The Great School is part of what used to be the monks’ dormitory. It is a splendid room, first built in the Norman days, and then altered or rebuilt in the fourteenth century. It stands on a lower storey which is part of the Norman buildings. The School was very well restored not many years ago. Besides the Great School there are, of course, many class-rooms.
The King’s scholars now live in a fine building which was begun in Dean Atterbury’s time, and designed by Sir Christopher Wren. It is here that the famous “Westminster Play” is acted every year, about Christmas time. The performance of this Latin play is a very old custom, and probably began in the time of Queen Elizabeth. If any member of the Royal Family has died during the year the play is not given.
Another curious old custom in the school is the tossing of the pancake on Shrove Tuesday. This takes place in the Great School. In former days, when classes were held in the Great School, there used to be a curtain hung right across, to divide the upper and lower schools. This curtain hung from an iron rod, which still remains, although the curtain has gone. Every Shrove Tuesday the college cook has to bring a very solid sort of pancake and throw it over this high bar. No doubt he has to practise a good deal before he can do it properly, and he does not always throw it over the first time. The boys scramble to catch it, and if any boy gets the whole pancake the Dean’s Verger leads him to the Dean, who gives him a guinea.
[W. Rice, F.R.P.S.
LITTLE DEAN’S YARD—ENTRANCE TO GREAT SCHOOL.
In old days the whole school might join in the scramble, and rather a dangerous one it was. Now it has been arranged that only a certain number of boys may struggle for the pancake, these boys being chosen from various forms.
Some of the most celebrated of the Westminster scholars have graves or monuments in the Abbey, and thus are doubly connected with Westminster. A few of these have already been mentioned, as, for example, Ben Jonson, the famous poet and dramatist, and the poets Abraham Cowley, George Herbert, John Dryden, William Cowper, and Robert Southey.
Matthew Prior, a poet much admired in his own day, was also a Westminster scholar. He died in 1721, and was buried near Spenser. His monument is near Poets’ Corner door.
Barton Booth, a well-known actor in the eighteenth century, was at Westminster school. He died in 1733, and his widow put up a monument to him in Poets’ Corner many years afterwards. Two streets in Westminster are named in memory of him. One of these is Barton street, and the other is Cowley street, called after Booth’s burial-place at Cowley, in Middlesex. Both these streets are close to the Abbey precincts.
Most people have heard of the famous Headmaster of Westminster in the seventeenth century, Dr. Richard Busby. He was Headmaster during the troublous times of the Civil War and the Commonwealth, and was still headmaster in the reigns of Charles II and James II. He was a very remarkable man, and had many distinguished pupils. He was celebrated both for scholarship and for severity.