A Very Brief and Short Introduction to a History of King’s-Edgehill School
On Saturday, February 22nd, the school chaplain, the Rev’d David Curry, gave a talk on the history of King’s-Edgehill School for the West Hants Historical Society in Windsor. It was not and could not be, as he said “THE” history but at best ‘a very brief and short introduction to a history of King’s-Edgehill.’ The talk emphasized the significance of the School and its history for the Town of Windsor. The presentation began with an image of the burning of Edgehill on September 1st, 2016, the loss of one of the most iconic, one of the most important, and certainly one of the most visible architectural structures in the landscape of Windsor. The campus of King’s, by comparison, is largely hidden from view. The history of King’s-Edgehill does not simply begin with the amalgamation in 1976 but goes back to the eighteenth century and is really the story of three institutions: the School, variously referred to as the Academy, King’s Collegiate School, and King’s College School founded in 1788, the University of King’s College founded in 1789, and the Edgehill Church School for Girls in 1891.
Born between two revolutions, the American and the French Revolution, these institutions belong to a loyalist sensibility about the need for “a seminary of learning” with regard to public service, especially in the learned professions of law, medicine, and theology. This is signalled in the mottoes of the School and College and of Edgehill: Deo, Regi, Legi, Gregi and Fideliter. “For God, for the Law, for the King, and for the People” and “Faithfulness”. Such mottoes belong to an educational programme that emphasizes leadership and public service, exemplified for example in terms of the commitments and sacrifices of both the students of King’s (School and College) and Edgehill in the First World War. Attention was called to Clare Gass, an Edgehill Girl who among others served as a nurse in the First World War and whose diary contains the first mention of John McCrae’s famous poem “In Flanders Fields” six weeks before its publication. Discipline and duty was what Headmistress Gena Smith expected of the girls of Edgehill.
The talk touched upon the Anglo-Irish tensions that threatened the early life of the School and the College, not because of the clergy but owing to Judge Alexander Croke’s vision of creating a little England here in the colonies, a vision also shared by Thomas Chandler Haliburton. This vision ignored the diversity of backgrounds culturally and religiously and was opposed by the founding father of the School and College, Bishop Charles Inglis, the first bishop consecrated for an overseas diocese. Croke insisted that the President of the College have degrees from Oxford or Cambridge and that the statutes follow the models of Oxford and Cambridge in terms of subscription to the Thirty-nine articles, thus alienating significant elements of the settler populations of Nova Scotia and New Brunswick.
The first President of the College was William Cochrane who was Irish and Irish educated at Trinity College, Dublin. The first Headmaster of the School was Inglis’ nephew, Archibald Paine Inglis, also Irish (as was Inglis) and educated at University College, Dublin, Ireland. Cochrane was a major figure in the early life of the School and College, being head of both on occasion but then ‘demoted’ to being vice-president with the arrival of Oxford educated Charles Porter. It is enough to say that they didn’t get along and that along with the problem of the statues, this affected the early years of both institutions. Throughout the 19th century, there were a total of four years in which the School was not open. The glory days of Windsor and of the College and School were the 1880s and 1890s when the College in particular was regarded as an intellectually serious seminary of learning.
It was the fire, one hundred years ago on February 5th, 1920, which was catastrophic for the Town as well as the College and the Schools. It resulted in King’s College being relocated to Halifax, probably the most devastating of several factors which contributed to the decline of Windsor. Had the University stayed, Windsor would have continued to develop as a university town much like Woflville or Antigonish. The presentation ended with an artistic image of Edgehill which adorned the School’s yearbook for the year 2016. A lively Q and A followed the presentation.
