|
|
Reached
by lovely lanes, Hartley Wespall has an old church like no other
in Hampshire; its west wall has a bold pattern made of
mighty timbers black with age. The high-pitched roof rests on
moulded timber pillars felled in the 14th century. The handsome
pulpit is Jacobean, and there is an attractive screen crowned by
a crucifix. Two of the bells are 15th century. The curious will
be drawn to a touch of grimness and beauty on one of the walls, a
lady and a skeleton. She is Abigail, Lady Somerton, who died in
1692 and has a fine monument with her portrait, two charming
little boys weeping at the sides, and a leering skeleton with
folded arms at the base. On the wall we read of two brother
captains killed in the Great War, one of them, Robert Durnford,
laid to rest in Persia after he had won the DSO. In the chancel
lies a remarkable man who was rector and schoolmaster here about
25 years, John Keate.
Son of a parson-schoolmaster, he was born at Wells in 1773, and,
entering Eton at 11, passed to Cambridge at 18. A distinguished
classical scholar, he gained a fellowship, took orders, and at 24
returned to Eton as assistant-master.
The school was a hotbed of turbulence and disorder. Boys gambled,
drank in public-houses, went to dog-fights and cock-fights,
poached, and smuggled drink into school. There were eight or nine
masters for 500 boys, and Keate was responsible, during his early
years, for the control of 170 boisterous scholars. In 1809 he was
elected headmaster, and in that capacity he trained some of the
most famous men of the age; yet he scorned mathematics, and under
him history, English literature, science, and geography (except
so far as it bore on the classics) were unknown. Yet in spite of
his curriculum Keate was one of the greatest masters Eton ever
had.
It was
said of him that he flogged "half the ministers, bishops,
generals, and dukes" of the century. He was faced by
organised defiance and hooliganism, which found expression in
rowdy choruses during lessons, in the smashing of his desk, in a
fusillade of bad eggs, stone-throwing, and persistent
insubordination.
Keate was a midget of five feet, but, as one of his pupils said,
in him was concentrated the pluck of 10 battalions, and twice he
suppressed formidable rebellions. One day he birched 72 boys, on
another 100. Once, mistaking the list of candidates for
confirmation for the usual roll of offenders, he flogged the lot,
and became all the more furious in face of explanations. In spite
of his severity he was as a rule just, and was beloved even by
those he birched. Retiring from Eton after fruitful service, he
came here as rector in 1824, and proved an ideal parson. Towards
the close of his life one of his old pupils found him on the
rectory lawn, an old man with his coat off, playing cricket with
little boys and girls, and exclaiming to his wife,
"Mrs Keate, that's not fair—petticoat before wicket!"
