Talk:Christ's College, Christchurch

Neo-gothic architecture
Christs College is not 'famous for its neo-gothic architecture' Search for neo-gothic on google, and you will find the Woolworth building, St Patrick's Cathedral NY, and the Palace of Westminster, but not this school. However, perhaps Benjamin Mountfort designed some building at the school, or which used to be part of the school, but is now in Canty Uni. If this is the case it would be useful to mention this specifically. It would be a genuine piece of information and would avoid peacock terms Neil Leslie 09:21, 6 January 2006 (UTC)
 * Friend, you should acquaint yourself with the local expression "World Famous in New Zealand". It may not be in the same league as the Palace of Westminster, but in Australasia, Christ's College and the nearby (now partly demolished) Christchurch Arts Centre are widely known and celebrated as examples of the neo-Gothic style, which are few and far between, since the Country itself has only had European inhabitants for 170 years. Since the 2010 Earthquake, which the College Buildings mainly survived, they have been even more keenly appreciated. ElectricRay (talk) 10:44, 17 October 2013 (UTC)

College House
The material on College House seems to be at variance with the historical information at http://www.collegehouse.org.nz/ Perhaps someone who understands which college is which can clarify? Neil Leslie 09:34, 6 January 2006 (UTC)

CC's has the most famous collection of neo-gothic architecture IN NEW ZEALAND, along with the old Canterbury university (then: 'College') campus. This noteriety is only international as a colonial manifestation of the style. Christ's College is not a tertiary institution, but a secondary one. Although the affiliation with the university hostel 'College House' was once more pronounced. Dogma2000 11:50, 9 March 2006 (GMT+1)

Christ's College and the issue of the All Black Team Colours.
The 'original' version which stated that Christ's College later shared its school colours with the All Blacks and most other NZ national sporting teams is disingenuous at best. The claim is false. The reason(s) that it is false is/are easily verifiable. The writer commits the old Post Hoc fallacy of 'After this, therefore because of this'. The writer is suggesting a causal relationship, when the evidence in fact suggests otherwise.

In fact, Thomas Rangiwahia Ellison is officially credited with creating the All Blacks' official jersey colours. Tom Ellison was not an old boy of Christ's College. Mr. Ellison attended Te Aute College, in Hawke's Bay. In 1893 Tom Ellison captained the first official New Zealand team. Before it toured Australia he proposed to the first annual general meeting of the New Zealand Rugby Football Union that the uniform be a black jersey with silver fern monogram, black cap and stockings and white knickerbockers, and with a switch to black shorts in 1901 it became the familiar All Black uniform.

Therefore a claim that Christ's College was responsible for the All Blacks' team colours is obviously false.

One can make the valid claim that Christ's College colours are shared many non-College sports teams. (e.g. the NZ National Badminton Team, also now infamously known as 'the Black Cocks')

Further, the writer's conclusions on this matter do not seem plausible. The author seems to suggest that all NZ National teams' decisions to wear black and white colours in competition are based on Christ's College colours. There is no evidence for such a near-universal claim. I also chose to wear black and white in competition, but my decision was not based on anything that has occurred at Christ's College. Perhaps the College did influence other NZ Teams' colour decisions. If so, which ones? (it is already established that the All Black Team is not one)
 * There is another story which may have more of a colour of truth to it. I recall the story that for the first ever CC vs CBHS rugby match, the Boys' High team didn't have any kit, so they borrowed some CC jerseys and soaked them in Blue fountain pen ink! hence the CC colours to this day of blue and black hoops. I can't verify this better than to report that history master JJ Thomson used to routinely regale us with it in the eighties - anyone have any better info? ElectricRay (talk) 11:48, 17 October 2013 (UTC)

Christ's College and 'the 'oldest' continuing rugby tournament in NZ or the world' claim
The writer may be misinformed, or is being disingenuous.

In fact, The Quadrangular Tournament began in 1925

Nelson College did not compete with the other 3 teams prior to 1925. Therefore, the competition between these 4 schools in the tournament for all 4 only began in 1925. So, that Tournament is only 81 years old at best. The claim that the 4 member inter-college tournament is one of the world's oldest continuous rugby tournaments is false. This is easily verifiable:

Regarded as the oldest rivalry in college sports, the world-famous Harvard-Yale Rugby Tournament was inaugurated in 1875. (An inter-collegiate tournament if ever there was one!) McGill and Harvard first played in 1874! And continue to do so, regularly.

