THE NAVY'S NURSERY

Lake Wakatip Mail, Issue 4326, 10 August 1937, Page 2

THE NAVY'S NURSERY

SEAMEN IN THE MAKING " TOWN " OF 800 BOVS There can be no educational establishment in the country better sited or planned, or one which provides more amenities for its pupils, than the Royal Hospital School at Holbrook, Suffolk, writes “ Taffrail ” in the London ‘ Observer.’ It was started in 1712 as an adjunct to Greenwich Hospital, founded 18 years earlier for seamen broken in the wars. Since 1869 pensions have been granted to disabled seamen and marines instead of maintenance and accommodation, and in 1873 the old hospital buildings were allotted to the Royal Naval College. The school, however, for the free education of the sons of seamen, marines, and other seafarers, continued, and in 1933 moved from Greenwich to its present quarters at Holbrook. With 11 houses for the 860 boys, houses for the officers, masters, and staff, a chapel, administrative offices, assembly hall, a'2ooft central tower which contains the water supply tanks for the whole establishment, swimming bath, gymnasium, class rooms, laboratories, manual workshop, laundry, -inlirmary, dining hall, and kitchens, it as something more than a village—almost a small town with many imposing buildings, a home farm, roadways, a parade ground, and extensive playing fields. The chapel and assembly hall, with its properly fitted stage, can only be described as magnificent. The gymnasium and indoor swimming bath are the largest I have seen. Of the 255 lads who left during 1936 at the age of about fifteen and a-half, 27, the pick of the bunch, joined the Mechanical Training Establishment at Chatham as artificer apprentices R.N. after passing the stringent examination. Another 115, of whom 54 were in the “ Advanced Class,” joined the naval training establishments as seamen boys; 10 went to the Royal Marinos ; and seven became R.A.E. apprentices, the standard for height for that service being slightly lower than for the Navy. Of the 76 discharged as medically unfit for the Royal Navy, 33 joined the Merchant Navy, 14 were found work in civil life, and 29 were returned to their homes at the request of their parents. In other words, 60 per cent, of the boys leaving the school during the year entered the Royal Navy or Royal Marines, and 57 per cent, of these were definitely above the average in education and intelligence, a result for which the teaching staff at Holbrook deserves congratulation.

The school is run under a form of naval discipline modified to suit the young, and the education and training are essentially practical. Elementary seamanship and signalling, handicrafts and metal work are taught, besides the usual school subjects, while the excellent school band is known all over the neighbourhood. The food would put many a public school to shame. The boys work hard and play hard. Physical training, swimming, and games are specialties, and the results certainly justify all the trouble taken by the instructors. Among other things, Holbrook is the best swimming school in England.

The boys are as tough as leather, bursting with rude health and good spirits, and as noisy as can be when out of school. There is no harshness, and 1 particularly noticed that the officers and masters knew most of the lads by name and reputation, no mean task with an ever-changing mob of BGO. The clothing is eminently suitableblue jerseys and shorts on week-days, with stockings with a different coloured stripe denoting each house, and the addition of a coloured “ flash ” to the garter for petty-officer boys. On Sundays the whole school turns out in the traditional bluejackets’ uniform, the petty-officer boys wearing the short, blue, brass-buttoned jackets which finally disappeared from the Navy in 1891.

1 visited classrooms, workshops, laboratories, dormitories, dining halls, kitchens—nearly every building in the school. 1 saw boys at work and at play and eating their midday dinners, and heard the whole BGO of them singing together in the Assembly Hall. I have dsited many schools and educational establishments in this country and abroad, but never have 1 seen a keener or more contented-looking crowd of youngsters, or lads that are better cared for or more likely to make good seamen and good citizens. The Holbrooks boys are proud of themselves, and have every reason to bo. The zest, cheerfulness, and bustling energy of the whole establishment is a veritable tonic to any visitor, and a credit to those responsible.