Dulwich College

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Dulwich College was founded by Edward Alleyn on June 21st 1619, with letters patent from King James I: a splendid document with the Great Seal of England still survives. Alleyn (who lived from 1566 to 1626, and whose name should be pronounced Allen) was an actor and an entrepreneur in the world of Elizabethan and Jacobean entertainment, a colourful and famous figure of his day.

At the age of forty-seven in 1605 Alleyn bought the manorial estate of Dulwich for £35,000 from Sir Francis Calton who was in financial difficulties. The Dulwich estate extended, as it does today from Denmark Hill to what are now the Crystal Palace grounds on Sydenham Hill, in between the 'Lordships' Lane (indicating the manorial boundary) on the east and Croxted (meaning 'crooked street') on the west. This pleasant valley of fields, common and wooded hillside was to be frequented by William Blake and by his disciple Samuel Palmer, who called it 'the Gate into the world of vision'; even in this century it was capable of sustaining the suburban paradisal vision of P G Wodehouse, the happy schoolboy, who named it 'Valley Fields' in his books and spoke of it as the setting of 'six years of unbroken bliss' at the College.

Alleyn first thought of founding a Hospital (presumably on account of the Plague) but next proposed to commemorate himself by a Foundation to be called 'Alleyn's College of God's Gift'. This foundation was to be in two parts, one charitable (or 'eleemosynary') and the other educational, on one site, and sharing a chapel. Twelve poor scholars, aged between six and eighteen, were to be educated by resident Fellows. The Foundation was not formally constituted until June 21st 1619 (on which anniversary we still commemorate Founder's Day), when James I signed the letters patent.

Shortly before he died Alleyn dictated, on September 29 1626, elaborate statutes for the smooth running of the College. Among many items these laid down the uniform for the scholars - an uppercoat of 'good cloth of sad colour' and black caps; arrangements for laundry; the hiring of a ploughboy. The diet was to consist of loaves, boiled beef, cheese, fish, with apple and pear pies; all of this was to be increased on 'gawdy daies', and on three days a week the poor scholars were to have 'beere without stint'.

The Master and his deputy, the Warden, were not academic appointments, but the four Fellows were to be qualified graduates, two from Oxford and the other two to be Organist and Schoolmaster respectively. The Master and Warden were to be unmarried and 'of my blood and sirname'. This was obviously an absurd clause and made difficulties for centuries until it was abolished when the College was reconstituted in the nineteenth century.

Dulwich College
Day & Boarding School, 7 to 18, Boys, 1380+ pupils, C of E

Dulwich College

Dulwich,
London,
SE21 7LD
England

Tel: 020 8693 3601

Fax: 020 8693 6319

E-mail: Contact School

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