The Warwick School Songs
Warwick School Songs
In the newly-published book Warwick School: A History, reference is made to the two School Songs which Warwick is proud to possess, and, indeed, in publishing them at the start and end of the book, a deliberate effort was made to ensure their preservation. Another intention was, of course, to encourage their continued performance, and the current situation seems to be that the school wheels out the 1906 Latin song Floreat Domus quite regularly - in chapel at the beginning of every term, and at Speech Day, for example - and that the Old Warwickians sing a 1931 version of the 1892 English song at their dinners. It is worth setting down, though, how each song came about, and how and why the popularity of each has waxed and waned.
In The Portcullis of December 1893, the Second Master Robert Davies, himself a truly tragic figure of Warwick School (although his nemesis was yet to come, in 1906) lamented the death of a former member of staff, William Waite, in Warwick, Australia - "a pathetic coincidence", said Davies. Waite had taught English from 1888 to 1891 (coincidentally, the exact period that the young John Masefield was a pupil) but left and went to Australia to "stay the ravages of disease" - his problem was merely given as "an attack of haemorrhage". Four years earlier, Waite had had published a poem entitled "Cantate Varvicenses" in the June 1889 edition of the same magazine, but without introduction or explanation. He was probably responding to a national enthusiasm for the creation of school songs, which was hugely encouraged by the musicianship of Paul David (1840-1932) at Uppingham and John Farmer (1835-1901) at Harrow. It cannot have escaped the attention of boarding school headmasters, either, that secular whole-school singing was an enjoyable and educational way to pass long winter evenings.
The Anglo-American Louis N Parker (1852-1944), who became Director of Music at Sherborne School in 1877, is on record as declaring in 1894: "I believe the value of school songs lies only in fostering a patriotic love of the school and a healthy esprit de corps. When I am told that they foster musical taste I permit myself to smile incredulously." Quite extraordinarily, Parker had a direct bearing on Warwick School's second school song, for when he had to leave Sherborne on account of deafness in 1892, he created an alternative career for himself - that of organising pageants in some of England's more historic towns. Thus his spectacular Warwick Pageant of 1906, for which Floreat Domus was written, came into being.
Reaction to Waite's original "Cantate Varvicenses" seems to be non-existent, and we have to go forward to July 25th 1891, when Warwick's M.P. Arthur Wellesley Peel (1829-1912), the Speaker of the House of Commons between 1886 and 1895 and later 1st Viscount Peel, spoke on Speech Day. The Daily Telegraph noted that "Mr Peel, who gets so few opportunities of opening his mouth, delivered such an excellent little speech, as leads us to regret that he has in general so few words to say beyond "Order, order" in the House." Mr Peel spoke about the major public schools, such as Eton, Harrow and Winchester, each having their own school song; "Was it impossible that among the boys there might be found one who might compose a school song for Warwick?" He believed that "something of the sort had been attempted" and proposed a "small prize of £5 for the best song that could be composed by a Warwick boy". The sum of £5 in 1892 is worth something like £300 nowadays, so "small prize" it most certainly was not! The bribe seemed to be having the desired effect, for in the November 1891 Portcullis editorial it was reported that "The air seems crowded with the maiden endeavours of young geniuses. Three finished songs have now been sent in by the boys, while there are rumours of the muse in higher quarters. Surely from all this material we may hope for something great!" The "higher quarters" were indeed active with regard to the school song, and in July 1892 we hear "that one has been written which has met criticism unabashed, has received the Speaker's approval, and is now being set to music by Mr Farmer". What had been going on behind the scenes?
One has to suppose that the three pupil efforts were of such poor quality that, in desperation, the headmaster, Rev J P Way, had to turn to the staff for inspiration. What better than to use William Waite's "Cantate Varvicenses" of 1889, "Here's a song for all", as the basis of his own creation? Way, of course, was a classical scholar of some distinction, but even he needed help with English song lyrics - and he turned to one of his old colleagues at Marlborough College, John Bain, to come to the rescue. John Bain is remembered to this day at Marlborough College for his skills as a poet, and in particular for the touching way in which he composed a verse for each Marlburian casualty whom he had taught personally in the First World War - not the excruciating whole-school total of 746, but it was still several dozen. Waite's 1889 chorus ran:
Hurrah, hurrah! for Warwick School,
And the sports of each changing season,
For Work and Play is a golden rule,
And the song may be sung by the wise and the fool,
If the rhyme's no worse than the reason.
John Wain of Marlborough proposed:
Then Hurrah! Hurrah! for Warwick School
And the joys of each changing season.
