UNDER WHICH FLAG?

Taranaki Daily News, 11 August 1932, Page 7

UNDER WHICH FLAG?

SCHOOLS’ RUGBY CONTEST DILEMMA OF OLD WANGANUI BOY EARLY YEARS AT THE COLLEGE. He was one of the oldest among the early old boys of the Wanganui Collegiate School still living. At the same time his father had been a chairman of the New Plymouth High School Board and his brother had tied with Miss C. A. Douglas for dux of the school. In these circumstances Mr. A. H. Halcombe, Urenui, was set a problem in deciding which team to barrack for when he attended the annual match between the Wanganui College and New Plymouth Boys’ High School first fifteens at Pukekura Park, New Plymouth, yesterday. When Mr. Halcombe first attended Wanganui College the school had a roll of 15 boys, seven of whom were dayboys and eight boarders. The school had been founded originally for tho children of paupers. As there were no paupers to attend the school was changed by Parliament into a college in the early ’seventies. Mr. Halcombe first attended the school in 1878, when Mr. Saunders was headmaster and Mr. Anson his assistant. Previous to 1878 the school, under Mr. Godwin, had been a school for both girls and boys, but under Mr. Saunders it became solely a boys’ school. In those days the school was situated opposite the Church of England parsonage in Victoria Avenue.

When Mr. Saunders and Mr. Anson went to Britain to study for their doctorates the Rev. Harvie, of St. Pauls Cathedral, Wellington, became headmaster. The college had no funds to build, so Mr. Harvia found the money to build the school boarding-house himself. Mr. Halcombe played in the school’s first football match in the early 80’s against Wellington College, a match in which Wanganui College were beaten. Seven of the eight boarders who attended the. school in Mr. Halcombe’s time were the two Lysaghts, Mokdia, tho two Rays, Patea, one of whom, Mr. George Ray, is now secretary of the Old Boys’ Association in England, Gordon Lloyd, Palmerston North, the late Herbert Hammond, Rangitikei, and the late Norman Gorton, Rangitikei.