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Today, on the 100th anniversary of the dedication of QE’s World War I memorial, the 2021 School Captain laid a poppy wreath on behalf of current pupils to remember the sacrifice of their forebears more than a century ago.

Commissioned at a time when the horrors of the ‘war to end all wars’ were still fresh in the memory, the tablet records the names of 48 Elizabethans who died in the conflict. The memorial may be seen in the ‘crush hall’ of the Main Building, close to the main entrance and Reception.

Attached to the wreath laid by School Captain Siddhant Kansal was a note on Royal British Legion-headed paper on which he wrote: “On the centenary of this memorial, we remember those who gave their lives so that we may enjoy the opportunities we have today.”

Headmaster Neil Enright said: “It is right for us to remember the sacrifices that Elizabethans in previous generations have made to enable us to experience the freedoms and opportunities we do.

“That tradition of serving the greater good remains an essential element of the School’s mission today and it is, therefore, appropriate that a memorial to service takes pride of place at the heart of the Main Building, alongside our founding charter.”

The bronze tablet was originally installed at the School’s historic buildings in Wood Street and formally unveiled at 4pm on Saturday 8th October 1921. It was transported to the current site when the School moved to Queen Street in 1932, with a rededication service held on 21st September of that year. (The rededication service was also a commemoration of the life of Rev John Bond Lee, Headmaster 1875–1906.)

World War I hostilities ceased with the Armistice on 11th November 1918, but, in common with many war memorials, QE’s memorial bears the dates 1914–1919, reflecting the fact that the Treaty of Versailles which formally brought to an end the state of war between Germany and the Allied Powers was not signed until June 1919.

The list of names is surmounted by the traditional legend, ‘In Memoriam’, while underneath is written simply ‘Faithful unto Death’ – a Biblical quotation from the Revelation to St John.

According to the order of service published for the service of dedication, a copy of which may be viewed online in QE Collections, the ceremony was conducted by the Rev Dr H W P Stephens, Vicar of Tadlow in Cambridgeshire, an Old Elizabethan known to have been at the School in 1876. He returned again in 1932 to lead the rededication service.

The roll of honour was read by the Headmaster of the day, William Lattimer (1906–1929). The service featured a hymn still sung today on Founder’s Day – For all the saints, who from their labours rest – and included other hymns, as well as prayers and readings.

The memorial itself was unveiled by Lieutenant-Colonel C H Pank CMG DSO TD, of the Middlesex Regiment, who also gave the address. Buglers from the same regiment sounded the Last Post and Reveille.

The dedication written for the occasion was: “In the Faith of Jesus Christ we dedicate this Memorial to the Glory of God and in proud and loving memory of those Elizabethans who gave their lives in the Great War in the cause of Right and Liberty. In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.”

• The photo, above left, which is from QE Collections, is believed to have been taken on the day of the dedication in 1921.

Academic Makoto Takahashi, who has earned an international reputation for his research into the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant meltdown in Japan, has curated an exhibition on the disaster, which is being shown at the Royal Geographical Society.

The exhibition, which runs until 23rd December, marks the tenth anniversary of the meltdown, and of the earthquake and tsunami that triggered it. Visitors have included a party of A-level Geography and Art students from QE: Makoto treated them to a lecture on the exhibition and also gave them a guided tour.

Makoto (OE 2003–2010) is the youngest-ever lecturer at the Munich Centre for Technology in Society (MCTS), part of the Technical University of Munich, a position he gained in 2019. A previous holder of a Science and Technology Studies Fellowship at Harvard, he will be returning to the Harvard Kennedy School of Governance as a Fulbright-Lloyd’s Fellow in early 2022.

For the past eight years, his work has focused on examining how expert authority is claimed in conditions of low public trust. Considered somewhat niche when Makoto first proposed it as his field of study in 2013, its relevance became apparent in 2016 with the election of President Donald Trump.

