fbpx Bi-centenary of Foundation Stone details released - Haileybury

Bi-centenary of Foundation Stone details released

Haileybury will celebrate the 200th anniversary of the laying of its Foundation Stone with a series of events that run from February through to the end of the academic year.

The Foundation Stone of the school’s magnificent buildings was laid in Spring 1806. The 500-acre site now so enjoyed by the Haileybury community was originally bought at auction in October 1805 by the East India Company as they prepared to build new premises to house the expanding East India College in which young men were trained as administrators and civil servants for service in India. Some 50 years later, the College closed and in 1862 Haileybury and ISC was established on the same site.

As a kick-off to the anniversary, the school will be holding a weekend of gala bi-centenary celebrations in February. The programme is as follows:

Friday 3 February 2006
A special musical journey will celebrate the history of the buildings through a real promenade concert in which music from the past 200 years will be played in four of the school’s finest venues. The evening will end with performances from Haileybury’s award-winning choir in the Chapel.

Saturday 4 February 2006
A morning thanksgiving service will be held in the Chapel with the Lord Bishop of London as the preacher and in the evening, the first of a series of four lectures will celebrate the East India College and Haileybury, its buildings, architecture, people and events over the past 200 years.

An exhibition in Clock House will be open throughout.

Then, on Sunday 23 April, pupils will host a fashion extravaganza in conjunction with the UK’s leading fashion producer, Lesley Goring, top model agency Storm and a host of international designers. There will be two performances of this lavish catwalk event which will look at fashion through the past 20 decades.

Co-hosted by Old Haileyburian Hoyt Richards, one of the world’s biggest names in modelling in the 1980s and 1990s, this event will include hit musical numbers and re-enactments of key dramatic moments in the history of East India College and Haileybury.

The afternoon and evening performances are open to the public. The black-tie evening performance will be preceded by a Champagne Gala Reception and followed by an auction raising funds for charity.

The year’s events will end off with a Celebratory Ball on Saturday 8 July, to which all Old Haileyburians, parents past and present and Friends of Haileybury are invited to attend.

Proceeds from the various functions will go to the SEED Foundation (the Society for the Educational and Economic Development of destitute children), an Indian-registered charity which helps abandoned children of life convicts; The Children’s Trust, a national charity working with children who have multiple disabilities and complex health needs; and Changing Faces, which works to ensure that over 400,000 people in Britain with severe disfigurement to their face, hands or body can face the future with confidence.

If anyone would like further information about the above events, or can help with sponsorship in the form of donations, goods and advertising, please contact Jenny Box on 01992 706411.