Any game that inaugurated the current tournament between 4 NZ schools must have occurred in 1876 or after when Nelson College first played Wellington College.

Admittedly, the first official rugby game in NZ was between Nelson College and Nelson Football Club on May 14, 1870. But it was/is not part of any Tournament. Nor was it inter-collegiate.

The first international rugby game was played between England and Scotland in 1871. This would evolve into the Five (and now Six) Nations Rugby Tournament. With over 125 years of history, the Five (and now Six) Nations Rugby Tournament is the oldest Rugby Tournament in the world. England first played Wales in 1882. This is over 40 years before the The Quadrangular Tournament began in 1925.

A secondary claim that the Quadrangular Tournament is one of the oldest continuous rugby tournaments in NZ seems plausible. However, evidence strongly suggests otherwise:

One example is the first Ranfurly Shield Tournament. The first match was played in 1902 (23 years before the Quadrangular Tournament began, in 1925) The tournament has been running continuously since.

At best, one can plausibly argue that the Quadrangular Tournament, started in 1925, is one of the older continuous rugby tournaments in New Zealand. --- MTL

There are a number of issues here. Generally I feel that you are being a little over critical considering the article claimed to be ONE OF the worlds oldest. It is clearly old enough to be one of the worlds oldest. Especially when using your logic about the tounament not begining until 1925, the six nations tournament did not start until 2000.

1. When the tournament began. Here you are being semantic - is a tournament still the same tournament when another team is added? The five nations becoming the six nations suggests it would. The tournament was played prior to 1925 by three schools. Therefore, semantics aside, I think it is fair enough to say it began in the 1880's as claimed.

2. Even if it did begin in 1925 it is still probably one of the worlds oldest - note the claim is not to be absolutely the worlds oldest. For the reasons above, the six nations did not start until 2000 and although Harvard Yale was played first in 1875 I am not sure it has been contiuously rugby football - I think it may have been changed to American Football and then rekindled the Rugby tournament later in addition (I'll have to find a citation for that though). But regardless it is still on of the worlds oldest, at least the Southern Hemispere's oldest, and unquestionably one of New Zealands oldest.

I should add that I have not interest in inflating the age of this tournament as I attended none of the Quad schools Ham21 00:36, 17 April 2006 (UTC)

You need to state what the Tournament is the oldest at _____? The reader will want to understand. It is better to be specific.

Regardless it is still one of the worlds oldest, at least the Southern Hemispere's oldest, and unquestionably one of New Zealands oldest

You are adding qualifiers to an absolute. The Quadrangular Tournament is the world's oldest rugby tournament, or it is not. The honour is never shared. It is an absolute statement!

Nor can it be validly claimed that it is one of the world's oldest rugby tournaments. Not that tournament. A 50 year lag in an international game is not close enough.

If the competition to be 'one of the oldest' is crowded, and I suggest it is, then saying the Tournament is one of the oldest looks a bit silly, when everyone may realise the Tournament shared the game with 100's if not 1000's of other teams everywhere...

One is not making strong analogies here. An inter-college competition is being compared to all of the world's rugby tournaments. Most of the world's rugby was/is played in schools outside New Zealand or in Club, National and/or International competitions outside New Zealand. There appear to be many hundreds of rugby tournaments in the world with which to make your comparisons, before you can make your final claim. I have deliberately avoided a detailed search of UK rugby competitions/tournaments. It is quite a task. North America and South Africa must also be included and British colonies everywhere...

You are incorrect re: Harvard-Yale Rugby Tournament. It began in 1875 (before any tournament in NZ that we know of), and it is still current, and famous. As is McGill - Harvard College Rugby.

The 'Quadrangular Tournament' claim is too non-specific. But, if you mean in the Southern Hemisphere, state it, and hopefully verify it. If you mean in New Zealand, simply state that, and hopefully it is easily verifiable too.

If it was stated, "it is one of the oldest rugby competitions between High Schools/Colleges in NZ or the South Pacific or Australasia", this is at least plausible. Most readers should think so. And it is more easily verifiable for you too.

The words : world's oldest rugby tournaments are too universal. It sounds ambiguous as well. Perhaps it was meant to? If that is the case, we could all lapse into superlatives and universal claims with abandon. No-one would read Wikipedia.

