DPL has, for the 3rd time, entered Upper School pupils for the Townsend Warner History Prize for prep schools, a historical tradition which began in the same year that Dulwich College Preparatory School opened its doors to 13 pupils in 1885.
Three boys, Freddie, Daniel, and Angus, have made it through to the second round, having successfully finished in the top 250 pupils from around the world.
We chatted to Freddy, Daniel and Angus about why they love History –
Daniel said “the questions on Paper 1 could have been anything. I liked the variety of different topics, from assassins to kings.”
Freddie loves History because “it is that it’s full of stories of individuals who have exciting lives, and who singlehandly change the course of history, like Sir Robert Walpole, who created the office of Prime Minister, despite the chaos happening in England due to the end of the South Sea Bubble.”
Knowledge ranging from military history to the Huguenots was on display from the boys, with the examiners commenting,
“That the Townsend-Warner Paper 1 has taken place [at all this year], with all the difficulties presented by online schooling and disrupted terms, coupled with the ‘normal’ pressure of scholarships and entrance papers, is simply wonderful.”
As ever, there were some highly amusing answers along the way: a blunderbuss was identified by one candidate as “someone who makes a lot of mistakes” and the great Louis Armstrong was thought to have been the first man on the moon.”
What a wonderful world we live in, despite various ‘blunderbusses’!