We were saddened to hear of the passing of Oliver Charles Musgrave, OH 1935-41, at the age of 99 years old. He was a huge supporter to Hymers College over the years and we are very grateful for the support he showed his alma mater over the years. 

Prior to his death, Oliver had wrote about his memories of Hymers College. Clearly, in 1935 the school was very different to that which operates today, but his family hope that his recollections would be found amusing. His son, Tim remarked that 'he clearly took Mr Cavill’s words to heart and made something of himself academically during the subsequent years':

Oliver left Hymers for the Hull Technical College where he gained a BSc in Chemistry in 1945, and then proceeded to Kings College London for a PhD in 1948. In 1948, having failed to secure a teaching post at Hull Technical College, he joined the staff of the Royal Tech in Glasgow.

After 4 years, he moved to ICI in Ayrshire working in their explosives division, before joining the University of Aberdeen as a lecturer in Chemistry in 1958. He remained in teaching until his retirement in 1995 (aged 70), and completed his Doctor of Science (DSc) in 2004. He never stopped learning in his retirement years, possibly haunted by the parting words from Mr Cavill!

Tim Musgrave, May 2025

Oliver's Recollections of Hymers College

In September 1935, I began my secondary schooling at Hymers but before recounting my experiences there I should perhaps describe the College and its surroundings. In the 1890s, Hull had not been well supplied with secondary schools. The Grammar School in Leicester Street which my father Charles Frederick attended in the early 1900s was too small to cope with the growing population and in 1893, John Hymers provided funds for a new college to be built on what had been the city’s Botanic Gardens.  This location resulted in Hymers, although situated in the middle of a large city, having an extensive area of games fields immediately adjacent to the school buildings – an unusual and much appreciated feature.

The school catered only for boys and by 1935 had just over five hundred pupils. It received part of its funding from tuition fees paid by pupils’ parents and part from the local Education Committee. Because the contribution by the city was substantial the amount that my parents had to pay was only £17:0s:0d. p.a. – to their great relief. While the fees were small they and the associated costs of games kit, books, etc., amounted to more than a tenth of my father’s annual income from the confectionery business. (During the past eighty years Hymers has grown and evolved: in 1989 it became fully co-educational and now has over one thousand pupils. Because it is a completely independent school, it receives no financial assistance from the State and the 2016 tuition fees, Junior School £2,943 per term; Senior School £3,534 per term, reflect this).

My progress in the first two years at Hymers, in Forms IIA and Remove A, was ‘satisfactory on the whole’ but my Term Reports record that I ‘did not work consistently’, was ‘careless and untidy’ and had ‘far too many detentions’. Early in 1936 I had my first experience of receiving corporal punishment from the Headmaster for laughing and talking during Assembly. Mr Cavill was an accomplished squash player with a powerful forehand so the resulting ‘strokes’ of the cane on my rear end were delivered accurately with considerable force and were extremely painful. I did not hold this against him but accepted that it was fair punishment for my stupid behaviour. My performance in tests and examinations was erratic because my interest in a particular subject depended very much on my opinion of the teacher; if I respected him I would work hard and do well as a result – as in Arithmetic for example. But if I didn’t think much of him I lost interest and in one Science examination was placed 22nd in the class (out of 26).

The Junior School timetable assigned Tuesday and Thursday afternoons to Games, rugby in the Autumn and Spring terms, cricket in the Summer. I soon discovered that boys with detentions, rather than participating, had to stay in school and write out multiple ‘Lines’ (‘I must not......’ ) or work out ‘Squares’ (in which five- or six-figure numbers had to be squared and the square-root of the product had to be calculated – a tedious and exacting procedure). In 1935, at age ten, my height (151 cm; nearly five feet) and weight (43.2 kg; 95 lb) were more typical of boys aged 13 or 14 so I had a suitable build for a rugby forward and greatly enjoyed playing once I had learnt the essential features of the game. In my first match I picked up the ball and raced to the opponents’ goal line but unfortunately did not know that one had to ‘touch-down’ in order to score. The defenders caught up, grabbed the ball from me and hooted with laughter at my ignorance. In contrast I developed no interest whatsoever in cricket, partly because only promising players received basic instruction and coaching. I showed no ability as a bowler, was bored by fielding, and was discouraged by the brevity of my spells as a batsman.

