List of Old St. Beghians
Encyclopedia
St. Bees School
St. Bees School is a co-educational independent school in the West Cumbrian village of St Bees. Founded in 1583 by the then Archbishop of Canterbury Edmund Grindal as a boys' "free grammar school", today it is a member of the Headmasters' and Headmistresses' Conference with around 300 pupils aged...
, a coeducational independent school founded in 1583, are styled Old St. Beghians. An "Old St. Beghians' Club" was founded in 1908 by master J.W. Aldous, and today as the Old St. Beghians' Society it provides a link between old boys (and girls) and the school. Amongst other things it organises an "Old St Beghians Day" once a year, publishes a magazine called the Old St. Beghian twice a year and holds and participates in many golfing tournaments. There are several regional branches of the society which traditionally hold annual meals and get-togethers.
Notable alumni (By order of birth date)
- William BennWilliam Benn (divine)William Benn or Ben was an English nonconformist minister and divine.-Life:Benn was born at Egremont in Cumberland, in November 1600. He was educated at the free school of St. Bees, and then at Queen's College, Oxford. On a presentation to the living of Oakingham in Berkshire, he left university...
(1600–1680) A PuritanPuritanThe Puritans were a significant grouping of English Protestants in the 16th and 17th centuries. Puritanism in this sense was founded by some Marian exiles from the clergy shortly after the accession of Elizabeth I of England in 1558, as an activist movement within the Church of England...
Divine - Archbishop Thomas Lamplugh (1615-1691), Bishop of Exeter, and Archbishop of York
- Sir Joseph Williamson (1633–1701), English politician, Secretary of State, the second president of the Royal Society.
- Sir John Lowther, 2nd Baronet, of WhitehavenSir John Lowther, 2nd Baronet, of WhitehavenSir John Lowther, 2nd Baronet FRS was an English gentleman and landowner at Whitehaven.He was born at Whitehaven, St Bees, Cumberland, the son of Sir Christopher Lowther, 1st Baronet, and his wife, Frances, daughter of Christopher Lancaster of Stockbridge, Westmoreland and educated at Ilkley,...
(9 November 1642 – 17 January 1706) MP for Cumberland 1665 to 1701, and a Lord Commissioner of the Admiralty from 1689 to 1696. - Thomas TickellThomas TickellThomas Tickell was a minor English poet and man of letters.-Life:The son of a clergyman, he was born at Bridekirk near Cockermouth, Cumberland. He was educated at St Bees School 1695-1701, and in 1701 entered the Queen's College, Oxford, taking his M.A. degree in 1709...
(1686-1740), Man of letters and minor poet. Under Secretary of State 1717 to Joseph AddisonJoseph AddisonJoseph Addison was an English essayist, poet, playwright and politician. He was a man of letters, eldest son of Lancelot Addison...
, contributor to "Spectator" and "Guardian". - The Rev. William GilpinWilliam Gilpin (clergyman)The Reverend William Gilpin was an English artist, clergyman, schoolmaster, and author, best known as one of the originators of the idea of the picturesque.-Early life:...
, (1724–1804) Painter and clergyman who helped originate the idea of the picturesquePicturesquePicturesque is an aesthetic ideal introduced into English cultural debate in 1782 by William Gilpin in Observations on the River Wye, and Several Parts of South Wales, etc. Relative Chiefly to Picturesque Beauty; made in the Summer of the Year 1770, a practical book which instructed England's...
. - Edward ChristianEdward ChristianEdward Christian was an English judge and law professor, and the older brother of Fletcher Christian, leader of the Mutiny on the Bounty....
(1758–1823), London lawyer and brother of the notorious Fletcher ChristianFletcher ChristianFletcher Christian was a master's mate on board the Bounty during William Bligh's fateful voyage to Tahiti for breadfruit plants...
. - Sir Joseph Turner Hutchinson, (1850–1924) Chief JusticeChief JusticeThe Chief Justice in many countries is the name for the presiding member of a Supreme Court in Commonwealth or other countries with an Anglo-Saxon justice system based on English common law, such as the Supreme Court of Canada, the Constitutional Court of South Africa, the Court of Final Appeal of...
of GrenadaGrenadaGrenada is an island country and Commonwealth Realm consisting of the island of Grenada and six smaller islands at the southern end of the Grenadines in the southeastern Caribbean Sea...
, CyprusCyprusCyprus , officially the Republic of Cyprus , is a Eurasian island country, member of the European Union, in the Eastern Mediterranean, east of Greece, south of Turkey, west of Syria and north of Egypt. It is the third largest island in the Mediterranean Sea.The earliest known human activity on the...
and Ceylon and then High Sheriff of CumberlandCumberlandCumberland is a historic county of North West England, on the border with Scotland, from the 12th century until 1974. It formed an administrative county from 1889 to 1974 and now forms part of Cumbria....
