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Reginald Caton

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107-533: Reginald Ashley Caton (1897–1971) was an English publisher. He appears as a literary character, especially in novels by Kingsley Amis . In 1924, he founded the Fortune Press in London, specialising in gay erotica . Repeated legal difficulties saw his prosecution for obscene libel in 1934. Caton is celebrated for obtaining the rights to Dylan Thomas 's 18 Poems , which he published in 1934, with repercussions for

214-544: A board of governors. It continues to be under the governance of the City of London Corporation (the governing body of the City of London headed by the Lord Mayor of the City of London , as opposed to Greater London , as well as an independent corporation). The school is under the governance of the City of London Corporation's corporate arm as opposed to its Local Authority arm. The school

321-479: A classics scholar who became Regius Professor of Modern History at Cambridge University and H. H. Asquith , who though educated as a classical scholar went on to become the British Prime Minister . The school eventually outgrew its original site. While some public schools moved away from Greater London in the late 19th century, the management and committee of City of London jointly decided to stay in

428-418: A cost exceeding £100,000 (about £11,158,064.52 in 2016). The designers designed the school as "amazingly unscholastic, rather like a permanent Exhibition Palace." On the front of the building are statues of Shakespeare , Milton , Bacon , Newton and Sir Thomas More with "the first four emphasising the school's literary and scientific traditions [and] the last being a religious martyr, a famous lawyer and

535-757: A first in English in 1947, he had decided by then to give much of his time to writing. In 1946 he met Hilary Bardwell . They married in 1948 after she became pregnant with their first child, Philip. Amis initially arranged for her to have a back-street abortion , but changed his mind, fearing for her safety. He was a lecturer in English at the University College of Swansea from 1949 to 1961. Two other children followed: Martin in August 1949 and Sally in January 1954. Days after Sally's birth, Amis's first novel, Lucky Jim ,

642-574: A large, dreadful, hairy-faced creature ... whom [Amis] loathed and feared. His mother's parents lived at Camberwell . Her father George was an enthusiastic collector of books and Baptist chapel organist who was employed at a Brixton gentleman's outfitters as a tailor's assistant, being "the only grandparent [Amis] cared for". Amis hoped to inherit much of his grandfather's library, but his grandmother Jemima – whom Amis already disliked for her habit of mocking her husband when he read his favourite passages to Amis, making "faces and gestures at him while his head

749-504: A librarian in Hull) and his temptation to adultery. I Like It Here (1958) takes a contemptuous view of "abroad", after Amis's own travels on the Continent with a young family. Take a Girl Like You (1960) steps away from the immediately autobiographical, but remains grounded in the concerns of sex and love in ordinary modern life, tracing a young schoolmaster's courtship and ultimate seduction of

856-483: A novelist who died in 2023; and Sally Amis , who died in 2000. Amis was married a second time, to the novelist Elizabeth Jane Howard from 1965 to 1983, with whom he had no children. At the end of that marriage, he went to live with his former wife Hilary and her third husband, in a deal brokered by their two sons Philip and Martin to ensure he could be cared for until his death. City of London School The City of London School , also known as CLS and City ,

963-612: A part of an overall plan to expand capacity at the school. The contract was won by a joint proposal from Morris & Co. and Freehaus . The front view of the building beside the River Thames with St Paul's Cathedral in the background and the Millennium Bridge on the right is occasionally seen in popular media such as in the BBC News 60-second countdown as well as in an early scene of the 2005 movie, The Constant Gardener and in

1070-493: A personal selection of his favourite poems, grew out of his work for a London newspaper, in which he selected a poem a day and gave it a brief introduction. Amis was shortlisted for the Booker Prize three times, for Ending Up (1974) and Jake's Thing (1978), and finally, as prizewinner, for The Old Devils in 1986. In 2008, The Times ranked Amis 13th on its list of the 50 greatest British writers since 1945. As

1177-439: A poet, Larkin had published two novels; Amis originally sought to be a poet and turned to novels only after publishing several volumes of verse. He continued throughout his career to write poetry in a straightforward, accessible style that often masks a nuance of thought. Amis's first novel, Lucky Jim (1954), satirises the highbrow academic set of an unnamed university through the eyes of a struggling young lecturer of history. It

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1284-522: A rigorous daily schedule on himself, segregating writing and drink. Mornings were spent on writing, with a minimum daily output of 500 words. Drinking began about lunchtime, when this had been achieved. Such self-discipline was essential to Amis's prodigious output. Yet according to James, Amis reached a turning point when his drinking ceased to be social and became a way of dulling his remorse and regret at his behaviour towards Hilly. "Amis had turned against himself deliberately.... It seems fair to guess that

1391-463: A school and governors were appointed. Conditions at the workhouse site had deteriorated and much money was needed for its maintenance. The only funds available, though, were the same £300 (about £30,000 in 2016) a year budget the workhouse had received. Over the next few years, the workhouse proposal was seen by the City of London Lord Mayor's deputation and the City Lands Committee (Taylor