There is plenty of evidence against your claim. The Quadrangular Tournament began in 1925. That was 50 years on from 1875, when Harvard and Yale played their first Rugby Tournament Game. They and many others might eventually refute your claim.

We know at least 2 of the schools you mentioned played rugby against each other for several years in NZ. I respect that alot. Many more Australian, South African, North American and British schools played inter-school rugby in organised tournaments/competitions in the 19th century, though.

The Game of Rugby commenced a relatively long time before...as you no doubt know.

You are incorrect about the Six Nations analogy. It was named the Five Nations Rugby Tournament before it became the Six Nations Rugby Tournament. The Quadrangular Tournament was born in 1925. It did not grow. The previous contest/competition did. I have never heard of the name of a tournament between 3 schools in NZ before 1925.

Perhaps you know?

MTL --

New proposed version
I propose a new version of the article to: 1. trim it and remove some bias which occurs from former students writing about it; 2. change the tone of the article to be objective; 3. address the points below. The proposed version can be seen here.

Headings below refer to sections in the proposal.

Lead
 * Mostly kept except info about Fitzgerald, which I can't see on the school's website. College House has info on it (see below) but it never explicitly states that Fitzgerald was the reason for the name.
 * Foundation date removed from lead since its in the infobox.

About
 * Governance. While I guess its strictly true, I have no idea how the Chairman of the Fellows and the Warden relate to each other. Therefore I've added mention of the Chair and kept the Warden--he is an unusual feature unique to this subject.
 * First game of rugby: link preserved. Other rugby stuff moved here.
 * Buildings info moved here. Notable architecture.
 * "Modelled on Westminster School and Eton College" has been cited, but its relation to building a quadrangle like them, that needs a cite, but its been kept.
 * Quadrangle. The significance of the Quad, imo, is still communicated in the new version.
 * House System: While it is a notable feature of the school (unlike other NZ schools' "houses") it has been summarised, to remove details such as colours.

Notable alumni
 * Introductor waffle cut
 * names narrowed down to names likely to attract wide/general interest, since this school appears to have no shortage of notable alumni.
 * Redlink names not included.

College House Canterbury
 * First of all this needs to be spun off
 * UNZ: Cite please. Otherwise its been cut and replaced with other info.
 * Split--> "unusual" retention of Warden: No evidence in sources that this was "unusual". Hence cut.
 * Theology institute: Not directly relevant to Christ's College wrt College House. Cut.

References, External links
 * School link cut since its redundant to the infobox link. Otherwise mainly technical wikicoding issues, no content.

Ideally someone with access to the school's own history book would be editing this. I think that most of the information in the proposed version can be verified from internet sources.

Mr Bluefin 22:47, 2 July 2006 (UTC)


 * If there are no more objections in the next 24 hours I'll upload the proposed version. Its been 13 days (almost two weeks) since the proposal was first put up. Mr Bluefin 09:38, 15 July 2006 (UTC)


 * Uploaded. Mr Bluefin 09:46, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

Congratulations on your endeavours to rewrite, Currently it reads as though it was a detention assignment for the lad who came last in the intelligence test for 3F. XSebX 09:15, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

prestige?
stating that the school is one of the most prestigious in NZ and then referencing the history page on the schools own website seems odd to me. The ref seems to make little mention of prestige (granted that it may be implied in it's long history) however even if it did, a more neutral ref would be more appropriate. Goldfinger820 (talk) 08:49, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

Requested move

 * The following discussion is an archived discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section. 

The result of the move request was: moved. ErikHaugen (talk &#124; contribs) 05:18, 6 October 2011 (UTC)

– As per WP:NCNZ, the city is used as the disambiguator, and not the region or the country. Case 1 is a move over a redirect. Case 2 is a move over a redirect which is not needed, as the name of the other school has "female" in it and the disambiguation should be achieved via hatnotes. Case 3 would be replacing a dab page that is not needed, as the other school of the same name does not have an article yet.  Schwede 66  05:46, 26 September 2011 (UTC)  Schwede  66  05:46, 26 September 2011 (UTC)
 * Christ's College, Canterbury → Christ's College, Christchurch
 * Linwood College (New Zealand) → Linwood College
 * Hornby High School, Christchurch → Hornby High School
 * I support these moves.- gadfium 23:11, 30 September 2011 (UTC)


 * Support per nom and WP:NCNZ. Jenks24 (talk) 22:11, 4 October 2011 (UTC)
 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

External links modified
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