"Work hard, play fair" is a golden rule
And a man may sing be he wise or fool
Then sing or 'tis rank high treason.
John Pearce Way, the headmaster, decided on:
Then hurrah, hurrah for bluff Hal's school,
And the life of each changing season;
"Work hard, play fair," is a golden rule,
And a man may sing, be he wise or fool,
And silence is rank high treason.
Thus we can finally work out why silence is rank high treason: it is nothing to do with keeping quiet about one's friends' trangressions, but merely refusal to sing! If J P Way had wanted to conceal what he - and Bain - had done to Waite's poem, then he really should not have carefully filed away Waite's autographed typescript version, Bain's revision, his own alterations and finally John Farmer's autograph musical score. As it is, the material remained hidden for 110 years, until it was found in the headmaster's house in 2002. On July 23rd 1892 Warwick's MP came back to the school, this time to distribute the prizes, and heard the first performance of the song that he had done so much to organise and inspire. In the tame words of The Portcullis of October 1892, "The proceedings closed with the singing of the School song." At this first performance, two extra verses were added, wrote J P Way, which "have been sent me with the request that I will allow them to be sung this time", containing, as they did, punning references to Peel and Way himself.
Who was John Farmer, and what was his connection with Warwick School? The son of a lace manufacturer, John Farmer was born in Nottingham in 1835, and after some excellent musical training in Germany, worked in the lace business and, it is rumoured, as a circus band-master, before being able to support himself by teaching music. Having taken charge of Harrow Musical Society in 1862, he joined the staff of Harrow School as its first music teacher in 1864. Very much encouraged by the headmaster, H M Butler, he was soon composing hearty, patriotic and sentimental songs to words by Harrow masters, which soon became an integral part of the tradition of the school. When Butler left Harrow in 1885, so did Farmer, accepting an invitation to become the organist of Balliol College, Oxford. One of his innovations at Balliol was to inaugurate Sunday evening concerts, despite religious objections, and this series of concerts is still going strong, well over 100 years later. His collections of songs for Harrow had appeared in print in the 1880s, but what probably attracted A W Peel's attention, and the commission to write the music for Warwick School's first school song, was his Gaudeamus: Songs for Colleges and Schools of 1890 - no doubt the fact that Peel was a Balliol man himself helped, too! John Farmer had a gift for writing straightforward, vigorous tunes suitable for unison singing, and these he regarded as his most important works. The Dictionary of National Biography says of Farmer: "A plump, tousle-headed, careless dresser, he had a gregarious enthusiastic manner. He was well liked by all who knew him, and did much to elevate taste in the circles in which he moved." He died in 1901, in Oxford.
We have to imagine that performances of this song continued unabated for some years at Warwick School, encouraged, as in modern times, by its popularity amongst Old Warwickians. Matters apparently came to a head in 1928, when headmaster G A Riding, considering the Victorian words to be sadly outdated, decided to abandon the 1892 song in favour of another work which had been gathering dust since 1906 - the Latin Carmen specially written for Louis N Parker's Warwick Pageant, entitled Floreat Domus. The words written by the headmaster of the day, Rev W T Keeling, are strangely inappropriate for a school which was on the verge of economic collapse, and from which the headmaster had already bolted - the chorus states: Floret atque floreat schola Warwicensis ("it flourishes, so may Warwick School continue to flourish"). The music for the Pageant was mostly composed by Allen K Blackall, who at the time taught music at the King's Middle School in The Butts - Warwick School's great rival - but Floreat Domus was set to music by James Haworth, a man whose one-year stay at Warwick School from 1905-6 seems to be the only thing known about him. Blackall was to replace him and stayed at Warwick School until he fell out with H S Pyne in 1927. Blackall's tenure as organist of St Mary's Church was much happier and lasted until 1945.
George Riding carefully coached the school in the "new" song, therefore, the performance of which was supposed to be the crowning glory of the end-of-term celebrations of Christmas 1928, following the production of Shakespeare's Julius Caesar. The Old Warwickians, however, were having none of this, and, according to the unpublished and rather juicy memoirs of Dennis Castle, sang the 1892 English song at the same time that the boys were trying to perform the Latin Floreat Domus:
"The School song was suddenly changed to a Latin one with a new melody. We were rehearsed constantly in Schola Warwickensis. The OWs openly rebelled against the Latin version and, after the school play in the Big School at Christmas, they drowned our Latin one with the old one, raucously bellowed out in defiance. Riding's face was twisted with anger, to become worse when an OW sat at the piano and treated us to a racy number I'll Tell You Bible Stories You've Never Heard Before! The OWs and Riding were at loggerheads for most of his time there."
