Old Selbornian Club East London South Africa

Message for Old Boys from Mr Trevor Webster:

Dear Old Boys

A History of the Selborne Schools

Thank you very much for your many positive responses to my request for contributions to the forthcoming AHistory of the Selborne Schools. They will make the final product a truly combined effort.  I welcome any further contributions, especially those describing Remarkable Families. 

I hope that this publication, to be published in 2014, will add pride to both Old Boys and current boys, and that it will have both popular appeal in the Club and be of interest to academics.  Perhaps matric re-union groups will make it an item in their ‘goodie bag’.

Some snippets so far to whet your appetite:

Founding: The founding Headmaster 140 years ago, Pastor Muller, explained his purpose, ‘The best means of training is still the pure word of God. He who withholds this from the children withholds from them the best and most versatile school book. In the Word of God we have a fount from which we can derive a medley of disciplining, of admonishing, of educating, and of true spiritual culture.’  It is in this broad spirit that all the Headmasters, including the present one, Sam Gunn, have continued the tradition.  The founding Headmaster of the Primary 90 years ago, Col.Edwin Smedley-Williams, a Colonel in the Kaffrarian Rifles, said, ‘I am about to start a new school, one with a difference. In my school music will be a very important subject and art will be taught for the sake of art. Our boys will learn to love the finer things of life’.  Again, this tradition has characterised the school under the leadership of its Headmasters, including the current Headmaster, Doug Voke, the only Old Boy to reach that position.

Academics: Gustav Muller, the Headmaster’s son, came 1^st in the Cape Colony in 1883 and eight girls have their names on our Honours Board as Dux students; that was before the Girls’ school had a matric section, one of them – Fanny Fielding, started Cambridge while still at school in 1879 and another, Gertruida Munnscheid, came 2^nd in the Cape Colony in 1906 to a 12 year old prodigy – Jan Hofmeyer of SACs.

Buildings: The first building was in Grace Chapel in Fleet Street close to the vlei where the city hall now stands; the present buildings were built in 1922 (90 years old this year) in Renaissance style with two sides duplicated as it was planned to be a co-ed school.

Sport: Mark Andrews was rated by Sports Illustrated in 2001 as one of the 10 best Boks of all time; Bill Godfrey rowed across the Atlantic – 5 000 km to win the Transatlantic race; four surf-lifesaving Springboks were selected to the national side while still at school: Terry Prince 1956, Norman Hardwich 1966, John Skinner 1971, Peter Williams 1973; Daniel Isherwood gained Springbok Diving Colours at school in 1986 and won every SA event from a 10 year old winning SA u14 Diving; Mark Boucher has broken many records as Protea Wicketkeeper including taking 1 000 dismissals.

Sportsmanship: In 1958 Selborne beat Grey College 10-3 after which Grey carried the Selborne players off the field; likewise when Grens beat Selborne in 1967, the Selborne players carried the Grens players off the field.

Humour:  Fred Ericsen Miller in 1962 moved from 7^th to 1^st Rugby teams in a season without his mother’s permission to play rugby and one day in looking for her son she discovered him at the bottom of a loose scrum so she ran onto the field shouting, ‘My son, my son’!; in 1936 the leaders of the hostel food strike walked downtown to the School Board to complain but they were turned away, and on returning to school were given hidings by the Headmaster.

Old Boys: Dux Phil Weber became Editor of Die Burger, voice of the National Party, and Chairman of Nasionale Pers, and was regarded by the Sunday Times in 1963 as one of the ten most influential men in South Africa; Owen Williams left school in std 7 in 1948 to become a Springbok tennis player and a world tennis tournament organizer; the OSA celebrates 100 years of existence this year although its records start in 1914, perhaps because that was when the magazine was started.

Remarkable Selborne Families: The Pouroullis family had six brothers who spanned five generations or 33 years at Selborne – 1969-2002; the German settler Muller family, 1858, was so poor that their son was sent out to become a sheep herder at 14 but he ensured that the next generation, Mervyn, gained a Selborne education and so became professional; Eddie Bartel in his matric year, 1921, won every honour that could be won: the Popularity Cup he held for two years, the Halse Cup as Captain of Crewe House for two years, the Victor Ludorum, captain of 1^st Rugby and Cricket, the highest post in the Cadet Corps and he gained a 1^st class pass;  in 1986 Derek Page was the first son of a Custodian, Brian Page, to become a Custodian and on that Founders’ Day three generations of the same family laid wreaths: his grandfather, Rupert Howard, as President of the Club; his father as President of the OSA and he as Custodian.

These are just some snippets of our History, if you have a contribution to make I’d welcome it.

Thank you.

Trevor Webster

trevann@procomp.co.za

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