From : "Old Ashbourne" (Ashbourne Telegraph, 30 December 1904).

The newspaper published a letter from and Old Ashburnian who had been educated at the Old School in Ashbourne but later resided in Southport. The gentleman had read an article about Ashbourne, which prompted him to forward a list of fellow pupils from his time at the school some forty years before.

Whilst he did not provide his own name, he was curious to know if some of the boys who attended the school at the same time as him had survived, although he thought the Whithams had predeceased him and only one of the Edensors was alive and living in Liverpool (see the names in the list below).

The correspondent also recounted the following story:

"I shall always remember one 2nd of May at the dear old school when the boys (with the exception of three who were late), went to Dovedale. This was how it happened. The Headmaster's wife, in consequence of the noise made before school commenced, had us all turned out, and the doors locked. As these were not unfastened to time it was proposed and carried that we should take a holiday. We therefore went—to the number of about forty of us—to the Dale, where we had an enjoyable time, and returned about 6 o'clock. In the interim Mr. Gepp had called round to the parents, leaving instructions that when we came back we should be sent to bed without food. Next morning he expelled several of the older boys, and punished others with a 2,000 [2000] line task. After a few days had passed, the Headmaster received the expelled ones back ; so they really had a nice little holiday as their share of the penalty.

One of our favourite games was the "Battle of Waterloo", which we fought in the churchyard near the wall which separated the ground from the almshouses. I suppose the "field" is now covered with graves.

I know very few of the old boys' addresses. One of the Morleys is a chemist in Chichester, and T. W. Edensor is a fruit merchant at Liverpool.

Related pages:

QEGS - Old School

QEGS, Green Road

Church Street