DULWICH COLLEGE MASTER'S HOUSE 

For 20 years Bell House was the home of the Master of Dulwich College before it became a boarding house for the same school.

In 1926 the Fordhams surrendered the Bell House lease and the headmaster (known as the Master) of Dulwich College moved in. When Charles Barry Jr’s new College was built in 1869, the Master was given accommodation in the South Block but it was agreed that these rooms, unchanged since the College opened, were now unfit for purpose and should be converted into classrooms. Bell House would be a temporary solution as the governors planned a new house nearer to the College. On being told it would cost £15,000, Evan Spicer, the Chairman of the Governors, tried to reduce the cost to under £10,000 (the equivalent of c. £600,000 today) but the plan was soon abandoned altogether and the Master, George Smith, and his family stayed on at Bell House.

Bell House needed a number of repairs and so Mitchell & Sons, based in Dulwich Village (where Pizza Express is now) were hired to repair the drains, fix the heating and decorate the house including new floors in the kitchen, scullery and passage floors which still exist today. These repairs cost £1,200.

A Scotsman and a disciplinarian, Smith had a love of languages and literature and was given the nickname ‘Gunboat’, an ironic reference to his peace-loving nature. After WW1 he had introduced day houses to the College, to encourage sporting competition and cultural activities at a time when many schools could not muster the resources to play each other. His daughter Hilary was born in Bell House and grew up to marry Ronald Groves, later Master of the College from 1954-1966. Smith found the four-acre garden at Bell House ‘a little overpowering’ but the family lived there for two years before Smith became Director of Teacher Training at Oxford University. 

After Smith the next Master was scientist Walter Reynolds Booth (1891-1963), the first master of Dulwich College not to have been a classicist. He moved into Bell House in 1928 aged thirty-seven. He had been a prisoner-of-war in WW1 in a notorious camp in Germany. While headmaster he introduced rules including no cinema in term-time, no upturned collars and no hands in pockets when speaking with a teacher; he was annoyed when these rules attracted the attention of the press. His staff at Bell House included a chauffeur/butler, cook, housekeeper, parlour maid, two housemaids, one full-time and one part-time gardener, and a page, though he did suggest economising by buying a goat and a cow to keep the grass down. One of the junior servants had the task each morning of stoking the boiler and going down into the cellar to pump water from the well. Booth was a bachelor when he moved into Bell House. His mother would often come to stay liked to sit in the garden. When the sun moved round, casting her into shade, she would ring a little bell beside her chair whereupon a servant would come out and move the chair back into the sun for her. In 1934 Booth married Aline Margaret Morley and she gave birth to a son at Bell House four years later.

Booth loved horses and would ride up College Road to watch school games on his horse, cantering around the perimeters of the pitches. He was an extravagant host and would hold parties at Bell House where it is said that guests were served from a silver salver carried by the page. He frequently invited masters and their wives to use the swimming-pool. He would stand outside the house to take the salute when the cadets marched to the chapel.

Booth hired Angela Latham, a fresco painter, to paint murals in his bedroom and bathroom. The paintings in the bedroom represent things the master liked to on his holidays: skiing, gardening, walking in the Shropshire countryside, enjoying breakfast in bed and hunting with the Albrighton; and also his aspirations for the College: trophies of laurel leaves, mortar boards and canes. The murals covered the walls and threaded in between the windows and fireplace and were painted in sky-blue, mimosa-yellow and fresh green. A fountain scene was said to be particularly well-executed. In the bathroom was a Mediterranean coastal scene with umbrella pines and a party of sea-bathers. In the 1930s Austin Vernon, the Estate architect, also made alterations to Bell House for the College.

In 1941 Booth resigned after falling drunk from the chapel pulpit following a one-sentence sermon. He had to be helped home to Bell House by the school captain. John McInley, who was a pupil at the College at the time and later became a housemaster at Bell House, remembers Booth being drunk on duty. Christopher Gilkes (1898-1953), whose father had been Master of Dulwich College before Smith, took over.

The school was evacuated during WW2 though the Master lived at Bell House until it was so badly damaged by bombs dropped in the grounds and vicinity that he had to move to the South Block of the College. Repairs to windows, plaster ceilings, joinery and slates were estimated at £379 and the College applied to the War Compensation Scheme to cover the costs. College employees continued to live in the Lodge and other buildings: Edward Clements, a gardener, and his wife Florence plus a lodger called Peggy Stafford, a typist, lived downstairs while George Matthews, a College porter, his wife Winifred and their daughter Maureen, lived upstairs. William and Doris Gammon and their children also lived there. Bell House was then used as a furniture store by George Evan Cook who rented the house from 1941 for £80 pa. In 1942 Camberwell Borough Council maintained vegetable plots in the garden for the use of Air Raid Personnel. After the war it was proposed the Picture Gallery use Bell House as a temporary display space and store while the Gallery was being rebuilt. Camberwell Borough Council gave their agreement, a burglar alarm was installed and Cook’s stored furniture was moved to the undamaged part of the Gallery in readiness but while some pictures were stored at Bell House the plan mostly came to nothing and the pictures were kept and restored elsewhere.

Gilkes thought a smaller house was more appropriate accommodation for the Master, given the post-war economies which needed to be made by the College. He lived in The Chestnuts on Dulwich Common (where coincidentally the Gowans had also lived) until Elm Lawn, given to the College by a generous and anonymous old boy of the school, became available. Gilkes moved to Elm Lawn and in 1947, after some repairs arising from war damage and some alterations costing around £7,000, Bell House became a boarding house for younger College pupils.