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CENTENARY
to “Mr James L Hulett, Junr”. Inside it he
found the original letter, penned by George
Flashman, which had accompanied the £25
loan to his nephew!
The second gem came to light when he
sifted through a box of photographs and
documents made available by Mrs Kerrie
Carmody, a current parent and direct
descendant of Sir Liege.
By 1808, Hulett’s grandparents,
James and Hanna, had settled
in Gillingham, Kent where the
former was Headmaster of
Gillingham House School.
His son, also James Liege
Hulett, was educated at that
school before commencing
his studies at the University
of Cambridge in June
1829. There he read
medicine and obtained
his doctorate at Queen’s
College. Surprisingly,
when he returned to
his home town, he
eschewed the medical
profession in favour of
teaching and took over
his father’s school. In
1836 he married Mary
Georgina
Flashman
from her brother
George’s home in nearby Dover.
After James’ death, James Liege moved to
Sheffield where Sir Liege was born on 17May
1838. For reasons unknown, our founder’s
father soon returned to Gillingham and
re-opened Gillingham House School. The
school operated according to a lengthy list
of rules of which there are a few indistinct,
black and white photocopies in the College
archives.
In an inconspicuous folder in the box made
available by Kerrie Carmody, the original list
of rules, drawn up generations ago by one
of her ancestors, was discovered.
BOTHA’S HILL OUR HOMELAND
Towards the end of his headmastership,
Stanley Osler penned a poem which he
called “A Kearsney Song” with the subtitle
“L’Envoi
[send-off] to Sixth Formers”. The
poem was received with a certain amount of
disparagement by a few of Osler’s detractors
in the staffroom. In 1961, however, it was
set to music by Kearsney’s then Director
of Music and highly talented organist, John
Harper, and sung at Speech Day.
After finding a copy of Osler’s poem and
subsequently Harper’s musical score,
David Goldhawk passed these on to the
then Director of Music, Bernard Krüger.
Impressed with John Harper’s melody, he
modified it, reworking the harmonies to suit
more modern tastes. He used and slightly
adapted the first two and last two stanzas
of Osler’s original eight stanza poem to
produce a stirring anthem, “Botha’s Hill our
Homeland”.
The anthem was officially sung for the first
time at the 2015 Speech Day.
And so, a poem written by the College’s
third Headmaster over half a century
ago, has inspired what will become a new
Kearsney College tradition.
Kearsney Director of Music John ‘Meatball’ Harper with a pupil. John Harper was
Director of Music from 1960 to the end of the second term 1989.
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