Concordia Magazine 2025

Concordia Winter 2025

Concordia Merchant Taylors’ School

Winter 2025

Welcome

Dear Reader Anyone who has visited Merchant Taylors’ School in recent times will know that it is a very happy place to study and to work. Its culture can certainly be characterised as supportive and kind, so it is appropriate that the Head Master opens this year’s edition of Concordia with an article on the subject of kindness. Continuing the theme, our first OMT feature article is by Alexander Margolin (2002–2009), who writes about the work of the charity Made With Hope, which is transforming educational opportunities for children in Tanzania and with which he has shared a seven-year association. Music, entrepreneurship and travel are highlighted in other OMT articles in this issue. Isabel Hesketh, the School Archivist, continues to receive extraordinary donations from OMTs, while also discovering and restoring (often hidden) treasures from the School site and making them visible and accessible to the community. One such treasure is the Victoria Cross medal awarded to George Drewry (1907– 1909), which was returned to the School in a moving ceremony on 27 November and is featured in these pages. To coincide with Simon Everson sitting for his official portrait, we also have an article on the history of portraiture at Merchant Taylors’. The Development section of the magazine celebrates the generosity of the school community and outlines the various ways people can become involved in our activities; it also includes a description of a new online platform soon to be launched for OMTs. I am most grateful to the many people who have been involved in preparing this edition of Concordia , particularly Emma Bindloss. Nick Latham Editor

Contributing Editors Nick Latham

Emma Bindloss Isabel Hesketh Photographers Nate Ayling Emma Bindloss Will Carey Isabel Hesketh Nick Latham Design rcdcreative.co.uk Sean Clarke, Creative Director Ellie Jones, Senior Designer Cover

SS River Clyde : The Ship’s Bell Printed by Lavenham Press

Revd James Bellamy: British (English) School

In this Issue

A Culture of Kindness Head Master Simon Everson

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Merchant Taylors’ Prep

Beyond the Classroom Alexander Margolin (2002–2009)

Commemoration of George Drewry VC (1907–1909)

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Lighting the Fuse Harrison Robb (2013–2020) Crunch Time Philip Kelvin (2004–2011) A Summer in Singapore Krish Thakrar (2018–2025) Hamesh Mehta (1991–1998)

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Development Updates

Clubs and Societies Fund Update

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48 52 56 59 63

Roll of Benefactors

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Previous Events

Forthcoming Events

Lost and Found Isabel Hesketh

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Class Notes

30

School News

Obituaries

A Culture of Kindness

At the heart of a good pastoral system is kindness. In promoting kindness we offer staff, pupils and parents the daily experience of being known, valued and cared for. That kindness should be offered altruistically, without expectation of reciprocation or favour; and because it is given so freely, the kindness is returned twofold. As Juliet says to Romeo:

My bounty is as boundless as the sea, My love as deep; the more I give to thee, The more I have, for both are infinite.

Such self-reinforcing, reflexive and reflective kindness cannot be contained within the walls of the school; it overspills boundaries and reaches out into the wider community. Schools like ours become engines of goodness in their locality, even as they enhance the lives of those they most directly serve. However, we don’t have the equivalent of a blank sheet of paper on which to write a moral code — even if we wished to. Anyone who joins Rousseau in thinking that children are naturally good hasn’t spent much time with them.

Head Master Simon Everson writes about the culture of kindness. A good school will develop the mind; a great school will develop the soul. Merchant Taylors’ helps pupils fashion a moral code to guide their life. I should like our pupils to have moral agency within the world, acting altruistically in using their strength to support others. We want them to choose, of their own free will, to behave well. What is it that children want? They want to be known, to be valued and to hope. Above all, children need to be loved. At the outset of their education they want teachers who are empathetic and caring. By the time they are about to go to university they are more transactional: they seek effective communicators who will deliver their required grades. But they can reach that latter state of relative independence only because they were supported through the earlier, more vulnerable period. A good school, deliberately or otherwise, will try to replicate the experience of being a member of a loving family. It will foster kindness, aspiration and courtesy. Merchant Taylors’ meets childrens’ needs and, through our pastoral system, communicates the values we esteem.

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meet our high expectations, both academically and in terms of character development. But expectation must also challenge pupils to expect more of themselves and exceed their previous best. Challenge is not a ‘one size fits all’ process. What is challenging for one child is easy for another. For challenge to be meaningful it must be tailored to the individual. That requires a deep knowledge of the pupils. This knowledge is subtly different from that required in the academic classroom. Pastoral interactions are typically more low-key, conversational, one-to-one and speculative. The final word, ‘care’, is crucial as it both underpins and validates all of the previous actions. The pupil must understand that teachers care about him as a person, irrespective of his successes and failures or his faults and talents. He must be certain that he is valued as an end rather than a means, as himself rather than as one of the crowd. To be kind to others, he must first receive an altruistic and unconditional gift of kindness from us.