1498-469: A school. They selected Honey Lane Market, a site on Milk Street, as their preferred location. However, this proposal faced the same funding difficulties as the workhouse proposal: only £300 per year was available, insufficient to build and maintain a school. This problem was not recognised until the bill to found the school reached the House of Lords . An altered bill was finalised in 1834, removing any references to

1605-421: A selection of other ties worn by some pupils; these are given out as awards for achievements within the school. These include house colours which are awarded to those who have represented their house in multiple events. School colours are awarded to those who have represented the school in multiple events. School colours include junior colours normally awarded to boys in the fourth form and below who have represented

1712-550: A serious yet light-handed treatment of what the genre had to say about man and society. Amis was especially keen on the dystopian works of Frederik Pohl and C. M. Kornbluth , and in New Maps of Hell coined the term "comic inferno" to describe a type of humorous dystopia exemplified by the work of Robert Sheckley . He further displayed his devotion to the genre in editing, with the Sovietologist Robert Conquest ,

1819-724: A student-founded Star Wars Society. Boys themselves can create and manage clubs, with school funding available for activities. There are also trips, opportunities to carry out community service and a Combined Cadet Force . The school also gives boys the opportunity to receive instrumental tuition as well as join music groups including orchestras and choirs. The school also offers sports including football , cricket , basketball, water polo , swimming, sailing, fencing, squash , badminton, fives , athletics , cross-country , judo, karate and indoor rowing . Most of these sports take place on school facilities. Sports such as sailing and climbing take place on non-school facilities. Boys also represent

1926-462: A visiting lecturer in other north-eastern universities. On returning to Britain, he fell into a rut, and he began looking for another post. After 13 years at Swansea, Amis became a fellow of Peterhouse, Cambridge , in 1961, but regretted the move within a year, finding Cambridge an academic and social disappointment. He resigned in 1963, intent on moving to Majorca, although he actually moved no further than London. In 1963, Hilary discovered that Amis

2033-475: A wide knowledge of all kinds of English poetry. The New Oxford Book of Light Verse (1978), which he edited, was a revision of an original volume done by W. H. Auden . Amis took it in a markedly new direction: Auden had interpreted light verse to include "low" verse of working-class or lower-class origin, regardless of subject matter, while Amis defined light verse as essentially light in tone, though not necessarily simple in composition. The Amis Anthology (1988),

2140-568: A young man at Oxford, Amis joined the Communist Party of Great Britain and left it in 1956. He later described this stage of his political life as "the callow Marxist phase that seemed almost compulsory in Oxford". Amis remained nominally on the political left for some time after the war, declaring in the 1950s that he would always vote for the Labour Party . Amis eventually moved further to

2247-574: Is a private day school for boys in the City of London , England, on the banks of the River Thames next to the Millennium Bridge , opposite Tate Modern . It is a partner school of the City of London School for Girls and the City of London Freemen's School . All three schools receive funding from the City's Cash . It is a member of the Headmasters' and Headmistresses' Conference (HMC). It

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2354-669: Is a memorial in the school's courtyard (transplanted from the main staircase of the old Blackfriars site) to remember those Old Citizens who had lost their lives in both World Wars. An annual remembrance service, involving members of the Combined Cadet Force , is held on the Friday closest to Armistice Day in November. The school underwent many changes during its time on the Victoria Embankment. The curriculum had been consolidated at

2461-482: Is a tradition which still exists today. In 1925, the school acquired its sports grounds at Grove Park, Lewisham . This site included a pavilion, containing offices, changing rooms, toilets and showers, which was designed, by Old Citizen Ralph Knott, to also be a memorial to those Old Citizens who had lost their lives in the First World War. When J. A. Boyes became headmaster in 1964, further modernisations were made in

2568-573: Is also a programme of PSHE , and games at all levels, and an ICT programme for the first and second forms. The school offers many extracurricular activities. These include over 50 clubs and societies including a Model United Nations , public speaking and debating society which frequently participates in international competitions; the Square Mile Club, which in the past has attracted notable speakers such as Sir Trevor Macdonald , Brian Paddick , Sir David Pepper and Ian Livingston ; and even

2675-420: Is no longer compulsory for all boys. This includes the annual prize giving ceremony at Guildhall, London and the annual carol service at Temple Church , among others. The school is also home to the annual London Classical Reading Competition, participated in by schools nationwide. Another traditional event is "muck-up day" celebrated by the leaving year group at the end of formal schooling in their final year at

2782-736: Is one of the most academically selective and successful schools in the country. The school was founded by a private act of Parliament in 1834, following a bequest of land in 1442 for poor children in the City of London. The original school was established at Milk Street , moving first to the Victoria Embankment in 1879 and subsequently to its present site on Queen Victoria Street in 1986. Former pupils, known as Old Citizens , who have attained eminence in various fields are former UK Prime Minister H. H. Asquith , First World War hero Theodore Bayley Hardy , Nobel Prize–winning scientists Frederick Gowland Hopkins and Peter Higgs , Justice of