We had regular visits to the ‘Baths’ on Beverley Road for swimming practice, travelling conveniently by train from the Botanic Gardens Station to the halt at Stepney, a mile away. The outings were enjoyable but again there was no individual tuition; I failed to master the essentials of the crawl stroke and was far from confident when out of my depth in the pool.

In September 1937 my class moved to the Senior School building and became Lower III A. For the first time we were provided with lockers in the Main Hall for books and other belongings. The range of subjects we were taught increased as did the number of masters. Several of the latter had fought in WWI and were in our opinion ‘old’ men being at least forty. I was interested in most of the subjects in the curriculum -  Maths , Chemistry, Physics, Geography, Latin, French and Music - but was disappointed by Art and Handicraft because the teachers concentrated their attention on the more competent pupils and left the others, including me, to get on with the set work as best we could. I developed a strong aversion to History which was taught in an uninspiring, pedantic fashion and was limited to happenings in England in the 12th to 15th centuries. We learnt nothing at all about later significant events such as the Revolutionary Wars in Europe or the Industrial Revolution in the U.K.

English was particularly frustrating because expressing my thoughts in writing did not come easily.  Homework involved writing an essay on a given topic or, worse still, making a précis of the leading article from the day’s Times. As a result, Thursday evening became the psychological low-point of each week as I tried and invariably failed to think of what to write.  I was in despair and eventually my parents decided that I needed extra help and arranged for me to have tutoring from a retired school teacher – an arrangement which certainly improved my self-confidence if not the quality of my writing. My school reports for 1938 and 1939, while generally satisfactory, bore the Headmaster’s critical comment (in red ink): Only the best is good enough.

Teenage boys are capable of behaving stupidly at times and we were no exception when a class ‘rag’ took place on the terrace outside the Main Hall.  A boy who had offended his classmates was held by his arms and legs and bumped on the grass during the morning break. I was one of the many onlookers but we failed to realise that the disturbance was taking place immediately in front of the window of the Headmaster’s study. That afternoon the whole class was summoned by Mr. Cavill who informed us that we had been behaving like common louts and that to emphasise his displeasure he proposed to give each of us one stroke of the cane. “Except for you”, he said, pointing to me “As an example I shall give you three”. I believe that this improved my standing in the opinion of the class (although sitting was uncomfortable for the rest of the day). Sensibly I chose not to inform my parents.

Much more important was my membership of the school’s Officers’ Training Corps. After the appalling death-roll of army officers in World War I the Government, concerned that there should be an adequate supply of potential officers, furnished funds for schools such as Hymers to provide boys with basic military training in preparation for possible commissioned service in the army. The Hymers O.T.C.  contingent consisted of about a hundred and seventy boys, all volunteers, commanded by two of the masters who had served as officers in WWI. Uniforms were provided together with a liberal supply of Lee-Enfield rifles and bayonets. For occasions such as the Annual Camp a senior non-commissioned officer from a Guards regiment - an awe-inspiring figure - was attached to the unit. We paraded twice a week in term-time, after lessons on Tuesday and Friday afternoons. Dress then was civilian clothes with a well-blancoed webbing belt. As one might expect there was much emphasis on smartness, prompt obedience to orders, marching and weapons drill. The deteriorating international situation – Nazi Germany’s seizing power first in Austria then in Czechoslovakia – meant that war was inevitable sooner or later and we took the training seriously. Regular visits to the school’s 30 yards shooting range were popular; the rifles used were standard Lee-Enfields modified to fire 0.22 ammunition instead of the normal 0.303. Initially my shooting was hopelessly inaccurate, a consequence of my right eye being short-sighted. Shooting left-handed, although awkward, gave much better results until the acquisition of spectacles resolved the problem.