Young children are not wicked: they simply haven’t arrived at the stage where they make moral choices. As they don’t fully understand the concepts of good or bad they aren’t choosing between them and cannot be categorised as one or the other. In Freudian terms, they are examples of pure id. The id is the animalistic, egocentric essence of humanity. The id seeks personal gratification and is unwilling to wait for it. Only later in life, and not always then, can the id be mediated by the super-ego. This is the moral sense, or instilled conscience, and the tension between the ‘I want’ of the id and the ‘you ought’ of the super-ego creates the self inhabited by a civilised person: our ego. I think this primordial clash within the psyche of every child is one of the reasons I think schools have a duty to engage with the moral as well as the intellectual. We send pupils out into the world half-finished if they have not learnt to overcome themselves, defer gratification and care for others. So, what does good pastoral care in a school look like? For me, it centres on four key words: expectation, challenge, knowledge and care. Our pastoral work helps a pupil

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For challenge to be meaningful it must be tailored to the individual. That requires a deep knowledge of the pupils.

Many schools have turned to tried and trusted techniques to support teachers in the extraordinarily difficult and complex process of negotiating a child through their adolescence. We have found it useful to create a coaching culture. Our focus is on questioning techniques, an emphasis on the need for adults to listen and, above all, to have insight that the person being coached, whether adult or child, already possesses the answers they need to find success and resolution. To find that answer they do not require instruction; they can discover it themselves through our careful questioning. Who knows our own needs better than ourselves? In addition, good schools will have a culture that will not tolerate shouting. The notion that an adult should impose their will on a child through anger, intimidation and fear is not one that sits easily in a caring school.

There is a big difference between pastoral support and disciplinary processes. In most schools, the same team will usually administer both pastoral and disciplinary procedures; but while the disciplinary might (we hope) impinge only occasionally on a pupil’s life, the pastoral support they receive should be ever-present. A child might misbehave for reasons connected with the pastoral. Emotions and frustrations arising from home life, academic worries or the simple process of growing up can lead some boys to challenge the system. Some may be wanting to gain attention or to exercise a form of control on the world. A pupil may not even be able to articulate his needs or frustrations. He may not know why he did what he did. But, however much the disciplinary systems are deployed to correct misbehaviour, there should never be any doubt in that child’s mind that the school cares for him and values him unwaveringly.

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We cannot pay lip service to good pastoral care and kindness while tolerating bullying adult behaviour. If our values are to be respected and upheld, they must be lived. The result is a diffuse but pervading atmosphere of benevolence, warmth and kindness, and one in which boundaries are known and policed. If our approach is too lax, children will inevitably learn to push harder to discover where the boundary lies. However, if we become too authoritarian there is no space for caring. Further, the children simply learn to be compliant rather than understand and grapple with morality itself. Those schools that require children to walk silently, in single file, between lessons and make spirit-crushing demands of absolute submission are not teaching values that will sustain autonomous, powerful adults. They are training servants. I want to enable our students to think and act in moral as well as intellectual terms. Their sense of right and wrong should be owned by them; pastoral care is there to enable them to achieve that goal rather than provide them with any specific moral template. When pupils behave well, it should be as a result of their freely willed, joyous choice. And kindness is at the heart of it all. As the Dalai Lama said, ‘Whenever possible, be kind. It is always possible’.

I should like our pupils to have moral agency within the world, acting altruistically in using their strength to support others.

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Beyond the classroom

Alexander Margolin (2002–2009) reflects on how his time at Merchant Taylors’ shaped a journey to improve education for thousands of children in Tanzania. I look back at my time at Merchant Taylors’ with extreme gratitude, realising now that the School was not just teaching academic subjects but instilling the values needed to become a well-rounded person. I certainly did not appreciate that at the time, nor do I expect any student reading this to have that level of awareness. But when people compliment me on any success I may have had in business or philanthropy, I leave them with the same sentiment: Merchant Taylors’ gave me the tools and I am simply applying them. I would not be the same person if I had not attended MTS, and deep down the School sparked a passion inside me for education — not in the traditional sense (I never wanted to be a teacher), but a belief in the transformative power of education to shape lives. That idea planted a seed which has grown into my journey of helping the next generation of children to get a better education. That suggests that my journey was linear, as if I always knew I would end up helping thousands of children in school programmes in Africa, but it certainly wasn’t. After I left Merchant Taylors’ I studied Experimental Psychology at the University of Bristol; in 2012 I graduated and was accepted on to the Allianz Graduate Programme. On paper everything looked perfect. I had followed the path we are all encouraged to take: school, university,

career. After a few years, however, something felt not quite right. I enjoyed my job and my life in London, but I had a continuing urge to travel. I knew it would be reckless simply to quit my job, so instead I used my four weeks’ allocated holiday each year to pack a backpack and travel the world. On one of those trips, in 2016, I went to Guatemala and Belize. With three friends, I was going to travel the country from hostel to hostel, seeing the sights and enjoying lots of partying (that was the playbook). But something happened to me on that trip that I had not experienced before. The sites were great, the hostels were fun; but for the first time in my life I really paid attention to the world around me. This was not simply a place to visit, to tick off in a box and to photograph for sharing on Facebook. These were real people living real lives — places, people and lives far removed from my own. As we travelled, I was struck by an immense feeling of guilt. Why was I so lucky to have been born in London, to a middle-class, loving family that afforded me a world-class education? It was complete luck. I could just as easily have been born to a family living in a poor village on the outskirts of Antigua, Guatemala. My ego was shaken. My successes were not of my own making; This feeling grew during our trip, and while sitting at the back of a bus on many long journeys I wrote out a plan — slides and all. I was going to find a way to help others living in worlds miles from my own. I am not too embarrassed to say that I spent the final night of my trip, on an island somewhere near Belize, in floods of tears. How could I have been so naive? How could I have been so unaware of the world around me? they were simply the result of the fortunate cards I had been dealt.

