Formosa School Limited

[Katharine]

I have a copy of The Princess and the Goblin which has the following stamped inside it:-

For and on behalf of FORMOSA SCHOOL LIMITED

I've tried Googling it and drawn a blank. The book was published some time after 1924 as there is an introductory note at the front which refers to George MacDonald's centenary year.

Pencilled above the school stamp is the word 'Beamish'.

Has anyone ever visited Beamish, and if so, do they remember any reference to the Formosa School, or does anyone have any idea where the school was? This is a long shot I know, but I'm intrigued as to where this school was. Presumably it doesn't exist now, or I'd have found something on the internet.

It seems odd that the school should have the word 'limited' after it. I've never come across that before.

[Brandanero]

I was fascinated by your enquiry into Formosa School.

I too can find no trace of it HOWEVER I can confirm that the school did in fact exist. I know this because I actually went there in and around 1944/45.

It was located in Hertfordshire near Epping Forest. My memories are of course a bit vague given that I was about 8 or 9 when I went there and I am now almost 79.

I am unable to explain the Limited but perhaps it was owned by a company.

The headmistress was Mrs Beamish.

I remember one lunch time standing in a line up waiting to go into the dining room when mrs beamish announced that Hitler was dead. We cheered and cheered.

I remember playing in a version of Midsummers Night Dream in the garden.

As I recall this was a small mixed school with Quaker connections located in the country in an old stately type home.

We lived in crowded dormitories and the heat in our room came from an old fashioned paraffin fire. there was a pot under every bed.
Girls lived in similar conditions.

I used to put marmalade on my fried bread - a real treat.

I was the "co editor" of the school newspaper which we called The Eye. My co editor was princess Zubaida whose father was the sultan of Johore. I have been unable to trace her however the sultans mother was a Zubaida. Looking for her on the web led me to your enquiry.

I went to several boarding schools in the UK from Oxford to Perthshire to Somerset.

Originally from the Isle of Bute ,Scotland, I am now living in Brighton, Ontario on the north shore of lake Ontario.

Like the famous 5 I was a detective sergeant and served the police on both sides of the Atlantic.

[Brandanero]

I should have added that I believe the school founders were involved in missionary work on the island of Formosa now known as Taiwan.

[Aussie Sue]

What a fascinating story you had to tell us Brandanero. I am so glad Katherine put up this topic so we got to hear about your interesting life.

It is particularly interesting because it gives an example of a life during the time of Enid Blytons writing. Some of the younger people reading Enid Blyton find it hard to believe that some of the things in her books were actually how people lived back then, particularly the fact that young children went to boarding school. You were born in 1936 during Enid's early writing time when she was about 38yrs old, around the time when many of her special series started.

I would love to hear more about your childhood.

Just as a point of interest, did you read any Enid Blyton when you were a boy?

Thank you for joining our forum.

cheers
Aussie Sue

[Katharine]

Thank you for this information Brandanero, I found it very interesting. I wonder when the school ceased. I feel a desire to rush off to Hertfordshire's records office and scour them.

[Poppy]

Thank you for sharing this, Brandanero - it is a really fascinating story.

[Fiona1986]

How brilliant to get an answer to such a stumping question!

[Brandanero]

Perhaps Companies House in London keep such records.

As a child I read what were then described as the "classics", Some Enid Blyton, Arthur Ransome and my favourite author, John Buchan.

I was 7 years old when I was sent to a boarding school in Oxford.

Somewhere I have a letter sent to my mother thanking her for an 8th birthday cake sent in the mail to Formosa School and I think Hemel Hempstead may have been part of the address.Clearly the mail was faster in those days.

I had a very hard time at boarding school and would never have sent any of my children to one. In those days army children were often packed off. It was also not unusual during those days to put a child on a train and ask a fellow passenger to keep their eye on the child until they were met at the other end. On one such trip back to Formosa, there was an air raid in London and I was delivered into the custody of the Railway Police until such time that my Aunt could make it in. Lost property for sure.

[Courtenay]

Thanks for sharing your reminiscences, Brandanero - fascinating in their own right as well as a great answer to Katharine's initial question!

[Aussie Sue]

Brandanero, thank you for sharing your boarding school experience with us. So many boarding school books are so exciting and make the reader wish they could go to boarding school. But as you said the reality is not so exciting.

Your comment regarding children travelling by train on their own was interesting. Many children books of that period also mention this but readers today probably think it is just fiction.

I didn't read John Buchan, but Arthur Ransome books were some of my favourites.

cheers
Aussie Sue