Leamington College
Leamington College has long produced a well-known list of scientists, doctors, academic scholars, inventors and national-level sportsmen, but there are still one or two unsung heroes. Alongside luminaries such as Lytton Strachey, cricketer and biographer of Queen Victoria, Sir Bernard Spilsbury, Sir Frank Whittle, Dennis Enright, poet and academic, Keith Savage, England Rugby Union player, Jim Shekdar, rower extraordinaire, Norman Painting, actor and countryman, and the many alumni who represented their country in two World Wars and other conflicts, we have recently discovered one or two more deserving recognition, – and who were acclaimed in their own schooldays.
First, John Richardson Maunsell (1834-1887) who was born in Dublin, Ireland. Along with many sons of vicars at that time, he became a boarder at Leamington College.
At the age of 14, at Christmas 1848, J R Maunsell was awarded a solid silver medallion for “Proficiency in Mathematics”, presented by Dr Jephson, founding President of the College.
After Leamington College, he attended the East India Company Military Seminary, in what is now the Borough of Croydon. He then passed the entrance examination for the Royal Engineers. By 1864, he had achieved the rank of Captain, and was married to Augusta Sandwith. They left for India, where they had six children, two of whom died in infancy as their parents travelled from place to place from Mumbai to the Punjab. The younger son and two daughters all survived and lived to a good age. The Maunsell family returned to England eventually. Colonel John H Maunsell R.E. retired in November 1886 and died in London in December 1887. He is buried in Brompton Cemetery.
The Beaumont Medal
Henry George Maud, (1867-1948) was born in Suffolk, the son of Rev H L Maud of Assington, and attended Leamington College in the 1880s. Clearly a very able pupil, in July 1884 he won the Beaumont Medal* for Literature, Science and Arts (see image left), the English Essay prize, and was runner-up for the History Prize. Maud continued to thrive at the College, not only academically, but theatrically as well. His performances as Martine, in Molière’s Le Médecin Malgré Lui, and Charlotte Doubtful in the farce Diamond cut Diamond, greatly impressed local critics. He also performed in school athletics and became a useful lawn tennis player. Throughout his school career, he continued to win academic accolades, eventually winning a scholarship in Classics to University College Oxford, where he also won the prestigious Conington Prize for a Classical dissertation. On graduation, Henry Maud travelled widely – in December 1901, he was reported in the India Daily News as “Acting Consul for Siam in Rangoon” (This would now read “Acting Consul for Thailand, in Yangon, a city in Myanmar.”) In 1904, he appeared in the list of arrivals by steamer from Yokahama to Vancouver, and later that year was in Cuba, where his occupation is given as ‘Planter’. Over the next twenty years, he travelled regularly backwards and forwards from Cuba to numerous locations in the United States, designated on passenger lists as ‘Merchant’, ‘Lawyer’, ‘Rancher’, – a man of many parts as well as a seasoned traveller. He subsequently moved to Florida, and briefly, New York. His death notice in 1948 names him as Colonel Harry Maud, C.B.E, D.S.O, American D.S.M** and Légion d’Honneur. He served with distinction in WW1 and was mentioned in dispatches. Eventually Maud returned to England, where having outlived most of his siblings, he died unmarried in London in January 1948.
*The Beaumont Medal is thought to have been funded by the Rev and Mrs Beaumont in memory of their son EAHA Beaumont (1857-1882) a former pupil of the college, who died suddenly in Paris at the age of 25. They also endowed a stained glass window in the college chapel, and the chapel organ, which was later installed at Holy Trinity Church.
** Harry Maud: Army Distinguished Service Medal. Citation: “The President of the United States of America …. takes pleasure in presenting the Army Distinguished Service Medal to Colonel Harry Maud, Royal British Army, for exceptionally meritorious and distinguished service in a position of great responsibility to the Government of the United States during WW1”. Source: https://valor.militarytimes.co/hero/18764
Next, H O (Hubert Oscar Butler) Nicholson, (1868-1940), was also the son of a vicar, and in 1886 also a Beaumont Medal winner whilst at Leamington College. Nicholson went up to Jesus College
Cambridge on a Classics Scholarship and graduated with a very respectable second in 1890. After Cambridge, Nicholson taught for a while, as Assistant Master at Ascham School in Eastbourne. Before long, he abandoned this calling in favour of making his stage debut in Cork in December 1896 with the Frank Benson Company, remaining with them for well over a decade. He made his London Debut at the Lyceum in the role of Nym, in Henry V. (in role, right), at Stratford, 1916). In 1911, he appeared in his first screen role in Benson’s adaptation of Richard III, filmed at Stratford upon Avon. He appeared in one further film before (theatrical) service in the First World War. Returning to Stratford in the 1920s he played many major Shakespearean roles, and leading parts by authors such Sheridan, Goldsmith Ibsen and Oscar Wilde. At the same time, Nicholson carved out a wide-ranging career in BBC radio, from variety to documentaries and plays. He died in London in September 1940 at the age of 72.
Finally, Walter Adye, (1858-1915) the son of Major-General Goodson Adye, of 23 Bertie Road (See left, – now Warwick Place) Milverton. Walter Adye was one of several brothers educated at Leamington College. He then went on to Sandhurst. Commissioned 2nd Lieutenant in the 83rd Regiment, Royal Irish Rifles in 1878, he was advanced to Lieutenant by the end of that year, followed by active service in the Second Afghan War, when he was recommended for the V.C. Notwithstanding a somewhat colourful social life away from the front, (he was named as co-respondent in a prominent divorce case, and later married Camille Stanhope, the divorcée in question) Adye swiftly rose through the ranks, serving with distinction on several notable war fronts from 1879-1907, when he was promoted to Colonel. The first defeat of the British in the Boer War in October 1899, the battle of Nicholson’s Nek (also known as Lombard’s Kop), leading to the siege of Ladysmith, was what one historian has described as “the most humiliating defeat in British military history since Majuba”. Adye was one of 954 officers and men taken prisoner at this battle. He was mentioned in Despatches (London Gazette, February 1901], and The Leamingtonian, the house magazine of Leamington College, reported that, ”Major Walter Adye, Royal Irish Rifles [had been] taken prisoner but released from Pretoria by the Boers on account of ill-health”. Appointed CB in 1909, Adye served briefly as Deputy Assistant Inspector of Remounts, Eastern Command, from 1914 until his death in London in September 1915. Camille his wife and his daughter Camille Louise survived him. His son Walter Edmond Charles predeceased him at the age of 16 in 1908.
Medals awarded to Col Walter Adye.
They are: The Most Honourable Order of the Bath, C.B. (Military); Companion’s breast badge, 18 carat gold and enamels, hallmarked London 1882, complete with swivel-ring suspension and gold ribbon buckle, which Col Adye was granted in the 1909 birthday honours list; Kandahar; Queen’s South Africa 1899-1902, 1 clasp, Natal; Coronation 1902, silver. Afghanistan 1878-80, 1 clasp. These medals were sold at auction 13th February 2024 for £3,800.
Margaret Rushton, March 2024
Sources: DGP Morse; BNA online: Leamington Spa Courier; Oxford Chronicle and Reading Gazette; The London and China Telegraph; The Indian Daily News; Ancestry and Find My Past; Wikipedia; Google; AG Griffin (Postcard of Leamington College); M L Ryan, for additional information about HG Maud, Walter Adye and the Beaumont Medal.