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The classroom and school buildings before refurbishment

not know quite what I wanted to do, but I would like to pick her brain and potentially get involved with Made With Hope. That was seven years ago, and I have never looked back. Together Eleanor and I combined our skills and passion, and what was once a very small charity that supported 30 girls is now one that has raised over a million pounds and supports 7000 children every year in 12 schools in Tanzania. My dreams were coming true: I was giving the gift of education to others in the world. In truth, I feel as though I have barely scratched the surface of what is possible, and now, at the age of 34, I have a bigger vision to improve education in developing countries. In what has been an amazing journey, there are two other important people who should be mentioned. First, my partner Natasha, who kept me on track. When I was ready to give away all my belongings to those in need and live in a hut in Africa, she taught me that ultimately we live in a capitalist society, whether right or wrong, and those who are successful and credible have the power to bring about change on a much larger scale.

I returned astounded, but I was slammed back to reality and my ‘nine-to-five’ life building my career in the insurance business. I knew, though, that something had to change. In 2018 I left my job in the City. I needed the freedom to live in a way I could control and in which I could balance a career with my other ambitions. At the age of 26 I set up my own insurance brokerage (Sioma) and decided that I would work three or four days a week on my business and spend the rest of the time working for charity. At that time I did not know what charity really meant. I wanted to do something; I knew I cared about helping those in developing countries and I knew how important education is in relieving poverty. By complete luck, the only person I knew who worked in charity was Eleanor, whom I had met in 2012 while backpacking in South America and with whom I had stayed in touch loosely over Facebook. Since that time she had gone to Tanzania, set up a charity called Made With Hope, raised £10,000 and built an orphanage for girls, and she was now raising funds to support the school attached to the orphanage. Out of the blue I called Eleanor and told her my story; I said that I did

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Second is Zac Hartnell. Zac also attended Merchant Taylors’, from 2003 to 2005. We were not friends at School as he was two years above me and far too cool. We met again, however, in 2019 through business and instantly clicked: our mindset was the same and we wanted to give back in a meaningful way. Over the last seven years Zac has supported me and Made With Hope immensely, donating personal money, raising money from his community, visiting Tanzania with me each year and always providing advice and support. This demonstrates, above everything, that the connections you make at a school like Merchant Taylors’ will benefit you for the rest of your life. Such connections are also testament to the fact that taking meaningful action in the world inspires others to change their perspectives. All who attend or have attended Merchant Taylors’ are extraordinarily blessed to have done so. Not everyone loves their time at school, but we have been afforded one of the best educations available. Be successful in whatever way you choose, but remember that giving to others rewards you in the long term. No one person can change the world for the better, but if everyone did something small and meaningful the effect would be profound.

Key achievements of Made With Hope

• £1,000,000 raised • 26,000 children given access to education • 90 classrooms, 144 toilets, 85 water supplies and 3 school farms built • 1182 children receiving school lunches from gardens they help grow • 12 communities supported • 95% attendance for girls in supported schools • 75% of children progressing to secondary education

Life is hard; enjoy the ride and think of others.

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Lighting the Fuse Baritone Harrison Robb (2013–2020) on music, Merchant Taylors’ School and finding his voice.

Looking back at his time at Merchant Taylors’, Harrison’s musical highlights are many — from playing Javert in Les Misérables to performing at Birmingham Symphony Hall to mark the centenary of the end of World War I. Yet he recalls it was an early Summer Serenade that lit the fuse. ‘I remember one of the older boys singing Rule Britannia! , with fireworks going up over the Clock Tower, and thinking: what a school to be at! That was an exciting moment.’ Returning to sing Handel’s Messiah at the School in March this year was a full-circle occasion and really special. As a pupil, Harrison had performed alongside Alex Kerley (2012– 2019), singing solos in Durante’s Requiem , and now he was standing on the same podium as a professional soloist.

Whether leading a primary-school choir or persuading teachers to back his idea to raise money for Phab with what would later become the annual ‘24 Hours of Music’, Harrison Robb’s energy is infectious. When we meet during a break between rehearsals for Carmen at the Royal Academy Opera, where he is playing the flamboyant bullfighter Escamillo, that same spark is unmistakable.