“In fact, I was at an OECD Nuclear Energy Agency event in Fukushima prefecture on the day that Trump was elected,” he says. “The shock was palpable. And the parallels between the crisis of confidence that Japanese experts faced following ‘3.11’ [the earthquake and tsunami took place on 11th March 2011] and the ‘post-truth’ political moment were clear.”

The exhibition, entitled Picturing the Invisible, sees his research interests coming together with his longstanding involvement with the London art scene: while in the Sixth Form at QE, he took part in in the Royal Academy’s attRAct programme and in the Louis Vuitton Young Arts Program; he has also been an Event Manager at the OPEN Ealing community art gallery.

It features the work of six photographers complemented by a series of short essays from policymakers, experts, and activists. The contributors include some “wonderful artists and essayists”, says Makoto, such as: Lieko Shiga, a photographer based in Kitakama, a village hit hard by the tsunami; Yoi Kawakubo, who buries silver halide film in the contaminated soils of Fukushima’s exclusion zone to produce a powerful series of abstract images, and Sir David Warren, British Ambassador to Japan, 2008–12.

A collaboration between the RGS and the Munich Centre for Technology in Society, the exhibition has secured coverage in publications including The New Statesman and The British Journal of Photography.

In preparing for it, Makoto says he has been committed to pedagogic innovation to benefit students disadvantaged by the impact of Covid-19 on higher education. “The pandemic has robbed students of so much of the normal university experience, so it’s even more important than ever to innovate new modes of engagement. In this spirit, I integrated preparations for Picturing the Invisible into my teaching at MCTS. Seven students from the Responsibility in Science, Engineering and Technology course have been involved in every step of the planning and [have shared] their perspectives on the works in the exhibition programme, alongside seasoned policymakers, activists, and experts.”

After leaving QE, Makoto took a First in Geography at Cambridge, winning the M T Dodds and Rowley Mainhood Awards for academic excellence during the course of his degree. He went on to gain his MPhil and PhD from Cambridge, where his doctoral studies were funded by the Economic and Social Research Council.

While there, in addition to lecturing, co-ordinating undergraduate groups and working with the university’s Communications Office to produce podcasts for a non-specialist audience, Makoto also served as the secretary of the Mixed Martial Arts Society (CUMMA).

In 2017, he spent three months as a Visiting Research Fellow at Tokyo’s Waseda University, where the proximity to Fukushima proved valuable. “I had the opportunity to interview notable public figures in the Fukushima debate, making regular trips to Fukushima prefecture itself.”

His thesis, The Improvised Expert: Performing Authority after Fukushima (2011–2018), drew upon his own extensive ethnographic fieldwork conducted in Japan; it won the American Association of Geographers’ Jacques May Thesis Prize.

He has presented his work at the Maison Francais d’Oxford (at the invitation of the French Ministry for Europe and Foreign Affairs), at the British Embassy in Paris, CEPN (Le Centre d’étude sur l’Evaluation de la Protection dans le domaine Nucléaire – a non-profit radiological protection organisation) and gave a paper at a conference organised by the International Commission on Radiological Protection to examine the lessons of the Fukushima Daiichi disaster.

During his schooldays, Makoto threw himself into all that QE had to offer. He was involved in debating, was the leader of the second violins in the Chamber Orchestra and was in the waterpolo team.

Today, he is still in contact with School friends Eigo Takeda, who read Mathematics at Cambridge before taking up consultancy work in Japan, and Evgeny Slavin, who works in venture capital in Cambridgeshire.

Having previously worked towards a commission with the British Army Reserve, he has had to pause his involvement with the reserves while working outside the UK.

In a special lecture assembly, QE’s younger boys learned the shocking truth about the loss of biodiversity and then discovered what they could do to support the natural environment.

Lesley Malpas, Founder and Chief Executive of not-for-profit organisation, Operation Future Hope, not only outlined problems around the world, but also examined environmental depredation close to home, explaining that Britain suffers some of the world’s worst biodiversity loss.

More positively, in keeping with the name of her organisation, she highlighted case studies of successful examples of rewilding, while setting out some suggestions for measures the boys could take locally, again with a particular focus on rewilding.

