Brian Davies AFC RN

Brian Davies attended Chichester High School in the mid-1940s and after reaching sixth form prefect status in the 50s left to join the Royal Navy in 1952.   I knew him   well as out of school we were both members of the Bognor Regis Athletic Club.   He was an excellent quarter miler and became a member of the Club’s Sussex record …

Sir Dudley Gordon Smith

Sir Dudley Gordon Smith (born 14 November 1926) is a British Conservative politician. Smith was educated at Chichester High School and became a journalist. He was elected a councillor on Middlesex County Council in 1958, then the youngest councillor, and became chief whip of the majority party. Smith contested Peckham in 1955. He was MP for Brentford and Chiswick from …

Sir John Edward Herbecq (at School 1933-1940)

Sir John Herbecq was born on 27 May 1922. In 2002 he became the first President of the re-constituted Old Boys Association. He had a distinguished career as a civil servant. He served in HM Treasury from 1950-60, as Private Secretary to the Chairman of the UK Atomic Energy Authority, 1960-62; returning to the Treasury for the period 1962-68. After 1968 …

Sir Jon Shortridge

Sir Jon Shortridge KCB (born 1947) was a British Civil Servant. He served as the Permanent Secretary of the Welsh Office in March 1999 and of the National Assembly for Wales on its creation in May 1999. He became Permanent Secretary of the Welsh Assembly Government on its establishment as a separate institution in May 2007. Established the National Assembly …

Chris Bearman

Chris Bearman attended the Lancastrian School for Boys between about 1959-65 and was the son of Gordon Bearman, the County Librarian and younger brother of two Old Cicestrians, Graham and Bob Bearman ( whose profile appears in another article under Notable Old Boys).  I got to know Chris quite well through my visits to his home to see Bob, a …

Stitched by Ian B Walters

Speech Day circa 1956.  Ian Walters receiving his prize. Can anyone identify the dignitary, please? Here is a story that is not trivial. Not at all, for I have come to think that it is quite likely a major, albeit subconscious, reason for my leaving England in 1973. It was certainly the reason why it took me so long to …

History of The Grasshoppers Rugby Team

The beginnings of Rugby at CHSB – the first Grasshoppers XV     “The Grasshoppers”: A Short History By Doctor Tony Deacock In 1944, towards the end of the war, a group of senior pupils at Chichester High School for Boys got together to play Rugby Football. It is likely that none of them had ever seen a game played. …

The Comprehensive Revolution

Autumn term, 1971 The question of whether or not secondary school education should be organised by academic ability and gender has been under debate pretty much since the end of the Second World War.   This article does not join that discussion, but records how Chichester High School for Boys (The School) and the Lancastrian Boys School were merged into a single …

KD wields the cane

K D wields the cane A former master recounted the following tale to me: Shortly after joining the School and having had no previous experience of public or grammar schools of our ilk he was made a form master. At the end of his first term in charge he duly read all the boys’ reports written by each subject master …

The Bug Club or Form 2A?

John Howard, Richard Wood-Kneller and Ken Hoad have all joined in to work out whether this is a photograph of class 2A or The Bug Club. I think Ken Hoad has the definitive answer below except that I think it is more likely to be the Bug Club, since there are two 1st formers in the photograph – Malcolm Withnall …