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English was another source of inspiration for Harrison, who recalls Mr Gibbons’s classes being a great space for creativity and discussion. ‘He even wrote to us after “24 Hours of Music” to say how proud he was, and he helped us reach our fundraising target, which meant a lot.’ When Harrison started at MTS, music was a hobby, not something he thought of as a career. He took GCSE Music because he was a music exhibitioner, thinking he would also study languages and go on to read Law and become a diplomat. But once he began the GCSE syllabus, everything changed: ‘I’d be counting down the days to my music lessons, then realising that doing A-level Music would mean that I had a music lesson every single day!’.

Harrison speaks with great warmth about the teachers who encouraged him. He recalls having so many ideas — ‘24 Hours of Music’, starting an a cappella jazz ensemble (the Blue Notes), conducting a swing band, volunteering with friends Alex Kerley, Ollie Mansfield (2014–2019), Joshua Winyard (2015–2020), Theo Berenzweig (2016–2021) and Harry Brook (2016–2021) to run the Bushey Heath School Choir — and Joan Stubbs and Simon Couldridge would just say, ‘yes, we can make that happen’. The encouragement they gave him showed Harrison that if you are willing to put in the work and have people who support you, you can achieve some remarkable things. Rosalind Couchman taught Harrison sight-singing in one to-one lessons at School. This has proved to be an essential skill in many of his professional pursuits, as a conductor and singer, and enables him to learn music much more quickly. Harrison also credits Mrs Mannington with rekindling his love of the piano. He had a natural aptitude for the saxophone, but the piano was a slightly different story. Mrs Mannington knew that when lessons were proving challenging she could indulge Harrison’s love for jazz piano, and she successfully encouraged him through to Grade 8.

Fundraising for Phab

That decision led him to study music at the University of Bristol, where he discovered a passion for singing. At that stage Harrison imagined being a choral singer or a choral conductor, having been involved in conducting the Chamber Choir and Madrigal Ensemble in Bristol, but it was when he was singing in the Bristol Cathedral Choir that he realised that he might be able to have a professional singing career. Harrison met Craig Bissex, who became his teacher at Bristol, and it was Craig’s encouragement that helped him decide to apply to the Royal Academy of Music.

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As Escamillo in Carmen November 2025

Even when he took up his place at the Academy, Harrison was not considering a career in opera. ‘Everyone was talking about the operas they’d been in. I had never sung in an opera in my life — not even a scene but just a couple of arias, and it felt as though I was far behind everyone else. But during my first opera scene at the Academy I realised I was getting the same buzz as I got from performing Les Mis at School. I love music, I love singing, I love performing: why hadn’t I sung in opera before? Now, I fall in love with music over and over again with each new opera.’ Now studying with Alexander Ashworth for the Advanced Diploma in Opera at the Royal Academy of Music, Harrison is thriving. He finds opera not only challenging vocally but also intellectually and physically. ‘Preparing for the role of Escamillo has been interesting because we’re quite different people. I try to be nice in my day-to-day life! Escamillo is arrogant, macho and extremely powerful.’ Harrison’s preparations begin by translating his sung texts into English so that when he sings a line in French he knows exactly what he is saying. To ensure his pronunciation is accurate he uses IPA transcription, a method of pronouncing all the world’s languages. ‘The whole process of singing a role must be completely subconscious, drilled into the body, before you come to the ‘blocking’ phase, when you are learning the physical movements you need to make and where you should be on stage. Posture is very important for a character like Escamillo. You cannot be on stage thinking about what you are singing; you must be in the moment — living it, performing it and acting it.’ Harrison is a passionate advocate for music education, believing that music involves pattern spotting, problem solving and communication: skills that have been shown to improve academic results. Music can offer an opportunity to switch off and relax while still keeping the brain engaged, which can be important at school. Harrison still turns to the piano for relaxation. He also cites one-to-one time with an instrumental teacher as an important factor in building confidence and communication skills.

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Returning to sing in Handel’s Messiah at the School in March this year

Looking ahead, Harrison hopes to have an international career performing in opera houses all over the world but his focus remains on the journey itself. ‘Everything I’ve achieved goes back to a love of music nurtured at Merchant Taylors’, guided by exceptional teachers who inspired me every step of the way.’ And with that, our time is up. Harrison has a call to rehearse a scene in which he must win a knife fight against Don José. Harrison’s experiences are a reminder that the right encouragement, coupled with determination and joy in the process, can turn a school passion into a lifelong vocation, and that the music we make at school can echo for years to come. Emma Bindloss

Harrison’s advice to young musicians who are considering a career in music is both practical and inspiring. ‘Do it only if it’s a vocation. You have to take it seriously and be really passionate about it. Deciding to dedicate yourself to music full time is a big decision.’ He is also clear that there is no single path to success and that, while you might not get into your first-choice university, that does not mean you will not succeed. Harrison had originally hoped to go to the University of Cambridge but he did not get a place. He almost deferred for a year, and it was partly because of Covid that he went to Bristol, a decision he is now very pleased he made. You could say that Bristol led him to the Academy.

