School Histories and Eton Fives
Extracts from the series "Histories of Schools" published by James and James and reported by Peter Knowles in the 1993 EFA Annual Report.
The series of books published by James and James under the general title "Histories of Schools"
throw up some interesting points about the game of Fives.
This on-going series now comprises eleven
volumes and, curiously, six of these are histories of Eton Fives playing schools.
Westminster
The first volume, published in 1987, was "The King's Nurseries - the Story of Westminster School" by J. Field. In this we learn that an old man called Baldwin appeared daily in Little Dean's Yard to sell racquets and balls to boys playing on the open-air courts in corners of the yard. Later on we are told that flames were fanned by the airing of plans to demolish Ashburnham and to build a library, or Fives courts, or private baths, or a chapel on the site. This is the sole reference to the game in this history and those planned courts were not built anyway!
Shrewsbury
There are many mentions of the game in "A School at Shrewsbury - the Four Foundation" by C. Leach, published in 1990. Among these comment on games in Butler's time as headmaster - "football was fit only for butcher boys, boating was rewarded with flogging, even cross-country running was strongly disapproved of. Two Fives courts can have provided only minimal alleviation." Apparantly one John Coker Egerton in his diaries of 1884-88 listed Fives, dowling (50 a side!) and Latin and Greek verse composition among his interests. The modernising of the Fives courts is mentioned and we find that the original building of them was paid for by subscriptions raised by Old Salopians with no help from the Governing Body.
In these days of league tables the author is not adverse to a little publicity, describing "Shrewsbury's record in inter-school matches - which are what count - is well above average, notably in soccer, Fives and cross-country running and almost certainly in rowing as well." He also points out that generous provision for Eton Fives has produced one really distinguished pair who won the Kinnaird Cup in three successive years in the 1950s.
Games playing headmasters feature strongly, Peterson's speciality being Eton Fives and Wolfenden's hockey. In some schools it is often rumoured that headmasters cannot find their way to the Fives courts but this could not be held against Wolfenden of whom it is written "his mornings work completed by one o'clock, wearing his mortar board as ever, would walk home to Kingsland House taking a quarter of an hour to do so, walking around the Fives courts in winter, spending time at the cricket nets in summer, talking to perhaps twenty boys en route, seeing and being seen."
Finally my favourite from this history concerns Fives balls, which were apparently at one time "so hard to come by that the captain of fives was reduced to advertising for them in the Salopian; one had to play with objects in the last state of decrepitude, stuck together with sellotape!"
Charterhouse
Also published in 1990 was "Charterhouse - a History of the School" by A. Quick. Here we are told that in the 1880's a contemporary had no recollection of any master taking any part in team games, though masters did play racquets, Fives and tennis. When the school moved to Godalming, we read that tennis and squash courts were built and Fives courts of the Eton variety, with its buttress, pepper-box and ledges a rather more subtle game than the Rugby variety. This history is one of two that contain photographs of Fives courts. The caption says "Boys play Eton Fives. The ledges and the buttress are said to represent the place on Eton chapel wall where the game was first played. The boy on the left is playing the ball in the pepper-box."
Charterhouse also had its athletic headmasters with Sir Brian Young described as a good athlete, having won half blues at Cambridge for both hurdling and Fives. "He often played football and Fives in Brooke Hall's regular weekly matches with the boys with rigour and determination."King Edward's Birmingham
"No place for Fop or Idler - the Story of King Edward's School, Birmingham" by A. Trott was published in 1992. I remember the author from my days at KES - he taught English and was universally known as Piggy. This history mentions that in addition to the time-hallowed cricket, rugger, Fives, athletics and swimming, hockey was introduced and with the building of a games hall in 1971 squash. There is no other reference to the game but there is a photograph titled "Action in the Fives courts before they were roofed over."
Highgate
The most recent volume in the series, published this year, is "Highgate School - A History" by T Hinde, which has many references to the game, including the following passage. "The playground included the ruins of the old chapel, one part of which was used as a Fives court, while the other was overgrown with very thick ivy, which I do not remember to have ever seen finer. By its means we were enabled to climb to a greater height all over the wall after the Fives balls which got lodged in its branches. The school probably owes its pre-eminence at Fives to the chapel ruin. Interestingly the Eton form of the game which it adopted had also developed against Eton's chapel walls. In the 1830s Fives seems to have been Highgate's most formal game, though hockey of a sort was played in the playground."
In 1893 we read that the Old Cholmeleian Club set up an Entertainments Committee to arrange dinners, as well as cricket, football and Fives sections. In 1895 a building plan stated that part of the suggested site was now occupied by Fives courts, two temporary classrooms and two cottages - in this case the building went ahead! One headmaster, Allcock, is described as a fanatical games player, who listed his recreations in Who's Who as cricket, Fives, and golf, and not a man to demote athleticism, indeed he improved the school's games facilities, building the six Fives courts which survive to-day beside the senior field." Of his successor Johnston we read that on the junior field he had built a new group of Fives courts, so enabling Highgate to remain the country's leading Eton Fives school, with more courts than Eton itself. In 1929 the same head reported to his Governors "The Fives Six has again gone through the season without losing a match and achieved the astonishing result of beating Cambridge University.....represented by an exceptionally strong pair of Old Harrovians, who..... subsequently declared that the school's first pair was the finest pair of schoolboys they had ever played."
There are two photographs in the history connected with Fives - one is titled " A.H.Fabian and L. Aguirre - the greatest pair of a great Fives tradition." The other is a reproduction of a page from "Throne and Country, 12 February 1910" entitled "Young England at Work and Play" in which figure 1 is the Fives courts. Finally there is a passage on the career of A.H.Fabian which says that returning to the school in 1932, he was for twenty-five years responsible for its many successes at cricket and soccer and its outstanding Fives results....After 1947 Highgate and Eton were regular alternate winners of the Public School Eton Fives Competition and between 1959 and 1974 Highgate won seven times...His own sporting career continued while he taught; in 1936 he played for Derby County in the semi-final of the F A Cup, and in 1937, 1939 and 1948 he won the Kinnaird Cup for Eton Fives with J.K.G.Webb, an Old Cholmeleian as his partner.
Marlborough College
I have not as yet had an opportunity to see whether "Paths of Progress - A History of Marlborough College" contains any references to Fives, but it certainly seems that the profile of the game in the individual schools described is reflected in the number of references found in their histories!
P.J.K. (1993)
Constructed by Mike Fenn
5 May 2001
efa@etonfives.co.uk