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The House System
Like
most schools of the 1950s, the Sir William Nottidge employed a
"house system" which became an integral part of
school life. In fact, it formed a basic fabric against which so
much activity was set. Hopefully, we can convey this in the
paragraphs below. The
Four Houses... The four houses were as follows....
| Coppens |
Red |
| Minters |
Yellow |
| Torrith |
Blue |
| Sedberry |
Green |
Origins of those Names
Many years ago, I was told that the house titles
were the names of the fields upon which the school was built.
However, contributions to Simply Whitstable have
led me to modifiy that theory a little. Yes, they were
indeed field names.... BUT those fields were spread well beyond
the boundaries of the school grounds. In his article, "Whitstable's Old
Field Names", Brian Smith contains an old map and I
have included an extract below. The relevant field names
are circled in black.... 
Extract from map kindly supplied by
Brian Smith
It
should be noted that "Church Road" later became
"Old Bridge Road" and "Belmont Road". The
field locations appear to be as follows....
| Little
Torrith |
Located on the east side of
Millstrood Hill, close to the junction with Old Bridge
Road |
| Coppins |
Located in Old Bridge Road,
opposite the London-bound platform of the main railway
station. It later became known as "London's
field" and it now accommodates All Saints Close and
the lower section of Seymour Avenue.. |
| Minters |
Located on the side of the
hill between Millstrood Road and Downs Avenue. It now
forms part of Whitstable Cemetery. |
| Sedberry |
This appears to have been
known as Sedburrys and it was located on the eastern side of South Street.
My one concern here is that it was a considerable
distance from the school site. We cannot wholly rule out
the possibility that there was another field with a
similar name. |
If you would like to see the many other fields of
Whitstabe, you can read Brian's complete article by clicking
here. At least one of the "house
name" fields was owned by Downhouse Farm (circled in red on
the map extract) and I suspect that this also applied to some of
the others. Downhouse Farm is also referred to as Downs Farm.
It still exists alongside the main Sir Willaim Nottidge School
building in Bellevue Road. Even as late as the 1950s, it had a
duck pond close by. It has been difficult to
discover why such strange titles were given to areas of ground but, in January
2007, Diana Suard (Paris) provided a significant break through
with regard to one of the names. Take a look at this....
| In 1854, Downs Farm was let to John Sutton BING,
my great-great-grandfather, who then married Charlotte
Elizabeth SADDLETON.
In 1873, it was leased to Stephen SADDLETON and
was described as 'containing 179 acres 3 roods and 1
pole'! The cemetery and the Sir William Nottidge School
are located on what was the farm and Downs Farmhouse is
still there, in Bellevue Road.
Diana |
The names of the fields seem to go back even
further..... as Diana adds below....
| Sarah Baldock was owner in 1828 when she married
Michael MINTER. Her brothers inherited it on her death
and, later, her nephew came into possession of the
farm.
In 1857, he sold part of the farm to the
Whitstable Burial Board for the purpose of a cemetery,
the ground being part of a field called Great Gorrell.
Later he sold to the Burial Board another piece
called MINTERS, after his uncle.
Diana |
So, Minters took its name from an individual
connected with ownership of the land. This was in keeping
with many other fields in the Whitstable area. That leaves us with
Torrith, Coppens and Sedberry. To date, searches of the Internet
have proved disappointing. Admittedly, they have revealed that
both Sedberry and Coppens sometimes crop up as surnames. One geneology site
refers briefly to a "Coppens of Norton, Kent". This
caused some initial excitement as Brian Smith's article on the
origins of Whitstable (see our main menu) refers to a Saxon
manor called Nortone which may have covered the high ground
occupied by Sir William Nottidge School. However, Whitstable's
Nortone was spelt with a trailing "e" and "Coppens
of Norton, Kent" probably inhabited a parish that didn't
want an "e"... probably down at Ashford. A search for "Torrith"
provides bizarre results. You quickly enter the realms of "Torrith
the Ancient", a land of "scorpioids", the
sad world of computer games... and some very odd web locations.
If I had been a member of Torrith House, I think I would have
resigned! Just like Minters, I suspect that the answers are much
more recent and far less exotic. I also suspect that they
will come from within Whitstable itself rather than on a web
site! The House System....
and Trophies The
houses were used in so many different ways. Quite naturally, they
formed the basis for sporting competition. However, they also surfaced in
the context of other activities and some of these were formally
recognised and rewarded at the annual Prize Giving ceremony. Thanks
to Linda Farrington, we can get some idea of the labours that attracted house awards....
by viewing an extract from Linda's copy of the Prize Giving program for Wednesday,
19th October 1960.... 
It's
interesting to spot some of the names and companies involved in
the sponsorship. I just love the "Allotment Holders
Association Trophy for Lower School Gardening". I
bet that caused a few problems for the program editior and I
would imagine it was a pretty big trophy. It also has me
pondering the natural disasters that must have befallen the Upper School
Garden during the relaxed days of 1960. You can see the full program document by visiting
the Prize
Giving 1960 page. Of course, there were
many "day to day" house activities and not all
could be acknowledged on a grand scale. That brings us to our
next topic.... The
House System... and House Points Throughout
the academic year. House points were awarded for a wide range of
work and behaviour. This was such a key part of school life
that running totals were published each month in the school
magazine (The Quiver). Thanks to contributions
from Ken Allen, you can take a look at several issues of The
Quiver on our School Mag section (click
here). House
System...
and Prefects... School prefects were
selected to ensure that they were repersentative of all four
houses. Their badges carried the colour of their
house. The badge below belonged to my brother who
was in Minters (yellow).... 
You
can see more details of badges by visiting our School
Badge & Uniform and Other
Badges pages. The
House Apron..... Some
house activities had a practical and long term impact. They also
demonstrated "joined up teaching" with links between
subjects.... as Pam Steward explains.....
|
When I started at the SWN
school aged 11, all the girls had to cut out and sew an
apron in the needlework class ready for their Domestic
Science lessons. The colour had to be of your house
colour and with a gingham pattern.
I was in Sedberry so my apron
was green. I think it lasted all through my schooling
and probably after.
Best
wishes,
Pam
Steward (Jordan) |
The House System.... and
School Trips...
As a non-Nottidge pupil, I found one use of the house system
quite strange and it cropped up in Ken Allen's collection of
school magazines. The relevant article was as follows...
Confining school trips to pupils of a particular
house was something that probably occurred in public
schools where the residential nature of the schools meant that
houses formed self contained communities. However, this is the
first time I have seen it practiced in a normal state school. Some
of our readers may be able to throw some light on the reasons.
In the meantime, I will have guess at some of the
advantages. Dividing pupils into house groups would have allowed
links between year groups. The mix of age groups may also have
been benficial to teachers as senior pupils could help to
control younger members of the group on school trips. This
whole situation may also help to explain why prefects were
appointed from each house and carried the house colours on their
badges. |