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Crunch Time Philip Kelvin (2004–2011) reflects on the factors that

When I began a finance internship programme in my second year at university, I felt out of my depth at times, but I soon learnt that most of what you need to know is taught on the job. My training in History gave me the ability to absorb large amounts of information, construct an argument and communicate effectively — all vital skills in business. There was no single lightbulb moment when I decided to start my own company. It was more a mix of timing and luck. I finished as CFO of a digital mortgage platform in 2021 at the height of quantitative easing and a time when venture capital was flowing to experienced operators. I realised everyone is always learning, whether CEO or the hundredth employee, but once you start something you are committed until it succeeds or fails. I was at the right stage of life to take that risk. To be candid, if a company succeeds the rewards are vested much more in the co-founders than its employees, so if you have the confidence, take the leap! I realised everyone is always learning, whether CEO or the hundredth employee, but once you start something you are committed until it succeeds or fails.

have shaped his approach to leadership, entrepreneurship and life after start-up success. There is no single moment in my time at Merchant Taylors’ School that planted the seeds of my career. Entrepreneurship was not a strong theme at the time. Careers fairs leaned heavily towards medicine, law and finance. Ironically, when I told people I wanted to be a barrister I was advised against it on the grounds that being self-employed was not a great idea. How times change. However, it was the holistic experience at School that mattered. I have happy memories of playing rugby, performing in concerts and leading the CCF in my final year. I even developed some resilience as the U13B hockey goalkeeper, though I wisely retired just as everyone started to become quite good. Academically, I was always encouraged to be curious. History fascinated me, and Mr Bond, Mr Lock and Mr Stott were teachers who brought the subject to life using primary sources and persuading us to think independently rather than just following the mark scheme. From History to Fintech I went on to study History at the University of Durham and later completed an MPhil at Cambridge — not the most obvious route into fintech. But the UK has always prided itself on allowing students to follow their passions at university. When I began working in investment banking the many Europeans around me were baffled that I was not a librarian, given that I had studied History while they had spent years on finance and accountancy.

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Building Tranch When my co-founder and I started Tranch in the pre-AI world we wanted to play to our ‘edge’. Having worked in fintech we saw a clear problem that we knew how to solve. We also knew that we wanted to support businesses and avoid the regulatory hurdles and expensive marketing that can go with building a direct-to-consumer business. We launched Tranch to solve a simple but serious issue for businesses: large invoices create cash-flow problems for finance teams. Having been a Chief Financial Officer I knew that first hand. We started as a B2B ‘buy-now-pay later’ platform — effectively Klarna for businesses — and later honed our focus on the legal sector in the USA, where demand was strongest. Our business evolved beyond our original vision into a full-stack invoice management and payment business for some of the world’s largest law firms. Running a transatlantic business with a lending component is certainly not for the faint-hearted. One of the hardest things is knowing whether you really have the right product for the market or whether you simply think you have. That uncertainty keeps you listening to customers and constantly innovating. Balancing innovation with commercial reality is another constant tension. In enterprise sales, customers often have fixed opinions or focus on short-term needs rather

than transformational change. Gut instinct is incredibly important, but wrong moves cost time and money. We learnt, for instance, that we had expanded too slowly into other forms of payment, especially card payments. We realised that customers did not always need credit; they simply wanted a faster way to pay. In the USA about 30% of business payments are still made by cheque, compared with 0.2% in the UK: we certainly leveraged our British roots to innovate in America. The journey has certainly had its highs and lows. One of the toughest moments was discovering that a client had gone AWOL with $300,000 of outstanding loans to us. I went to four different police precincts in New York trying to report the matter, only to be met each time with shrugs. The highs are always great, whether a successful deal closed, a feature shipped or a payment-volume milestone. However, I always tried to temper my excitement to ensure I didn’t swing from euphoria to disappointment too often! In enterprise sales, customers often have fixed opinions or focus on short-term needs rather than transformational change. Gut instinct is incredibly important, but wrong moves cost time and money.

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What makes a founder

Looking ahead

There is no single type of business founder. The most successful start-ups I have seen are co-founded by people whose skills complement each other. What matters most are passion and resilience: you have to believe the problem you are solving is worth your devoting many years of your life, often with little pay or recognition at the start. Financial literacy is another essential skill. Many great ideas fail simply because the figures do not add up. Through the Merchant Taylors’ Company’s Livery Academy Awards — a sort of Dragons’ Den for schools — I have seen how valuable it is to give students hands-on experience in understanding basic finance. It is worrying that only a small fraction of adults in the UK can answer basic financial questions correctly and that 16- to 18-year-olds perform particularly poorly. That is something we can change. Advice for aspiring entrepreneurs My advice to MTS students is simple: pressure-test your ideas before spending any money. Build something people want — and will pay for. With the new generation of AI tools, including ‘vibe coding’ for non-coders, it is easier than ever to launch a minimum-viable product and present it to potential customers quickly.

Following the sale of Tranch and the subsequent acquisition of our buyer earlier this year, I have taken a few months to focus on civic work as a Common Councillor and Freeman of the City of London — and to see a little more of the world. The legendary Mr Colley always said ‘ask a busy person when you need something done’. I am upbeat about the future. I think there is a real sense of hustle returning to the UK — a renewed optimism about building businesses, supporting the next generation and funding philanthropy. For the UK to succeed we need both growth and confidence. Technology will continue to be a key enabler; we need to equip our young people with the skills to embrace technology while also developing communication skills and financial literacy. For this reason, on 17 March 2026 , the School will be running an Entrepreneurship Convention (read more on page 57); I urge volunteers to get involved if this something to which they would like to contribute.

