Our late Queen Elizabeth II was born in April 1926.
At almost the same moment, the Royal Masonic Institute for Girls was negotiating to buy Rickmansworth Park.
After the usual kind of wrangling, the School agreed on a price. So, before the Queen was six months old, Rickmansworth Park started on its journey towards what you see today.
The conversion began in 1928 with an architectural competition. The winner was J L Denman & Son, and the first buildings were up by 1930 – which explains the date on the drainpipe hoppers.
The School reconvened at Rickmansworth after the Easter holidays 1934. In June, the late Queen’s Granny popped over from Buck House to open it officially.
By this time, most of the pupils and staff had got lost in all the corridors half a dozen times each, arrived late for lessons, yomped (girls) and sedately strolled (staff) up and down from the Lowers several times each week and marvelled at all the décor, wood panelling and stained glass – and the space! Clapham would have fitted pretty much inside the Garth so the vast acreage was a revelation.
Whilst the School settled in its new home, for Elizabeth life took an extraordinary turn. In 1936, George V (her Grandpapa England) died and was succeeded by his eldest son. But he, as we know, felt he could not do the job without Mrs Simpson and so we had the Abdication Crisis. Edward’s place as monarch was taken by his brother (George VI) and Elizabeth became Heiress Presumptive.
By the end of the decade, we were again at war. The junior school at Weybridge closed for the Duration, the juniors moving to Rickmansworth but still being referred to as the Weybridge Girls to everyone’s confusion. During the war, as far as possible, daily life continued despite air raids. The School had air raid shelters but, as a pupil from that time stated ‘they were damp and uncomfortable. It was almost impossible to sleep even with pillows and blankets for comfort … They then had problems the next day with both the girls and staff falling asleep in lessons.’
This image of junior pupils sleeping in the shelters is probably staged. A 1940s pupil recalled that ‘when the siren sounded, you took your mattress and bedclothes downstairs from your dorm and all crowded together on the floor of the common room’.
Dorothea Holdsworth (pupil) captured the war in little drawings produced throughout the war years, from the filling of sandbags, to the reverence (ahem!) with which the gas masks were treated, to the diving for cover under anything that might offer protection from the V2 rockets.
After the war, Elizabeth’s parents, George VI and Queen Elizabeth, visited the School.
‘Slowly life in Rickmansworth became less restrictive. We were now allowed to visit the village in pairs … Weekend walks in groups were also allowed along Chorleywood Road … and visits to places of interest in London were arranged.’ (Former pupil)
The School settled into post war life, the Weybridge girls returned to Weybridge, Aylwin School which had been billeted with RMIG, returned to London.
In 1947, Elizabeth married Philip Mountbatten and our new King was born in 1948. Sadly, George VI’s life was not to be long and in 1952, Queen Elizabeth II was proclaimed as monarch. Rather as we are now doing, people had to learn a new version of the national anthem, substituting Queen for King and changing the pronouns.
Pupils watched the Coronation (1953) on a special screen that had been put up. The clock tower was floodlit for the Coronation and a Coronation plantation was created in the grounds with 53 trees native to the Commonwealth. The plaque has unfortunately weathered.
In 1955, the School was honoured by a visit from the young Queen, as grand patron.
The curtsey that greeted the Queen was practised to perfection although the open mouth in wonderment was entirely natural!
The Queen toured the School whilst girls were shifting from place to place surreptitiously ready to greet the Queen en masse when she arrived anywhere: above, in the Dining Hall, where the girls (no matter how hungry they might be – and they were usually ravenous) were not to be eating as the Queen passed by. As the Queen had a very good sense of humour, she would probably have been amused to know that the chocolate biscuits were whisked away after she had left the Dining Hall to be replaced by much plainer alternatives.
As the country settled post-war and the swinging sixties began to replace wartime austerity, life at school continued same as, same as, to the chagrin of those girls who wished it were a little less traditional. There was, however, the development of a new Science block and Library, both opened by the then Duchess of Kent in 1970.
The School too had become well established in its home. However, the following year, there was a monumental transformation: it became the Rickmansworth Masonic School. It ‘lost’ its royal title not because it had upset Someone at the Palace but because it had ceased to be the same charity. It then became a limited company, the move designed to counter dropping numbers and a less certain future. The Boys’ School had closed in 1977 after two decades of struggling. The plan was to combine the two schools into one co-educational establishment. For the first time in its history, the School appointed a Headmaster. David Curtis’ remit was to create a co-educational establishment although this was not in fact achieved.
During his tenure, there were two momentous anniversaries for the School. First came the Golden Jubilee of the School’s time at Rickmansworth (1984) and then the even bigger Bicentenary event of the School’s beginnings in 1788. This culminated in a service in St Albans Abbey with the whole school bussed there in a fleet of double deckers.
As part of the Bicentenary, a new coat of arms for the School was commissioned.
