A History of Shrewsbury School, 1552-1952.
By J. Basil Oldham. (Blackwell. 25s.) MR. OLDHAM has long interested himself in the history of Shrewsbury School—which he has served for many years as history-master, house-master and librarian. After making one or two smaller contributions to the subject he now offers us a new and compre- hensive, though agreeably concise, History, which will henceforth take the place for most practical purposes—if not in all matters of detail—of G. W. Fisher's Annals of Shrewsbury School. The book is a model of its kind, well-written, with a scholarly detachment that balances the author's natural enthusiasm, thorough in research and skilful in arrangement, and leavened by a dry wit not usually found in such chronicles. Mr. Oldham states that he has omitted details in the later history which are already noted in Pendlebury and West's Shrewsbury School : Recent Years, but there are still details in plenty of those years— among them an account of the Moser water-colour collection, which now belongs to the school—that will be read with interest by Salopians already familiar with the earlier history. The record is brought up to date by sketches of the five headmasters, Alington, Sawyer, Hardy, Wolfenden and Peterson, who have followed in the footsteps of the great trio, Butler, Kennedy and Moss. The book is altogether a worthy addition to the celebrations of the school's fourth centenary year—a year already rendered notable for " J. B. O." by the publication in his English Blind-Stamped Bindings of the fruits of his researches in another specialised field that he has made particularly his own.
D. H.
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