To commemorate the 80th anniversary of Victory in Europe (VE) Day, we have been looking into the history of Wimbledon High during the war.
One wartime story is the connection between Wimbledon High School and Hanford Prep in Dorset, where pupils were evacuated. Against the backdrop of increased hostilities, and owing to the efforts of the Wimbledon High Head at the time, Mabel Lewis, many children from the Preparatory and Junior School were safely housed in the beautiful Jacobean mansion, Hanford House, near Blandford in Dorset, a week before war was declared.
The evacuation was a voluntary one, as Wimbledon was deemed to be in a ‘neutral’ area. Hanford House was the home of Lt Col Frederick Hamilton Lister DSO and Mrs Mildred Lister and became the second home for many Wimbledonians between September 1939 and July 1940 and beyond. As Miss Lewis recalled:
“During that Spring Term the Council allowed me to make provisional arrangements, if war should come, to evacuate our younger children to a Tudor mansion in Dorset, Hanford House. Many parents’ meetings were held, and it was agreed that about fifty children could be accommodated. The owners of the house offered to store school furniture and beds during the summer. Then provision had to be made for the transport of the children. The Ministry of Health had told us that, as ours was a private evacuation, no provision being made by the Ministry for the evacuation of the Senior School, we must get away from Wimbledon before the roads were needed for Government transport. So at the end of the Summer Term a rota was made of parents willing to take down by car their own children and as many others as possible. …..It was on the night of August 24th … that Miss Rengert and I….decided to give the signal to the cars to start as soon as possible. I left Wales next morning and slept that night at a village ‘pub’ near Hanford. Arriving on Saturday morning at Hanford House, I was delighted to find Miss Wilson already there to help, also a small girl with her Nanny! In the afternoon Miss Taylor arrived, and we worked all that day, moving furniture and putting up beds. Children were arriving till late at night on the 26th and all the following week, some having come from the Continent without time to wash clothes or (bring) hair-brushes!” Source: Reminiscences of Wimbledon High – 75th Jubilee Year, 1956
The girl and her Nanny mentioned by Miss Lewis could well have been Elizabeth Willett, (WHS pupil from 1937- 39) whose own memoirs of her wartime schooldays capture the heightened emotion of the time:
“I was not yet nine years old and couldn’t imagine my life changing in any way. It was decided not to keep me in Wimbledon but to send me, together with Marie Anne my adored Swiss governess, to join my day school which was evacuating to a country mansion, well away from the expected bombing. Mummy took us down there and my heart sank as we drove up the dark lime avenue to an awesome Jacobean house.” Source: EP Faulder, (Elizabeth Willett), Unpublished Memoirs
The 1939 Register for Hanford House shows the staff alongside Lt Col Lister and his wife included two governesses (Misses Johanna Hurst and Marie Anne Wurstemberger), four assistant mistresses, (Mrs Edith Boucher, and Misses Phyllis Taylor (later Brown), Katherine Fryer and Elsie Taylor) from Wimbledon High School and 47 children from Wimbledon High. They were assisted by some mothers who accompanied their children, ‘one to be in charge of the kitchen, one to act as Matron and one, at first, to take games and drill.’
In some ways this situation should have been idyllic – but the times were far from idyllic. Life must have been uncertain and unfamiliar and the work somewhat relentless for the adults. Elizabeth Willett mentions the stress and hard work of staff who looked after their young charges twenty-four hours a day and had to put their own lives elsewhere on hold to look after them:
“Together with the teachers, one or two other governesses, and one Norland Nurse, the school did its best to make us happy. Marie Anne was very brave to come with me rather than returning immediately to Switzerland…We children slowly realised that we were not going to go home to our parents as we had all imagined.” Source: EP Faulder, Unpublished Memoirs
Tatler published a series of features called ‘Country Homes in Wartime’ – issue 7 features Hanford House and Wimbledon High and highlights the efforts made to ensure the environment was as welcoming as possible for the new visitors:
“Mrs. Lister has a genius for making children happy, and her own little daughter Rosamond is among the forty-one little girl pupils. The various dormitories are named after representative Empire animals, a happy idea which Mrs. Lister conceived, and each little girl has a tab on her blazer showing whether she is a kangaroo, a lamb, a little Australian bear, and so forth.”
Meanwhile back at Wimbledon High…
Whilst Miss Lewis helped settle everyone in Hanford, Miss Truman and Miss Buist were holding the fort at Wimbledon High. Miss Lewis writes in the WHS magazine:
“Two shelters in Draxmont and the one in the playground were finished. They were of the “toast-rack” type, sunk some three feet in the ground. When it was pointed out that their coverings of earth might draw attack from enemy planes, we asked some Czech refugees in Wimbledon to help us to cover them with turf. They were a friendly set of professional men who threw themselves whole-heartedly into the work and made a neat job of it. When Term began on the appointed day, we were able to offer the use of our School in the afternoons to Wimbledon County School, which as yet had no shelters. The Preparatory building was used in the Autumn Term by the office staff of the G.P.D.S.T., who had to leave their quarters in Westminster.”
Numbers dropped dramatically at the beginning of the War, but school life appeared to carry on almost regardless, with an ‘all hands on deck’ approach to fire-watching duties, ‘Digging for Victory’, and clearing debris after bombs during the Blitz in 1940.
In the summer holidays of 1944, the last flying bomb to fall in Wimbledon caused such extensive damage to the school that plans were made to evacuate, possibly to Scotland, but a heroic team effort by staff, girls and parents enabled the school (minus most doors and windows) to be reopened three weeks later. Source: The Wimbledon High School Magazine (Issue 48) Page 7
For a vivid and personal account of a Wimbledon High School’s account of wartime, read alumna K M Peyton’s book When the Sirens Sounded. She was ten-years-old at the outbreak of WWII, living in Surbiton and attending school in Wimbledon before being briefly sent away to experience life in the country.
And what became of Elizabeth Willett? Her nanny having tearfully returned to Switzerland, Elizabeth never returned to Wimbledon but was reunited with her mother in Barton on Sea and then in the autumn of 1940, attended Sherborne School for Girls.
VE Day came at last on 8 May 1945 and at Wimbledon High:
“We had a glorious celebration in Draxmont, a bonfire 15-20 feet high consumed all the junk we had been aching to get rid of. Everyone sat round and sang songs while the VI fed the flames. This general celebration was continued until a late hour, only ending when the bonfire had practically burnt out. Finally Miss Littlewood had a private celebration, giving a dinner in town (of a truly pre-war quality) to the veterans of the staff, who had been right through the war with her.” Source: V. H. Truman (WHS Magazine Issue No 53 – 1946
In 1947, Hanford House was leased by the Listers to Reverend Clifford Canning and his wife Enid. They founded Hanford Prep – a Preparatory School for girls. When the Cannings retired the school was taken on by their daughter Sarah Canning.
Miss Katherine Littlewood presided over Wimbledon High School from 1940 to 1949, showing true leadership during the wartime years. As Miss Lewis remarked:
“It was heartening to know that at this critical time the beloved School would be the new ‘child’ of Miss Littlewood. We knew her reputation for wisdom and scholarship, but not then did we realise how triumphantly her courage and unfailing sense of humour would bring the School through the dark days ahead.”
And the rest, as they say, is (even more) history.
Photographs from Tatler © Illustrated London News Ltd. Mary Evans
