The Old Ride School

The school was founded in 1885 by Gerard Rogers at Canford Cliffs, just outside Bournemouth. Rogers was only 27; pupil numbers grew rapidly and many scholarships were won. He drowned around 1920 while swimming off the local beach and was succeeded as head by his deputy, Sydney Phillips, who ran the school until his death in 1930. He in turn was succeeded by the Reverend Thomas Flynn. After the difficult years of early 1930s the school prospered but then war came, France fell and all the South Coast was considered a likely German invasion area. Numbers fell rapidly and the school was obliged to evacuate to East Devon for the duration. It never returned to Bournemouth as the premises there…