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Introduction
This history was undertaken at the suggestion of Robert Whitmore, Patron of the Kilburn Grammar School Old Boys Association and at the request of the Association. It is in the main a distillation of existing records, principally the school magazine and the local press reports. To have sought and incorporated personal reminiscences on any large scale would have taken far more time and publishing space than could reasonably have been justified. Reference to distinguished alumni is restricted to occasions when they figured directly in the school’s history, for example as principal speakers on speech day. To have ventured more widely would have led me into a minefield of selection!
I record my thanks for encouragement and assistance collectively and severally to the committee of the Association and to John Archer (1934), Archie Lane (1913) and Rosemary Chirgwin. Also to the staff of the Grange Museum, Neasden.
Richard E Brock
April 1985
Foreword
by Robert Whitmore
Patron of the Kilburn Grammar School Old Boys Association 1980-1993
Education over the last century has reflected the changes in society and the destruction of the Grammar Schools was seen by many as an essential if regrettable reform, rather like the dissolution of the Tudor monasteries which gave birth to the Grammar Schools in the sixteenth century. It is only natural that many schools should wish to make a record of their past and this has meant an almost archaeological search for details.
Dr Richard Brock is a well-qualified Old Boy to undertake this task. Like Tacitus he has had contact with contemporaries who saw the events first hand and gives a taste of real contact with them. His work is as unbiased as possible. We can see the reforms which came after two world wars with sharpened perception. On the lighter side, efforts by parents and others to raise money for amenities gave rise to “Parents’ Evenings” and the accident of evacuation to Northampton changed a school sport (soccer to rugger).
Excluding war-time absence my stay at Kilbum was nearly half the entire life of the school. Some of the staff were there longer. Others took the fine traditions of the school elsewhere. I am sure this history is well worth while.