V C Spary

While writing other entries, e.g. the one for Leonard Brooks (1951 President), I was linked to the William Ellis School.

I found this image on their website - I taught in a room with a similar vibe early in my career, and my own school days were in a room with one of those globes in the corner, which tended to get stuck in position. There were also roller boards, and a raised dais at the front, and heavy dark wood furniture with moldings on the top. I like the addition of explorers names around the top of the walls.

The teacher shown here, wearing a Masters gown in 1939 is identified as V C Spary.

This room was apparently unchanged up to 1972.

He wrote a Junior Reader textbook, published in 1926

He was also connected with the GA for many years.

He organised meetings / conference related events in the 1920s and the 1930s.

Apparently the conference dinner organised by Mr and Mrs. Spary was a very popular social occasion at these events.

He also edited and wrote other books, and wrote book reviews for The Geographical Teacher.

Here's a mention in 1935 below:

“EDITORIAL.” The Geographical Teacher, vol. 13, no. 1, 1925, pp. 1–3. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/40556432.

Also published in 1931:

Spary was also involved with the Tours committee. I have blogged separately about the wonderful (and very nicely priced) tours the GA ran across Europe for some years. These would have been to a Europe that has now disappeared and even then, changed after the First World War. Fascinating times!

Here's a mention from the journal 'Nature' in September 1925:

https://www.nature.com/articles/116414a0.pdf

Mr. E. E. Lupton gets another mention here.

A classroom through the decades

In pursuit of Leonard Brooks (GA President 1951), I contacted the archivists / historians of William Ellis School and received this amazing sequence of images of the same classroom from Chris Willey, for which I am very grateful.
Here's the room, with some images showing how it changed, or didn't very much, over the years, along with some of the teachers who occupied the room for a while. 

I always remember that even if I have been at a school a long time (I spent 20 years in one school) I am only really 'passing through' in the longer term, and if I went back now some years later (as I have) most people wouldn't have a clue who I was.

Here's the room on Allcroft Road at William Ellis School in 1929.

Fast forward to 1939, with a teacher identified as V. C. Spary

Fast forward to 1953 and Mr. J. Jackson was in the room.



And here in 1953 is Mr. A P Smith helping a student in the Allcroft Road classroom.




The images have a credit to the London Metropolitan Archive apart from the final image which is has the copyright Ian Lyons.

The London Metropolitan Archive is a huge resource, and I need to delve into this a little to find some images that might be lurking there of former GA Presidents.

The image section of the site is called COLLAGE.



I did some preliminary searches to see whether I could find more similar classroom images, and ended up finding quite a few.
Some geography classrooms here.

James Fairgrieve - cartoons from 1907!

Chris Willey, historian from William Ellis School has been extraordinarily helpful in providing details of two GA Presidents: Leonard Brooks and James Fairgrieve

James Fairgrieve is the feature of this cartoon. It was drawn by an artist with the initials FCW in 1907 (the year that Fairgrieve joined the school staff)

This was one of a series of staff cartoons prepared in 1907 by the 'unknown' artist FCW, assumed by to be a fellow member of staff or perhaps a student. 

The images were mounted and probably displayed in the staff room at Allcroft Road, NW5. 

A second one shows the Headmaster at the time: Edward Boyce Cumberland, who had appointed Fairgrieve to the staff, and his dog.



Image copyright: William Ellis School, and used with permission.