Henry S. Fraser
BRIDGETOWN, Barbados, Monday Juy 28, 2014 - “My two plantations in the island of Barbados to the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts … and a convenient number of Professors and Scholars maintained there, all of them to be under vows of poverty and chastity and obedience … to study and practice Physic and Chirurgery as well as Divinity, that by the apparent usefulness of the former to all mankind, they may both endear themselves to the people and have the better opportunities of doing good to men’s souls whilst they are taking care of their bodies …” (From the will of Colonel Christopher Codrington, who died on Good Friday, April 7th, 1710.)
Christopher Codrington was described as the brightest star of Barbados – scholar, poet, public orator, soldier, governor and Christian benefactor. His vision of a University for Barbados to train Christian doctors, to care for their bodies and save the souls of all mankind, was an extraordinary vision, two and a half centuries ahead of the University of the West Indies. And his vision certainly inspired me, as a teenager at The Lodge School, one of the products of his vision, to become a Christian doctor at the institution that extended the mission of Codrington.
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Unfortunately the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel (SPG) turned out to be hopeless managers. The college buildings were well underway by 1721 but not completed until 1743 and the Codrington Grammar School finally began in 1745. Because of inept management from afar, the school suffered serious vicissitudes and the College of Codrington’s vision never materialised until the arrival of our first bishop, William Hart Coleridge. He recognised the failure of the SPG and was able to bring the College into being, by moving the school up the hill to the “Upper Estate”, now called Society, to the Chaplain’s Lodge, in 1829 and so it became The Lodge School. The College began in full, at last, in 1830 and was later affiliated with the University of Durham. It trained priests, teachers and administrators for the entire English speaking Caribbean and beyond, including my father-in-law, the revered Lee Harford Skeete, and most Caribbean priests and bishops for nearly 150 years.
While the College building contains its own splendid small chapel, beautifully panelled and with a barrel vaulted ceiling, the SPG built a larger, wooden chapel for the slaves in 1819 – the first conscientious attempt within the Anglican community to bring Christianity to the slaves. It was replaced by a stone chapel in 1831, and after this was blown down in the 1831 hurricane, the present Society Chapel, now Holy Cross Church, was built, under guidance of Bishop Coleridge.
Meanwhile, the College began a Sunday School for the slave children in 1795. This became a full primary school in 1797, an initiative that would have been much against the wishes of planters across the Caribbean, who were against such instruction for slaves. It is truly a shining historical legacy … the first known school set up to teach the slave children here and possibly anywhere in the Caribbean, unless preceded by Moravian schools in the Danish Virgin Islands. The present building of Society School is a solid coral stone structure on a solid plateau of rock in the middle of Society Hill, built more than a hundred years ago. It caters to the surrounding villages of Society, College Bottom, Sargeant Street, Coach Hill, Massiah Street and Stewart’s Hill. And at the top of the hill, next to Holy Cross and the cross commemorating Reverend Rawle, is the sprawling complex of Codrington School.
The Codrington legacy has thus resulted in Codrington College, The Lodge School, Society School, the Rawle Institute (replaced by Erdiston Teachers College), Codrington School and Holy Cross Church – six important, historic educational establishments which have had a huge impact not only on Barbados but the wider Caribbean. Indeed the Society School has produced famous figures like Rawle Parkinson, the great, legendary educator after whom the Parkinson School is named, and today’s distinguished, globally successful alumni such as Dr. Ken Harewood and Dr. Louis Brown, as well as a long list of local luminaries.
It was therefore a shock to pupils, parents, teachers, alumni, historians and the wider society to hear in June of the sudden closure of Society School. This follows poor maintenance leading to the need for industrial cleaning last September, which resulted in a drop in the number of students. Shocked parents, teachers, parish priest and others have organised a petition and efforts to keep this historic educational monument open. Distinguished alumni of the school have joined the effort, vocalised by attorney David Commissiong, and at a large meeting of parents last Sunday the passion for maintaining the school was clear, echoed in a CBC-TV news poll of 85 % of responders voting to keep it open.
My own assessment is that the historic importance of the school justifies its continuing existence even if it remains a small school, by amalgamating so as to reduce the number of classes, as has been suggested. From what I have been told by several parties, it seems that the physical problems are poor maintenance and not structural; the need for industrial cleaning last September allegedly led to the drop in the roll as some parents were so upset that they removed their children. Primary school children should not have to travel long distances to school. And the importance of the Codrington legacy and the entire Codrington complex, in the opinion of many, justifies World Heritage inscription. In fact Barbados has submitted the Sugar (and Rum) Industry of Barbados as a tentative nomination, and Codrington’s six institutions with their rich and unique history comprise a hugely important part of the larger nomination. We should therefore be proud not only of the history of Society, its seminal role in the education of slave children and the building of its surrounding community, but of its brilliant alumni here and around the world. We should do everything to keep it open and rebuild its great reputation. While alternative uses of the building can be considered, our Governments’ outstanding record over decades of abandoning buildings to decay does not give hope.
The Sentinel Committee of the National Trust will be more than willing to assess and report on the physical state of the school, before it joins the many other derelict built treasures abandoned by successive governments over the past 40 years.
Bouquet: To Glyne Murray on the launch on Wednesday of his splendid book Barbados – Customs to Treasure.
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Henry S. Fraser: Society School and the Codrington Legacy
