Even Gladstone couldn’t arrange term-time holiday

THE frustration of parents unable to take their children on holiday in term-time is nothing new – as a letter from William Gladstone has revealed.

The Victorian Prime Minister, pictured, was rebuffed by a toughtalking headmaster when he wrote on behalf of an MP in his Liberal Party in September 1883. Gladstone asked the Reverend Herbert William Sneyd-Kynnersley, head of St George’s School in Ascot, Berkshire, that the son of Arthur Hamilton-Gordon be allowed a week’s leave.

Despite using Downing Street headed paper and pointing out that the MP was about to begin a seven-year posting as Governor of Ceylon, now Sri Lanka, the Rev Sneyd-Kynnersley was unmoved. He replied: ‘I cannot do otherwise than decline to grant the indulgence for which you ask.’

Both letters are among correspondence from the headmaster that is expected to fetch £ 1,200 at Essex auctioneers Sworders next month.