On important occasions such as the Annual Inspection or Field Days, we wore full uniform – boots, puttees, breeches, jacket, webbing belt and cap – unchanged in style from the standard World War I infantry kit. After much practising of section attacks on the flat playing fields at Hymers we looked forward eagerly to the Field Days on Beverley Westwood, a large area of undulating grassland studded with clumps of trees a few miles north of Hull. Here we had our nearest approach to ‘real’ fighting (as we imagined it) firing, with blank cartridges of course, at the imaginary enemy. Our uniforms were made from coarse cloth and were not only uncomfortable but far too hot when running. How we would have appreciated the less restrictive ‘battledress’ which came into use at the start of World War II. The Annual Camp in 1938 was held at Barnard Castle not under canvas but using the capacious School buildings. I enjoyed both the military aspect and the communal living, particularly the evening sing-songs. The other important annual event, the O.T.C. Dinner in the Main Hall of Hymers, was followed by a series of burlesques on the stage of the adjoining Memorial Hall.

Signs of the preparations for war with Germany became more frequent during 1938/1939 including displays of brand-new antiaircraft guns and the distribution of civilian ‘gas-masks’ i.e. respirators. On one occasion early in 1939 there was a fly-past of a formation of some 40-50 RAF aircraft which had no doubt been intended to hearten the civilian population. Unfortunately, even I could see that most of the planes were obsolescent, relatively slow biplanes. A demonstration by a solitary ‘Spitfire’ at a nearby RAF airfield was somewhat more encouraging.

My walking to and from school amounted to three miles per day and although I didn’t realise it at the time was excellent training for sporting activities in later life. I was not a particularly fast runner but helped Bolton House to win a 4x100 yards relay race in 1939 for which I received a silver(!) medal. Earlier my only participation in the 1938 Sports Day had been in the inter-house tug-of-war. Being large and heavy I was inevitably the anchor for the Bolton team; all I had to do was to lean back and let the rest of the team do the hard work. We won all our contests and I received a rucksack, my first, for my rather static contribution.

My growing enthusiasm for chemistry inevitably led to experimentation at home. Some ‘experiments’ gave the expected results but others such as the explosion of gunpowder or, even better, of nitrogen tri-iodide were much more satisfying.  My attempt to make a liqueur from fermented elderberries produced a bright red distillate the colour of which intrigued me and may have been partly responsible for my later interest in coloured compounds from natural sources. I also found various areas of physics to be fascinating. Somehow, I had heard of Einstein’s Theories of Relativity and had learnt of their fundamental importance in physical science. I spent many hours trying to make sense of the ‘popular’ descriptions of the ideas but, needless to say, without success.

Evacuation

Up to September 1939 my life had developed relatively smoothly, even predictably, but the outbreak of WWII resulted in considerable upheaval. In the expectation of immediate bombing attacks on Hull, most Hymers pupils were ‘evacuated’ to East Yorkshire villages, the seniors to Pocklington where they shared school buildings with Pocklington Grammar School (P.G.S), and the juniors, including my cousin David Batten, to nearby Market Weighton. Many boys whose homes were in the city’s suburbs or adjacent country areas stayed behind and continued to have lessons at Hymers.  A further unexpected change for me came when the Headmaster decided that I, together with two other boys, should move from Upper IIIA direct to the Fifth form. No explanation was offered for this unusual arrangement but it might have been associated with the Pocklington school classrooms being somewhat smaller than the ones we had used in Hull so putting an upper limit on the numbers in the Fourth form. A consequence of these changes was that I lost contact with the friends I had made during my first four years at Hymers but, of course, new friendships soon developed; one of these, with John Hall, became of lasting importance.

The Hymers boys at Pocklington were lodged with local families in the village. The fee was 6s. per week to which my parents added a further 10s. My first such ‘billet’ was somewhat primitive as there was no electricity supply and the only lighting in the evenings was by paraffin lamps or candles. Fortunately, I was soon moved to a more modern bungalow on Garth End at the edge of the village where I spent the first winter of the War in comparative comfort despite the bitterly cold weather. The heavy snowfall provided excellent sledging on the nearby Chapel Hill while the prolonged low temperatures produced the novel attraction of skating on the frozen lake in the Kilnwick Percy estate to the east of the village. All the minor roads were blocked by deep snow which, perversely, had been blown off the fields and deposited between the flanking hedges. Instead of rugby games we were subjected for several weeks to cross- country runs wearing our O.T.C. boots to cope with the snow and ice.

