Talk:The Perse School

Unsourced
A few bits from the article that may well be true but I couldn't source: Soo 19:10, 22 December 2005 (UTC)
 * The great grandson of Stephen Perse, Greg Tibbs, attended the school until his graduation in 2005.
 * Rosalind Runcie, pianist and wife of the Archbishop of Canterbury, attended the Perse School. (Seems unlikely, Perse was an all-boys school until very recently).
 * Rosalind Runcie is listed as having attended the Perse School for Girls. -- Fingolfin 12:57, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

Syd Barrett
I removed the bit about Syd Barrett going to the Perse - I couldn't find any sources to back it up. The only sources I could find (e.g. and ) imply he didn't go to the Perse. - Pilchard 18:25, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

Inside Out, Nick Mason's history of Pink Floyd and probably as reliable a source as any, states that Syd Barrett attended Cambridge County High School. Bengeo Bertie (talk) 15:04, 19 April 2008 (UTC)

Sir Robert Tabor
Is there any evidence for the claim that this person is an Old Persean? Or that he saved the life of King Charles II? I can't find any support from searching Google for these key words. Some dates may possibly match though... and a Sir Robert Tabor may have been born in Cambridge... Fingolfin 02:00, 10 March 2006 (UTC)
 * The Dictionary of National Biography does list him as an Old Persean. He was physician-in-ordinary to Charles II and also an apothecary, who was the first physician in Europe to use quinine to cure malaria. Although Tabor was away from court at the time, Charles II was prescribed quinine by one of his other physicians for a bout of malaria, which did save his life, and Tabor is usually now credited with this, since without him it would never have been used. So the article does in fact appear to be correct. -- Necrothesp 11:15, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

Motto
I've contacted the Perse School's archivist who has confirmed that the school's usual translation of the motto is "He who works for others works for himself". However the same latin phrase is widely quoted in legal circles with the alternative translation. I have found a single website which states that this latin phrase is a quote from Pope Boniface VIII (1235-1303) using the school's preferred translation. - MightyWarrior 10:40, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

Marketing / Promotion
I'm concerned that some aspects of the article could be seen as promotional. I doubt it's in the best interests of the school for an attempt to be made to maintain an article which does not seem to strive for objectivity. I didn't want to wade in and start editing yet - what do people think? I'll come back later and pick up on some specific examples of what I mean. --87.194.21.177 16:38, 2 September 2006 (UTC)
 * I think the article provides a reasonable mix of positive and negative facts and nothing in the way of original research. However I wrote quite a bit of the article as it stands and it's hard to review one's own writing. I'm willing to be corrected by more specific articles. Soo 23:33, 3 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Marked it as advert. Began taking out worst.  Removed links to other Perse enterprises.  It's probably appropriate to have these somewhere but as they were it seemed like "your child may also be interested in the following great products..."  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 90.203.189.22 (talk) 22:41, 14 May 2008 (UTC)

Crest
I believe that the crest has been updated and thought that this should be reflected in the picture. There is probably a crest on the website for the school. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.155.178.79 (talk • contribs) 18:44, 28 September 2009

New Crest Needed
The school has got a much newer crest that should be updated. Although, keep the old one for historical reference. --TGKilcommons (talk) 17:29, 13 December 2009 (UTC)
 * I've added the new crest Advancedk (talk) 06:51, 5 March 2015 (UTC)

Sir Harry Vanner - possible hoax?
A number of people are persistently adding "Sir Harry Vanner, Ambassador and Diplomat, British Government Envoy to Rhodesia 1836-50" to Notable People under Politics and Law. But if you google 'Sir Harry Vanner' all you get is half a dozen mirror sites of Wikipedia. I have tried googling all combinations of his name along with 'Rhodesia' etc. to no avail. Putting 'Perse' in the search doesn't help at all. So as it stands, I can find no evidence he ever existed, let alone attended the Perse. Unless someone can provide a reliable source? Peteinterpol (talk) 16:31, 7 April 2010 (UTC)
 * Harry Vanner was a former pupil of the Perse, this was a joke edit. AyrtonProst   Pitwall  22:36, 23 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Peteinterpol is very naive. He is obviously not familiar with the history of Rhodesia. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.181.149.255 (talk) 13:51, 11 December 2011 (UTC)

Alumni
I added Spike Hughes (real name Patrick Hughes), a pupil during Rouse's headmastership

His autobiography, Opening Bars, spends quite a lot of time talking about Dr. Rouse and Perse School in the teens and 20s. What is the appropriate way to incorporate this into the text? Jpg1954 (talk) 15:28, 29 December 2010 (UTC)

Taylor
Jeremy Taylor's links with Methodism are vague. Taylor was a Royalist. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.181.149.255 (talk) 13:49, 11 December 2011 (UTC)

Alumni changes
User Advancedk has divided Alumni into headings "Art, Academia, etc". I am not fond of this approach, because the headings seem arbitrary, and people don't fit in those simple boxes. Some of the people listed are academics for example, but are listed in "Engineering and Science". And Sir Peter Hall works in Media as well as Theatre. I would propose that we revert to the simple list we had before, unless there is an accepted Wikipedia convention on this. Any views? Peteinterpol (talk) 10:32, 19 December 2014 (UTC)
 * It's annoying the list is a single column, as it causes the page to scroll a lot and is made worse by the new headings. However, I think splitting alumni into sections gives an idea of the subject strengths of a school. For example the alumni listed at St Edmund's School show a preference for military and sport. I thought the list of Perse alumni was too long for any trends to be seen without splitting into categories. It would be useful to have the dates each alumnus was at the school so trends in subject strengths over time can be seen. I copied my categories roughly from The Leys, and agree trying to fit some people into a single category doesn't always work - feel free to move people between categories if you want to. Advancedk (talk) 06:53, 31 December 2014 (UTC)

Fees
I've added a new section for fees. If people could add further references for the years where I've only had the Perse site to go on that would be great. I/someone can add further discussion about other costs e.g. registration fees. Interestingly from 2014 entry onwards securing fees have been split between EU and non-EU. Looking at the Internet archive, securing fees for bursary students were lower compared to non-bursary students around 2010. It would also be interesting to add percentage change to the table between each year, and maybe also the inflation in that year as a comparison. Advancedk (talk) 06:50, 5 March 2015 (UTC)

Stephen Perse Foundation
As an outsider, I find the connections/distinction between the Stephen Perse Foundation and the Perse School incredibly confusing, and neither article really helps. Could somebody please explain it clearly in the lede of both articles, and probably add some disambiguation hatnotes as well? Eric Pode lives (talk) 11:41, 20 July 2016 (UTC)

Hillel House
Wellesley Aron's page says that he worked at Hillel House in Cambridge in the 1920's, and a note on the talk page there says that this was 'the Jewish boarding house at the Perse School, which was opened in 1909 and closed in 1948'. Can anyone confirm this? There's nothing about it in this article... Moonraker12 (talk) 20:02, 5 August 2022 (UTC)