The First World War and Public School Ethos: The Case of Uppingham School

摘要

This paper examines the experience in the First World War of Uppingham School, then a middle-ranking public school, and its old boys, in comparison to prevailing scholarly orthodoxy. This holds that a public school education inspired attitudes of leadership and sacrifice and also provided elementary military knowledge, which made public schoolboys an important source of British Army junior officers in the war. Drawing on primary sources including the school's own records the author concludes that there is little in the attitudes and experience of the old boys to support this orthodoxy and that a more nuanced approach is required.