My father, John Bartlett, was Headmaster of Brunswick School and told us that the school was evacuated to Cornwall in the war like West Park and many others. Not to Polzeath but not far off on Bodmin Moor at Michaelstow and it seems likely that the boys had trips to the coast and some would have been to Polzeath. .
An old boy of Brunswick, Tony Dilnot, wrote a book covering the history of the school and in 2022 came to see me to research it. Jill and Tony live at Berridon Hall on the Cornwall Devon county line near Bradworthy but we didn't at the time know about West Park as we even had lunch in the Atlantic Bar!
The following is an extract from his book:
Once the war started in earnest it became clear the location of the school made it vulnerable to enemy action. The army were already using the school gym for temporary accommodation. One of the officers was a Major Jameson Muir.
It was decided that Mrs Goldman and Mr Leeds-Harrison should travel to the West Country in Michael’s Lagonda and seek alternative accommodation for the school. It seems that, over three
days in May 1940, they looked at several properties including a very pleasant property in Dorset.
In the end they were obliged to agree on Michaelstow House, St Tudy even though it was not nearly big enough for their purpose.
The original owner of the property was William Hocken, the son of a Yeoman and landowner of
the parish of St Tudy. He went to Manchester and accumulated considerable wealth as a
merchant. On return to Michaelstow he built the present house in 1869. Hocken also built the
Lodge house, gate piers and flanking walls as seen in the photograph. The gates are also
original. In 1883 the house was owned by a Mr John Collins. In 1906 it was owned by James J
Muir who died in 1907. In 1909 his widow sold it and moved into a smaller property nearby.
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The original gateway to Michaelstow Manor, St Tudy, Cornwall with thanks to Barry
Goldman
By the end of WW1 it was owned by a Miss Haigh but was unoccupied. Mrs Muir repurchased
it and, on her death, left it to her son, Jameson Muir. In the late 1920’s he started a nurseries
business on the site to generate some income and provide local employment, there being an
economic depression at the time. Then, in 1939, Muir rejoined the army and his family moved
out of the property. On becoming aware of the school’s plight whilst billeted there in May 1940,
he offered the empty house to the school.
Mrs Goldman and Mr Leeds-Harrison returned to Haywards Heath on the third day of their
reconnaissance tour, a Friday. After some discussion, it was agreed to take up Major Muir on his
offer of renting Michaelstow House.
The following day the transport was arranged and packing began. Most of the library books and
various other school furnishings were stored in the chapel. By Sunday morning they were ready
with Mr Leeds-Harrison and Mrs Goldman in his Lagonda, two coaches for the boys and four
lorries loaded with beds, desks, pots and pans. It seems the school cook, Mrs Uden, went with
them as there were no domestic staff at Michaelstow House. Mr Goldman stayed on to complete
arrangements for the handover of the school building to the army for the duration. He traveled
down to Cornwall the following day. In the meantime the boys and the few adults had made the
best of it for a couple of days, washing in pigs’ troughs outside until proper arrangements could
be made.
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To begin with, the makeup of the school were the boarders who had moved from Haywards
Heath. However, very quickly, the headmasters were obliged to attract local custom in the form
of some weekly boarders and, even, day boys. A former pupil, Peter Tame, wrote an interesting
biography of his time at Brunswick, most spent at Michaelstow. It seems he and his family were
living in Truro in the Easter of 1941 when his father sought a new school for Peter. Brunswick at
Michaelstow was recommended and, it seems, Mr Goldman was more than pleased to welcome a
new boy. Peter well describes life in the temporary setup, in particular Mr Leeds-Harrison’s
shooting skills having competed for the King’s Cup at Bisley. The school shooting team was
particularly successful, beating local farming teams and even a team of regular soldiers billeted
nearby! In the absence of any proper sporting facilities and nearby schools to compete against,
Mr Goldman reactivated a Scout troop. It seems there was a scouting troop at the school in the
first world war.
In his memoir Peter describes Mr Leeds-Harrison as being of intimidating appearance being six
foot five inches tall, having a deep voice and stern face. As well as teaching maths and coaching
shooting, Michael Leeds-Harrison found time to command the Michaelstow Home Guard.
Peter talks of the boys helping the local farmers with the harvest and picking potatoes although,
it seems, they were punished by their Headmasters for not taking the work seriously enough!
Most of their meals were sparse due to war time rationing but they always had plenty of fresh
milk, thanks to the local farmer.
The school was successful in enabling eleven boys to obtain scholarships to various Public
schools during its time in Cornwall. These individual successes were celebrated with a day off
for the whole school. Again the local farmer was prevailed upon to transport all the boys in his
cattle truck to Tregardock beach or elsewhere locally for the day! One of these scholarships was
won by J H Pattisson who joined the school in 1940 when it was still at Haywards Heath. He
moved with the school to Michaelstow and stayed until 1944 when he went to Radley College in
Oxfordshire. John Pattisson, sadly died recently (2022). His time at Brunswick, Michaelstow
gave him a love of Cornwall that lasted his whole life.
After D Day in June 1944 the army advised Mr Goldman they were finished with the building in
Haywards Heath. As bombing had ceased and invasion was no longer a threat it was decided to
move the school back to Sussex during the summer holidays 1944. Peter describes how he
worked at unpacking and reshelving the library books. In particular he talks of the bound copies
of Punch magazine, from the Victorian era, that were still in the library at Dutton Homestall
years later, in Stoke Brunswick times. After the war Major Muir and his family returned to
Michaelstow. In due course the building became a nursing home and then the centre of a holiday
accommodation business which it is to this day.
Facebok Comments on the original post
My (older) brother attended Brunswick during WWII and later went on up to Claysmore. (He passed in 2014. I informed Claysmore but did not think of Brunswick.)
As a child I knew that some boarding schools divided their students into "houses." Because of that I thought, until this moment, that "Michaelstow House" was one of the houses within Brunswick school! LOL.
Sorry to go off the Cornwall topic. I got distracted.
Author
Diana Gardner Robinson thanks so much for this information about your brother at Brunswick at Michaelstow in Cornwall in WW2. There is a Facebook group for the school which you may be interested in joining which is under Stoke Brunswick as the schools joined in the 60’s before ending a few years ago now. You may already know but I can send a link if you like
Polzeath Walks yes please it could be interesting. (For a couple of years, while our parents were abroad, I was at St. Monica's, which was a junior girls' school like Brunswick but near Upton, Dorset. It is now called The Laurels, the name of the Georgian (I think) mansion in which the school still seems to operate. Magnificent gardens!