. - John Lindow CalderwoodJohn Lindow CalderwoodJohn Lindow Calderwood CBE was an English solicitor, a British Army officer and an independent politician in Wiltshire, in the west of England, chairman of Wiltshire County Council from 1949 until his death in 1960....
, (1888–1960), lawyer and politician - Sir Vincent Goncalves Glenday, (1891–1970) Colonial administrator, Governor of British SomalilandBritish SomalilandBritish Somaliland was a British protectorate in the northern part of present-day Somalia. For much of its existence, British Somaliland was bordered by French Somaliland, Ethiopia, and Italian Somaliland. From 1940 to 1941, it was occupied by the Italians and was part of Italian East Africa...
, Resident at ZanzibarZanzibarZanzibar ,Persian: زنگبار, from suffix bār: "coast" and Zangi: "bruin" ; is a semi-autonomous part of Tanzania, in East Africa. It comprises the Zanzibar Archipelago in the Indian Ocean, off the coast of the mainland, and consists of numerous small islands and two large ones: Unguja , and Pemba...
. - Commodore John Charles Keith Dowding, (1891–1965) Commanded the ill-fated Convoy PQ-17Convoy PQ-17PQ 17 was the code name for an Allied World War II convoy in the Arctic Ocean. In July 1942, the Arctic convoys suffered a significant defeat when Convoy PQ 17 lost 24 of its 35 merchant ships during a series of heavy enemy daylight attacks which lasted a week. On 27 June, the ships sailed...
during the Second World War. - Graham Sutton (1892–1959) Journalist, novelist and broadcaster. Best known for his Cumbrian novels of the Fleming family.
- Lieutenant-General John Hawkesworth, (1893–1945) Infantry commander during the Second World War.
- Captain John Fox-RussellJohn Fox-RussellCaptain John Fox Russell VC MC was a Welsh recipient of the Victoria Cross, the highest and most prestigious award for gallantry in the face of the enemy that can be awarded to British and Commonwealth forces....
, (1893–1917) RAMCRoyal Army Medical CorpsThe Royal Army Medical Corps is a specialist corps in the British Army which provides medical services to all British Army personnel and their families in war and in peace...
officer and posthumous Victoria Cross (VC) recipient, killed in MesopotamiaMesopotamiaMesopotamia is a toponym for the area of the Tigris–Euphrates river system, largely corresponding to modern-day Iraq, northeastern Syria, southeastern Turkey and southwestern Iran.Widely considered to be the cradle of civilization, Bronze Age Mesopotamia included Sumer and the...
. - The Rt. Rev. George Algernon WestGeorge Algernon WestGeorge Algernon West, MM was a British Anglican missionary who spent many years in Burma, first as a missionary for the Society for Propagation of the Gospel and then as the Lord Bishop of Rangoon. In the latter position he served for nineteen years, and gradually became active involved with the...
, (1893–1980) Bishop of RangoonBishop of RangoonThe Lord Bishop of Rangoon was the Anglican bishop responsible for the diocese of Rangoon in the province of Calcutta from 1877 to 1970. Beforehand British Burma, then part of the Indian Empire, had come under the guidance of the Bishop of Calcutta, Metropolitan of India...
, (1935–1954). - Captain William Leefe Robinson, (1895–1918) Royal Flying CorpsRoyal Flying CorpsThe Royal Flying Corps was the over-land air arm of the British military during most of the First World War. During the early part of the war, the RFC's responsibilities were centred on support of the British Army, via artillery co-operation and photographic reconnaissance...
officer and VC recipient who shot down the first airshipRigid airshipA rigid airship is a type of airship in which the envelope retained its shape by the use of an internal structural framework rather than by being forced into shape by the pressure of the lifting gas within the envelope as used in blimps and semi-rigid airships.Rigid airships were produced and...
over Britain. - Captain Richard Wain, (1896–1917) Royal Tank Corps officer and posthumous VC recipient, who showed great bravery during the initial advance of the Battle of Cambrai.
- Sir Edward Gerald Hawkesworth, (1897–1949) Governor of British HondurasBritish HondurasBritish Honduras was a British colony that is now the independent nation of Belize.First colonised by Spaniards in the 17th century, the territory on the east coast of Central America, south of Mexico, became a British crown colony from 1862 until 1964, when it became self-governing. Belize became...
(1947–1948). - The Rev. Leslie Dixon, (1899–1972) Chaplain-in-Chief of the Royal Air ForceRoyal Air ForceThe Royal Air Force is the aerial warfare service branch of the British Armed Forces. Formed on 1 April 1918, it is the oldest independent air force in the world...