2889-468: Is one of the three independent secondary schools owned by the City of London Corporation, the other two being the City of London School for Girls and the City of London Freemen's School . The City of London School for Girls located in the Barbican is a fifteen-minute walk away from the school and there are joint events, such as social evenings, concerts and plays, with the school throughout the year. Although

2996-613: Is similarly displayed in the ecclesiastical matters in The Alteration ; Amis was neither a Roman Catholic nor a devotee of any church. Throughout the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s, Amis regularly produced essays and criticism, principally for periodical publication. Some were collected in 1968 into What Became of Jane Austen? and Other Essays , in which Amis's wit and literary and social opinions were displayed on books such as Colin Wilson 's The Outsider (panned), Iris Murdoch 's début novel Under

3103-462: The Open House London event. In 2020, an international two-stage competition was announced for a £19 million revamp of the present City of London School building. The competition, which has been organised by New London Architecture on behalf of the City of London Corporation, will select the entry that brings a 'innovative and sustainable' upgrade to the building complex. The project represents

3210-592: The Sixth Form . Admissions are based on an entrance examination and an interview, with the exception of pupils educated at the City Junior School, who are given an automatic place at 11+. The City of London School traces its origins to a bequest of land by John Carpenter, town clerk of London . On his death in 1442, it was found that Carpenter had listed many bequests, most to his relatives but some to charitable causes. There were no bequests listed to directly support

3317-645: The Vietnam War . He spoke at the Adam Smith Institute , arguing against government subsidy to the arts. By his own admission and according to his biographers, Amis was a serial adulterer for much of his life. This was a major contributory factor in the breakdown of his first marriage. A famous photograph of a sleeping Amis on a Yugoslav beach shows the slogan (written in lipstick by wife Hilary) on his back "1 Fat Englishman – I fuck anything." In one memoir, Amis wrote, "Now and then I become conscious of having

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3424-502: The political right , a development he discussed in the essay "Why Lucky Jim Turned Right" (1967); his conservatism and anti-communism can be seen in works like the dystopian novel Russian Hide and Seek (1980). In 1967, Amis, Robert Conquest , John Braine , and several other authors signed a letter to The Times entitled "Backing for U.S. Policies in Vietnam", supporting the US government in

3531-433: The "swinging" atmosphere of late-1960s London, in which Amis certainly participated, though neither book is strictly autobiographical. Girl, 20 , for instance, is set in the world of classical (and pop) music, in which Amis had no part. The book's noticeable command of music terminology and opinion shows Amis's amateur devotion to music and almost journalistic capacity to explore a subject that interested him. That intelligence

3638-586: The 2009 film Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince . The school seeks to provide a community "to foster good relationships between members of the staff, the pupils themselves and between members of the staff and pupils", so that pupils can develop their social confidence as well as thrive on academic excellence. The school's aims and range of extracurricular activities reflect this ethos. City of London School has six Houses: Abbott, Beaufoy, Carpenter, Hale, Mortimer, and Seeley. As well as houses named after

3745-666: The Barbican. It was also next to the traditional home of the British newspaper industry in Fleet Street . This building still stands and is protected by a preservation order; as of 2017 it was occupied by the investment bank JPMorgan , and it appeared on the left of the famous Thames Television ident from 1968 to 1989. The building still features the school's name above the door. The auxiliary buildings in John Carpenter Street and Tudor Street, however, were demolished shortly after

3852-530: The City of London Corporation School should be founded with Taylor as a governor and that the school to be established on the site of the disused London Workhouse. In the meantime, a small number of boys, who became known as Carpenter's scholars, were sent to Tonbridge School . An act of Parliament , the Estate of the London Workhouse Act 1829 ( 10 Geo. 4 . c. 43 ), was passed to transform the workhouse into

3959-559: The City of London School has always charged fees to most of its pupils, it describes the fees as moderate compared with other independent schools, and it has always offered scholarships, both on the basis of academic and musical ability (it educates ten boys selected for the Choir of Her Majesty's Chapel Royal ). In 2008, the school began offering sports scholarships. After the withdrawal of the Government Assisted Places scheme in 1998,

4066-481: The City of London School was a public school . In November 1912, the Education Committee appointed Cyril Burt as a psychologist in the education officer's department. In Britain, this was the first appointment in a field of psychology outside a university. From 1913 to 1931 Burt examined pupils nominated for admission to special schools. His mandate included selection and research. In 1920, an arrangement

4173-555: The College of Arms and just below St Paul's Cathedral ) on one side and facing onto the banks of the River Thames on the other side. School activity transferred to the new premises over the 1986 summer holidays, in time for the 1986-1987 academic year, and a ceremony for the official opening of the building, by the Princess Anne , was held in 1987. The Millennium Bridge is next to the school buildings. The original building at Milk Street

4280-562: The Great Hall, a sixth form common room, a bookshop, a library, an archive room, three ICT labs, facilities for the Combined Cadet Force (including a rifle range), a drama studio, two playgrounds and a drama theatre. The Great Hall houses a Walker organ which was moved from the previous school building and put into a new casing. The organ has 3 manual departments, 61 notes and a pedal department with 32 notes as well as 43 stops, 4 tremulants and 6 couplers. The drama theatre (Winterflood Theatre)

