This was the document given to the parents of boys before starting at the school.
I have scanned my own copy of the Prospectus given to my parents in 1951. It makes interesting reading these days - for instance, how well would the statement "All boys attending the School are expected to wear the School cap and School tie, not only to and from School, but also in the evenings and during weekends" go down these days?
Since I scanned the 1951 Prospectus I have received further versions and it is interesting to compare their contents.
Tony Barr sent me scans from this edition.
Tony writes:
The changes from earlier versions are relatively small, but interesting in relation to the changes of 1944 and the austerity of the post-war era. The paper used is clearly recycled and suffers from substantial yellowing, and the photograph of the school is missing as a frontispiece. The booklet is undated on the front. It is quite interesting to see the headmaster’s clear vision of the school as he writes the document rather than the governors.
I was interested further in the contractual obligation of parents before 1944 whose children were in grammar schools that they were obliged contractually to keep their children at school until the age of 16. If they wished to leave ‘early’ the governors in some schools imposed a cash penalty. I take it that at the R.G.S. this operated until 1944.
Geoff Pask sent me scans of his copy
Most of the content of the 1951 Prospectus is taken directly from the 1944 version (cribbing was just as popular in those days as well), but there some interesting changes for the different years:-
Tuition Fees were £15 15s 0d in 1944 though apparently abolished later
the same year.
Boarding fees in 1944 were £82 per annum, no figure given for 1951
School dinners were taken in the School Hall in 1944 at a cost of 6 pence per day. In 1951 the cost had risen to 7 pence per day and were taken in the new Dining Hall.
Holidays in 1944 were 7 1/2 weeks in the Summer, 4 weeks at Christmas and
3 1/2 weeks in April.
In 1951 these had been reduced to 6 weeks in the Summer, 3 weeks at Christmas
and 3 weeks in April.
School hours in 1944 were 9am to 4.30 on weekdays and on Saturdays 9am to 12.00.
By 1951 the school hours had been reduced to 9am till 4pm with no school on
Saturday mornings
Note for train buffs - in 1944 High Wycombe was on the Great Central and Great Western Joint Line
Martin King sent photographs of this one together with the folowing email:-
Hi Tony,
Geoffrey Perkins (1942 - 1948) has lent me a School Prospectus that he suspects
was sent to his parents when he joined the school in about 1942. This has no
date, but mentions buildings being opened in 1938, so is later than that.
Although it does not actually say so I feel that this prospectus is aimed at
boarders rather than the school generally, as it has many details of the boarding
house etc.