Unofficial Christ's Hospital Forum

When did the use of Christian Names become general at CH? In my day (nineteen forties) one knew the names of some of our own House contemporaries; more often their nickname was used.
It would have been unthinkable for more senior boys in the House to be addressed unfamiliarly
however. Often one did not know the christian name until it was read out at the Leaving Service.
One boy's name in Lamb B was, at the service, revealed to be Shirley. a fact that he had carefully kept concealed throughout his time at the school. Are surnames still used by the masters when addressing boys? I know that this never applied at CH Hertford at any time.
Often when meeting Old Blues of the past one does not know their Christian name and have to ask.
I recently corresponded with an Old Blue senior to me who left in 1945. He said he found it very
strange and difficult not to call me by my surname.
Chris Bartlett

Kit Bartlett wrote:When did the use of Christian Names become general at CH? In my day (nineteen forties) one knew the names of some of our own House contemporaries; more often their nickname was used.
It would have been unthinkable for more senior boys in the House to be addressed unfamiliarly
however. Often one did not know the christian name until it was read out at the Leaving Service.
One boy's name in Lamb B was, at the service, revealed to be Shirley. a fact that he had carefully kept concealed throughout his time at the school. Are surnames still used by the masters when addressing boys? I know that this never applied at CH Hertford at any time.
Often when meeting Old Blues of the past one does not know their Christian name and have to ask.
I recently corresponded with an Old Blue senior to me who left in 1945. He said he found it very
strange and difficult not to call me by my surname.
Chris Bartlett

Are you referring to use of christian names by masters, boys amongst themselves or both?

In my time, as far as I recall, masters would use the surname although, once one was more senior, masters one knew well might use the christian name.

Amongst the boys in my time it was surnames and nicknames in the junior house. Later in the senior house it was christian names and nicknames amongst those one knew well and was friendly with both in house, other houses and sports teams etc. Surnames still for everyone else.

Perhaps a small reflection of society's changes during the sixties the way attitudes changed during my progress through the School.

Strictly unheard of in my day.

The only variation was in my last year, and especially last term, and only with Chris Read when Paul Coates, myself and the young master Chris Read did most of the school printing.

As with JR --- in my day NEVER NEVER !

I'm assuming, regarding my post above Neill's, that as the new masters came in around 1963 must have been about the time when things started to relax a bit.

Probably with the exit of C.M.E.S.

I remember David Newsome calling his School Monitors etc. (and others probably) by their Christian names when he first arrived.

Pat Cullen, when he was housemaster of ThB (from 1961), called the monitors by their first names, but we felt a bit uncomfortable about this, as it seemed a bit phoney.

As for boys calling each other by their first names, I remember when I was a new boy in the mid-50s, most of the ThB monitors did this, but they were regarded as a rather arty lot. By the time I left in 1963, it was fairly common among the over-16s or so, but not otherwise general.

But this was in the days when among (middle-class) men, use of the surname alone (without Mr or whatever) signified collegiality or even friendship.

Kit Bartlett wrote: I know that this never applied at CH Hertford at any time.

I can remember several girls who were generally called by their surnames. Flood, Pook and Parkin? I'd still have difficulty in calling them Jeanne, Judith and Susan.

Kit used my Christian name twice in one day in November 1960 but that was very much an unusual situation.
He used to take boys on the Broads and christian names were used then - including Kit at his insistence.
There was a tightly knitted group of four of us who used Christian names when nobody else was around.
Apart from those exceptions we never knew other boys' Christian names. In fact there was another Brown in Col A with whom I worked closely with in my last year whose Christian name I didn't know until he died two years ago.