4387-491: The Hans Woyda Maths Challenge, consistently finishing in the top ranks each year. The school's sports facilities include a multi-purpose indoor sports hall, a 25-metre swimming pool, a gym, a rooftop AstroTurf football pitch and grass playing fields and athletics tracks at Grove Park, Lewisham . Music facilities include three ensemble rooms, ten rehearsal rooms and a music technology lab. Other facilities include

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4494-728: The London Workhouse and addressing the Lords' objections. The altered bill was passed as an act of Parliament, the Establishment of Honey Lane Market School Act 1834 ( 4 & 5 Will. 4 . c. 35 ). It was this act which founded the City of London School, which initially had around 400 pupils. The act gave the Corporation of London a duty to maintain a school on the Honey Lane Market site and so gave control over almost every aspect of

4601-507: The Net (praised), and William Empson 's Milton's God (inclined to agreement). Amis's opinions on books and people tended to appear, and often were, conservative, and yet, as the title essay of the collection shows, he was not merely reverent of "the classics" and of traditional morals, but more disposed to exercise his own rather independent judgement in all things. Amis became associated with Ian Fleming 's James Bond novels, which he admired, in

4708-681: The Supreme Court Lawrence Collins , Historian John Robert Seeley , England cricket captain Mike Brearley , British chemist and entrepreneur William Henry Perkin , Booker Prize -winning authors Kingsley Amis and Julian Barnes , Hollywood film director Michael Apted , and actor Daniel Radcliffe . The school provides day education to about 1,000 boys aged 11 to 18 and employs approximately 100 teaching staff and around another 100 non-teaching staff. The majority of pupils enter at 11, some at 13 and some at 16 into

4815-462: The academic year go towards a dedicated charity of choosing, voted upon by pupils of the school, making sure that the school's charity efforts reflect topical issues. Each year's Charity Appeal is managed by a student committee, who plans school events, fund-raisers, partnerships, and sponsors. Events in the past have included the 24-hour 'fishathon', 48-hour row, cake sales, sponsored swims and an 11-mile sponsored walk. The chosen charity as of 2023-24

4922-413: The author of Utopia." The building remained the home of the City of London School for a hundred years, although the site expanded to include not only the original building on the Victoria Embankment itself, but a range of buildings at right angles along the whole of John Carpenter Street, which was named after the founder of the school, and further buildings constructed at the back along Tudor Street, with

5029-457: The bequest money should be spent. The City Lands Committee suggested in a report that the bequest should be spent on educating a larger number of boys and this approach was adopted in 1826. A number of people including Richard Taylor, a printer and an assistant to the founding of University College London , urged the Corporation of London to spend the bequest on creating a day school for the largest possible number of boys. In 1830, they proposed that

5136-449: The bequest vastly exceeded the expenses of the boys' education. In response to the report, the Corporation of London indicated that it had taken, "great pains...by searching in the archives of the corporation and other places for the will of John Carpenter, without effect". Had the Corporation instead looked for the will of John Don, it would have received guidance in what to do with the money. Lacking that guidance, discussions began on how

5243-473: The building. As the number of pupils increased over the years, overcrowding became a problem. Headmaster Boyes, believed that a new, modern building was needed for the school, and his efforts managed to secure a site on the banks of the River Thames for a new facility. In 1986, the City of London School moved to its present site in purpose-built facilities in Queen Victoria Street (where it is opposite

5350-633: The capital, as it was deemed a stimulating environment for education. A City of London School Act 1879 (c.63) empowered the school to move to a new site in the City of London at Blackfriars on the Victoria Embankment overlooking the Thames. The school moved in 1883 and the new building was opened by the Prince of Wales , (the future King Edward VII ). In 1887 the Divisional Court and the Court of Appeal determined that

5457-423: The countryside, the City of London School's enrolment fell from 700 to 430 during the war, although no pupil was killed or injured as a direct result of enemy fire. The arrangements at Marlborough College gave pupils the opportunity to strengthen the school's clubs and societies. This included a dramatic society, in which Kingsley Amis played a large part. Marlborough College itself experienced some threat from

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5564-522: The cultural complexion of the United States, Amis had this to say: "I've finally worked out why I don't like Americans ... . Because everyone there is either a Jew or a hick." Amis himself described his antisemitism as "very mild". Amis's first, 15-year marriage was to Hilary Bardwell , the daughter of a civil servant, by whom he had two sons and one daughter: Philip Amis, a graphics designer; Martin Amis ,

5671-454: The demands of any cosmological scheme. Amis's religious views appear in a response reported in his Memoirs . To the Russian poet Yevgeny Yevtushenko 's question, "You atheist?", Amis replied, "It's more that I hate Him." During this time, Amis had not turned completely away from the comedic realism of Lucky Jim and Take a Girl Like You . I Want It Now (1968) and Girl, 20 (1971) both depict

