With the Prep’s 140th anniversary on 20 January this year, it was a pleasure to give assemblies to the boys in Years 4 to 8 on the story of how the Prep began and its early years. At school, the celebrations culminated in a Victorian Day, with many boys and staff dressed in period clothing and a day of lessons Victorian style!

Nearly all the information I used for the assemblies came from Neil Smith’s ‘Dulwich and Beyond’ (of which there are still copies in the archives). I haven’t come across all of the sources that Neil used (yet), but the book makes fascinating reading, and I realise many alumni wouldn’t have a copy of the book or know the Prep’s early history, so it seems a good reason to precis it here. I was able to do a fascinating local walk with The Dulwich Society’s historian, Ian McInnes, to get an understanding of Alleyn Park and Dulwich in the late 19th century, which enhanced what I learned from Neil’s book.

Near Sydenham Hill 1871 by Camille Pissarro

I began the assemblies (as does Neil’s book) with a photograph of Camille Pissarro’s ‘View of West Dulwich’, which was painted in 1871 during his exile from Paris, which he spent largely in South East London. It showed the boys how rural Dulwich was and also one of the early red brick Victorian houses that was built on Alleyn Park, No 35, which is today the Head Master’s House. It is believed Pissarro painted it from a spot some 50-100 metres south of Sydenham Hill Station on the College Road side. From there today, all that would be seen are the flats and houses of Kingswood Estate beyond the railway.

Portrait of Mr T W Mason by H.H. La Thangue

The Prep’s story began in January 1885, when the Master of the College, Dr Wheldon, invited Mr T.W. Mason of Lambrook School to open a preparatory school essentially to feed the College but one that was to be independent of the College itself, which The Prep was then and always has been. (There was only one such school in the area at ‘Brightlands’ four doors up Alleyn Park from where the Prep began, better known locally as ‘Bessie’s’ run by Mrs Bessie Shorter). Mr Mason, therefore, became the Prep’s founder and first Headmaster. He took the lease on Whitfield Lodge at 1 Alleyn Park (which no longer exists). The house was on the site of the current Alleyn’s Head, probably around where the car park is to the left of the pub (from Alleyn Park). It is quite fitting that our daily morning ‘walking bus’ of boys who are dropped off to have an accompanied walk to school meet at the tree almost in front of where Whitfield Lodge must have been.

On 20 January 1885, thirteen boys met at 9.00am at Whitfield Lodge, and so the Prep began. Mr Mason was the only teacher, to begin with, but the school quickly flourished, and as the number of pupils grew, so did the number of staff. The back garden was the original playground. At the start, we were known as the ‘Preparatory School’ but were soon allowed to use the name Dulwich College Preparatory School, probably as a more visible way of using the connection to the College. However, Mr Mason left the school within eighteen months to join his brother in Sussex. He returned to give prizes at the turn of the century, and after his death, a collection was made at the Prep and the College, and a well-known artist, H.H. La Thangue, was commissioned to paint his portrait. This is the first of our eight Headmaster portraits, which currently adorn the Board Room at school.

In 1887, the Reverend J.H. Mallinson from Aysgarth Prep in Yorkshire was appointed to succeed Mason. The school’s motto of the time, ‘Deus Adest Laborentibus’ (God is with those who work), is illustrative of an era when Victorian morals and attitudes prevailed. The school was expanding rapidly, and by January 1887, the roll was 83 boys and four staff, and by the end of 1889, there were 119 boys in nine classes, seven staff members plus the Headmaster and a music teacher.

Portrait of Reverand J.H.Mallinson

Whitfield Lodge was becoming far too small, so in 1891, Mallinson took a lease on ‘Oakside’ at 46 Alleyn Park. The house no longer stands but was on the site where the modern houses are across the little green and entrance to the junction of Hunts Slip Road (then Union Road). The school and classes moved there whilst the Mallinsons stayed at Whitfield Lodge.

 Our boys enjoyed hearing about Alleyn Park in the old days - gravel roads, gas lamps, walking or horsepower as the ways to get around. The site of the Crystal Palace dominating the skyline atop the hill was also notable. They were fascinated by the old timetables of the late 1880s, which showed the importance of Latin, maths, and Greek, as well as history, geography, and singing lessons. There was Saturday morning school with ‘Half Holidays’ on Wednesday and Saturday afternoons, which were not holidays as we know them but seasonal games with all boys and staff involved. Field games and swimming took place on Dulwich College’s site. There were two or three preps (homework) per night, and holiday work was always set, often reading a book. For example, during one school holiday in 1899 older boys had to read The Talisman by Sir Walter Scott, while the younger boys, The Heroes by Charles Kingsley.

With the school thriving, soon, the Oakside property itself was becoming too small as numbers grew, and Mallison had his eyes on two properties across Union Road, namely 44 and 42 Alleyn Park. In 1895, the lease on number 44 became available and was taken, and two years later, the same happened at number 42. Once this happened in 1897, the leases on Whitfield Lodge and Oakside were surrendered. Whitfield Lodge and the old Alleyn’s Head (on the site where the Majestic Wine store is now) were destroyed in July 1944 when two V1 flying bombs, two days apart, exploded around Alleyn Bridge, severely damaging buildings in the surrounding area.

Number 42 became the Headmaster’s house, and 44 the main teaching block. The school was growing rapidly. On the land and gardens behind the houses, a school hall was built along with a small sanatorium. While 42 remained the home of the Mallinsons, the headmaster was keen to build a link between the two buildings to facilitate more teaching space on the ground and first floor of 42, and this duly followed. As the final school year of the century started in 1899, there were 199 boys in classes, largely of seventeen or eighteen boys and twelve members of staff. From 1890 to 1899, the school secured 27 scholarships, mainly to Dulwich College but also to Oundle, King’s College School Wimbledon, HMS Brittania and within a couple more years, several to Westminster.

Boarding must be mentioned as there was a small group of boarders from the time of Whitfield Lodge who would have followed the school to Oakside and then to our current site. By the end of the 1890s, a new boarding dormitory had been built above the school hall. Mallinson must have played a significant role in their lives at the weekend as on Sundays, the boys went to both the 11.00am and 3.30pm services at St. Stephen’s, both preceded by a long walk led by the Headmaster, with lunch in between. The boarders wore Eton Suits on Sundays with top hats that were brushed and returned to their boxes by the matron at the end of the day. Alas, I do not think we have one of those top hats in our archives!

That covers most of what is known about the school’s Victorian time and its first fifteen or so years. To give the boys a sense of the economics of the time, I used the figures of the school fees that year from the school prospectus of 1906 (also in Neil’s book). The termly school fee was £7, day boarders were charged £23, and full boarders £25, termly musical tuition was two guineas, as was Prep Class at school. Online inflation calculators estimate that £1 in 1900 is worth £103 today (Bank of England Inflation Calculator).

Reverend Mallinson died suddenly in 1909 with the school roll at around 250. With our current numbers well over 800, the passage of time through The Preparatory School, Dulwich College Preparatory School, Dulwich Prep London, and now Dulwich Prep & Seniors show how the school built on its early foundation and continues to flourish 140 years later. It is fascinating to look back at our early history and forward to the new and exciting times in the years and decades ahead for boys, staff, and parents of the present and the future.

Until the next time.