Wesley College, Dublin

This article is about Wesley College in Dublin, Ireland. See Wesley College (disambiguation) for articles on other institutions named "Wesley College".

Wesley College Dublin Coláiste Wesley
πάντα δὲ δοκιμάζετε, τὸ καλὸν κατέχετε Greek for 'Prove all things hold fast that which is good' (1 Thes 5:21)
Location
Ballinteer Dublin 16, Ireland
Information
School type	Fee-paying Independent
Denomination	Methodist
Established	1 October 1845
Founder	Methodist Church in Ireland
Principal	Christopher Woods
Vice principal	Donald Lewis
Asst. Principal	Graham Darlington
Chaplain	Rev Nigel Mackey
Teaching staff	100
Gender	Coeducational
Age range	12–18
Campus size	50 acres (200,000 m2)
School Colour(s)	Navy & Red
Sports	Rugby Basketball Badminton Hockey Cricket Tennis
School roll	900 pupils
School fees	€5450 (2008/2009)
Nobel laureates	George Bernard Shaw Ernest Walton
Website	Wesley College Dublin Dublin

Wesley College is a fee-paying coeducational secondary school for day-pupils and boarders in Dublin, Ireland. Wesley College is under the control of a Board of Governors, appointed each year by the Methodist Church in Ireland.

Wesley College was founded on 1 October 1845 and counts two Nobel laureates among its alumni. Strong emphasis is put on religious education for all denominations and both extra-curricular activities and sport play an important part in this school. The College offers pupils an opportunity to explore the humanities, sciences, technology, business studies, English literature, music and the arts. Wesley College offers a range of extracurricular and sporting activities in the belief that these assist a sound general education and contribute to the whole person.

History

Origins

On 16 May 1844, a gathering of men met in Belfast and agreed to form a Wesleyan Proprietary Grammar School in Ireland "for the purpose of affording a thorough literary, scientific and commercial education, with a sound, religious, and moral training, in strict accordance with the principles of Wesleyan Methodism".

The committee originally proposed a boarding and day school for boys, in the vicinity of Belfast but later decided that the Wesleyan Connexional School should be established in Dublin which was the hub of Ireland's transport system and had a far greater population. A large dilapidated dwelling house, No. 79 St. Stephen's Green, sited on what is now part of the Department of Foreign Affairs, was leased from the trustees of The King's Hospital.

The Wesleyan Connexional School was founded in 1845 in St. Stephen's Green, Dublin by a group of Methodist Ministers and other men for the Methodist Community in Ireland. In 1879 the Methodist Conference granted the request of the School's Trustees that it would be named Wesley College.

Development

In June 1911 the Wesley College Trustees put the following proposal to the Methodist Conference, "This committee, having had the fact brought under their notice that at the present time there is no school in the three southern provinces under the Methodist Management offering to girls the advantages of an Intermediate education, suggests to the Conference that the present is a suitable occasion for opening Wesley College to girls who desire to secure such training as will fit them for professional and business careers". The Conference responded favourably and the Trustees purchased No. 110 St. Stephen's Green as a girls' hostel. It had formerly been known as "The Epworth Club", a boarding house for young Epworth business men coming to Dublin, which had ceased to serve its purposes. The hostel was called Epworth House.

Six boarder girls and fifteen day-girls, together with the new boys, joined the 175 (approximately) boys already in the College in September 1911.

Right up to the 1940s co-education was narrowly interpreted and strictly supervised. The boys were always called by their surnames, while the girls had their surnames prefixed by "Miss". Casual conversation between the boys and girls was discouraged and they did not have meals together until the 1950s.

Move to Ballinteer

In 1969 Wesley College moved to its present 50 acres (200,000 m²) site in Ballinteer, a suburb of Dublin, at the foothills of the Dublin mountains. The final school activity on the old College site was the end-of-year service in the Large Schoolroom on 14 June 1969, followed by a celebration of Holy Communion in the Chapel. The official opening and dedication of the new buildings at Ludford Park took place at 3.00 p.m. on Saturday, 7 June 1969, opened by Éamon de Valera, President of Ireland.

The 1969 campus was added to in 1980, 1987, and 1991, a state of the art library and Information Technology building was added in 1999 and a new modern music and arts centre as well as a Materials Technology suite were opened in 2005.

School coat of arms

Old school coat of arms

In 1959 the College obtained from the Chief Herald an official grant of arms, which replaced that previously used. The upper part of the shield has a red ground, and bears the Bible, surmounted by a Maltese cross, an old Wesley College symbol. To the right is an escallop shell from the arms of John Wesley's family. The lower part of the shield has a blue ground and on it a flaming castle from the Dublin City arms. The scroll below the shield contains the College motto in Greek, "Prove all things; hold fast that which is great." (I Thessalonians 5.21)

Extracurricular activities

Extracurricular activities include drama, debating (where speakers have recently achieved international honours), Amnesty International, Christian Union, and many others.

