AN43

The Abingdon Foundation, Park Road, Abingdon, Oxford OX14 1DE 01235 521563 • Edited by Jane Warne – [email protected] 01235 849123 • Design – www.petergreenland.com www.twitter.com/abingdonschool www.facebook.com/abingdonschool Abingdon Out of the Past A Bird’s Eye View – 80 Years Ago Compare this photograph with the one inside (page 10) and you can see the huge changes eighty years have made, not just to the School but to the town of Abingdon too. It was taken during the Summer term of 1939 when there were 176 pupils at the School. A photograph of the 1892 school football team shows the unusual presence of an African student in the back row. Curious, David Loong (S7 DE) decided to discover who he was. The name on the photograph didn’t help much as it had been misspelt but the match reports revealed him to be the goalkeeper, Sam Forster, “who has the advantages of being big and heavy, and at the same time cool and active. A good player and never loses his head”. Forster (1873-1940), who was born in The Gambia, came to Abingdon for one year to take the Oxford entrance. He studied law at Merton College and then became the first Gambian to qualify as a barrister at the Inner Temple. He returned to The Gambia to practise law, was a member of the Legislative Council for thirty years and in 1933 became the first Gambian to receive a knighthood. Sir Samuel Forster OA The poet, F.W. Harvey (1888-1957), whose best-known work references his beloved Forest of Dean, was educated at Rossall, but his three brothers and a cousin all came to Abingdon. One brother was killed in a motorbike accident in 1914, another was killed in action in France in 1918, and the cousin lost his life in the Palestine Campaign in 1916. It was in their memories that the School made a donation towards the cost of this beautiful window by Graham Dowding, which was dedicated in St Peter’s Church, Minsterworth, Gloucestershire on 12 November last year. This striking portrait by Marcus Hodge of Felicity Lusk, currently Vice-President (Education), GEMS Education in Dubai, has joined those of the previous two Heads, Mark Turner and Michael St John Parker, in the entrance to Big School. The Harvey Window Felicity Lusk Austin House Lacies Court Park Lodge