THE HISTORY OF THE BOAR’S HEAD SERVICE

            Once a year our whole college is involved in a ceremony which has an almost unbroken tradition going back well over 150 years.

                                    Why a Boars Head?
                                    Why a procession?
                                    Why at this time of year?
                                    And, above all, why here at Hurst?

            In the Middle Ages, when so much of Europe was covered in forest, wild boar were still plentiful – but they were difficult to track down and kill as they were very fierce, fast and elusive.

            A beautiful illustration in a 15th century Book of Hours shows that it required 8 or 9 vicious looking hunting dogs to bring down just one wild boar.

            Boars were hunted for sport – as a kind of test of medieval machismo, and also for their succulent flesh, and the boar’s head became the centrepiece of many a medieval banquet. Richly garnished, the head would be paraded through the hall to the High Table, accompanied by a fanfare of trumpet or a procession of choristers or both.

            Such a procession has been held for centuries in Oxford at the Queen’s College, celebrating the unlikely tale of the student who single-handedly choked a charging boar to death by ramming his copy of Aristotle down the beast’s salivating throat.

            Our Boar’s Head Procession, with its Latin carol and chorus, is similar to that held at the Queen’s College.

            Why?

            Our first Headmaster – Edward Lowe – was an Oxford man and I’m sure he must have witnessed the ceremony at Queen’s College himself.

            So, when the main College buildings were opened in 1853 young Mr Lowe (he was then aged 29) saw the chance to bring an old custom to his new school.

            I think he had several reasons for this.

            Firstly, he saw it as an excellent way to begin the Christmas festivities. The ceremony here was usually held on St Nicholas’ Day, December 6th, which is often regarded as the start of the Christmas season. Lowe had enjoyed the ceremony at Oxford, and he wanted his school to enjoy it too.

            Secondly, Lowe wanted to give his new school substance by associating it with older established institutions. Perhaps it is difficult for us to realise today that St. John’s Middle School – our original name – was very much a novel institution. Woodard’s scheme held a lot of critics. A school for middle class boys which was quite radical at the time.

            So, Lowe was very keen to associate his school with the Establishment, the Monarchy. The Church, The Armed Forces and the Universities.

            With the Monarchy:- the Shakespeare play was held every year on the birthday of the Prince of Wales.

            With the Church of England:- visits by bishops were frequent (and popular too, because the school always granted a holiday in their honour).

            With the Armed Forces:- by the formation of the Cadet Force as part of the Volunteer Movement (Lowe also having a personal link with the Army when his nephew, Willie Mosely, was killed in the North West Frontier of India, the first OJ to die for his country.

            And finally with the universities:- every year examiners from Oxford and Cambridge came down to grill the pupils on their knowledge and academic prowess. And also, of course, he adopted their ceremonies.

            A third reason for introducing the Boar’s Head Procession and Feast to this school was that Lowe wanted to thank all those who contributed to the special quality of the chapel services, especially the choir and sacristans.

            Hurst was one of the first schools to have a choir robed in surplices, perhaps not so easy now with a choir numbering so many. The Chapel was central to the life of Lowe’s school, and the choral music there made the services particularly uplifting.

            Dr Lowe established the ceremony, but there have been changes over time. The school magazine reports that at the Boar’s Head proceedings of 1913 “the whole school were entertained to a repast, kindly provisioned by the kindness of the headmaster” – but there was more possible then, when the total school body numbered 183 in comparison with today.

            And the magazine tells us quaintly that “crackers and their contents provided an hour of boisterous merriment”.

            Sadly, the onset of the First World War meant that there would be no more “boisterous merriment” until the Boar’s Head Ceremony was reintroduced in 1919.

M-L Rowland – School Archivist December 2025