This year Carin Hunt, a fifth year, travelled to Qatar as part of the Irish debating team for the World's Debating. Currently former student Mark Haughton is the debating coach, who has achieved second as part of the Irish team, of the World's Debating.

Wesley has won the All Ireland hockey trophy as well as the Leinster Schools Senior Cup for rugby in 1898. Wesley not only places an emphasis on activities which solely help students themselves but also to move children is highly important for the teaching staff. Students in Transition year are able to reach out in various ways such as classroom assistance, helping children with special needs and music teaching. In recent years a team from Wesley's Transition year has embarked on a Habitat for Humanity house building trip annually.

The students of the college also produce a monthly newspaper, Full Stop which has been providing a voice for students through the medium of the media since December 9, 2003.

Interschools Music Festival

Each year Wesley hosts one of the largest interschools music festivals in the country. Hundreds of students from many schools, both primary and secondary level, compete in individual and choral singing as well as individual instrumental and orchestral. The College is very famous for its commitment to, and success in, musical endeavours^{[citation needed]}. In recent years this has been greatly added to with the building of a dedicated Music and Arts Centre. Included in this centre is the purpose built G. B. Shaw Auditorium, named after one of Wesley's most famous past pupils.

Lifelines

Recently the College published its fourth, and final, installment of the Lifelines anthology. Under format of the anthologies, a panel of students within Wesley write to notable people, such as celebrities, sports people and world leaders, asking them to highlight their favourite poem with a brief explanation for their choosing. Thus far the anthology has raised over €140,000 for Irish charity concern. The latest edition itself has raised €29,000^{[citation needed]} and was recently honoured as the Best Irish Published Book of the Year, in the 2007 Irish Book Awards. In 2010, The National Library of Ireland purchased the original letters that were included in the original 1985 edition of Lifelines. Subsequently Wesley College donated all correspondence, photographs and other related archival material to the Library. The Discover Lifelines exhibition in the Library's main hall showed letters from this archive from writers, poets, actors, artists, media personalities and politician and ran throughout 2010.

Model United Nations

In February 2010 the third annual Wesley College Dublin Model United Nations conference was held, and has grown to accommodate over 300 delegates from schools around the UK and Ireland. The Secretary General for WCDMUN10 was Katy Rae, with Megan Skelly as Deputy-Secretary General. The school has achieved success recently at the George Watson's College MUN conference in Edinburgh. Also at the Terenure MUN conference the Wesley Delegation representing China achieved an Outstanding Delegation award and 7 outstanding delegate awards. WCDMUN11 will take place in the college from 11-12 March 2011.

Wartime contribution

Wesley, like many other schools in Ireland made a significant contribution to the effort of the two major world wars. Over 85 students of the college lost their lives in the First World War. Their names are listed on a grand memorial in the College concourse which reads "This building was erected to the honour of all old boys of this College who ventured their lives for defence of home and country in the Great War and especially in loving and grateful memory of those who fell". (The building mentioned was the old College Chapel, where the memorial was located before the move to Ballinteer.) 25 students of Wesley died between 1939 and 1945 in the Second World War. These are also listed on a memorial in the main concourse. Remembrance Day is marked each year with the laying of a wreath on the memorial.

Notable alumni

Politics and government

• Lionel Booth, TD
• Sir Edward Carson, barrister and MP, Leader of the Ulster Unionist Party 1910-21
• Councillor Emma Coburn^{[citation needed]}
• Sir Robert Hart, 1st Baronet, Inspector General of China's Imperial Maritime Custom Service (1863)
• Chaim Herzog, sixth President of Israel
• H. B. Higgins, Attorney General of the Australian Government in 1904
• Sir Harold J. Maguire, Director-General of Intelligence at the British Ministry of Defence (1968–1972)
• Councillor Neale Richmond^{[citation needed]}
• Mervyn Taylor, TD, Irish Minister for Equality and Law Reform
• Senator Gordon Wilson

