BREAKFAST MEETING AT QUEEN MARY: 8 APRIL



I rather like this bird's eye view of the main campus.  It shows the huge amount of development that has taken place on the site over the last twenty years.   The original part of the site, shown as Queen's Building, is illustrated as the People's Palace at the foot of this blog. 

Friday morning started with the now traditional, I think it has been going in some form or other for fifteen years, breakfast with Queen Mary, University of London. In recent years it has taken place at Queen Mary's main campus on the Mile End Road.

The Company's links with the College go right back to its foundations.  In fact the core of the site is the original location of the Francis Bancroft school and almshouses founded in 1736.  The almshouses have long gone but the school still flourishes a bit further up the Central Line in Woodford.

The Drapers' team included the Master and Wardens and the two members of the Queen Mary Council that are nominated by the Company.  Liveryman Jocelin Harris is Vice-president of the Council and chairs the Finance and General Purposes Committee and Master Warden Anthony Walker is Chair of QMSU Services Ltd the trading business of the university.  Jocelin's father, Past Master Martin Harris, was a much respected President of Council for many years.

Professor Simon Gaskell and three vice principals, Professors Susan Dilly, Philip Ogden and Morag Shiach hosted us on behalf of Queen Mary.  Our links are even more intertwined these days as we are jointly sponsoring Drapers' Academy, Morag Shiach, Susan Dilly and myself are all governors.

We had a most useful review of issues of joint concern and then had an opportunity to visit the new history building - name has yet to be revealed - that now creates an impressive facade along the Mile End Road.


The original People's Palace. The Company donated a significant sum towards initial building costs of the technical wing of the Palace and contributed for many years towards the running costs of the institution.



BARTS AND THE LONDON SCHOOL OF MEDICINE AND DENTISTRY: ST LUKES TIDE SERVICE OF DEDICATION 26 OCTOBER

Barts and the London School of Medicine and Dentistry is part of Queen Mary University of London (see www.smd.qmul.ac.uk/ for more information).  Its charitable trust has made a particularly generous offer to Drapers' Academy concerning the potential award of a fully funded medical and dental scholarship in 2014, of which more in a moment.




The highy atmospheric interior of
St Barts the Great

On Tuesday evening the School held its annual St Luke's-tide Service of Dedication in the magnificent church of St Bartholomew the Great, West Smithfield.  For more details go to www.greatstbarts.com/ The current church is the surviving part of a twelfth century monastery and, despite the depredations of the centuries, still projects an atmosphere of its deep past.

The service complemented this.  The faculty of the school entered the church in their academic gowns and predominant colours of dark blue and claret as the autumn evening drew in gave some small sense as to what the atmosphere would have been like before the Reformation when the building was part of the great Augustinian abbey that occupied the site.

After the service there the commemorative William Harvey dinner followed at Butchers' Hall nearby.  Harvey (1578-1657) was Physician at St Bartholomew's Hospital from1609.  He was one of the great medical pioneers, in particular identifying the true purpose of the heart.  In parallel with William Lambarde, see other posts, he was in a group of Englishmen at the time who used careful observation and analysis to redefine our understanding of the world around us. 

Also to return to the Barts and the London School for Medicine and Dentistry and the new Drapers' Academy.  As co-sponsor of the academy Queen Mary University of London has a programme where under- and post-graduates visit the school and the medical and dental faculties play a part in this. 

Additionally Barts and the London Trust have recently created a medical and dental scholarship that will fully fund a place for five years.  This is awarded once every three years and in 2014 they have said that Drapers' Academy will be given first opportunity to produce a suitable candidate for the award.  This will be a huge challenge for our newly created sixth form.  However if we can get a student from Harold Hill into one of the country's leading medical schools this will be a great achievement for both the individual and the wider community.