On Dr. Tim Dowley’s The Worst School in England: The Rise and fall
of Hackney Downs – ‘the Jewish Eton’
Dr. Tim Dowley’s new tome is an end of all of the lost years
Report and an exercise book full of magic, as he bids back
Place and pupils, including Alexander Baron, Berkoff, Pinter
Sir Michael Caine, and the times from the 1876 founding stone
As lain by the worshipful Company of Grocers,
Through the 1963 fire and on, as Hackney Downs School
Becomes legend through detail and detention and through
Evocations scribbled now on the blackboards which seem
To shimmer through dust at each line. It was a remarkable school
As this study shows us, giving rise to great writers and artists
And achievers of course in all fields, from my heroes above
Via eminent scientists and politicians, to Duncan Grant,
The Olympic High Jumper, this Dr. D has now conjured
How from paper and brick time builds shields within which
Old air is preserved, as inhaled by an age which seems
So much richer than the type that we’re breathing,
As despite its working class background, what is foregrounded
Here is the glare of Education as was, in which even the teachers
Learned something and were not just bound by statistics,
Or by multiple choice class roulette. And so Tim Dowley
Conveys by chapters formed around past Headteachers
How the training ground for time’s thinkers had its own
Elysian field. Don’t forget! From Lord Palmerston’s
First reform to Gladstone’s 1869 School Act, the grimoire
Within Grammar was sought to be dispelled. In its place
A new Paradise, believe it not, borne in Hackney, which
Was once abound with green, with the Lea river making it
Idyllic almost, lit with grace. From such greenery
The Grocer’s Company sought to nourish not only the mouths
And minds of the children of the surrounding earth but the state
Of both progression and change as Hackney Wick and Road
Swelled with people; an experiment in education, as if one
With fruit and vegetables springing, could also of course
Garden fate. Under Herbert Courthope Bowen, first hopes
Sprang with a curriculum brim with riches. These bulb-like
Boys would be fattened on a surrounding soil full of worth;
From Cockneys, real kings of stage and screen, and the theatres
From which wounds are watered and where scalpel or pen
Induce birth. The second Headmaster Charles Gull bit back
On Bowen’s reforms but loved music. And as the choirboys sang
Unchastened, the school was settling still in its nest.
Gull’s replacement William Jenkyn Thomas pressed on
With a progressive conservatism Dowley tell us,
And his homework is impressive as it is as if he were there
At all points, passing tests while researching reactions,
Reports, Governmental attitudes and LCC action.
Hackney Downs in its bubbling became a laboratory
For all schools, from class-size to style of approach
And uniform, all’s encompassed, from the half camel/steed
School badge on the cover, to the ‘jew-boys and riff-raff’
Divisions marking both teacher and child seem like fools.
Thomas Balk weathered the war and would have seen
Maurice Mickelwhite, Henry Woolf and Harold Pinter
Shine through splinters, and the esteemed teacher
Joe Brearley who gathered up those bright boys
To dazzle afresh under him, despite the bomblasts
Before them. Balk would have had to cope with evacuations,
Inspections, and the need to restore learning’s joy, just as
These teens at 15 came to understand what had happened.
For by 1945 the full horror of the Holocaust was made clear,
Forming Pinter and Woolf and the rage and rise which enabled
Fresh forms of expression and the birth of everything Tim and I
Hold most dear. All schools which beget successful boys
And girls hold that promise. But in Dowley’s book
The impression of something almost mythic here ‘camelots’
A Grammar school into something close to King Arthur’s
Lost mounted castle, and while the nearby Mare Street’s
No mountain, it forms an urban moat for star sailors
Who became land matelots. Vernon Barkway Pye
Would have been Steven Berkoff’s Headmaster. Under him,
School duration leading to a better job was the point.
As well as a true mixing at last between goy and boys
Of religions that were at once European, with equal time
Given for both strains to anoint their own efforts
With trips like never before to new countries, from which
Horizons were widened and where the Jewish boys
At least could touch roots from which their grandparents
Sprang. This must have brought bright revelation.
Berkoff writes of his school days in his books Free
Association, and Memoirs of a Juvenile Delinquent;
Making moot too much hope. As the strangely named
Pye was baked bitter. Stiff and austere, critics claimed
Him as far from ideal. But at least the richness still stemmed
Even if it took time to flower. And Dowley details all that
Happened with a ruminative eye on time’s feast,
Built on the bones of the boys, some of who remain
With us. But as other ghosts gather, we see the school
Standing firm as a place of belief until under Alexander
Williams fire ruined. And yet from fires the phoenix
If the need is strong enough sees air learn about what is
Required to rise and so the school’s epic journey continued.
You will witness this now by reading this Amazon hardback.
On trust. It is the ultimate pet project released into
The wilderness we now witness, where education leads
Nowhere, or to the feet of Trump, Besoz, Musk. And at a time
When the past still has so much to teach us. In Dickens’ day
They scratched learning onto Moses like flint; now dawns
Dusk as things move too fast and the phone replaces
The pencil. Laptops are shields now for students
To protect them from words which might grace.
So, I bid you to return to a time and a test which was made
To make the brain bolster. Learn to discern. In these details
Tim Dowley dares you to witness and strive across shadow
To write your own lines in a kind of Angel’s detention.
The Old Boys in returning have things to share with you.
So, hold the book up and listen to the photographs
Of each face.
David Erdos 5/6/25
.