Recent Events

TALKS. The Archivist regularly visits local groups to talk about the College.

Lectures available are ‘The history of Radley College’, ‘Creating a 100-objects project’, ‘Rediscovering a landscape by Capability Brown’ and ‘War Memorials: public schools and the idea of commemoration’. Other topics can be arranged. If your group would like to hear any of these talks, please contact Clare Sargent, cds@radley.org.uk

Reformation 500. The College German Society spent an evening exploring the Reformation via our 7th German Bible, Anton Sorg, 1477, and the Nuremburg Chronicle

God speaks to Zachariah

A lesson. Art Historians and Theologians met in the Library for a fascinating presentation and a rare opportunity to get close to the school’s early sixteenth century Flemish manuscript on vellum. The music manuscript, which retains its original binding with heavy bosses and incised decoration, is designed for use by a choir singing a service.

The manuscript has been fully digitised and can be viewed at on the Archives website

The Archivist of Radley College spent an afternoon at a local Primary School to talk about education in the Victorian period. This was part of a term-long project on the Victorians that the children are studying. She took along the carved desk lid, a prefect’s banner, a letter and photo of Gerald Talbot, and the prefect’s fives bat.

Atkinson, E: The Radley College Beagles: a history 1941-2016

JUST PUBLISHED – Edwin Atkinson: The Radley College Beagles: a history, 1941-2016. This book was written to celebrate the 75th anniversary of RC Beagles. The story covers the Masters and hunt officials, the Kennel huntsmen, and traces the heredity of the hounds back to the pack’s foundation.

Much material has been gathered for the school archives for this project, most notably the Hunting Diary of Nat Sherwood (B Social, 1937). Nat started the diary in 1937 when he first arrived at the school. It includes some of the earliest runs by RC Beagles in 1942. The fragile diary has been digitised for us by Archie Clifton-Brown, current Master of the Beagles, so that he and the other Beaglers can read it more easily.

Radley Soccer XI won the LB Cup for the second time in the Club’s history, beating Habersdashers’ in the final on penalties in March 2016. They successfully defended the title against Oakham on 24 March 2017, and won for the second year in a row. ‘How Radley College won the LB Cup‘ in 2011 featured as one of the stories in our ‘100 Radley objects‘ series. We are very pleased to bring that history right up to date.

Review and video of the match on the school website.

William Wood, DD, Sub-Warden 1855-66 & Warden 1866-70 of Radley College

NOW PUBLISHED

We are very pleased to announce the publication of the diary of Rev. William Wood, DD. The diary covers the years 1855-1861, a period in which Wood served as Sub-Warden to the notoriously volatile and erratic Founder of Radley, William Sewell:…a long and anxious yet happy time of struggle at Radley, where we tried to check Sewell’s eccentricities and carry out for the best his original and excellent ideas of what a school should be; while he (alas!) … was plunging deeper and deeper into financial difficulties…

The diary has been edited for us by Old Radleian Mark Spurrell and is published by subscription by the Oxfordshire Record Society

A few excerpts are presented here as an occasional blog

2016. Celebrating the Tercentenary of Capability Brown. Sir William Stonhouse hired Capability Brown to remodel the grounds and park at Radley Hall in 1770-3. The work is listed in Brown’s Day Books but was not so grand a scheme as to merit extensive records or plans. Today just a few features remain visible. An exhibition has been extended to the end of Michaelmas Term 2016 and will be on show at various times during 2017. The story is No. 16 in 100 Radley Objects: Receipt for £672. 1770

Archives, charity, crisps, crunch together in the sound of a Radley summer’s day. Special edition packs of Tyrrell’s crisp were on sale at Radley’s Gaudy. All proceeds went to East Anglia’s Children’s Hospices (EACH), with the production costs having been donated by Tyrell’s. This was the work of Charlie Milner, a 6th-former, who raised over £15,000 for EACH. The packs feature the 1934 Cricket XI.

The town of Bully-des-Mines in France invited us to participate in their Centenary Commemorations for WW1. The town is the site of the Commonwealth War Graves Commission Cemetery of Bully-Grenay and honoured the men buried there with a major exhibition from 22-29 April 2016.

Among the fallen featured in the exhibition was Lt Ernest Wood, kia 20 July 1918, aged 21.