SCHOOLS 17 October. In spite of panic among the parents, Tliring was averse to sending the boys home, regarding such a step, except in extreme circumstances, as unjustifiably expensive and bad for school morale. At the same time he issued for the satisfaction of parents a statement of the principles by which he would be guided in dealing with the situation. At the end of October one of the school wells, which had previously been passed as satisfactory by a local sanitary inspector, was condemned by London analysts whom Thring had consulted. The trustees now called in the Local Sanitary Board, who condemned the drainage of the school. On 2 November the school broke up till after Christ- mas. On 5 November there was an attack on the school in The Times. With ruin imminent Thring appealed to the Local Government Board to send down ' two of its most experienced medical and engineering inspectors to make a searching inquiry.' In this letter the epidemic is described as enteric. During December, under the direction of a Local Government Board engineer and others, all the school premises were thoroughly dealt with, and finally ' certified by the highest authority to be in a perfect sanitary condition.' At the same time steps were taken towards establishing a proper water-supply. In spite of the favourable report the trustees would not allow the school to re-assemble until 28 January. About this time the local in- spectors, no doubt disliking Thring's appeal to head quarters, issued a most hostile report on the sanitary arrangements of the school,"^ which, however, does not seem to have aflPected seriously the return of the boys. But barely three weeks of the term had passed when there was a fresh outbreak of typhoid. On 21 February Thring once more appealed to the Local Government Board, this time asking them to intervene and themselves instal a proper system of drainage in the town. On 4 March Thring was thinking of dismissing the school, and assembling after the Easter holidays somewhere in the Lake District. There was a precedent at Rugby in Arnold's time, when, during an epidemic, the school was scattered in reading parties. Upping- ham, however, owing to its peculiar organization for teaching purposes, could not be treated in the same way ; it must be moved as a whole. On 7 March the decision to migrate was taken by the masters ; on 1 1 March the governors sanc- tioned the break up of the school, but decided to ignore the migration : ' they knew nothing of the school till it came back again.' Within two days Thring had visited Borth, secured the Cam- brian Hotel and adjoining lodging-houses, and ' in fact entered into possession of the whole place.' On 27 March eighteen truckloads of beds and " The Late Fisitation of Typhoid Fever in the School and Town of Uppingham, a Statement with Two Reports. London [1876]. mattresses arrived ; and everything was ready for the reception of the boys against 4 April, when the first batch arrived. Next day the whole school, 290 odd, had assembled.^' The great hotel was arranged to receive 1 50 boys, the head master, and his family, an assistant master and two matrons. A row of lodging-houses flanking the hotel take another 150 boys, and most of the masters ; long narrow tables are run down the hotel passage on the ground floor, the large coffee- rooms and the billiard-room below are treated in the same way, and 350 people — boys, masters and masters' families — dine at one time by this extem- porised arrangement. Twenty-seven lodging-houses in all, and a large public hall, have been secured for school use. A room, 83 feet by 20 feet," is being put up of rough shingle behind the hotel, in order to hold the whole school when needed. The stables are turned into the school carpentry, the large coach- house shed into a gymnasium ; a lavatory, with thirty basins, is being roughly put up ; and altogether the school has shaken into place and got its working ma- chinery in most unexpectedly good order. . . . An aquarium will be started this week. . . . The place is suggestive of shells and aquariums and sea-birds in front, and of botany and rambles in the rear. . . . Cricket goes on on the sand in the bay, and an excel- lent field, unfortunately 4 miles off, but on the rail- way, has been secured for half-holiday practice and matches. Sir Pryse Pryse, of Goderdden, may simply be said to have made a present of it to the school for the time. . . . The Bishop of St. David's, who owns some land near the hotel, has allowed the school to have what they want for cricket there, if practicable. . . . Various cottages receive some 80 or 90, as a substitute for the studies they have at Uppingham. The class-room accommodation is sur- prisingly good." On 21 January 1877 Thring writes : — I have some hundred and seventy boys out in the cottages, and we have not had a single case of com- plaint on either side, very creditable to the people as well as to them. In spite of pecuniary difficulties — the masters had to provide their own funds, and Thring assumed responsibility for more than ^^3,000 — the temp- tation to raise the fees and to increase the num- ber of boys per house was resisted. There was some talk of recalling the school to Uppingham for the autumn term ; indeed, a resolution to that effect was carried at a governors' meeting, but it had to be withdrawn. Meanwhile, nothing seems to have been done to remedy the insanitary condition of the town " ' No more than 3 failed to follow us down to Borth' (J. H. Skrine, Uppingham by the Sea, 23) . . . ' The Rev. R. J. Hodgkinson maintained the Lower School without infection in its isolated quarters, keeping the sacred fire alight on the altar of the tribe until our return to his side ' (J. H. Skrine, J memory ofE. Thring, 181, note. '* It was ready by April 29. " Letter by Thring to The Times. 295