5778-467: The education of boys in the City of London. However, a bequest of land was left to two trusted friends who were aware that Carpenter desired a legacy which would support children, and in turn the land was passed on to John Don, an influential man in the City of London. On his death, Don left his own will incorporating the words used in Carpenter's bequest of land and his intentions for the land, that it be "for

5885-457: The finding and bringing up of four poor men's children with meat, drink, apparel, learning at the schools, in the universities, etc., until they be preferred, and then others in their places for ever." The four boys became known as Carpenter's Children. Little is known of the early years of the legacy. This bequest was administered by the Corporation of London in around 1460 and a small college

5992-515: The first classical record to sell more than a million copies. Another musician educated at the school was the cellist Steven Isserlis . In 1938, the headmaster F.R. Dale made an agreement with George Turner, headmaster of Marlborough College , to evacuate the school there, if it became necessary. On 1 September 1939 following the German invasion of Poland and the start of the Second World War ,

6099-452: The founder of the school John Carpenter and former headmasters Edwin Abbott and George Mortimer , they include houses named after important Old Citizens or school benefactors including Beaufoy, a philanthropist who donated the sum of £10,000 (about £660,000 in 2016 ) in the 18th century, Hale who played a significant role in the school's founding and Seeley , a famous historian who attended

6206-462: The four boys was also discontinued. The Corporation of London remained in control of Carpenter's estate and accounts from the next 300 years show that the money continued to be spent on children's benefits such as providing new coats to every child or providing them with access to education. In 1823, a report published by the Charity Commission revealed that over the centuries, the income from

6313-612: The heroine. With The Anti-Death League (1966), Amis begins to show some of the experimentation – in content, if not style – that marked much of his work in the 1960s and 1970s. His departure from the strict realism of his early comedic novels is not so abrupt as it might first appear. He had been avidly reading science fiction since a boy and developed that interest in the Christian Gauss Lectures of 1958, while visiting Princeton University . These were published that year as New Maps of Hell: A Survey of Science Fiction , giving

6420-466: The improbability of the existence of any benevolent deity involved in human affairs. In The Anti-Death League , The Green Man , The Alteration and elsewhere, including poems such as "The Huge Artifice: an interim assessment" and "New Approach Needed", Amis showed frustration with a God who could lace the world with cruelty and injustice, and championed the preservation of ordinary human happiness – in family, in friendships, in physical pleasure – against

6527-499: The kind which also took small boys, before they became pubescent and dangerous", he then moved to nearby Norbury College. In 1940, the Amises moved to Berkhamsted , Hertfordshire , and Amis (like his father before him) won a scholarship to the City of London School . In April 1941, after his first year, he was admitted on a scholarship to St John's College, Oxford , where he read English. There he met Philip Larkin , with whom he formed

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6634-484: The late 1960s, when he began composing critical works connected with Bond, either under a pseudonym or uncredited. In 1965, he wrote the popular James Bond Dossier under his own name. The same year, he wrote The Book of Bond , or, Every Man His Own 007 , a tongue-in-cheek how-to manual about being a sophisticated spy, under the pseudonym "Lt Col. William ('Bill') Tanner", Tanner being M's chief of staff in many of Fleming's novels. In 1968 Amis wrote Colonel Sun , which

6741-700: The life, charm and decline of his father. Amis was knighted in 1990. In August 1995 he fell, following a suspected stroke. After apparently recovering, he worsened and died on 22 October 1995 at St Pancras Hospital , London. He was cremated and his ashes laid to rest at Golders Green Crematorium . Amis is widely known as a comic novelist of life in mid- to late-20th-century Britain, but his literary work covered many genres – poetry, essays, criticism, short stories, food and drink, anthologies, and several novels in genres such as science fiction and mystery. His career initially developed in an inverse pattern to that of his close friend Philip Larkin . Before becoming known as

6848-509: The majority of the school were sent to Marlborough College by train. Accommodation was not provided in the agreement with Marlborough College and so Turner wrote to the Mayor of Marlborough to request accommodation in town. Many of the accommodation billets were occupied by soldiers and women working for the Ministry of Health at the time and so for the first night, the boys slept in the gymnasium of

6955-638: The most important friendship of his life. In June 1941, Amis joined the Communist Party of Great Britain . He broke with communism in 1956, in view of Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev 's denunciation of Joseph Stalin in his speech " On the Cult of Personality and Its Consequences ". In July 1942, he was called up for national service and served in the Royal Corps of Signals . He returned to Oxford in October 1945 to complete his degree. Although he worked hard and earned

7062-434: The mustard manufacturer Colman's in the City of London , and his wife Rosa Annie (née Lucas). The Amis grandparents were wealthy. William Amis's father, the glass merchant Joseph James Amis, owned a mansion called Barchester at Purley , then part of Surrey . Amis considered J. J. Amis – always called "Pater" or "Dadda" – "a jokey, excitable, silly little man", whom he "disliked and was repelled by". His wife Julia "was

7169-586: The new school was laid by Lord Brougham at premises in Milk Street , in the City of London near Cheapside , on part of the site of the old Honey Lane Market , in 1835 and the school opened its doors in 1837. The school was remarkable for its time in several respects. It did not discriminate against pupils on the grounds of religious persuasion (at a time when most public schools had an Anglican emphasis); it included pupils from non-conformist and Jewish families. Also, unlike other established independent schools, it