It is interesting to note that Speech Days on October 4th, 1929 and May 29th, 1931 "concluded with the singing of Forty Years On and the National Anthem." The famous - if neutral - song Forty Years On, also by Farmer, is considered to be Harrow School's own - Riding was not taking any risks with the OWs! Soon Riding published his own revision of the Waite/Bain/Way/Farmer song, and had so many copies, marked merely "G. A. R. 1931", printed on card that there are still several in circulation. His version of the chorus, with only the ideas of "changing seasons" and "work and play" in common with the original, runs as follows:
And to Warwick School new fame we'll bring
With the life of each changing season,
"Work hard, play fair," for the School, and sing
This song with a swing till the rafters ring,
And silence is rank high treason.
In The Portcullis of March, 1932 Riding justified this new version as follows:
An attempt has been made to embody in the song something of the history of the school, while at the same time shortening the song and retaining as much as possible of the phrases which have endeared it to many generations of Old Boys.
The OWs seized this version with alacrity and have performed it ever since, thus marking the end of its use within the school. It is ironic that the first time most Warwick School pupils come across the 1892 school song is, therefore, after they have left! Only the 1906 Floreat Domus has been sung at the school within living memory.
Apart from a shorter musical introduction being used these days, the Keeling/Haworth Floreat Domus has suffered no further revision and is therefore performed almost exactly as it was written in 1906. J P Way's own commissioned research, by A F Leach, had quite soon demolished the idea that "Bluff King Hal" had, in 1545, done anything except re-found a much older school, and these, and other, anachronistic words in the 1892 English school song have caused much apparent grief. As gems of their period they stand firmly, however, amongst the best of their genre and deserve to be remembered for years to come - and, of course, performed. They are, after all, unique to the school and form a fascinating part of its long history.
Gervald Frykman, 2019
The complete texts:
FLOREAT DOMUS
Gaudeamus nos alumni
Quod per infinita saecla
Schola perduravit ipsa.
Gaudeamus nos alumni.
Floreat! Floreat!
Schola Warwicensis
Floret atque floreat
Schola Warwicensis.
Haec domus duret per aevum
Floreant omnes alumni
Floreant semper magistri.
Gaudeamus nos alumni.
Floreat! Floreat!
Schola Warwicensis
Floret atque floreat
Schola Warwicensis.
The Old Warwickians sing a 1931 version of the 1892 English song at their dinners:
WARWICK SCHOOL SONG
Our voice in praise of the King we raise,Who founded in high endeavour,
Here’s a song for all, be they short or tall: Sing, comrades, and sing in time;
With a lusty swing till the rafters ring, For the School is the theme of our rhyme,
For the School is the theme of our rhyme.
Then hurrah, harrah for bluff Hal’s school, And the life of each changing season;
“Work hard! Play fair!” is a golden rule,
And a man may sing, be he wise or fool,
And silence is rank high treason,
And silence is rank high treason.
Lent Term
Now bounds the ball on the Fives-court wall,
Or the Mile or the Quarter we run;
If we bruise our shins where the football spins,
I’ faith! It is part of the fun.
Chorus
Summer Term
In the cricket field the willow we wield,
Well equipped for the struggle and fit;
We’ve skill and we’ve pluck, and with moderate luck
We’ll cheer for the conquering hit.
Chorus
And we plunge in the cool of the shady pool,
And Stoneleigh’s lawn are green;
And the flickering steel of the bicycle wheel
On Edgehill’s height is seen.
Chorus
Winter Term
There’s plenty of fun though the summer’s done,
And skies are leaden gray;
If frost and snow are keen, we’ll show
That we can be keen as they.
Chorus
So sing with a will, tho’ the winds blow chill,
While we toughen our sinews and muscles,
Close on the ball we’ll follow all
In our hard-fought football tussels.
Chorus
Though Latin and Greek are hard to speak,
And Euclid’s a sore vexation,
Be plucky and work, for fellows who shirk,
Will be plucked in Examination.
Chorus
Stick hard! For your lives! Grammar and Fives,
Greek, Algebra, Football, and Science;
If they’re well gripped, then fully equipped,
We’ll face the world with defiance.
Chorus
Though all things must return to dust,
Old friends let nothing sever;
But as you grow older stand shoulder to shoulder!
Hurrah! Boys! Warwick for ever!
Chorus