THE SCHOOL ACQUIRES ARMS Permission In 1950, a school badge was adopted. This took the form of the arms of the Shadwell family, who had been Lords of the Manor of Northolt from 1827-1927. Sir Lancelot Shadwell, the original owner was the Vice Chancellor of England, the last man to hold this office. The Shadwell family gave the school permission to use their coat of arms and motto 'Loyal Au Mort' 'Loyal unto Death' (or. more literally. Loyal to the Dead Man). In May 1950 Mr James received the following letter: Thank you for your letter, I should be delighted for the school to adopt the Shadwell arms itself. May I say that this permission is not entirely my own. The present head of the family is Captain Lancelot Shadwell, R N of HMS Howe, & when I wrote to acquaint him of what was on foot, he wrote back to say that he raised no objection. Neither does Mr Charles Shadwell (of BBC renown) who is also one of the Vice-Chancellor's descendants. When the school has really, got its new badge in good going order, I wonder if I might come over one day, on a purely informal & quite unobtrusive visit, just to see it in its new role. I enclose a cutting from 'The Times' of 1850 which may be of some interest. There are also one or two other items which might prove of interest. The Vice-Chancellor belonged to a society which advocated the daily dip. So he, & his sons, used to bathe daily in the Thames, at Barn Elms, all the year round. In a copy of Punch of the year 1840 is a delightful cartoon of the Vice-Chancellor, in the river, & someone swimming out to him, with a suit. One of his fellow judges in the High Court wrote of him as 'A man of whom it could be said, 'He poured cold water on nobody but himself''. This commentary on him, in the judge's handwriting, & signed by him, is still preserved, & hangs framed, in the house of the Vice-Chancellor's still one surviving grand-daughter-in-law at Richmond, where I have often seen it. Also he three times refused a peerage, & when I once, as a small child, asked my father why, the reply was, 'He wouldn't have anything to do with any nonsense of that sort.', indicating, I suppose, that he would accept no form of bribery, direct, or indirect, Also, probably, he never wished to be made Lord Chancellor, & so long as he remained only a knight he could not be promoted. I hope you will forgive these details. But the school might be interested in some of them. Children usually like details about people which show that they actually once lived. So far as I know, the Vice-Chancellor was the last member of the family to apply for permission to the College of Heralds to bear the arms of his ancestor, Thomas Shadwell of Lyndowne, Staffs, who first received the grant in 1537. There appears to be a strong family tradition that the motto comes down from the Crusades. It does not appear in the original grant of the College of Heralds. The letter was written by Evelyn M Shadwell, the consequence of which was that the Shadwell coat of arms became Greenford County Grammar School's badge. She did get her wish to visit the School when she attended the School's second Speech Day held exactly a year later. Glorious Past Shapes Glorious Future On Speech Day in May 1951, Mr James said the previous year had been one of continuous hard work, resulting in 59 boys and girls gaining general school certificates, 20 of them with exemption from matriculation, and 17 higher school certificates. To deal with 24 pupils admitted at the age of 13 in 1946 from surrounding secondary modern schools, a special four-year course was devised. For various reasons, some within their parents' control, nine of the 24 left before completing the course. Fourteen of the remainder were successful, seven of them gaining exemption from matriculation. 'Results such as these reflect the highest credit on all concerned', Mr James went on, 'But don't let your sons and daughters persuade you to let them leave before finishing the full course. The benefits of a grammar school education are immeasurable. What could be done here cannot be made up afterwards. Contrary to the opinion of some people, a place left vacant at such at late stage cannot be filled.' 'Nowadays there are many distractions to sustained hard work, I am disturbed by statements that the capacity for getting down to it is not as good as it was. I should not be disturbed if these statements didn't come from people closely concerned with schools and employment people who are in a position to argue effectively. I hope for the schools of this country that these statements are not true.' School societies, Mr James said, continued to meet, giving their members opportunities for activities and discussions of all sorts of topics. The football and cricket teams had had reasonably successful seasons. During the summer a great deal of time was spent in athletics training, culminating in the school taking part in the White City Grammar Schools' Meeting. In a tribute to the school staff Mr James said he thought it significant that members who left did so to take up posts of greater importance. Prizes were presented by Mr J F Wolfenden, Vice Chancellor of Reading University. In an address, he said that grammar schools over the years had covered themselves in glory. They had worked out for themselves a way of living and a reputation that was the envy of a great many countries of the world. At present they were going through difficult times which were in fact, a challenge. If pupils made a contribution not only to the school, but to the welfare of society after they left he had no doubt that this glorious past would shape at glorious future. Why the Shadwell Crest? On view for the first time to parents and pupils who filled the school hall were two new athletic shields made by members of the staff the previous term. Each bore the crest with its colours of blue and gold and the motto of 'Loyal au mort'. Above the crest was a scallop, the traditional symbol of a pilgrim. (Quite a coincidence, considering The Pilgrim Song was chosen years before as the school song!) Announcing the adoption of the crest in his report, the Headmaster, Mr James, said he had been troubled by the lack of a suitable badge since the school became more conscious of its growing importance. The fact that Borough and County arms were already widely used made him regard old-established local families as a fruitful line of research. With the help of the Rector of Northolt. Miss page 49