7276-602: The old workhouse income. Both Hale and the Corporation of London were also eager to create this second school, which the governors of the City of London Corporation School had proposed. Despite their efforts, the other school was not founded until 1854, as the Freemen's Orphanage School, in Brixton with Hale as chairman. The Freemen's Orphanage School still exists today as the City of London Freemen's School in Surrey. The foundation stone of

7383-527: The poet. During the war years, he first rejected Philip Larkin 's first novel Jill (for obscenity), but finally published it in 1946, as he did his poetry collection, The North Ship . No manuscript version of Jill has survived. Caton also published, for example, Nicholas Moore and Wrenne Jarman. Experts have concluded that there was no literary, rather than business, consistency. In 1951, he published Bryan Magee 's first book, an anthology of poems entitled Crucifixion and Other Poems . The Fortune Press

7490-465: The position had been influenced by the school's generous bursary schemes, partly because her own grandfather had enjoyed a life-changing opportunity when given an educational bursary many years before. For the 2022–23 academic year, the annual school fees were £19,995, and lunch was an extra £292 a term (£876 a year). Music lessons were an additional £271 a term (£813 a year). The school runs an annual Charity Appeal each year. The proceeds raised across

7597-732: The remaining four options, one must be a humanity and another a modern foreign language. Additional subjects and qualifications are taken by some students. In 2007 the school also started offering IGCSE in some subjects. In the sixth form, boys take either four subjects at A-Level, or three subjects and an Extended Project Qualification (EPQ). Subjects on offer include Geography, History and Politics, Economics, Mathematics, Language and Literature, Music, Modern Languages, Chemistry, Biology, Physics, Drama and Theatre, Classical Civilization, Latin & Greek, Design and Visual Arts, Religious Education, Information Technology and Physical Education. There

7704-524: The reputation of being one of the great drinkers, if not one of the great drunks, of our time". He suggests this reflects a naïve tendency in readers to apply the behaviour of his characters to himself. He enjoyed drink and spent a good deal of time in pubs. Hilary Rubinstein , who accepted Lucky Jim for Victor Gollancz , commented, "I doubted whether Jim Dixon would have gone to the pub and drunk ten pints of beer.... I didn't know Kingsley very well, you see." Clive James commented: "All on his own, he had

7811-548: The school eighth in its League Tables of Independent School A-level results, with 81.2% of entries gaining A* or A grades at A-level. The Telegraph also placed it 6th for GCSE results, with 94.62% of papers graded 9-7 (A*-A in the old system). As of 2017 around 35 pupils took up places at Oxbridge each year. Pupils are required to take a minimum of ten GCSE subjects in the fourth and fifth form of which six, mathematics , English Language , English literature , biology , chemistry and physics are chosen for all students. Of

7918-500: The school has offered full-fee bursaries (or Sponsored Awards) to pupils from families on lower incomes with the help of contributions from parties including private companies, the John Carpenter Club, the City of London Corporation, and parents of current pupils. In 2014, at a time when 82 boys at the school received bursaries of 100% of the annual fees of £14,313, the previous head Sarah Fletcher said that her decision to take up

8025-480: The school in competitions at varying levels. The school has a tradition of supporting a charity, chosen by the boys through a ballot, each academic year. The fundraising activities are coordinated by the boys and events take place throughout the year to raise money for the selected charity. An average of £50,000 is raised each year. The school also participates annually in the UKMT Team Maths Challenge and

8132-497: The school on a number of occasions, half colours which are awarded to those who have competed in several events for the school, and full colours for those who have shown a good commitment in representing the school. Other ties include the prefects tie for elected prefects, the senior prefects tie for the head boy and four senior prefects, and the John Carpenter Club tie which is awarded to those who have competed in events at an international level. In 2019, The Daily Telegraph placed

8239-489: The school playground, Fives courts and cloisters enclosed within the site. These other buildings were demolished when the school moved again in 1986. Here the school was adjacent to the City of London School for Girls, which was founded by the City of London Corporation as a sister school in 1894 and moved in 1969 to its present site in the Barbican, and the Guildhall School of Music and Drama which has also since moved to

8346-403: The school vacated the premises. The present building on Queen Victoria Street was designed by City of London architect Thomas Meddings, an Old Citizen of the school as well as a former Temple Church chorister. It is a wholly modern building, although some of the stained glass and sculptures from the Victoria Embankment building has been relocated to this new building. A design and technology block

8453-497: The school's running to the Corporation. A committee was also set up to manage the school, with Hale as chairman. Although the committee's powers were initially limited, they gained more control over time as they made important decisions for the school. The act gave the new school an annual budget of £900 (around £107,000 in 2016) from the bequest while the governors of the City of London Corporation School, who still wanted to implement their original idea, gained nothing, only retaining