(1949–1953). - Robert McCanceRobert McCanceRobert McCance was Professor of Experimental Medicine, Cambridge University.Born in Ulster, he was educated at St. Bees School, before wartime service in the Royal Naval Air Service, piloting an observation aircraft from a warship. After the war he began a scientific career.With colleague H...
, (1898–1993) Professor of Experimental Medicine, Cambridge University. - Owen LattimoreOwen LattimoreOwen Lattimore was an American author, educator, and influential scholar of Central Asia, especially Mongolia. In the 1930s he was editor of Pacific Affairs, a journal published by the Institute of Pacific Relations, and then taught at Johns Hopkins University from 1938 to 1963...
, (1900–1989) Noted Sinologist who was accused by Joseph McCarthyJoseph McCarthyJoseph Raymond "Joe" McCarthy was an American politician who served as a Republican U.S. Senator from the state of Wisconsin from 1947 until his death in 1957...
of being the top Soviet agent in the U.S.A. - E.B. FordE.B. FordEdmund Brisco "Henry" Ford FRS Hon. FRCP was a British ecological geneticist. He was a leader among those British biologists who investigated the role of natural selection in nature. As a schoolboy Ford became interested in lepidoptera, the group of insects which includes butterflies and moths...
, (1901–1988) Leading ecological geneticist. - Air Chief Marshal Sir Augustus WalkerAugustus WalkerAir Chief Marshal Sir George Augustus Walker GCB CBE DSO DFC AFC MA was a Second World War bomber pilot and jet aircraft pioneer, later Inspector-General of the RAF and RAF Air Chief Marshal.-Early life:...
, (1912–1986) Known as the one-armed air marshal, he lost his right arm in 1942 attempting to rescue crashed Avro LancasterAvro LancasterThe Avro Lancaster is a British four-engined Second World War heavy bomber made initially by Avro for the Royal Air Force . It first saw active service in 1942, and together with the Handley Page Halifax it was one of the main heavy bombers of the RAF, the RCAF, and squadrons from other...
aircrew. - General Sir William ScotterWilliam ScotterGeneral Sir William Norman Roy Scotter, KCB, OBE, MC was Commander-in-Chief, British Army of the Rhine, from September 1978 until October 1980.-Early years:...
, (1922–1981) Senior NATO commander, decorated in Burma during WW2World War IIWorld War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
. He reviewed the St. Bees C.C.F., at St. Bees, in 1977. - Douglas FerreiraDouglas FerreiraDouglas Ferreira, O.B.E., was the longest serving General Manager of the Ravenglass & Eskdale Railway, a heritage railway in Cumbria, England known as the "Ratty". He was at the heart of the "Ratty" for thirty four years....
, (1929–2003) Formerly General Manager of the Ravenglass & Eskdale Railway. - Alan BirkinshawAlan BirkinshawAlan Birkinshaw, FRGS, born in Auckland, New Zealand on 15 June 1944, is a British film director, writer, and producer in the arena of television and feature films....
(b. 1944) Film director - Rowan AtkinsonRowan AtkinsonRowan Sebastian Atkinson is a British actor, comedian, and screenwriter. He is most famous for his work on the satirical sketch comedy show Not The Nine O'Clock News, and the sitcoms Blackadder, Mr. Bean and The Thin Blue Line...
, (b. 1955) Comedian, writer and actor (BlackadderBlackadderBlackadder is the name that encompassed four series of a BBC1 historical sitcom, along with several one-off instalments. All television programme episodes starred Rowan Atkinson as anti-hero Edmund Blackadder and Tony Robinson as Blackadder's dogsbody, Baldrick...
, Mr Bean). - Paul MullerPaul MüllerPaul Müller is the name of:*Paul Hermann Müller , Swiss chemist*Paul Müller , Swiss actor*Paul Müller , German biologist*Paul O. Müller, German physicist...
, (b. 1960) Engineer - Hugh Paxton, (b. 1964) Journalist and author, published in 2006 the novel HomunculusHomunculusHomunculus is a term used, generally, in various fields of study to refer to any representation of a human being. Historically, it referred specifically to the concept of a miniature though fully formed human body, for example, in the studies of alchemy and preformationism...
. - Bill Barker, (1964–2009) Cumbria Police officer, perished on duty during the November 2009 flooding.
- Richard BakerRichard Baker (Scottish politician)Richard Baker is a Scottish Labour politician, and member of the Scottish Parliament for the North East Scotland region. He was first elected in the 2003 general election, when he was the youngest sitting MSP, and since May 2011 is Labour's Finance spokesperson in the Scottish Parliament...
(Scottish politician), (b.1974) - Daniel Mossop (b. 1981) Director at Jacksons Timber Ltd and 1st XV Captain (1999/2000)
See also
- List of headmasters of St. Bees School
- List of the oldest schools in the United Kingdom
- List of the oldest schools in the world
- List of Victoria Crosses by School