The folly of disowning two great sons of Devon
SIR – The headteacher of Exeter School, Louise Simpson, appears to find that Sir Francis Drake and Sir Walter Raleigh no longer represent the school’s “values and inclusive nature”, and are thus unworthy to have houses named after them (report, March 5). She proposes woodlands or topographical features as substitutes. Wistlandpound comes to mind.
I do wonder if the headteacher has done her homework when she says that Raleigh doesn’t fit the school’s values. Not only was he a competent sailor, but he also wrote good poetry. And he died well. On feeling the axe at his execution, he is said to have remarked: “’Tis a sharp remedy, but a sure one for all ills.”
Drake, apart from seeing off the Spaniards, was instrumental in giving Plymouth a water supply. A poet and a plumber seem pretty inclusive to me.
Rohaise Thomas-everard
SIR – I attended Exeter School between 1969 and 1974, and was a member of Raleigh House. Renaming it after, say, Captain Pugwash would not have made it any pleasanter or more inclusive to a shy 13-year-old who found it difficult to fit in.
I have in past years communicated several times with Louise Simpson, and am convinced that she is a strong, caring and excellent headteacher. Were I 13 again, I should feel happy to be joining her school, whatever the names of the houses.
Tom Stubbs
SIR – Stowe’s 16 houses are not only named after members of the Temple-grenville family, later the dukes of Buckingham (“Out with Churchill, in with Greta: Why schools are ‘modernising’ their house names”, telegraph.co.uk, March 7). This tradition ended in 2007 when Elizabeth II visited Stowe to open Queen’s House.
More recently, the children of Sir Nicholas Winton and Group Captain Leonard, Baron Cheshire, opened Winton and Cheshire houses in 2019 to celebrate two of our most illustrious Old Stoics. Last year, the family of Colonel Andrew Croft, Old Stoic soldier, explorer, and reforming head of The Infantry Boys’ Battalion in Plymouth and the Metropolitan Police Cadet Corps in Hendon, opened a 16th house, Croft.
While it is true that Richard, 1st Duke of Buckingham and Chandos (1776–1839), opposed William Wilberforce’s Bill for the abolition of slavery, his uncle, William Wyndham Grenville, 1st Baron Grenville (1759–1834), and prime minister from 1806 to 1807, proposed and managed the Abolition of the Slave Trade Act of 1807, arguably the most important legislative act of the 19th century, which abolished the slave trade in the British Empire.