Old Boys Association Information

The Old Boys Association has had an active life, although there are now only three regular events, namely the AGM, the Annual Lunch and regular Golf Meetings.

Its origins go back to before 1915, when it was known as the “Old Boy’s Club”.  It petered out during the First World War but reformed as the “Kilburn Grammar School Old Boys’ Association in 1919.

When it was first set up, such activities as football, cricket and tennis were to be found, together with the annual dinner, whist drives, dances, smoking concerts and dramatics.  Badminton and hockey were added to the sporting sections.  In 1923 the football club began the custom later adopted by all sports and in the end by the Association as a whole, of referring to itself as the “Old Creightonians”.

The Headmaster instituted one of the play performances as “Old Boys’ Night” and there began the custom whereby the Head Boy for the year responded to a toast at their annual dinner.  Almost every number of the school magazine had notes on Old Boys’ activities.

Speech Days were effectively public reports of the school’s progress. In 1935 the OBA provided a stained-glass window depicting the Bishop of London, the Rt Revd Winnington Ingram, to match that of Mandell Creighton which was already installed.

In 1948 the School celebrated the golden jubilee of its opening.  There was a ceremony in the Creighton Hall attended by the chairmen of the Willesden and the Middlesex Education Committees and by Cliff Symes as chairman of the “Old Creightonians”, by which name the whole Association was now known.

A feature of school life in the fifties was the annual matches between school and staff at cricket, tennis and rugby.  In the days when soccer was the school game, the staff always put out a full team, whereas rugby needed strengthening by Old Boys.

For some twenty years “The Old Creightonian” News Sheet had been published separately from the school magazine but, in the late fifties, the Old Boys’ news was incorporated in “The Kilburnian”.  The major feature of this was the acquisition and development of a playing field, for the Old Boys had suffered alongside the school from the loss of Aylestone Avenue and they wanted no repetition.  In 1956 a project for securing a field was launched and, with much courage and more effort, was brought to reality in 1960, at Tentelow Lane , Southall.  Twelve acres of ground were bought and, in course of time, a fully equipped pavilion was provided.

It is not known how many members of the Association there were in the past.  However, in 2000 there were some 350 and this number over the next few years grew with the founding of the Friends Reunited website to over 400, many of these living abroad.  Unfortunately, by its very nature, the number of members will gradually drop because only those who attended the School and left before 1971 are eligible to join.

It is our Newsletters which appeal to all of our members and there is a general feeling that the Association will dwindle and fade out if these publications cease.  It is because they include contributions from former school members from 1970 back to 1920 that our magazines are so popular and we intend to keep producing them until there is nobody left to read them.  Newsletters are now available on-line as well as by post and, because there is an obvious cost saving in sending information electronically, we hope that most of our members will agree to receive future editions by that method.