Article in 'The Friend' 25 October 2002 by Maureen Evans, Saffron Walden Museum
Children of the Light
Head Andy Waters and Junior School head Andrew Holmes lead over 400 pupils and staff through Saffron Walden in a pageant to mark the tercentenary
Maureen Evans – Saffron Walden museum
In September sunshine Friends’ School, Saffron Walden, recently celebrated 300 years of its own history, and 350 years of Quakerism. Exhibitions and entertainments were enjoyed by past and present staff and scholars, with a reunion for hundreds of Friends and friends from near and far.
Highlights included a play by Saffron Walden writer John Dickinson, Children of the Light, performed by pupils, Old Scholars and members of Thaxted Monthly Meeting, exploring the School’s past, present and future. To mark the 2002 anniversary an analemmatic sundial has been installed in the school grounds, so that children can ‘stand in the Light’ and use their own shadows to tell the time.
The whole school, dressed in Quaker costume and bearing banners, processed from Friends’ School through the town, pausing at the Meeting house and arriving in the grounds of Saffron Walden museum for more music and drama. The museum’s exhibition, Friends’ School and Quaker Walden, traces the origins of the Society from the days of George Fox, as well as the School’s own history and the Quaker contribution to Saffron Walden.
The early school
Friends’ School had its origins in John Bellars’ ideas for self-supporting colonies of poor people. In 1685 he published his proposals for raising a ‘Colledge [sic] of Industry of all useful trades and husbandry, with profit for the rich, A plentiful living for the poor, and a good education for youth’, with the motto Industry brings plenty.
In 1702 the Clerkenwell Society of Friends founded a refuge and school for boys and girls and ‘ancient Friends’ in a former workhouse. Schoolwork mingled with household duties as pupils prepared for life as apprentices or servants. The children moved to Islington Road in 1786, where there was greater emphasis on education. The school moved again in 1825 to Croydon in Surrey, where the curriculum expanded to include nature study, elementary physics and chemistry, and a little French and Latin. Students had a library of 1000 books, but novels, drama and singing secular songs were all banned.
Outbreaks of typhoid in Croydon prompted a search for a healthier site, and 58 boys and 32 girls moved to Saffron Walden in 1879. The ‘school on the hill’, designed by Quaker architect Edward Burgess, was built on land donated by George Stacey Gibson, who also financed the expansion of Saffron Walden Meeting house to welcome the newcomers. The School today still espouses the values of the Quaker faith and looks forward to the next 300 years with confidence and excitement.
There have been Quakers in and around Saffron Walden from the beginnings of the movement. The earliest records are of Sufferings, with Friends imprisoned and put in the stocks in 1656 and 1658. There has been a Meeting house on the present Kookinstoole End (High Street) since 1676, but when the magistrates paid 4d (four pence) to nail up the door, the Friends met in the street.
 |
Inaugrating the School's analemmatic sundial |
Community leaders
No longer persecuted, by the 19 th century Saffron Walden Friends has become respected members of the community, campaigners for social reform, successful in trade and industry, and active both in academic pursuits and in public life. The Gibsons were the most prominent Quaker Walden family. Their fortunes were founded on malting, brewing and banking. In 1863 their Gibson, Tuke & Gibson bank merged with others to become Barclays.
It was said of the Gibsons that ‘their business instincts compelled them to make money, and their faith compelled them to give it away’.
As a good Quaker, Wyatt George Gibson could not subscribe to a new spire for the parish church, but he contributed handsomely to pulling the old one down. George Stacey Gibson married Elizabeth Tuke from York, and became the town’s first Quaker mayor. He was also a noted botanist and author of the first Flora of Essex. He served for several years as clerk to the Yearly Meeting. On the day of his funeral every shop in Saffron Walden was closed and every blind drawn.
Evidence of Gibson wealth and generosity is still very apparent in Saffron Walden today, in fine homes and public buildings. These include the town hall and drinking fountain in the market place; the Friends’ School and former boys’, girls’ and grammar schools; the teacher training college; the general hospital (now council offices); the town library and the Saffron Walden museum, opened in 1835, where the exhibitions Friends’ School & Quaker Walden continues until 3 November 2002.
Award-winning museum open daily: Monday – Saturday 10-5, Sundays 2-3. Admission: adults £1; discounts 50p; children free. Good disabled access; phone 01799 510333 for further details.