| Administrative History | The Church of England’s National Society founded Whitelands College in 1841 as a teacher training college for women. In 1874, the Rev. John Pincher Faunthorpe was appointed Principal of the College at the age of 35, amalgamating the previous roles of Lecturer, Chaplain and Secretary. Born into modest circumstances in Lincolnshire, Faunthorpe attended the local Dame School yet nevertheless eventually progressed to become a qualified teacher, having attended St John’s Training College in Battersea where he had risen to become Vice-Principal. He was also a London graduate, obtaining his BA in 1865 and MA in 1869, through private study. He took Holy Orders in 1867.
He was the first person to be designated principal at Whitelands College, selected from a field of over 200 candidates, and he remained in office until 1907. In the 33 years of his principalship considerable growth took place and Whitelands became one of the foremost teaching training colleges for women. He was ambitious for the growth and prestige of the College, raising and extending the academic standard of the curriculum and developing a system of rewards and prizes given by wealthy and prominent benefactors.
In 1877 Faunthorpe became acquainted with John Ruskin, the eminent Victorian art critic and political economist, and enlisted his interest in the College. Ruskin would give numerous gifts of books, pictures and other artefacts to the College and also introduced William Morris and Sir Edward Burne-Jones, who designed and created artefacts and windows for the newly erected College Chapel.
Faunthorpe and Ruskin remained in regular correspondence. Ruskin commissioned Faunthorpe to assist him in a range of tasks, including the reading and correcting of proofs, and the creation of an index to ‘Fors Clavigera’, Ruskin’s ‘Letters to the Workmen and Labourers of Great Britain’. Their correspondence was later privately published in two volumes and is available in the archives.
In 1881 Ruskin inaugurated the annual May Day ceremonies, after baulking at involvement in a traditional prize giving ceremony. He preferred that the women students should elect annually 'the likeablest and the loveablest' of their number to be their May Queen. Faunthorpe formalised the suggestion into a ceremony with a religious service, secret ballot and, later, special ceremonial robes for the Queen. Ruskin undertook to present each year an entire set of his ‘constant publications’ to be given to the Queen and her chosen recipients. The May Day tradition at Whitelands survives to this day.
Another College festival, the Feast of St Ursula (to whom the College Chapel was dedicated) was instituted by Faunthorpe, to be kept annually on October 21st. It is now celebrated as ‘Founders’ Day’.
Faunthorpe retired ‘most unwillingly’ at the age of 67. He remained active, however, as chaplain to the College’s Guild of St Ursula (the association of past and present Whitelanders) until his death in 1924. College Annual ‘Notes’ of that year recall him as ‘the originator of much that is the very fabric of Whitelands’.
Sources: Counsell, D ‘A Short History of Whitelands College’ (1947); Cole, Malcom ‘Whitelands College: The History’(1982); Cole, Malcom ‘Whitelands College: May Queen Festival’ (1981); Cole, Malcom ‘Whitelands College: The Chapel’ (1985); Peacock, David ‘Whitelands Ruskin Lecture 2017’; The Whitelands Annual 1924.
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