As part of Founder's and Benefactors' Day, the school held a special assembly, with Mr Andrew Penny, OH Staff 1977-2022 providing the address:

I think it is to remember the ideals of those who inaugurated institutions like ours and to remind us of those ideas and principles but in a modern context.

Inevitably there have been occasions in our 131 years history when external crises have threatened to destroy the original intentions of our Founder, John Hymers, whose portrait hangs on the wall above the stage.

I want to discuss three such moments from the very beginnings of Hymers College to the present day.  I hope to show how the College has had to respond in order to carry on as a centre of educational excellence.

John Hymers, 1803-1887

John Hymers was born in North Yorkshire in 1803. At 18 he entered St John’s College, Cambridge studying Mathematics and Classics. As a Fellow and Tutor, he published a treatise and various papers on Calculus, became a Doctor of Divinity and President of the College. In 1852, at almost 50 years of age, he left Cambridge, disillusioned with College and Academic life.

He became Rector of Brandesburton, a position in the gift of St John’s College and thought to be the most valuable of their livings, bringing the holder fifteen hundred pounds a year, or £142,000 today.

John Hymers was interested in the Railways, not only for travel but for investment. He bought shares paying 5% and his dividends doubled and redoubled. In 1873 his dividends of £4,400 for that year alone would have been worth about £400,000 today. He bought land and charged rents.

In 1877, aged 74, John Hymers decided to make a will, He made provision for his relatives and friends with a generous annuity for his younger brother Robert,  whose portrait hangs at the back of the Main Hall, above the Balcony.

John Hymers crucially willed the residue of his land and his fortune to the Corporation of Kingston Upon Hull, to “found and endow a Grammar School on the model of Dulwich College for the training of intelligence in whatever social rank of life it may be found among the vast and varied populations of the Town and Port of Hull “

He wrote out the will himself but did not consult his solicitor, James Mills, whom he named as his Executor. Mills later became Town Clerk of Beverley.

John Hymers died ten years later, in 1887 aged 84, thinking he had left the proceeds from the sale of his land and his personal fortune, worth around £21m today, to found a school.

The Will was invalid.

Under the Statute of Mortmain, (Mortmain is from the french 'Dead Hand') it was required that grants of land to charity be made at least a year before his death and be registered in London. This was to stop the avoidance of duties and taxes upon death. It was further ruled that his next of kin were entitled to the personal fortune of £170,000 or nearly £19m today.

Although his intentions were clear, the will failed upon the words “found and endow” If it had said “found OR endow” it would have been easier.

Robert Hymers, working with James Mills, respected his brothers’ wishes and generously gave £50,000, (£5m today,) of his inheritance, to the Corporation to create this school.

So, on Founders’ Day with the apostrophe after the S, we could argue that John and Robert Hymers are our Founders.

So, the first Headmaster, Charles Gore was appointed in 1892 and his successors' portraits appear on the walls around us in this Main Hall today. 

It was John Ashurst who had to deal with the major crisis in the 1970s that I want to tell you about now.

John Ashurst, Headmaster 1971-83

Hymers had been a Direct Grant School since 1944. This meant that 25% of the places should be offered free. Whilst the larger percentage of pupils were fee-payers, the rest attended with their costs paid for by the City of Hull or by the East Riding of Yorkshire, with extra help for Sixth Formers. Financial assistance was also available for parents on lower incomes.

In 1970 it was recommended to Harold Wilson’s Labour Government that the Direct Grant be abolished, but it had a stay of execution when Edward Heath’s Conservative Government was elected. The choice the Governors of Hymers had to make, was whether Hymers would become integrated into the City’s Comprehensive System or to seek independent status.

They voted for the latter, securing independence by just one vote, getting the two thirds majority required and the personal blessing of the then Education Minister, Margaret Hilda Thatcher.

John Ashurst firmly believed in the ethos of the Direct Grant; it enabled those from poor families to come to the school and not to miss out in school activities for lack of money. A great deal of fundraising was needed from our Benefactors to make up the Direct Grant assistance and the school became fully Independent in 1976.

That John Ashurst dealt with this financial crisis in his early years as Headmaster has pre-echoes of Mr Stanley’s first few months here in dealing with the Covid Pandemic. Although that was another crisis moment in the history of the school, I think what faces the school today is just as serious and forms my third example.

The democratically elected Labour Government of Keir Starmer had in their manifesto something that seems to have been on the horizon throughout my teaching career of 45 years. Namely that a Labour Government would one day withdraw the financial benefits of Charitable Status and charge Value Added Tax on the fees that are paid to bring you here.

That this is to happen in January is therefore not a surprise, but a manifesto promise.

Over 10,000 students at Independent Schools in the UK have already been withdrawn or will depart because they cannot afford to stay under this scheme. The extra burden on State Schools this causes, cannot be lightened just by the money raised from VAT. Class sizes will increase and staff numbers in the state system will not rise quick enough to meet that challenge.

It is not that people are necessarily opposed to the introduction of these measures; it is the lack of preparation time that has caused the upset. A two-year timeline would have helped.

Clearly, at Hymers, our attention must now move from our Founders to our Benefactors.

Benefactors are those generous individuals with a connection to the school, or sometimes not, who believe in the John Hymers ethos and provide Bursaries, music scholarships, prizes and hardship funding for our talented students. It is these philanthropic members of our society to whom we owe the greatest thanks on Founder’s and Benefactors’ Day. They will help Hymers College to weather this and subsequent storms, just as those brilliant individuals I have described did, all those years ago.

Many Schools and Universities keep in touch with past pupils in order to keep bursaries topped up and we are no exception.

Emily Pennack and her small team are raising sums of money through the Old Hymerians network and elsewhere to safeguard the future of those bursaries and awards and to increase financial assistance for those suffering hardship.

To sum up then; the ghosts in this Hall have all fought battles over the years which have enabled you to sing your song, and dance your dance with the freedom to achieve your goals; we should never forget that.

Andrew Penny, OH Staff 1977-2022

Related Articles:

• The Life of John Hymers
• The Later Life of John Hymers
• Remembering the Birth of Rev John Hymers
• The Opening of Hymers College
• Charles Henry Gore, Headmaster 1893-1927
• Founder's and Benefactors' Day 2024
• Founder and Benefactors’ Day 2023
• Hymers College Quiz 2024
• Hymers College Quiz 2023
• How well do you know Hymers College?
• Founder's Day 2022
• Celebrating 129 Years of Hymers College
• Co-Education Memories from Mr Penny
• Teacher Feature: Andrew Penny (1977-2022)
• Happy Retirement Mr Penny
• Mr Penny's History of the Hall