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A Summer in Singapore

Krish Thakrar (2018– 2025) was the recipient of the Spirit of the Manor prize in 2025. Alongside the prize, a travel grant is awarded and he describes his experiences of travelling to Singapore this summer. I would class myself as someone fairly curious, and this summer I had the opportunity to enrich my curiosity in ways I would never otherwise have imagined. It started in 2024, with a surprise meeting with Mr Herring and Mr Latham. I was told that in the spirit of quietly maintaining and growing the underlying values of our School community, two OMTs, Hamesh and Aashish Mehta, had decided to establish the Spirit of the Manor

time I travelled alone internationally, so I was delighted with the newfound responsibility of planning a feasible trip. With the key objectives of connecting with alumni, exploring the startup and technology scene and having opportunities for cultural and general exploration, a plan started to take shape. After 15 hours of travelling I was sitting under the waterfall in the indoor rainforest in Jewel Changi Airport — an exciting foretaste of the two weeks ahead. Aashish and his family are based in Singapore, and being welcomed into a foreign country by a familiar face and some delicious food was a great start to the trip.

Award, to recognise someone who strives to do just that. In 2024–5 that was me! As I got to know Hamesh and Aashish better over the year, I came to appreciate the true greatness of the Old Merchant Taylors’ global network, and consequently the importance of striving to uphold it. As part of the award I was given the chance to plan a fully funded trip to any destination in the world. The travel aspect excited me: not only would I be able to experience and learn from immersion in a new environment but I would also be able to strengthen connections with the OMT community in another part of the world. A strong desire to experience different approaches to technology, engineering and startup settings, alongside my lack of awareness of culture in more southern parts of Asia, led me to choose Singapore as my destination. As A Levels drew to a close and the summer came into view, planning was well underway. It would be the first

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Gardens By The Bay

Although I had a rough plan in place for my time in Singapore, I intentionally left it open-ended. I wanted the trip to be an opportunity to experience unrestricted exploration and to let the magic of serendipity do the rest. After a good sleep, I hopped on the Singapore MRT (train service) and explored, stop-by-stop. Growing up, I had the belief that all trains everywhere must be automatic, and I could not understand why we had human-operated train services in the UK. The child that never left me became pretty excited by the MRT, seeing train after train run like clockwork without a driver. The excitement only grew when I spotted little things like the zoomorphism of signs, efficient system layouts and overall considerate design. Walking round Singapore, I was pleasantly surprised by the tropicality of the climate. An undying backdrop of sunshine enriched the unique environment created through a complex history shaped by centuries of diverse cultural migration alongside the more recent emergence of independent Singaporean culture. In between cultural exploration and investigating the startup and tech setting, Aashish showed me a range of local dining spots, one of which was an open-air converted shipping container hawker centre, the wind-down space for startup members who stayed in the JTC One-North site. The energy was extraordinary, with a true entrepreneurial buzz. Speaking to people there, I started to plan my remaining time in Singapore to include a range of business and research experience.

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That included days at the largest business shows in Singapore: the Asia Business Show and BEX Asia 2025, at Marina Bay Sands. Meeting cutting-edge construction robotics companies, hospital-assistance device companies, and everything in between, was fascinating. Spending time speaking to the founders of some of the startups was particularly engaging, especially as I plan to use the knowledge that no two startups walk the same path in my own journey of building and discovery. I further indulged in a startup pitching event with SGInnovate, in which a group of innovatory companies put forward their vision of the future in manufacturing, robotics and computing. A highlight of my venture was spending time within the National University of Singapore (NUS), where I had the privilege of learning about Aashish’s own product development journey, implementing the skills I am currently learning to build products round a deployable, tactile AI platform. Seeing first hand the innovation and exploration within NUS was inspiring and gave me much to think about in the field of academic research and innovation. Between trips to some breathtaking temples and fascinating museums, and spending hours lost in the 200-acre Botanic Gardens, it was time for some night life. As you may have guessed, I am referring to the Singapore Zoo: Night Safari. It turns out that in the dark, the real party animals come out to play. After some more exploring, and being stunned by a few more feats of awe-inspiring engineering, it was time to head back to the UK. never have guessed that immersion in a completely new culture would teach me so much; and in the silences and boundless exploration, I learnt a lot about myself too. I probably would not have had these experiences had I not been in the position to travel, and the generosity and encouragement from Hamesh and Aashish through the Spirit of the Manor Award will be forever appreciated. Being welcomed into their home during my stay was a true pleasure, one that I hope to reciprocate and pass on in the near future. Seeing first hand the innovation and exploration within NUS was inspiring and gave me much to think about in the field of academic research and innovation. My trip was truly extraordinary, enriched with the opportunity to explore, connect and learn. I would

