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Dover Welcomes Our Boys
It was in 1940 that the Society removed the Sea
Training School from Limehouse to Ingham in Norfolk, a move made necessary,
first because greater security for the boys and also because the Admiralty
expressed its wish to acquire the Limehouse building as a training depot for
Merchant Navy gunners. For twelve years the training of sturdy British boys has
continued on the pleasant Norfolk Broads and the support and interest of the
Norfolk and Suffolk public and its kindness to the boys is something that will
always live both in the memories of the boys who were trained there and in the
esteem and appreciation of the Directors who are fully conscious of the debt the
Society owes to these friends. Our gracious Patron Her Royal Highness The
Duchess of Kent was also fully ware of this when on her visits to the school she
met the many local visitors to Ingham who were conscious of the honour Her Royal
Highness was conferring upon the school.
 The Board has to recognise, however, that we are
living in changing times and that its responsibility is a dual one, first to the
boys and the parents of the boys to see that they get the fullest advantages in
training that can be obtained, and secondly to the public which bears the heavy
cost of subsidising the school and which in the days of financial stringency is
no small burden; the decision therefore arising from these considerations was to
bring the school nearer to London from which all the boys are shipped and to
bring them to a port which contained every facet of seafaring knowledge combined
with such pleasant surroundings as would relive the monotony of training from
which the younger mind can all too easily suffer, no wonder then that the choice
fell on Dover!
 In every sense the new Prince of Wales Sea
Training School in Princess Street, Dover, can be described as a charming home.
Gone are the days when an institutional gloom is part of the instructional
atmosphere. The new school is designed to encourage the boys to develop their
personality and not to suppose that they are simply a cog in an educational
wheel. The rooms are painted in bright pastel colours, classrooms are of a
moderate size, a class of not more than thirty boys being considered essential
if the Instructor is to do justice to the personal approach. Indeed in subjects
requiring intensive application five or six boys are dealt with at a time so
that they may feel the interest of the Instructor is concerned upon themselves.
 The curriculum of pre-sea training required by
the Ministry of Transport to-day is of a standard that puts a responsibility
upon the Instructor to watch his pupil during the four months intensive training
with such care that at the end he is keen and anxious to commence his sea career
as he was when it first seized upon his imagination. Compass instruction,
knotting and splicing, the rule of the road, lifeboat drill, steering,
signalling, the construction of ships, all these serious and hitherto quite
unknown subjects have to be clearly imparted to young minds not yet in the
seventeenth year. In addition to these purely sea subjects the boys are taught
to do their clothes washing, mending and darning and to take a personal pride in
their appearance as a result of their own endeavours rather than depending upon
others to care for them; this it must be recognised is a great change for boys
who hitherto may have had doting parents who relieved then of all personal
responsibility.
 But what a thrill it is for the healthy and
normal boy to find himself in constant contact with boys of his own age and with
his new enthusiasm to become a sailor! They break away from the classrooms and
troop on to the mess deck full of high-spirited fun and with such hearty
appetites that even the cooks are inspired and feel that the humdrum business of
preparing meals is something worth while. Orderlies drawn from the ranks of the
boys take turns both in the kitchen and on the mess deck so that the spirit of
mutual help in inculcated and shared by all; her is the mainspring of the
oft-repeated tribute ‘a sailor can turn a hand to anything’
 No effort is spared to ensure that every boy
shall receive such training as will make him physically happy for indeed this is
the word that expresses a sound bodily condition. Not only does the curriculum
provide for regular P.T drills and, of course, lifeboat drill which besides
being an essential requirement of training, is also a first class exercise, but
every boy who is a non swimmer is taught to swim before he leaves the school.
Football and cricket, sports of all kinds and also the opportunity for rambles
and walking, make up a programme, which includes every known and recognised
avenue to complete bodily health.
 No part of the day is left unaccounted for and
when just before three bells (9.30pm) the boys are ‘piped to bunks’ it is with a
sense of a day well spent in work and play that they are able to say ‘and so to
bed’
New Parade and Sports Ground
 A long empty gap in the needs of the Prince of
Wales Training School was filled on Thursday afternoon September 24th,
when their compact new recreation and parade ground was officially opened by Mrs
Philip Green, Chairman of the Portsmouth and Southsea Branch of British Sailors
Society Guild, which was instrumental in raising the £2,300 needed for the
scheme.
The land immediately behind and above the school
has a fine view of the castle. It was purchased from the Corporation in 1957
when it was in a very rough state and on three different levels. Not until this
year was the work of levelling, turfing and fencing completed and had it not
been for valuable help volunteered by Dover Harbour Board the work might still
be incomplete.
A 35 strong guard of honour was
inspected by Captain The Rt Hon Lord Teynham , DSO, DSC, RN (rtd). Chairman of
the Sea Training Committee and Lady Teynham, and among those who witnessed the
opening were the Mayor and Mayoress (Alderman and Mrs RL Eckhoff), the Earl and
Countess of Guildford and the School Chaplain, the Rev SJ Archer, Vicar of the
Christ Church.
Describing the event as a ‘milestone in the
schools curriculum’, Lord Teynham said all of them who had served in the Royal
Navy and the Merchant Navy appreciated the great brotherhood which existed
between the two services.