David Curtis retired in the year the Queen later described as her annus horribilis.
‘1992 is not a year on which I shall look back with undiluted pleasure’.
It should have been a celebration of her forty years as Queen but everything that could go wrong, did go wrong. In the meantime, RMS for Girls was moving forward with new ventures. In 1994, the Pre-Prep department opened and, for the first time in over 200 years, the age of the youngest pupils dropped from 7 to 4.
In the meantime, the Bicentenary Sports Hall was going up which inevitably meant other things came down.
At the same time, the music practice rooms gave way to the New Mark Hall.
In 1997 came a difficult moment for the Queen following the death of Diana. As Diana was no longer a member of the royal family, the Queen did not at first acknowledge her publicly. It was a very rare misjudgement which was ‘corrected’ with grace and dignity.
In 1998, the Sports Hall opened – ten years after the Bicentenary but it was worth the wait.
In the same year, the Queen graciously gave her permission for the School to resume the title Royal in its name – the Royal Masonic School.
2002 was the next momentous royal event with the Golden Jubilee of her accession. Sadly, it also brought the deaths of her sister and mother. For the School, 2002 greeted a new Headmistress. The year was marked with the planting of the Jubilee Plantation, all trees of native species, made possible by a generous gift from a former pupil whose maiden name, King, led to the plantation also being known as King’s Wood, somewhat confusingly in the Queen’s celebration year.
‘Jubilees don’t often come
So let’s make this a lot of fun’
So wrote another junior pupil in 2002 but in fact jubilees seem to have happened with some frequency recently: the Golden Jubilee 2002, the Diamond Jubilee 2012 and the Platinum Jubilee 2022.
In 2009, the School celebrated 75 years at Rickmansworth with a 1934 day where the clock was set to 1934 in lessons, dress and food. Amongst other things enjoyed were:
In 2010, RMS opened a Pre-School (Ruspini House) for both boys and girls. So far, this is the nearest RMS has been to becoming co-educational.
The following year the Prep and Pre-Prep schools were housed in one building. The former ‘San’, then 6th Form house, became Cadogan House.
2012 was the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee and, in school, was marked by the opening of Hind House, a Sixth Form Centre.
It was also the year of the Olympics in London, the event opened by the Queen seemingly parachuting in from a helicopter accompanied by 007 James Bond, a surprise for the audience which the Queen evidently enjoyed.
The whole school visited the Olympics in September to cheer on competitors.
Nothing daunted by a whole school trip to London, in 2016, the whole school went into Space. Or to be accurate, Space came to them.
‘On Thursday, February 11th at approximately 6.09pm, history was made at The Royal Masonic School for Girls in Rickmansworth, Hertfordshire… [it] became the first school in the world to make video contact with the International Space Station.’.
‘RMS girls aged 3-18 had the opportunity to engage in a variety of space-related activities in the days preceding the main event. These included creating a model of the ISS, making a comet, creating a menu for astronauts and an essay competition’. For about 8 minutes, pupils were able to put questions to Major Peake. BBC Three Counties Radio broadcast from the School, and interviewed the Headmistress, Mrs Rose, who had definitely entered into the spirit of things…
After her retirement in 2017, RMS welcomed its 2nd headmaster, Mr Carson.
During his tenure, a new Performing Arts Centre was opened by composer Anne Dudley (parent of a former pupil).
This has recently been added to by the refurbishment of the old gym, later The Space, into a small theatre.
Between the last two events came the Pandemic when life changed for everyone, from the Queen to each of her subjects. The School switched from face-to-face education to remote learning with impressive speed and professionalism. Whilst the girls and staff were at home but still fully engaged, facilities in school were used to create PPE which was then delivered to local hospitals.
The Queen and Prince Philip were in Lockdown at Windsor Castle and we all got used to seeing signs reminding us of the need for social distancing – probably the greatest oxymoron of the 21st century.
Officially, the Pandemic has never been declared over but life is beginning to return to whatever passed as normal. Sadly for the Queen, in 2021, her beloved Philip died and the world witnessed a ‘socially distanced’ funeral. The following year, the Queen, visibly frailer, was determined to attend as many of the Platinum celebrations as she could. Who could forget her tea with Paddington Bear and the revelation of just what it was she kept in that handbag?
Just two days before she died – Duty to the end – she appointed her 15th Prime Minister. And then, on 8th September came the news of her death, not unexpected given her age but still deeply sad. There will not be a Queen again for at least a century: the inheritance is all male for the foreseeable future. The death of the Queen is decidedly the end of an era.
RMS announced: ‘Our Union Jack is flying at half-mast as a mark of respect and we have been remembering the Queen in various ways.’
On the School website is a comment by a parent:
In Pidgin English, the queen is referred to as ‘mamma belong big family’. The connection of the two images of family – RMS and Our Queen – seems a fitting tribute to both.
RMSG History Extra 