The first week back after half term in the Trinity Term is normally a heavy one in the Exams Office with many of the large GCSE subjects having at least one paper to be sat in the Hall. Some of our candidates with access arrangements who sit their exams under alternative invigilation conditions will be familiar with the Newman Pavilion, an often overlooked part of the School estate next to Swansea House, looking out onto our Sports Centre. Its main use nowadays, aside from accommodating public exams, is as the second-hand clothing store. Before that, however, it served as changing rooms for visiting teams.
The Newman Pavilion is named after Albert Victor Newman, a former pupil of the School who arrived on Kingham Hill in 1924 at the age of eight. When he finished his time at school in 1930, he stayed on to live in Stratford House (in what we now call “Staff Village”) and work with the grounds team. As part of his work, he planted five silver birch trees in 1936 close to the spot where the Newman Pavilion now stands.
During his time working on the Hill, he fell in love with Joy Stares, the daughter of the Bradford Housemaster. Joy worked as an assistant cook in one of the boarding houses. Often, they would sit for hours on the little crest of the hill next to the silver birch saplings Albert had planted.
Not long after the outbreak of the Second World War, Albert was called up to serve in the Army. He joined the 1st Battalion of the Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry in 1940. His first taste of action was near Ypres following the German invasion of the Low Countries in May 1940 – a place where many Hillians had fought not 25 years previously during the First World War. As the British and French were outmanoeuvred by the Germans’ “Blitzkrieg” tactics, Albert’s unit retreated to Dunkirk, only 200 of whom were evacuated.
In 1941, whilst on a short period of leave, Albert and Joy were married in Chipping Norton. When he went back to his unit, he would have spent time training in various locations in Britain, eventually to prepare for the invasion of north-western Europe, which started 80 years ago this week on the beaches of Normandy on D-Day, 6th June 1944.
Albert (by now a Corporal) and the 1st Ox and Bucks were sent to Normandy on D-Day+18 (24th June 1944) and were part of the 53rd (Welsh) Division’s efforts to push the Germans out of the city of Caen. After a fortnight of very heavy fighting, the city was taken and efforts were concentrated on pushing the Germans further away from the Allied bridgehead. It was in the fighting after the liberation of Caen that Albert was killed on 16th July 1944, aged 28. He was buried in Brouay War Cemetery, to the south-east of Caen.
After Albert’s death, Joy regularly visited the Hill to watch the silver birch trees grow. When the time came for a changing room pavilion to be constructed and placed near to the spot, it became obvious that it should be named the “Newman Pavilion”. And so on Armistice Day, 2002, Joy Newman (then aged 82) officially named the pavilion in her late husband’s honour in a ceremony attended by pupils, staff, parents and friends of Kingham Hill.
In researching Albert’s life, we have found him to have been quite the Kingham Hill institution. Alongside his work with the grounds staff, Albert was one of the leaders of the School’s Scout troop and captained the Kingham Hill 1st XI in football, for whom he seems to have been an impressive goalkeeper. He can be seen in the 1938 team photograph, where he stands two places to the right of Mr Richard Northway, the Clyde Housemaster, who would go on to be a member of the local Home Guard unit. Mr Northway died on 20th July 1941 in Clyde House and is buried in a Commonwealth War Grave in Kingham Churchyard, which has been maintained by the School’s “Eyes On Hands On '' group in partnership with the Commission since 2019.
On Speech Day in 1945, Admiral Sir Edwards Evans, the guest of honour, hung Albert’s portrait in the Scout Room “to be a constant reminder to us to make our Scouting worthy of those who have gone before us” (to quote the Kingham Hill Magazine from 1945). This surely speaks of the high esteem with which Albert was regarded by that generation on the Hill.
Since the naming of the Newman Pavilion in 2002, a portrait of Albert has hung in its entrance lobby alongside a framed inscription in calligraphy, written by former Bradford Housemistress, Liz Herringshaw. It has become faded with time and we are having it replaced at present. The inscription reads as follows:
ALBERT VICTOR NEWMAN 1916-1944
Albert Victor Newman arrived on Kingham Hill in 1924 at the age of eight. On leaving school in 1930, he continued to live on The Hill and began work in the garden. It was in this capacity that in 1936 he planted the silver birch trees which now surround this pavilion. In 1940 he was enlisted into the Oxford and Bucks Light Infantry and was killed in action during the Normandy campaign at the age of 28. In 1941 he married Joy Stares, daughter of the school PE master and housemaster of Bradford House. It is she who watched her future husband plant the silver birch trees and has presented this photograph.
In researching Albert, we have also come across the story of Leslie “Sandy” Carpenter, who left the School in 1936 during the brief reign of King Edward VIII. Sandy was a School Prefect, won the Scripture Prize and scored three goals for the School football team and was confirmed all in his last year at School. We have tracked down a grainy picture of him from the whole school photograph of that year. If he looks young, remember that the school leaving age in 1936 was fourteen.
In 1940, Sandy was called up to serve in the 1st Battalion Dorsetshire Regiment. He saw active service in the siege of Malta between 1940 and 1942. As part of the 231st Infantry Brigade, Sandy and his unit then went on to make three amphibious landings: on Sicily and the Italian mainland in 1943, and on Gold Beach on D-Day.
The 1st Dorsets’ landing was in the first wave to reach Gold Beach on 6th June 1944. They left their landing craft, wading into the sea somewhere between Port-en-Bessin and Arromanches where the famous Mulberry Harbour would be set up and the remains of which still stand. Sandy was probably one of the first men to be killed as they tried to find cover on the beach. He is buried in Bayeux War Cemetery.
Both Sandy Carpenter and Albert Newman are remembered on our Second World War memorial in Chapel. As a school which takes its history seriously, just like those of our men who fought in the First World War, we ensure the service and sacrifice of those who fell in the Second World War are remembered too.
As we remember perhaps the most significant day in our modern history, the day when Europe finally began to be liberated from Nazi tyranny, it is right that we pay tribute to an exceptional generation, the likes of whom we will likely never see again in our lifetime. They were a generation who showed defiance: they stood up to the threat of invasion and oppression. They were a generation who showed bravery: they gave their all, whatever the cost may have been. And so our generation today gives thanks.
It is particularly poignant that in marking this 80th Anniversary of the Liberation of Europe, our generation, here on our green and pleasant Hill, with our own Anglo-American “special relationship” can draw inspiration from that exceptional generation: ordinary people in extraordinary circumstances.
We thank God for the freedom we live in today, won at such great cost. And we pray for His protection in the years to come that such sacrifice will never be required of either our own generation or those in the future.
- Gareth Williams
Mr Williams is our Head of Languages and Octagon Academic Society. Unofficially, he is our resident historian with a keen interest in Hillian stories. He is currently working on a book about Hillians in the Great War. Our 3rd Form pupils join him on a trip to the Battlefields each year where they research the stories of Old Boys, culminating in a visit the graves of Hillians whilst on the trip.