Poems spanning the centuries recited at this year's Bentley Elocution Competition

Seventeen contestants from all year groups entered this year’s time-honoured Bentley Elocution Prize competition.  

It is an achievement in itself to have got to the finals; the finalists a shortlist of a shortlist who have made it through the first two rounds. This ancient competition dates back to 1867 when Thomas Bentley, who taught at the school for over 50 years, introduced his ‘penny readings’, perhaps suggesting that what is now a competition may originally have been a rather more egalitarian occasion, even involving a touch of bribery.   

In an era when committing poetry to memory has become something the pupils would associate more with their grandparents’ generation than their own, it is heartening to see that this skill is still valued and nurtured at Shrewsbury.  Those Old Salopians (like me) educated at the feet of the great Frank McEachran will be particularly heartened to hear this. Imagine my particular delight this year when one of the poems selected was one of Kek’s most popular spells – lines from W H Auden’s Ascent of F6, a long poem which has sunk into deepest obscurity (‘At last the secret is out …’). 

Also particularly pleasing this year was the range of poems chosen, spanning four centuries – Shakespeare, the Romantics, High Victorian, the 20th century  giants Yeats and Auden and a clutch of post-colonial poems. Clear throughout was a sense that the contestants had chosen poems which spoke to them personally, which in turn enabled them to communicate them to the audience far more effectively than might otherwise have been the case.  

Adjudicating this competition is never easy, but Ian McClary, Deputy Head (Co-Curricular and Planning) at Sherborne Girls School was able to find and commend merits in every recitation, born of long experience and a knowledge of the poetry being recited.   

Invidious choices nevertheless had to be made, and awards were made as follows: 

Third Form  

Winner: Rhys E (R) (Wilfred Owen Dulce et Decorum Est) 

Highly commended: Luca W-G (S) (Edward Thomas The Gallows)  

Fourth Form 

Winner: Ethan P (R) (Caleb Femi Thirteen) 

Highly commended: Isaac S (SH) (William Shakespeare Sonnet 113) 

Fifth and Sixth Form 

Winner: Kate Woodman (M) (Henry Wadsworth Longfellow The Day is Done)  

Highly commended: Luke W (SH) (William Butler Yeats Sailing to Byzantium) 

Highly commended: Sydney S (MSH) (Maya Angelou And Still I Rise) 

Thanks are due to the competition’s English Faculty organisers, Head of Faculty Kristina Leslie and George Bandy, to this year’s inspiring judge Ian McClary and, most of all, to the brave and talented competitors. 

Richard Hudson 

English Teacher