After the lecture, members of QE’s new Green Council took her on a tour of the site to consider what further steps the School might itself take to build on its current success in supporting nature.

Crispin Bonham-Carter, Assistant Head (Pupil Involvement) said: “I am grateful to Lesley for sharing her expertise and delivering such a motivating assembly: I know the boys were inspired by the concept of rewilding, both at a local level, including here at the School, and more broadly across the UK and the world.

“With next month’s COP26 climate change summit in Glasgow currently in everyone’s mind, we are finding boys throughout the School are highly engaged as we explore environmental issues and look at potential solutions through our enrichment programme and through normal lessons as well.”

Lesley related some stark statistics and shocking stories to convey the gravity of the problem. She stated that:

• 200 species are lost globally every day
• Drinks company Pepsico annually uses 457,200t of palm oil, while it provides no evidence that the oil’s production has been achieved without deforestation
• Britain occupies an unenviable position as the 29^th worst-performing country globally (out of 218) in terms of depleted biodiversity
• Since 1980, 420 million birds have disappeared from the British countryside, together with 75% of invertebrates.

Her positive stories of rewilding included the reintroduction of beavers in Britain, the transformation of what was previously an intensive dairy farm into a wildlife haven that now boasts owls, bats and nightingales in abundance, and the steps taken by a number of schools to improve their sites.

On the tour of QE’s grounds following the assembly, five Green Council members from Year 8 (Zane Shah; Benjamin Newton; Jeevan Karthick Thiyagarajan; Jalal Ud-Din Farooq and Shashank Devaguptapu) showed her around, accompanied by Extra-curricular tutor Stephanie Tomlinson, who runs the School’s Eco-Network, Mr Bonham-Carter and Matthew Rose, Executive Assistant to the Headmaster and Head of Project Support Services.

Lesley explained to the party that in many cases, supporting nature better would be about doing less – allowing hedges to grow out a little, for example – and allowing nature to take its course in locations such as the periphery of fields where space is not being used.

“There seemed to be lots of scope for small initiatives that could have a positive impact and would allow interested students to get actively involved in the School’s stewardship of its grounds,” said Mr Bonham-Carter. “Generally, the site is already supporting nature quite well, she explained, so we are starting this project from a good place. We look forward to receiving her report and understanding further what would be achievable on our campus.”

The School’s new four-year development plan includes a commitment to “exercise good environmental stewardship” and to “instil a sense of responsibility for the environment in the boys”.

Two of QE’s Sixth Form climate change champions have been invited to take part in next month’s crucial COP26 global summit in Glasgow.

Their invitation to join the London Schools Eco Network (LSEN) delegation follows successful campaigning by the three QE Year 12 eco-ambassadors at an inter-schools conference.

And that event so inspired the trio that they are also helping to organise their own mock summit at QE next month to give the School’s pupils an opportunity to make their voices heard just as world leaders are gathering in Scotland.

The Eco Ambassadors – Toma Gelsinov, Rahul Doshi and Amogh Bhartia – were each tasked with representing another country at the mock COP26 summit hosted by St Paul’s Girls’ School in Hammersmith, which involved QE and 12 other schools.

Technology teacher and and Extra-curricular Enrichment Tutor Stephanie Tomlinson, who leads QE’s Green Council alongside the three sixth-formers, said: “Our Eco Ambassadors were fantastic; they spoke in front of around 50 young people across the LSEN representing their various country delegations on the intricacies of climate change by proposing an ambitious global action plan.

“I was stunned by their powerful and clear performance.”

Teams comprising pupils from different schools acted as country representatives. Rahul and his team represented Saudi Arabia, whilst Toma and Amogh spoke for India. Schools taking part included South Hampstead High School, City of London School for Boys, Harrow School, North London Collegiate School and London Academy for Excellence.

The agenda included opening statements from the country delegations, a debate to encourage more global ambition and, finally, agreement of collaborations for more action.

The evening placed a heavy emphasis on cooperation, collaboration and, most of all, negotiation – all underpinned by an understanding of the urgency of the issues involved.

