This week we are opening our exhibition commemorating the centenary of the end of the Great War. Here are some photographs of the panels in situ in the art exhibition area.
To whet your appetite here is the text from the first panel, giving an overview of life at the School during the war. We’ll be sharing more from the exhibition and some of the documents and images included over the coming weeks.
“The Great War has cast a long shadow over the history of many institutions in the UK, and MGS is no exception. The centenary of the end of WWI in 2018 gives us an opportunity to look back and remember. This exhibition aims to shed light on the impact the war had on the School, both at the time and in later years.
MGS hit the headlines in the summer of 1914, when a scout troop trekking across France was left in danger of being stranded at the outbreak of war. Despite parental anxieties, the boys escaped across the channel in time for the new term, stopping to camp in the New Forest on the way home. That autumn, the School began to be used after hours by the Evening School of Commerce whose buildings had been requisitioned for use as a military hospital. Ulula wrote “Co-education at the Grammar School has become a fact”. The School had just purchased wireless receiving equipment in July 1914, and ever enterprising, “the boys…are expert at interpreting the dots and dashes of the Morse code. The Eiffel Tower and Norddeich signals are easily picked up, and occasionally a Press message can be tapped.” Understandably, the October edition of Ulula reported that the equipment had been dismantled by order of the War Office.
As Old Boys began to sign up, the School’s pride was apparent and Ulula initiated a Roll of Honour to list the new recruits. A recruiting station for the newly formed Public School Battalion was set up at the School, with the High Master and the MGS Officer Training Corps acting as recruiting officers. The war proved to be a fertile ground for discussion amongst the boys at various debating and literary societies. Ulula reported that during a Literary Society meeting: “An absorbing discussion followed on patriotic poetry and the nature and value of patriotism, at which conservative members received severe shocks by reason of the advanced views propounded.” The School awarded a number of foundation scholarships to refugees from Belgium and Serbia and the Christmas concert in 1914 included renditions of the British, French, Belgian and Russian national anthems. Early in 1915, Ulula reported the return of two Old Boys from the trenches to the School to give a talk to the boys about their experiences. At this early stage of the war, there had been few reports of Old Mancunian deaths and the talk apparently “Stirred the hearts of their hearers to martial ardour”. In July 1915, the boys unanimously decided to donate money that would have been used to purchase prizes to the Red Cross. However, the school doctor noted increased restlessness amongst some boys, including an upswing in truancy. High Master Paton was keen to harness the boys’ youthful energy and set about organising opportunities for pupils to undertake various forms of war service. Agricultural work was carried out in the summer holidays and Christmas work at the Post Office. Work on the trams in Salford, on allotments and at Newton Heath railway depot were all commenced. Paton himself could be found leaving his desk at the end of the school day to join the boys at the railway depot.
Perhaps the activity of service helped to distract from the difficulties that wartime brought. This period posed a number of different challenges to High Master Paton and his staff. There was the challenge of feeding active adolescent boys in a time of food shortages. One of the most immediate issues was the calling up of eligible teaching staff to serve in the armed forces, and this pressure increased once conscription was introduced in 1916. Over the course of the war, fifty two members of staff were called up – the total number of teaching staff in 1914 only numbered around fifty – so we can imagine the difficulty this would have caused. Paton recruited a number of women to fill the gaps, and in a remarkably liberal move, retained two married women on the staff after the war had ended. Over the course of the war, eight teachers were killed in action.
News came in daily of the deaths of Old Boys; the first news of Old Mancunians killed in action came in June 1915, with seven men listed. By July, the editors of Ulula decided to set up a separate section in the magazine for “The War”. As the months and years went by, the casualty and fatality lists grew ever longer. Ultimately over five hundred Old Mancunians were killed. The war took its toll on Paton, and the influenza pandemic that hit the UK in the summer of 1918 seems to have been the final straw. He wrote in June of that year “There are times, what with the to and fro of staff, and the daily devourings of influenza, I feel as if we should have to shut up the shop altogether. It would save a lot of trouble, wouldn’t it?”
However, despite many difficulties, Paton helped MGS to survive and even thrive through the war years, partly by channelling the School’s energies into civilian war work. Alfred Mumford noted that academic standards actually improved over the course of the war and attributed this to “an increased seriousness amongst the more intellectual boys”. A lasting memorial to the fallen was planned as soon as the war ended, with a dedicated fund to create the statue and stained glass window that can be found in the Memorial Hall. Plans for the buildings in Rusholme were started in the 1920s, and the School hall was always planned as the “Memorial Hall”, so that the sacrifice of so many Old Mancunians would never be forgotten.”
Rachel Kneale
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