The sharing of the school facilities between P.G.S. and Hymers worked remarkably smoothly, the former having the use of the classrooms in the mornings and we in the afternoons. Our mornings were devoted to ‘Prep’ or lessons in one or other of the village halls or, after the winter, to rugby or O.T.C. activities. The latter were limited because all our Lee Enfield rifles had been requisitioned at the beginning of the war. Apart from the inter-school rugby matches we saw nothing of the P.G.S. boys.

My scholastic performance in the Fifth form was erratic - partly as a result of my complacency at having been ‘promoted’ but mainly because I was immature and not ready for the novelty of living away from home and the stability (and discipline) of family life. I found Chemistry, Physics and Geography to be particularly interesting but had no time for English with the result that I was at or near the bottom of the class in this subject for much of the year. The national assessment system in England and Wales at that time was straight forward: one sat the School Certificate examination in the Fifth form and two years later the Higher School Certificate which was the usual minimum qualification required for those aspiring to enter higher education. The expected widespread German air attacks on British cities had not yet developed and I spent the Easter holiday at home in Hull but returned to Pocklington for the summer term and the examinations in English Language and Literature, French, Latin, Elementary Mathematics, Geography, Physics, and Chemistry. The latter were held in one of the village halls which was notorious for its inadequate heating in winter and its stuffiness in the summer months. A visit from the Headmaster during one particularly hot day was made memorable by his walking round the hall and with his walking stick smashing a pane of glass in each of the windows to allow fresh air in. The muffled cheer from the examinees resulted in a roar of ‘SILENCE’ but we felt much better disposed towards Mr. Cavill after that. I hadn’t done as much revision as I might have done and was consequently pleasantly surprised to learn that I had passed in all eight examinations. I can only assume that the apprehension about the Nation’s future, after the shocking defeat of our army in France, had resulted in some relaxation in the marking criteria usually applied by the examiners.

By this time I was tall and hefty and very proud of being a member of the ‘Colts’ rugby XV in which I played as a second-row forward. Our ‘Away’ matches were always exciting as they meant time off lessons and visits to schools such as Archbishop Holgate’s in York. A match against Drax G.S. proved to be memorable because our coach broke down during the return journey. The two hours spent in the dark waiting to be rescued were enlivened by a communal sing-song. Pocklington G.S. did not have many cricket pitches and an unexpected development when the summer term came round was the option of playing tennis on the courts of the local club rather than cricket. Although I was a complete novice I eagerly seized this opportunity to avoid suffering the boredom of the cricket field.

The early months of 1940 also saw the construction of an airfield just to the west of Pocklington. The first planes, new Wellington bombers, arrived a few months later and to our delight we were invited to inspect the aircraft, both outside and inside. It was exciting to see the complicated instruments and controls in the cockpit and then to crawl the length of the fuselage, squeeze into the rear turret and manipulate the quadruple machine guns. Unfortunately, ammunition was not provided.

The German air attacks which developed during the summer of 1940 were initially concentrated on London and the south-east of England. As Hull still did not appear to be under threat I spent the summer holiday at home; the only signs of the war were the barrage balloons floating over the city and, in the town docks, trawlers being fitted with ‘degaussing’ cables to make them immune to German magnetic mines. August however did provide rather more excitement when I accompanied my father on a business journey to Driffield, some 20 miles north of Hull. I hoped to see the Whitley bombers which were based at the major ‘pre-war’ airfield at nearby Kellythorpe; although obsolescent they had made many night flights over Germany (dropping leaflets, not bombs). When we were a little to the south of the airfield we heard the unmistakeable sound of bombs exploding and saw great clouds of black smoke billowing up into the sky. Suddenly a plane flew low over us – a twin-engined, single tail-fin type which I confidently decided was an RAF Blenheim – only to hear the sound of machineguns firing! I quickly realised it was actually a German bomber, possibly a Heinkel 111 or a Junkers 88, one of the large number that made the attack.

