From page 5 of William Hague's new book on William Wilberforce... While the Wilberforces were rich, they did not adopt the practice of the nobility and landed gentry by sending their son to a private school such as Eton. Consequently William joined the sons of other Hull merchants in attending Hull grammar school.
Does this fall under the 'you couldn't make it up' category?
7 comments:
When is William Hague going to be a full time politician again?
Well, now that he's finally reached his already once-delayed deadline for the Wilberforce book, he has no excuse. Unless of course he starts writing another one on "Peel, A Statesman for Our Times"...
Does this fall under the 'you couldn't make it up' category?
Yes, history tends to be filed in the non-fiction sections of bookshops........
Better pot luck with William Hague today than Humble Pie under Cameroon tomorrow.
According to Wiki, "William Wilberforce was born in Hull, the son of Robert Wilberforce (1728–1768), a wealthy merchant whose father William (1690–1776) had made the family fortune through the Baltic trade and had been elected mayor of Hull on two occasions." Sounds like the sort of chap who would go to Hull Grammar. He also left age about ten to be sent to Putney after his father's death.
All the grammar schools were private, being privately funded and administered. What is Hague's point? People in the north were content with the Grammar schools they had built for the education of their children, many by public subscription.
Mr Finkelstein has some harsh words for the 'Grammars or Death' brigade in The Times.
"So you don’t have to have a PhD in political strategy to realise that the Conservative Party now has to change. It has to compromise many of its long-held opinions in order to get some new people, people who are uncomfortable with existing Tory policy, to join in and give it support. It has to broaden its coalition. A lot. It simply can’t win, or even come close to winning, if Labour is fighting on the centre ground and the Tory party isn’t. Margaret Thatcher beat Michael Foot and Neil Kinnock not Blair or Brown. Labour has changed and the Conservatives have to respond. Simple, yes? But so many Tories still don’t seem to understand.
Amazingly, hilariously, petulantly, tragically, doltishly, persistently, bizarrely, infuriatingly, arrogantly, obtusely, fantastically, so many Conservatives appear to believe that no compromise, or at least very little, is needed. Yes, in theory, they accept the need for change. It’s just that in practice they oppose every compromise with reality and the voters that anyone suggests. This is, as Mr Cameron put it, delusional."
"Amazingly, hilariously, petulantly, tragically, doltishly, persistently, bizarrely, infuriatingly, arrogantly, obtusely, fantastically, so many Conservatives appear to believe that no compromise, or at least very little, is needed. Yes, in theory, they accept the need for change. It’s just that in practice they oppose every compromise with reality and the voters that anyone suggests. This is, as Mr Cameron put it, delusional."
Good, so all we need to do is to compromise with reality.
Victor
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