MILKMAID AND ARROW

Greymouth Evening Star, 19 December 1933, Page 8

MILKMAID AND ARROW

HOW SCHOOL WAS FOUNDED How the flight of an arrow led to the foundation of a school was told by Lt. E. L. Hopkins, at the handing over of Bisley- trophiers to the Lord Mayor of London, at the Mansion House, recently. About 350 years ago, he said, a marksman was practising with a bow and arrow in a field at Islington. He missed the mark and the arrow continued its flight to the next field, where a maid was milking a cow. The arrow pierced hei' hat, remaining there with the head sticking out on one side and the feathers on the other —without injuring the wearer, who vowed that, in thanks to the Almighty for her providential escape, if ever she was in a position to do so she would build a school on that very spot.

She married well and kept her vow. In her wisdom she bequeathed the whole of her estate to a City guild, the Brewers’ Company, which still maintained the school, where boys learned to shoot straight and play the game. The milkmaid became Dame Owen, and the school she endowed was Owen’s School, Islington.

Modern Author: My works will be read when Shakespeare and Milton are forgotten. Critic: Yes, but not before.