the adjacent links. The second was the overwhelming impact of Mrs Wilkes (known as "Mum"). She was in total control of the school and in the days before female emancipation this made a great impression on her charges. The resulting ambivalence was exacerbated by a fiery temper and by the way her mood flipped between firm discipline and generous indulgence. Mrs Wilkes was a great believer in history teaching and saw the Harrow History Prize as an opportunity to bring it into the classics-dominated curriculum. Mrs Wilkes also taught English, and stimulated generations of writers with her emphasis on clear, high quality writing. In addition to Mrs Wilkes, a major influence was the second master R. L. Sillar, who joined the school staff soon after it opened and stayed for 30 years. With his interest in natural history, his crack skill at shooting, his art teaching and his magic lantern shows he broadened the curriculum considerably and is revered in Old Boy's accounts.

In its fortieth year, the school building was gutted by fire on 14 May 1939, and a housemaid died in a fall from an upper window. Emergency accommodation was arranged at Ascham St. Vincent's School, the buildings of a preparatory school in Eastbourne which had recently closed. On 20 July 1939, St Cyprian’s moved to Whispers, near Midhurst in West Sussex. It stayed there for 18 months until the building was requisitioned by the army during World War II. As a result of this double blow, numbers dwindled and after a brief combination with Rosehill School in Gloucestershire the remaining boys went with the then-headmaster, W. J. V. Tomlinson (Bill), to join the old rival Summer Fields School, in Oxford. The school playing fields were sold to Eastbourne College.

In April 1997, Eastbourne Civic Society (now The Eastbourne Society), in conjunction with the County Borough of Eastbourne, erected a blue plaque at the house in Summerdown Road which was connected with the school and Mrs Wilkes' residence in later years.