8560-561: The school, before moving into the town's billets the following night. When the Marlborough term began, an arrangement was made whereby City of London boys had lessons during games for Marlborough College pupils and vice versa. The difficulties at the Marlborough location ranged from finding a study for Headmaster Dale to finding enough kitchen staff to prepare food for both schools. Resources were limited and outbreaks of influenza and rubella were common. Like many other schools evacuated into

8667-463: The school. Boys are assigned to a House in the Third Form (13 years old), in which they stay throughout their school career. There are inter-house events (e.g. sports, literature, maths) which contribute points to an overall Interhouse Competition that is decided at the end of the year. The school requires school uniform for all pupils up to the fifth form. Sixth formers do not have to wear

8774-429: The school. In 2015 this attracted police attention when plans to bring in paint for "raucous" celebrations led to concerns about disruption to the city's financial district. The headmistress did not hesitate to bar the year group from school grounds "for their own safety", and told them that any such behaviour would result in their UCAS forms being 'ripped up'. Today, the City of London School's policies are maintained by

8881-498: The science-fiction anthology series Spectrum I–V, which drew heavily upon 1950s numbers of the magazine Astounding Science Fiction . Though not explicitly science fiction, The Anti-Death League takes liberties with reality not found in Amis's earlier novels. It introduces a speculative bent that continued to develop in others of his genre novels, such as The Green Man (1969) (mystery/horror) and The Alteration (1976) ( alternative history ). Much of this speculation concerned

8988-524: The second half of the twentieth century". In 2008, The Times ranked him ninth on a list of the 50 greatest British writers since 1945. He was the father of the novelist Martin Amis . Kingsley Amis was born on 16 April 1922 in Clapham , south London, the only child of William Robert Amis (1889–1963), a clerk – "quite an important one, fluent in Spanish and responsible for exporting mustard to South America" – for

9095-536: The staff sent pupils home for a week. However, some pupils were due to take public exams. After Marlborough College refused them permission to take the exams there, it was decided that boys would take the Higher Certificate papers in the Guildhall Crypt . It took the school over five years to fully recover from the effects of the war. Many Old Citizens had lost their lives fighting in the war. Today, there

9202-496: The subjects traditionally favoured by the traditional public schools, and it sent classical and mathematical scholars to Oxford and Cambridge throughout the 19th century. These included the classicist, theologian and Shakespearean scholar Edwin Abbott Abbott (whose mathematical exploration of a world in other than three dimensions, Flatland , is still in print and who returned to the school as headmaster), John Robert Seeley –

9309-399: The troubled grandee came to disapprove of his own conduct." His friend Christopher Hitchens said: "The booze got to him in the end, and robbed him of his wit and charm as well as of his health." Amis had an unclear relationship with antisemitism , which he sometimes expressed but also claimed to dislike. He occasionally speculated on the commonly advanced Jewish stereotypes. Antisemitism

9416-467: The turn of the century, the Combined Cadet Force was modernised, the house system had been reorganised, the "mission", what is now the annual charity appeal, had been started and a Community Service Organisation had been set up as an alternative to the Combined Cadet Force. It was compulsory for a boy, above the third form, to serve in one of these organisations for at least five school terms. This

9523-402: The uniform, but they are required to wear suits and the sixth form school tie. The uniform is a blazer with the school crest (traditionally black for winter or maroon with black stripes for summer, though both are now allowed throughout the year), white shirt, black trousers, shoes, black socks and school tie which has black and red stripes (the sixth form version has double red stripes). There are

9630-469: The war. The Ministry of Aircraft Production had also relocated there, and in 1942, bombs fell nearby. By 1944, with the war settling down, the City of London School returned to its home on the Victoria Embankment, which had suffered no structural damage during the Blitz. Air raid shelters were built on site as a precautionary measure. Soon after the building reopened, a bomb fell on the nearby Law Courts , and

9737-467: The weekly drinks bill of a whole table at the Garrick Club even before he was elected. After he was, he would get so tight there that he could barely make it to the taxi." But Amis was adamant that inspiration did not come from a bottle: "Whatever part drink may play in the writer's life, it must play none in his or her work." This matched a disciplined approach to writing. For "many years" Amis imposed

9844-482: The writers known as the Angry Young Men . Lucky Jim was among the first British campus novels , setting a precedent for later generations of writers such as Malcolm Bradbury , David Lodge , Tom Sharpe and Howard Jacobson . As a poet, Amis was associated with The Movement . In 1958–1959 Amis made the first of two visits to the United States, as visiting fellow in creative writing at Princeton University and

9951-507: Was a day school (although there were in early days a handful of boarders, no boarding department ever became established). It also promoted a practical and progressive scheme of education which was well ahead of its time. It was the first school in England to include science on the curriculum and to include scientific experiments as part of its teaching. It also offered education in commercial subjects. This did not, however, diminish its teaching in

10058-460: Was a member of both), as impractical, and other schemes were proposed. In 1832, Warren Stormes Hale , who believed that the workhouse proposal was not the best use of Carpenter's legacy, was appointed to the City Lands Committee. He became chairman of the committee in 1833, and would come to be considered the second founder of the City of London School, after Carpenter. At this point, the City Lands Committee started to search for better locations for