Music and the arts

• Bjorn Baillie, songwriter / musician^{[citation needed]}
• Harry Furniss, caricaturist
• David Kitt and Robbie Kitt, members of the band Spilly Walker
• Dan Fox, Mark Lavery, Billy Campbell, Ivan Campbell, members of the band Lost In Flight
• Annie Mac, BBC Radio 1 DJ
• Niall Morris, tenor, member of the Celtic Tenors
• James Nelson, tenor, member of the Celtic Tenors
• Eva O'Connor, theatre actress, most notably in Broken Croí, Heart Briste at the Dublin Fringe Festival. Nominated for Best Supporting Actress for the Irish Times Theatre Awards 2009
• Donald Teskey, artist^{[citation needed]}
• Stanley Townsend, television, film and stage actor (in the BBC's Rough Diamond and other dramas)

Business and philanthropy

• Philip Berber, former CEO of Cybercorp and multimillionaire philanthropist. Chairman of A Glimmer of Hope Foundation
• Richard Burrows, Governor of the Bank of Ireland.
• Dermot FitzGerald, Irish businessman and philanthropist

Authors

• Douglas Bennett, author The Encyclopaedia of Dublin
• Bill McCormack, literary historian^{[citation needed]}

Clergy

• Michael Burrows, Bishop of Cashel and Ossory
• Donald Caird, Archbishop of Dublin
• Heuston Finlay, Canon of St George's Chapel, Windsor Castle^{[citation needed]}

Nobel laureates

• George Bernard Shaw, playwright, Nobel Prize for Literature
• Ernest Walton, Nobel Prize for Physics.

Sporting alumni

Cricket Internationals

• 1903 - S. H. Crawford
• 1909-1925 - J. G. Aston
• 1947-59 - L. C. Jacobson
• 1947-61 - N. B. Hool
• 1953 - I. M. Taffey
• 1958 - 66 - K. W. Hope
• 1970-89 - Mike Halliday; played 93 times for Ireland and was Captain 25 times
• 1991-95 - Eddie Moore (played 25 times for Ireland)
• 1999 – Duncan Smythe, Andrew O’Kane, Nikki Symmons and John Blakeney
• 2007 – Jillian Smythe, Eimear Richardson
• 2009 - Blare Blellegher

Rugby Internationals

• 1888 - Alfred Walpolf
• 1893 - Fred Davies and Walter Brown
• 1894 - Louis McIntosh
• 1894-97 - T. Robinson
• 1907 - William Hinton
• 1908 - H. R. Aston, G. Crawford, Jim Beckett and George Hamlett; George Hamlett was Captain 1910-11 and also played 30 times for Ireland
• 1913 - F. Bennett
• 1939-46 - E. A. Cairy
• 1995 – Chris Pim was Captain of Leinster the Inter-provincial Champions
• 1997-06 - Eric Miller (Ireland and British Lions)
• 2005 - Karl Harper (Norwegian National Team, Rugby Union 15s and 7s)
• 2006 - Mark Warburton and Kevin Corrigan (amateurs)
• 2006 - Michelle Lund (Norwegian National Team, Rugby Union 15s and 7s)
• 2008 - Ross Barbour (Rugby League, 2008 World Cup)

Athletics and other sports

• Joan Blackmore, headmaster's wife, represented Ireland at fencing and hockey
• Ken Blackmore, Headmaster of Wesley, was captain of YMCA, Trinity College, Leinster and Ireland at hockey over many years
• 1995 - Clive T. Brown, Captain of the Great Britain & Ireland Walker Cup team; the team beat the United States team 14-10
• 2002 – Nicola Cinnamond, mountain running.
• Richard Franck represented Ireland in the World Youth Sailing Championships in 2001.
• 1998 – Sylvia Gee, football
• 1981 - Justin May and Carey May (see also, Olympians below) represented Ireland at the Orienteering Championships
• 1995 - Justin May went to coach the Irish coaching team
• John O'Hara ran the 100m for Ireland
• Heather Young was a senior international badminton player for Ireland
• Lynn Young (now McCrave) was a schools international in under 23s and then senior international badminton player for Ireland

Olympians

• David Burrows represented Ireland in sailing at the Sydney Olympics.
• Scott Evans currently represents Ireland at badminton
• David Foster, show jumping 1984, 1988, 1996 World Championships; also 3 European Gold team medals (1979)
• Longtime staff member Dan Kennedy was an instrumental javelin coach for the Irish Olympic Team.
• 1981, 1984 – Carey May, athlete (Olympics 1984) and orienteerer, represented Irish schools in hurdles and went on to represent Ireland in the marathon in the 1984 Olympic Games
• 1992, 1996, 2000 – Nick Sweeney, triple Olympian discus thrower
• David Wilkins competed in 5 Olympic Games in sailing and won a silver medal in one

See also

• Old Wesley

External links

• Wesley College - official website
• Wesley Learning - official ancillary website
• Old Wesley - Rugby Club Founded by past pupils