by architect, Henry Woodyer. After Evensong, where the music was equal to that of the best cathedral choirs, and a walk round the buildings in the quiet of a Worcestershire evening, I visited the large dormitory, which runs almost the whole length of a building parallel with the chapel. Here Christopher Hassall read his poem to the boys and held them spellbound as the stars shone through the narrow Gothic windows in the gabled roof…………" School crest The crest on the school tie was a red broadsword on a blue background symbolising St Michael's defeat of the dragon by its colour and the two kinks in the sword. Musical library Supported by friends of Ouseley, the library contained such important articles as the original score of Purcell's Dido and Aeneas and Handel's own conducting score from the Dublin premiere of Messiah. It was therefore a site of pilgrimage for musical scholars, including Benjamin Britten After the school's closure the library was transferred to the Bodleian Library. Organists of the college John Capel Hanbury 1856 - 1857 John Stainer 1857 - 1859 (later organist of Magdalen College, Oxford and St. Paul's Cathedral) Langdon Colborne 1860 - 1874 (then organist of Beverley Minster) Alfred Alexander 1874 - 1877 (then organist of Wigan Parish Church) William Claxton 1877 - 1886 Walter J. Lancaster 1886 - 1889 (then organist of Bolton Parish Church, Lancashire) Allan Paterson 1889 - 1893 (then organist of Malvern Priory) James Lyon 1893 - 1896 (then organist of St. Mark's Church, Surbiton) Edgar C. Broadhurst 1896 - 1907 M. Gordon Burgess 1907 - 1910 J.P. Davis 1910 - 1911 Norman Charles Woods 1911 - 1912 Arthur Baynon 1913 - 1916 Carlton Borrow 1917 Vivian Stuart 1918 Ernest Bullock 1919 Heathcote Dicken Statham 1920 - 1926 Stanley Thorne 1926 - 1931 Laurence Crosthwaite 1931 - 1935 Maxwell Menzies 1935 - 1952 (duties undertaken by Sir Sydney Nicholson from 1940 and C E S Littlejohn from 1941 while Maxwell Menzies was away in the armed forces) Kenneth Beard 1952 - 1959 (afterwards rector chori at Southwell Minster) Lucian Nethsingha 1959 - 1973 (afterwards organist of Exeter Cathedral) Roger Judd 1973 - 1985 (later Assistant Organist St. George’s Chapel, Windsor Castle) Alumni The St Michael's College Society, an active Old Boys and Girls society, from the original Frederick Ouseley foundation, and which in 2006 celebrated its centenary, holds a reunion meeting each year.