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Spirit of the Manor Award Inspired by numerous rendezvous with Old Manorians over the years, my brother Aashish Mehta (1993–2000) and I were reminded of a certain essence of noble character that we innately valued but felt was under-appreciated by wider society. Moreover, the travel grant has been designed, through its criteria, not only to propagate that spirit geographically but also to revitalise it among former students in every corner of the world (and in our backyard, too), as highlighted by Krish Thakrar’s article. We hope that in due course the award will take on a life of its own, encouraging excitement

Versatility, kindness, inquisitiveness, making a quiet difference and a general idea of positive liberty were some of the habits inculcated in us as boarders at the Manor of the Rose, most spiritedly by Stephen and Jane Cole during a tenure that would have made even the Dead Poets Society envious. However, like so many other innocent but wonderful peculiarities of childhood, the significance of that experience has become especially vivid to us only with age, not to mention the very different social environment today. With that, and the unfortunate dissolution of the Manor as a boarding house, in mind, Aashish and I felt the need to make a concerted effort to preserve and perpetuate the Manor’s spirit through a bursary and travel grant awarded annually to a Lower Sixth Former who best embodied that spirit.

and healthy competition among students without compromising the sincerity of its original intention — and perhaps even spawn other, similar endeavours. Hamesh Mehta (1991–1998)

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Last year’s Spirit of the Manor Award winner, Krish Thakrar, with his mother, Sejal Thakrar, as well as Old Manorians, Faisal Khouja (1992–1997), Hamesh Mehta, Stephen Davis (1982–1984) and Julian Catchick (1986–1993), who inspired the award. The photo was taken in the Dining Hall last summer.

Lost and Found Isabel Hesketh, School Archivist, uncovers treasures in the School’s history and reflects on the artists and sitters in the portrait collection.

In 1674 a new portrait of White was commissioned by the Company; it has been attributed to the Master of the Company, Robert Mallory, who in 7 May 1674 was ‘ordered to be forthwith drawne from head to foote by our Master’s owne hand to be set up and remain in the said Chappel as before the late dreadful fire’. 6 Mallory is not a well-known portrait artist of the time and, although he is said to have produced at least one other portrait, no other examples of his work can be found in any national collections. 7 The full length portrait, in its heavily gilded frame, was hung in the rebuilt School premises at Suffolk Lane from 1675 onwards. It was later moved into a position above the fireplace in the Library at Charterhouse Square, subsequently moved to the Dining Room, and finally in the 1950s to the Library at Sandy Lodge, which was ‘not met with universal approval’. 8 This portrait is not currently on display at the School. At Merchant Taylors’ today, portrait paintings are displayed in both public and private spaces. Eleven portraits of Head Masters are on display in the Exam Hall, and others are in the Reception area, the Great Hall lobby and the Senior Common Room. A three-quarter length portrait of Spencer Leeson may be found in the Leeson meeting room and photographic and drawn portraits of the Governing Body are displayed in the Geoffrey Holland meeting room.

The tradition of portraiture at Merchant Taylors’ goes back to the time of the School’s foundation in the late 16th century. An inventory dated 1609 at the Worshipful Company of Merchant Taylors’ mentions that two portraits of Sir Thomas White, one of the School’s founders, were displayed at the Company Hall. By 1618 the inventory listed just one portrait of Sir Thomas, and it has been suggested that the second might have been presented by the Company to the School at Suffolk Lane. 1 We know that a portrait of White was destroyed in the Great Fire of London at the School’s first premises in Suffolk Lane, but we do not know its date or artist. The art historian Robert Tittler, in his essay ‘Three Portraits by John de Critz for the Merchant Taylors’ Company’, discusses the possibility that a portrait of White owned by the Livery Company and destroyed by fire was the ‘prototype’ portrait of White painted from life in 1566, one of many portraits of him that were reproduced in the latter part of the 16th and early 17th centuries. 2 Whether this portrait was the same as the one in the School is not known. Sir Thomas White was one of the wealthiest members of the Merchant Taylors’ Company in the 16th century and the most widely portrayed man of his age outside royalty and the courts. 3 Portraits of him may be found today in towns and cities throughout the country, all municipalities that were beneficiaries of his endowments: Oxford (and St John’s College, which he founded) as well as Canterbury, Coventry, Salisbury, Norwich, Reading, Bristol, Gloucester, Chester, Southampton, Winchester, Exeter, Lincoln and Nottingham. 4 How exactly the Merchant Taylor portraits of White fit into the story of White portraiture as a whole is complex, particularly because the Company records for the period 1557–69 do not exist. 5 Nevertheless, with the other portraits of White, they play an important part in the development of English civic portraiture in the 17th century.

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Sir Thomas White, 1674: Robert Mallory

Revd James Bellamy: British (English) School

of the painting was recently reviewed under UV light, showing the sitter’s name and date. Even though this portrait was not signed, we now know that it was painted from life while Bishop was Head Master at Merchant Taylors’ in 1790. The portrait of the Revd James Wm. Bellamy BD (HM 1819–45) in the Exam Hall is also not attributed to an artist and, like Bishop’s portrait, a print of the painting exists in the Archive. This print states that it is a copy of a painting by J. Irvine (possibly the portraitist James Irvine), but a firm attribution to Irvine has not been made. 9 Bellamy was elected as a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1834. In this portrait in the Exam Hall he is wearing a cassock and bands; it is a striking portrait and research will continue to try and identify its artist.

