Vintage prospectus reveals what life was like for 1930s boarders at Sompting Abbotts
/A not-seen-before series of photos of Sompting Abbotts Preparatory School from the 1930s has been uncovered in a vintage prospectus.
The prospectus booklet, bound in thick green card and tied with matching green cord, is undated and was published by P. A. Buchanan & Co, Thornton Heath, Surrey. It had been stored away unseen for years in a school cupboard.
Buchanan was a photographer who worked with schools and similar institutions, from about 1907 until the 1930s, typically providing the schools with a set of perhaps a dozen different postcards.
This prospectus is thought to date back between 90 and 100 years and the photos give a fascinating insight into what life was like at the school just before the Second World War. Today Sompting Abbotts is an independent school for boys and girls aged 2 to 13 years. But back then, it was a boys' boarding school.
The school in the 1930s "prepared boys between the ages of 6 and 15 for Scholarship and Entrance exams at the Public Schools and for the Royal Navy". Boys at that period were sent to boarding school from the age of 6 and only saw their families during the holidays. They addressed each other by their surnames: 'Jennings' or 'Jones' etc.
Needless to say, Sompting Abbotts is a very different school today!
Please see the comments on each photo for additional details.