School’s Out For Summer!

With both Aldenham and Dame Alice Owen’s Schools now closed for the summer holidays, many pupils will be reflecting on the strange and very different term-and-a-bit most of them have spent away from their friends and classmates, learning at home through virtual portals. Although this year has indeed been extraordinary, it is not unusual for students leaving school to reflect on their time there, as this tale found in the depths of our archives by our Archivist, Hannah Dunmow shows:

Aldenham School was founded in 1597 by a Brewer, Richard Platt, and the Brewers’ Company were appointed as Governors. Platt’s will gave members of the Company the right to have their sons educated at Aldenham at reduced fees. Now the school is co-educational and there are no reduced fees for members’ children. In August 1765, a grateful school leaver, Joseph Dell, wrote to thank the Company for his education. The beautifully written letter has been preserved in The Brewers’ Scrapbook:

Gentlemen 

Permit me to return you my sincere

thanks for the good Education I have had the oppor-

-tunity of receiving under your Patronage; and give

me leave to assure you, that I will apply the advan-

-tages of it in such a manner, as shall best answer your

earnest endeavours to establish the credit of the School;

and be most correspondent to the intention of its pious

Founder.