Talk:Calcutta Boys' School

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Victuallers 17:04, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

Contents

[edit] Famous teachers

Is this section upto Wikipedia guidelines. It only depends upon the person who lists it. So if no one argues for this list, I shall remove the section after one week. Dibyajyotighosh 16:37, 24 May 2007 (UTC)Dibyajyotighosh


[edit] Quoting Information

The section you have quoted is from the Pulse article mentioned in the Clifford Hicks (principal) page.

[edit] Alumni Information

I am a 1989 graduate. I will be visiting India after long time.I wanted to get in touch with my batch mates. Any ideas on how I can do that? There used to be a CBS website, however I could not find it. There was no web-site or tel or discussion board which I could have utlized to post this message. Dibyajyoti, I will appreciate if you could create a section called Alumini Information with such details. Maybe this could be the start. Also, can you please provide me a contact number or something for anyone you know who graduated in 1989.
>>School WebSite
>>Alumi Contact by Year

May 26, 2007

A very bad solution is going to the school and asking Mr. Indraman Jaiswal to give you the phone numbers of the members of the alumni association. I think they will be able to get you in touch with some of your batchmates. An even worse solution is Orkut. Are you a member of Orkut?

Dibyajyotighosh 19:01, 9 June 2007 (UTC)Dibyajyotighosh

[edit] Information of note

Hopefully I will get round to fixing up this article after I finish Clifford Hicks (principal), however here is some information from that article that is spurios to Mr Hicks' past but is relevant to the school. Unfortunately it is not sourced but the information could be worked in and sources then found if need be --Errant Tmorton166(Talk)(Review me) 21:25, 3 September 2006 (UTC)

Hicks worked as a teacher in Calcutta Boys School, where he came to know Mr. H.C. Fritchley, an older teacher. The school finances were then at such a low ebb that the Managing Committee resolved to close down the institution. Until that time, Calcutta Boys’ School had had a series of American/foreign principals who were mainly church men.

As the school was heavily in debt, H.C. Fritchley threw down the gauntlet to the Managing Committee to give him a chance to run the school, asserting that he would put it back on its feet. Having nothing to lose from such a challenge, they agreed, and though H.C. Fritchley was only an I.A., he took the mantle of principal ship. He introduced a series of austere disciplines and was painfully cautious of accounts. He abolished the system of giving prizes on Sports Day. He taught his staff and pupils to love the game beyond the prize.

Within a very brief period, Calcutta Boys’ School was able to make ends meet. Its heavy debts had all been cleared.

The school had its hectic days during World War II, when the present staff room was an A.R.P. shelter.

The heavy steel gate between the New Building and Renfrew House was originally fixed at the entrance of the little room opposite XI C/H (in 1980). It was a light ammunition dump, and the pantry was used for storage of food for the Allied Forces.

The granting of independence to India in 1947 saw Mr. Fritchley make a distinct effort to employ people in the school with a non-English speaking background. The staff changed quickly. Many left for England. It was a new experience to have a Bengali gentleman named S.K. Ganguly in the school to teach mathematics and Bengali instead of Latin. The indigenisation process had started, and after Mr. Clifford Hicks was placed in charge of the school (when H.C. Fritchley left for a short vacation to the United States to see his son Newton), it became obvious that Clifford Hicks would be the new principal upon Fritchley’s impending retirement.

In 1953-54, Calcutta Boys’ School put on a musical called ‘Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs’. There were many others before and after, but this was specially remembered. Snow White’s part was played by a brilliant Parsi boy named Salim Patel. The handsome Prince was Ronnie Hicks, a nephew of Mr. Hicks, who often got the wrong end of the stick. The Witch, an important character, in the play was S.B. Chakraborty. He had a most horrifying laugh.

Men like Mr. Solomon Ezra, Mr. Charles Stapleton, Mr. David Leela and Mr. David Yeeda were heroes of the students. A feared man was a teacher called Mr. Simon Haskell. He was better known as ‘Sharp Eye’.

Later on came a coterie of people like Messers Ivan Sassoon, Ronald Shaw, David Sassoon and Anthony Andrews and others. There was another group of young admirers which included Mihir Mukherjee and Subhendu Paul. Mr. Mihir Mukherjee introduced Mr. Pronab Mukherjee, Mr. Jyotirmoy Ganguli and others.

With the powerful team of young men totally dedicated to Mr. Hicks and Mrs. Hicks, nothing was impossible. The fever of working for him caught on. Many joined teaching, like Mr. Alfred Martin, straight after school. The whole school functioned like one large family. In fact the idea that everyone was married to the school was voiced by one teacher.

And then when the situation reached a climax, the denouement began. Signs of rebellion with this way of life soon showed. The pressure of studies was howvever magnificently maintained. Ruthless measures (by today's standards) were adopted to weed out the slightly below average. One such measure in 1960-61 was that all boarders who could not secure 65% or more as an average would be forced to become day-scholars.