West Downs School, Romsey Road, Winchester, Hampshire, was an English independent preparatory school, which was established in 1897 and closed in 1988.
Contents
History
Founding
The school was founded by Lionel Helbert (1870–1919), with help from his sister Adeline Rose, wife to Vice Admiral Sir James Goodrich, KCVO (1851–1925). Helbert an exhibitioner of both Winchester and Oriel College, Oxford, was for over four years a House of Commons clerk.
The Helberts were supported by Hampshire's Lord Northbrook (who had also helped found the predecessor school), and by their kinsman Lord Rothschild.
Helbert, who described himself as Principal, was influenced by the Miss Mason system, as seen at her House of Education, Ambleside (akin to the PNEU), and things like the Montessori method, the ideas of Edmond Holmes, and the Little Commonwealth for young delinquents developed by Homer Lane on the lines of the George Junior Republic in America, basically as put by Norman Mac Munn, who taught at West Downs 1914–18, they were interested in the: emancipation of the child.
Architecture
The majority of the existing structure was purpose-built (c1880) as 'Winchester Modern School', to designs by Thomas Stopher jnr, on a good site on the south-western edge of the cathedral city of Winchester, nearly opposite (the Royal Hampshire County Hospital, architect William Butterfield) west of a Victorian county gaol, HMP Winchester (category B), and next to Edwin Hillier's nursery, established there in 1874. Eight years into his headmastership, Helbert added a hall, a chapel and Masters' Lodge, the latter separate, the former two joined to the existing building's western end.
Administration
On Helbert's death there was an hiatus under Dorset landowner William Brymer, and Lady Goodrich then passed the school to Kenneth Tindall, a Sherborne housemaster.
During the Second World War the school was evacuated first to Glenapp Castle and then more significantly to Blair Castle. At the end of the war it returned to Winchester.
In 1953 the school was bought by Jerry Cornes, who was headmaster until 1988.
Move to co-education
For most of its history West Downs was a boarding school for boys aged between eight and thirteen, but in 1970 it admitted its first girl, and from 1975 to 1988 it was co-educational (though curiously the school's founding intake in 1897 of four comprised two girls). [correction: by Geoffrey Bass, grandson of Kenneth Tindall:- KBT's granddaughter Diana Bass also attended the school in 1949 when it was still an all male establishment].
Closing and repurposing
West Downs was a rigorous and enlightened place which prepared its pupils admirably for a variety of schools (including Winchester and Eton) and also for life in general. It lasted ninety-one years and about three headmasters, closing in 1988.
The school's site has lived on as The West Downs Conference and Performing Arts Centre, which was opened by Lord Puttnam in May 2001, and then from 2005 as part of the University of Winchester; and from 2009 as the university's own Winchester Business School.
Helbert family
Lionel Helbert Helbert was sixth or seventh child of Captain Frederic John Helbert Helbert (1829–), 5th Madras Light Cavalry and military correspondent to the Times during the 1877 Turco-Russian war, the fifth son of John Helbert Israel (by Adelaide (Adeline) Cohen), second son of Israel Israel. In 1848 the grandfather John Helbert (1785–1861), with his nephew John Wagg (1793–1878), had formed broking firm Helbert, Wagg & Co. (bought by Schroders 1962). They were the Rothschild's principal broker.
Meanwhile, Helbert's mother was Sarah Magdalene 'Lena' (1837–1874) daughter of Richard Lane (1794–1870) (Plymouth Brother and descendant of Jane Lane) by Sarah Pink Tracey (of Liskeard). One of Helbert's Lane uncles was a Major-general in the Bengal Army and another, a shipping agent with Lane, Hickey & Company (bust by 1865), was English Secretary to the Japanese Legation in London and a Knight Commander of the Orders of the Rising Sun of Japan, Christ of Portugal, and Isabella the Catholic of Spain.
His aunt Adeline (1825–1892) was wife to Baron de Weissweiller of Madrid. Another was married to a Duke de Laurito (d.1907). His Cohen great-aunts, who were also his cousins, had married Nathan Mayer Rothschild and Moses Montefiore. A great-uncle Samuel Helbert Israel Ellis was a surgeon at the London Hospital c.1802 and treasurer of the Great Synagogue, Duke's Place, London. Samuel's son was Sir Barrow Helbert Ellis, K.C.S.I., HEICS (1823–1887).
Meanwhile, Helbert's brother Charles Helbert Helbert (d.1903) married Evelyn Mary Kennedy, granddaughter of Earl of Cassillis and Viscount Dungarvan and great-granddaughter of Earl of Howth.
(source: Records of the Franklin Family and Collaterals, compiled by Arthur Ellis Franklin, private circulation, George Routledge & sons, London, 1915.)
Some alumni
About 2,100 pupils passed through West Downs, including the following:
Helbert era (1897–1922)
John Amery, activist and member of the British Free Corps; executed 19 December 1945, aged 33
Randal McDonnell, 8th Earl of Antrim, and his brother James, MBE
Lord Ashley, father of Earl of Shaftesbury
David Astor, CH (proprietor and editor of The Observer)
William Astor, 3rd Viscount Astor (peer)
3rd Earl of Balfour
Simon, Denzil, Giles (cricketer), Aubrey, and Esmond Baring, grandsons of 4th Lord Ashburton
Sir Malcolm Barclay-Harvey (governor of South Australia)
Sir Randle Baker-Wilbraham, 7th Bt
Colonel H. C. C. Batten, DSO (despatches five times)
8th Earl Beauchamp (politician) and his brother Hugh Patrick Lygon (one of the inspirations for Evelyn Waugh's Sebastian Flyte)
Sir Alexander Maitland Sharp Bethune, 10th and last Baronet
Sir Frederick "Boy" Browning (lieutenant-general and husband of Daphne du Maurier)
Gerard Bucknall (lieutenant-general)
7th and 8th Earls of Chichester
Hon. Sir Gerald Chichester, KCVO, and his brother Richard (killed 1915, Serbia), sons of 3rd Lord Templemore
Tindall era (1923–1953)
5th Lord Aldenham and his elder brother Vicary (d.1944)
3rd Viscount Allenby of Megiddo, (elected hereditary peer)
Rt. Rev. Keith Appleby Arnold, inaugural Bishop of Warwick
Sir Jack Boles, MBE, director-general of National Trust
Admiral Sir John Brigstocke, KCB, CBE, judicial appointments and conduct ombudsman
John Crichton-Stuart, 6th Marquess of Bute, KBE
Sir John Colville (Churchill's secretary)
Michael Colvin (politician)
Anthony Duckworth-Chad
9th Viscount Falmouth (and 26th Baron le Despencer), and brothers Robert, MC, (politician), Evelyn (killed 1943), and Henry Boscawen (AMICE)
Robin, 13th Earl Ferrers (statesman)
3rd Lord Gainford and his brother George Pease
7th Viscount Hood
Peter Howell, actor
Richard Ingrams (editor of Private Eye) and Leonard Ingrams;
Wayland Young, 2nd Lord Kennet (politician)
6th Lord Methuen, of Corsham
Sir Jeremy Morse (Chancellor of University of Bristol, Chairman of Lloyds Bank)
Cornes era (1954–1987)
Richard Addis, journalist and former Anglican monk
6th Lord Aldenham
Major General Benjamin J. Bathurst CBE Late Welsh Guards, son of Admiral of the Fleet Sir David Bathurst;
7th Viscount Monck
Peter Neyroud
Andrew Selous, politician
7th Earl of Verulam, financier
7th Lord Huntingfield