Today is a significant day in the history of Durham School as we bid farewell to Kieran McLaughlin, under whose time as Headmaster the school has grown and transformed into the international foundation that it is today. As a parting gift, we will be presenting him with a set of illustrations of the School commissioned in 1960 containing views which, despite the 65 years that have elapsed since, have gone mostly unchanged. I am reminded in this, however, of a similar gift given to a Headmaster upon his departure, which remains one of the true treasures of the Durham School Archives.

According to The Dunelmian, during the 1932 Speech Day "the Head of the School, H.L. Hunter, then, in a short and happy speech, asked the Headmaster to accept a parting gift from the School, an album containing photographs of a thousand Dunelmians, past and present, as a token of loyalty, affection and esteem. In a few works the Headmaster thanked the School and said he would treasure the gift to his dying day… The presentation album remained on view during the evening and was inspected and admired by large numbers of guests and boys." 

The Budworth Album is one of the most interesting resources in the School Archives, showing what life was like in the 1907-1932 period that Budworth was headmaster. The opening inscription reads "Floreat Dunelmia. This Album is presented to The Reverend Canon Richard Dutton Budworth, M.A., Headmaster since 1907, on his retirement, by the Members of Durham School, as a sincere token of their loyal esteem and affection." It is stored in three separate boxes and consists of 75 large wooden boards with photographs on either side, labelled 'v' or 'r' (i.e. recto or verso) for convenience. Typically the front board (recto) would have pictures of students, while the verso side expanded this to photos of the school environs or general pictures of events, such as the 1924 construction of Chapel and the 1915 OTC visit to Lewisham Camp. 

The Album illustrates something of the man Canon Budworth was, and hints of his preoccupations and social circle slip through. Frank Youngman, who attended the school from 1919 to 1924 before teaching there from September 1927 as Assistant Master, is featured in the form of a newspaper clipping showing his marriage to Miss Kathleen Carter. Photographs of the 'diggings', Budworth's long-term project to expand the playing fields, frequently appear, and one particularly interesting inclusion is a cartoon illustration, drawn by a particularly artistic student, of Budworth shovelling away at the earth. One photograph shows the school as it would have been in the 1920s, with the two large guns—one a field gun, the other a German howitzer—in the foreground. These would be removed by Budworth's successor, the pacifist Canon Luce.

Some of the memories were melancholic. 13v shows the picture and grave of Ronaleyn Oswin Nangreave Mangin, who died on the 21st November 1918 of influenza while still at the school. "His school career was blameless and honourable. He had many friends who still remember him as a Dunelmian of sterling worth, whose genuine goodness was apparent in all that he took in hand," said The Dunelmian of the tragedy. This was one of the many casualties of the terrible 'Spanish Flu' epidemic that took place at the end of World War I. Ten years later, another tragic death of a student is recorded with the case of Anthony Victor Wilson, who died from meningitis on the 9th November 1928 in a nursing home in Newcastle. He was only 15 years old. The War also cast a shadow over much of these photos, with many of the schoolboys- F.E.S. Townsend, 1907-1910; H.G.H. Marshall, 1908-1914; A.J. Dingle, 1905-1910- going on to be killed in action. 

Budworth kept track of the future career of many of his pupils. John Lawrence Poole, son of Canon R.H.J. Poole of Poole House fame, attended the school from 1923 to 1928, and a 1935 flyer stating 'Vote for the Liberal Candidate for Macclesfield John L. Poole' can be found on board 44v. One of Canon Budworth's favourite pupils was, by all accounts, William Noel Hodgson, the famous World War One poet who tragically died in July 1916. Several photos show a school outing to the Roman Wall in August 1910, which depict Hodgson, Budworth, R.H.J. Poole, and Bungite students George and James Cumming. The photograph shows the group pausing for a break by a dry-stone wall, and seems to me to be strangely elegiac, showing them during one of the long, hot summers before the outbreak of World War One. This haunting aspect pervades the entire album; when Canon Budworth left the school in 1932, the world had changed immeasurably from the comparatively innocent years of 1907.