When school resumed In September 1940 at Pocklington I did not immediately attend classes. A local farmer had asked the school for help with the cutting up of a large tree which he had felled and I spent a fortnight sawing and chopping in splendid autumn sunshine. The curriculum for the Lower Sixth Science form which I then joined placed much emphasis on the subjects which I found most interesting - chemistry, physics and maths. Despite this my school reports record that I was ‘still too light-hearted’ and ‘slapdash’ in my attitude to schoolwork. However an unexpected encounter with a poisonous gas resulted in my becoming much more careful in the chemistry laboratory. An apparatus producing hydrogen sulphide had not been switched off correctly and the fume-cupboard containing it was full of the gas which of course I breathed in when I opened the door. I felt as if I had been punched on the chest but fortunately no ill-effects resulted.

The calm if somewhat unexciting life at the vicarage was abruptly upset on the evening of 9th November when several violent explosions occurred at the far side of the village. A German bomber had attacked the now-operational RAF airfield but its bombs missed their target, hit houses in Garth End and killed several local people. How ironic that the ‘safe-haven’ of Pocklington should be attacked rather than the far more important target, Hull!

Hull experienced occasional air-raids during the autumn of 1940 but these became more frequent the following spring and my parents decided that I should limit my home visits during the Easter holiday to the daytime. My journeys followed a simple pattern: I cycled to Hull before breakfast (a 23 mile trip), spent the day there and returned to Pocklington by bus in the evening; the following day I took the early bus to Hull and cycled back in the evening. On one occasion the morning bus was held up near the centre of the city by collapsed buildings and by the emergency water pipes which of necessity had been laid on the surface of the road. I recognised the remains of a shop which I had visited a few days earlier and the war suddenly became a much more personal matter; I felt highly indignant that my city should be treated in this manner. After the holiday I returned to Pocklington and so missed the concentrated German air attacks on Hull during the nights of 7th-9th May which resulted in so much devastation and loss of life.

Leaving Hymers College

During the summer term in 1941, the Headmaster, Mr. W. V. Cavill, summoned me to his office and announced that he was not satisfied with my erratic performance in the Lower Sixth Science form. He left me in no doubt that if I continued in this manner, my lack of commitment to serious study, coupled with my irresponsible behaviour, would mean that I would be unlikely to make a success of my life. He recommended that I should leave Hymers and consider moving into another form of education where, if I decided to work consistently, I might eventually get a qualification of some sort. Although I was then nearly sixteen I had not thought seriously about my future and how I might earn a living. Following my parents and grandparents into the hotel or wholesale businesses did not appeal to me and my parents made no effort to change my mind; indeed they appeared to assume that in view of my interest in science I would finish up in scientific or technological work of some sort.

The subjects that I had found most interesting at school were Physics and, in particular, Chemistry and I learnt that these could be studied for the Intermediate B.Sc. Examination of London University and that this might open the way eventually to a B.Sc. degree. I had not previously considered the possibility of becoming a university student; none of the Musgraves had had any experience of higher education which in the 1940s was available for only a small proportion of the population. It was clear that if I did follow this route I would have to remain in Hull as an ‘external’ student as I did not have the entrance qualifications (the Higher School Certificate standard in the appropriate subjects) required by London colleges and in any case my parents would not be able to afford the fees and the costs of accommodation there.

Two suitable courses were available in Hull, one at the University College on Cottingham Road and the other at the Municipal Technical College in Park Street (which despite all the post-war changes round about is still in existence). I knew little about either institution: the Tech was a long-established teaching institution while the U.C. was younger (and perhaps more ‘fashionable’). I decided that the Tech was the more attractive of the two mainly because it was only a five-minute cycle ride from my home whereas the other was two miles away. The arrangements for enrolment at the Tech proved to be remarkably straightforward, my School Certificate passes being deemed adequate for ’Matriculation in the University of London’, while the staff of the Chemistry Department were particularly helpful. My parents approved of my becoming a student there and were relieved to learn that the tuition fees would amount to only £6.6s.0d p.a. (though the various examination fees later added considerably to the total cost).