The Foundation
Dean Close was named by its founders after the Very Reverend Francis Close, Dean of Carlisle, a former R
ector of Cheltenham from 1826-1856 and an uncompromising champion of the Evangelical cause.
As Rector, Francis Close preached a sermon of great vigour against the annual Cheltenham horserace meeting, railed against drama by preventing the reconstruction of Cheltenham's theatre after it was destroyed by fire in 1839; against the oratorios of the nearby Three Choirs' Festival which represented a 'perversion of God's house'; and against the evils of tobacco. That said, Francis Close did have a deep interest in education, having been one of the founders of Cheltenham College and of St Paul's Training College. For this reason, it was suggested that the new school be connected with his name. Francis Close became Dean of Carlisle, hence Dean Close School.
The Opening: Dr William Flecker, Headmaster, 1886-1924
Opened in May 1886, Dean Close Memorial School (79th of the 103 Victorian public schools in order of foundation) appointed 26-year-old William Herman Flecker, father of poet James Elroy Flecker, as the School's first Headmaster (the 'Memorial' part of its title ceased after the First World War). Dr Flecker and his wife, Sarah, threw themselves into the School with remarkable success, starting with just nine boarders and three day boys on the first day, rising to 70 boys after the first year, to 150 by the beginning of 1888 and to 200 in 1890.
In 1896, Flecker was admitted to the Headmasters' Conference, thereby joining a club whose criteria for membership was autonomy and efficiency of management, academic attainment and sporting prowess. Dean Close School was on the map.
A New Century
By the turn of the century, sports results had become a main concern for boys at Dean Close with the breakthrough of respectability coming in 1905-6 when two brothers Lidderdale, competing in the highly regarded athletic tournament at Aldershot, finished second one season and first the next. Shortly afterwards in 1907 hockey was introduced, which has proved a more lasting index of Dean Close's sporting reputation.
The First World War
In the 1914-18 War, Dean Close School bore horrific casualties. Of the 700 or so Old Decanians who took up arms, more than 120 died. The School's permanent chapel, conceived as a war memorial to Old Boys who fell in the Great War, was financed by an appeal and completed in 1923.