The two earliest portraits in the Exam Hall are of Head Masters, Revd Samuel Bishop (HM 1783–95) and Revd James William Bellamy (HM 1819–45), and both have a loose attribution of ‘British (English) School’. A similar portrait of Revd Bishop to the one in the Exam Hall is in the School Archive in printed form; an engraving by H. Thielcke (1788–1874) of a work by ‘Clarkson’, it is said to be from the collection of ‘Miss Bishop’. Revd Bishop joined the School in 1743, returned in 1758 as third under-master and by 1783 was elected Head Master. With his wife and daughter Mary, he lived next to the School’s premises at Suffolk Lane. As he spent about 44 years as a pupil or teacher at Merchant Taylors’, it is quite probable that his daughter, or her descendants, gave this portrait to the School. A worn-out label on the back

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Revd Samuel Bishop: British (English) School

The rest of the portraits of our Head Masters have now been catalogued and all have a confirmed artist attribution apart from those of Hugh Elder, Bellamy and Bishop. Either showing half-length or three-quarter length, they mostly have plain, non descript backgrounds,

with the exception of Angus Hampel’s (1984–1991) portrait of

Portrait of Spencer Leeson, 1935

Jon Gabitass (2004). In the post-19th-century portraits the Head Masters wear their academic gowns and clasp either a book or their hands. They are not at all ostentatious despite being by some leading portrait artists of their day, most notably John Singer Sargent who painted Dr William Baker (1901) and Sir Oswald Birley who painted Norman Birley (1948) and Spencer Leeson (1935). Other artists include (most recently) Beka Smith (Stephen Wright, 2013), Neale Worley (David Skipper, 1991), John Whittall (Francis Davey, 1982) and Robert Swan (Brian Rees, 1973). A more recent commission by the contemporary artist Stuart Pearson Wright of Jon Gabitass may be seen in the Reception.

Portrait of Jon Gabitass, 2004 the artist

Painted portraits of some long-standing Head Masters are missing from the School’s collection. Of the 32 heads of the School, notable missing portraits include John Goad (Head for 20 years, who founded the School’s Library in 1661 and famously saved many of the books from the Great Fire of London), OMT John Criche (29 years), James Townley (18 years), Thomas Cherry (24 years) and James Hessey (25 years). Their absence demonstrates that extended tenure as a Head did not guarantee a commissioned portrait; regular commissions became common only in the late 19th century. Merchant Taylors’ has never held any record of what its founding Head Richard Mulcaster (HM 1561–86) looked like, or of its co-founder Richard Hilles. An account written in 1650 about Mulcaster’s eminent pupil Lancelot Andrewes suggests that Andrewes once owned a portrait of Mulcaster. ‘Master Mulcaster, his other schoolmaster, who he ever reverently respected during his life in all companies, and placed him ever at the upper end of his table; and after his death, caused his picture, having but few other in his house, to be set over his study door.’ 10 Research at the archival and collection records in institutions associated with Andrewes and Mulcaster, including Pembroke College (Cambridge), Gray’s Inn and St Paul’s School, is ongoing. St Paul’s School was able to share an image of Mulcaster’s coat of arms depicted in a stained glass window at the School.

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Portrait of Dr William Baker, 1901

At Merchant Taylors’ the lack of portraits of Mulcaster and Hilles has always proved problematic, confirming the key role that portraits have in providing staff and students with a sense of identity of their founders.

and Royal Academician George Spencer Watson (1895) has always hung in the Senior Common Room since its presentation marking Vialls’s 40 years at the School. Another portrait by Watson, of Revd Richard Frederick Hosken MA, may be found in the Old Merchant Taylors’ Pavilion. The former pupil Arthur Pond (1705–58) was a gentleman artist, portrait painter, engraver and ‘virtuoso dealer and collector’. 12 His ‘Self Portrait’ (1739), in the School Archive, is an enchanting etching showing his arms crossed, with his head and body turned slightly to the viewer, in a style very reminiscent of Rembrandt. 13 Finally, Nathaniel Dance (later Sir Nathaniel Holland, Bt, 1735–1811) entered MTS in 1744 at the age of nine. 14 Although his work is not in the School collections, it is important to recognise his prominence as a fashionable portrait painter and his role in the formation of the Royal Academy in London.

Many long-serving members of staff have had their portraits painted, often by colleagues or former pupils. The former pupil Sydney Prior Hall (1842–1922) was a well-known Victorian portrait painter and illustrator. His portrait of Mr Airey was commissioned by 1886 and showed Airey in

F.J. Vialls, 1895: by George Watson

his cap and gown, ‘demonstrating with chalk in hand the method of tracing curves in the Differential calculus’. 11 A portrait of Mr F.J. Vialls (MTS 1855–95) by the former pupil

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Arthur Pond, Self Portrait, etching, 1739