10165-464: Was added to the building in 1990, though in 2008, the block was transformed into a building mainly used by the ICT and music departments, although some design and technology facilities remain. The building was designed on a structural grid and non-load bearing walls were used so that the internal layout of the building could easily be changed when necessary. The school's design is also slightly unusual in that it

10272-503: Was built avoiding a road tunnel in the centre of the premises. This meant that the first and second floors of the building could only be built on either side of the road tunnel. The load on the third floor directly above the road tunnel is also limited and so there is a courtyard which goes up to the fifth floor, surrounded by the building, in that area. The current building is opened to the public annually on one weekend in September as part of

10379-485: Was designed by architect J.B. Bunning , who was the architect to the City of London. The building was designed in a neo-Gothic Tudor style. The Victoria Embankment building, a grand building said to be in the Italian Renaissance style but actually in a high Victorian style with a steep pitched roof resembling that of a French chateau, was designed by Davis and Emanuel and constructed by John Mowlem & Co. at

10486-550: Was founded next to Guildhall Chapel, also using the library facilities in the chapel. Despite the fact that this continued for over 70 years, the earliest certain evidence of the existence of Carpenter's Children can only be traced back to 1536, and thus it is not clear who these boys were, what they were taught and where they lived. In 1547, under the Chantries Act the Guildhall Chapel and Library were forfeited. The funding for

10593-500: Was having an affair with the novelist Elizabeth Jane Howard . Hilary and Amis separated in August and he went to live with Howard, divorcing Hilary and marrying Howard in 1965. In 1968 he moved with Howard to Lemmons , a house in Barnet, north London. She and Amis divorced in 1983. In his last years, Amis shared a house with Hilary and her third husband, Alastair Boyd, 7th Baron Kilmarnock . Martin's memoir Experience contains much about

10700-440: Was lowered to the page" – permitted him to take only five volumes, on condition he wrote "from his grandfather's collection" on the flyleaf of each. Amis was raised at Norbury – in his later estimation "not really a place, it's an expression on a map ... really I should say I came from Norbury station ." Having been educated first at St Hilda's, an "undistinguished, long-vanished local school ... an independent girls' school of

10807-612: Was made whereby all the boy choristers of the Temple Church were given scholarships at the City of London School. In 1926, this arrangement was extended to the boy choristers of the Chapel Royal at St. James's Palace . The choristers included Ernest Lough , whose recording of Mendelssohn's " O for the Wings of a Dove " with the Temple Choir in 1927 made him world-famous; by 1962 it became

10914-535: Was published to great acclaim. Critics felt it had caught the flavour of Britain in the 1950s and ushered in a new style of fiction. By 1972, its impressive sales in Britain had been matched by 1.25 million paperback copies sold in the United States. It was translated into 20 languages, including Polish, Hebrew , Korean, and Serbo-Croat. The novel won the Somerset Maugham Award for fiction and Amis became one of

11021-548: Was published under the pseudonym " Robert Markham ". Amis's literary style and tone changed significantly after 1970, with the possible exception of The Old Devils , a Booker Prize winner. Several critics found him old-fashioned and misogynistic. His Stanley and the Women , an exploration of social sanity, could be said to instance these traits. Others said that his output lacked his earlier work's humanity, wit and compassion. This period also saw Amis as an anthologist, displaying

11128-430: Was rebuilt in 2009 at a value of £1.3 million. The project was jointly funded by City entrepreneur Brian Winterflood and the City of London Corporation . The new theatre was designed by architectural firm RHWL and built by Wilmott Dixon Construction. Although the school provides a very modern atmosphere in most aspects of school life, there are some traditional events held annually, although attendance of these events

11235-721: Was sold to Leonard Holdsworth of the Charles Skilton Publishing Group. Kingsley Amis Sir Kingsley William Amis CBE (16 April 1922 – 22 October 1995) was an English novelist , poet , critic and teacher . He wrote more than 20 novels, six volumes of poetry, a memoir, short stories, radio and television scripts, and works of social and literary criticism . He is best known for satirical comedies such as Lucky Jim (1954), One Fat Englishman (1963), Ending Up (1974), Jake's Thing (1978) and The Old Devils (1986). His biographer Zachary Leader called Amis "the finest English comic novelist of

11342-521: Was sometimes present in his conversations and letters to friends and associates, such as "The great Jewish vice is glibness, fluency ... also possibly just bullshit, as in Marx , Freud , Marcuse ", or " Chaplin [who was not Jewish] is a horse's arse. He's a Jeeeew you see, like the Marx Brothers , like Danny Kaye ." It is a minor theme in his Stanley and the Women novel about a paranoid schizophrenic. As for

11449-475: Was widely perceived as part of the Angry Young Men movement of the 1950s, in reacting against stultification of conventional British life, although Amis never encouraged this interpretation. Amis's other novels of the 1950s and early 1960s likewise depict contemporary situations drawn from his experience. That Uncertain Feeling (1955) features a young provincial librarian (perhaps with an eye to Larkin working as

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