Click here for
information about
Roger Banfil RYELAND, Director of the Prince of Wales Sea Training School
Tuesday 16th May 1967 at
Mansion House, London 149th Anniversary Meeting
Thursday 15th June 1967
Sports and Open Day
Report for 1968
108 boys entered the school as against 105 in
1967.
Out of the total number trained 56 were deck boys
and 44 were engine room boys.
 BP Tanker Company have expressed satisfaction
with the engine room training scheme and have advised us that they will be
advertising nationally for candidates, this should help our recruiting.
On hundred boys were put to sea in the following
Shipping Companies during 1968:-
BP Tanker Company - 50
P&O Line - 25
New Zealand Shipping Co. - 17
Shaw Savill - 7
Union
Castle - 1
Out of the 50 boys sent to BP Tanker Company 44
were trained for engine room duties. 115 applications were received during 1968.
2 boys failed their medical examinations, and 5 boys who failed the eyesight
test opted for catering.
Missionary Work - Confirmation Classes
continue to be held by Canon Roberts. It has been encouraging to see a fairly
large increase in the number of boys offered themselves for Conformation. A
total of 25 boys were Confirmed during the year, against 18 in 1967.
Medical - Before proceeding on Christmas
leave Dr Hall made arrangements for all the boys to be vaccinated against flu.
The health of the boys has remained very satisfactory.
Old Boys Association – Membership
continues to grow at a satisfactory rate. 58 boys became Life Members in 1968 as
against 65 in 1967.
 Instructional - During the year under
review the syllabus has held had to be fully revised in the light of the
recommendations of the Merchant Navy Training Board. This has entailed making
arrangements for Deck Boys to receive some engineering familiarisation training
as a step towards eventual GP manning.
Publicity – With the strong challenge from
the new Gravesend Sea School publicity is of prime importance in the recruitment
of boys. Some Shipping Companies help us by sending boys they have recruited. If
other Companies would follow suit, it would be to their advantage because for
every boy they send us they nearly always get another one or two as friends
always like sailing together.
Functions Attended – Being the 150th
Anniversary Year the boys have assisted at many Guild functions.
Royal Certificates and Prizes – The three
Royal Certificates this year were won by:
PB Duffner, AJ May and JF Millar and the Royal
Society of Arts Thomas Gray Memorial Prize was shared between:
M Vousden and S Duchnowski
The staff have worked loyally and conscientiously
to train the boys to high standard expected of them.
We are grateful to the Sea Training Committee for
the help and guidance extended to us throughout the year; the combined knowledge
that they bring of maritime affairs is invaluable to the running of the school.
20th March 1969 the boys
assisted in the Hover Lloyd Hovercraft Sea trails.
23rd April 1969 The Captain
and Guard of Honour attended the Zeebrugge and St George's Day service at St
Jame's Cemetery.
Summer 1975
I have just returned from Dover after my last
visit to speak to the leaving class of the Prince of Wales Sea Training School.
This time it was the only class there, for the school has now closed. It is sad
to think that a school which has done such tremendous work in preparing men for
life at sea in the Deck and Engine Room Departments of the Merchant Navy is to
close. The boys trained at the school have always been their own advertisement
and the Merchant Navy will be worse off now that this source of supply has
ceased.
Final Passing out photo
 The Prince of Wales Sea Training School has
always been a comparatively small school – and here in so many ways has lain its
strength. Each instructor has assigned a Class - his Class of boys to look after
and take care for. A very strong thread of discipline has been woven in to the
fabric of school life, smartness, alertness and keenness being the qualities
most aimed at in order to develop strength of character and fitness for sea
service. Most boys who arrived straight from home had never been away from those
homes for very long prior to this training. Those early days are always the
worst, but at a small school the staff who understood the situation could ease a
boy along and make the homesickness disappear in the new enthusiasms of
acquiring seafaring knowledge, without ever pampering a boy or making his
treatment lighter than others. I feel that the Society and the boys privileged
to be trained at the school should be most grateful to the Officers there, who
in past days have given to countless boys a priceless, disciplined first-start
in a career at sea. Even out of some unpromising material much has been gathered
together and has been the concerted ‘shove’ which has pushed a boy along the
right path.
Statistics could be quoted giving the number of
boys trained at the school who have gone on to secure navigating or engineering
certificates to enable them to serve as officers at sea. These are impressive
for a school of its size, but I think that the glory of the school has been the
ability to transform ordinary boys into extraordinary good seaman. For this,
successive captains and staff must take credit. They indeed made it a ‘great’
little school, which is going to be sadly missed in the Shipping Industry and at
British Sailors Society functions, but its memory will live on in the lives of a
great many people for a very long time.
In April
1975 The Directors of the Society decided to close the School at the end of
1975. The last intake to be the 1st September 1975.
The colours
were finally laid up at St Peter-Upon-Cornhill Church, London 27th October 1975.
The Mayor and Mayoress of Dover attended.
On the 18th
December 1975 the School closed. Total number of boys trained in its history
4911.
Royal Visits
and inspections from:
The Queen
Mother
Princes Margaret
HRH Princess Marina
Duchess of Kent
Other photos of interest :
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