“Even after meeting the targets agreed to in the Paris Agreement, the average rise in temperature will still be above the target. COP26 in Glasgow is, therefore, a vital world conference,” said Miss Tomlinson.

The inter-schools conference concluded with votes on two questions, as follows:

1. Is sufficient progress being made on all country emission targets. Delegates voted no unanimously.
2. Is your country willing to do more even beyond your current targets? This elicited a more mixed response.

QE’s own sustainability ambitions received a fillip last year with the establishment of the QE Eco Network, from which two student ambassadors, Christan Emmanuel and Aadarsh Khimasia, joined the LSEN. Their three successors this year, Toma, Rahul and Amogh, were selected from Year 12 through an application process.

The Green Council, newly formed in 2021, involves representatives from forms in Years 7-10 whose ambition it is to raise awareness and create an action plan for QE to become more sustainable and eco-friendly. Members from Years 7 & 8 are known as Eco Warriors, while those from Years 9 & 10 are Eco Representatives.

“Pupils were selected through an application process by their form tutor – we were thrilled with the sheer quantity of responses. This highlighted how much our pupils care,” added Miss Tomlinson.

“I am thrilled with the response to the Eco Network and establishment of the Green Council. As we look towards the rest of the 2020s, it is ever more important to take action. Our pupils are the driving force for that change.”

While Toma takes up a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to go to the Glasgow summit (with Rahul participating within the home-based team), the Green Council is preparing for QE’s mock summit, which will involve Years 7-10.

Thirty-five years after leaving QE, a group of rugby-loving Elizabethans returned to the School on a specially arranged visit that included an opportunity to see the current First XV in action.

The group from the class of 1986 enjoyed a sometimes-emotional day hosted by Headmaster Neil Enright: some were meeting for the first time in more than three decades, while even those who had remained in closer contact had been kept apart for the past year-and-a-half because of Covid.

Several of the 16-strong group sported new alumni rugby shirts designed by current Head of Rugby James Clarke (OE 1999–2004), which they had purchased through the School Shop. As well as the 15 old boys, all of them 1986 leavers, the visitors included the sister of Graham Dunkley OE, Gail, who was at Queen Elizabeth’s Girls’ School at a time when some lessons in the Sixth Form were mixed between the schools.

Mr Enright said: “I really enjoyed the occasion, which all sprang out of a request from one of the group, Simon Butnick, in a conversation I had with him on LinkedIn earlier this year. It was great to welcome Simon and his peers back and to see them rekindling old friendships – in some cases, for the first time since they left the School.

“With a group of this size, we were able to offer something quite bespoke – knowing they would enjoy the chance to see the First XV game and talk to the players afterwards. We look forward to having the group as active members of our alumni network and keen supporters of the School.”

Among current and former staff present were Mr Clarke, Deputy Head David Ryan, Headmaster’s PA Nicola Weston (who knew many of the visitors from her own schooldays) and Dave Maughan, who was Head of Games from 1974–2003.

The group then set off on a tour of the School, led by the Headmaster, who was assisted by QE’s new Development Officer, Sharla Worrall. There were many comments about how the campus had changed – the visitors left the School just two years after the arrival of reforming Headmaster Eamonn Harris (1984–1999) and well before the major building projects that began in the late 1990s.

Afterwards, several of the group reflected on the day on LinkedIn, with OE Jason Rush writing: “It was a great day. The First and Second XV played their hearts out and reminded us what it used to feel like to play rugby at this wonderful school. Thank you for accommodating us. We will all remain in contact.”

It was, in fact, a day of mixed fortunes for the School’s rugby teams: while the First XV lost their match, the Second XV won theirs. Other victories went to the U16A, U15A, U14B and U13B teams, while the U15B, U14A and U13A sides lost.

• The School is currently asking all alumni to spend ten minutes filling in a survey it has commissioned from independent education consultancy RSAcademics. The results will help shape the School’s offer to its former pupils in the coming years. The closing date for the survey to be completed is Monday 11^th October 2021.