The War Years

Nineteen-thirty-seven marked a very special year for Shawnigan Lake School as, in the words of the editors of the Shawnigan Lake School Magazine that year, the School had come of age. The School had been running for 21 years and the graduates from the last two decades had dispersed far and wide across the globe. 

 

However, a sense of unease hung in the air as whispers of conflict and strife began to emerge. While war had not been declared in any country, aggression was on the rise and Shawnigan got news of a casualty all the way in Shanghai. On December 31, 1936, Sgt. Eric Murray Slater of the Shanghai Municipal Police was shot and killed. He had been at the School from 1925 to 1930 and was captain of cricket, captain of football, winner of many boxing awards, a School Prefect, and Head of School during his time at Shawnigan. His loss was shocking and at the time seemed unfathomable. 

 

Just one year later, the seventh form boys of the School, who were a scant 12 or 13 years old, wrote a moving piece in the School Magazine about Armistice Day. The opening and closing lines of the essay speak volumes about hope for continued peace and the underlying fear that was beginning to root. The essay begins with the line “Twenty years after the Armistice a new generation has grown up, a generation unborn when the Great War ended,” and ends with “I think that we should observe Armistice Day as long as possible – if we do ever get caught in another war, nobody will be left to keep Armistice Day – civilization will be wiped out.” The words seem almost prophetic now as we know now that just months after that edition of the magazine was published, Canada would join another world war, and the boys who had been born in the interwar period of peace would learn first-hand what war meant.

 

Between 1939 and 1945, almost 400 Shawnigan Old Boys enlisted during the Second World War, and 44 of them would never come home. We remember them each year on Remembrance Day and honour the ultimate sacrifice that they made. Their deaths were not ignored, forgotten, or unreported, as C.W. Lonsdale would keep track of each point of enlistment, regiment change, and death on the student cards he kept. Every change was written by his hand, and those same cards have been preserved to this day as a remarkable show of loyalty he felt towards each of his boys. Beyond that, every Old Boy who enlisted or died was recorded in the School Magazines during the war years as these magazines would be sent out not just to current students but to other graduates. For many, these magazines were the only way they would be able to keep track of the friends they had made and the fates that befell them.

 

The end of the Second World War on September 2, 1945 did not mark the end of struggle. During the war years, Shawnigan’s student population fluctuated wildly and saw the arrival of British boys who were seeking shelter and the flight of local boys whose parents withdrew their sons from the School. At its lowest point, in September of 1943, the School population had dropped to a mere 56 students. Lonsdale himself made pleas to his Old Boys to remember Shawnigan as they went about their lives and to think fondly of the School as they themselves had children. 

 

It had been the hope that after the end of the Second World War that the world would settle into peace, and there was a great effort on the part of the School to return to “normal.” It was with a remorseful note then that the 1950s saw the rise of the Cold War and the Korean War, the latter of which some Old Boys also fought in. It is important to note though that while the outside world was working towards destruction, there was a real effort to keep the lives of the boys steady while they were at the School. School Magazines from 1937 to 1957 report on the normal achievements of the boys from sports matches won, successful matriculation, marriages, births, and the general success of the student body. At the end of the day, the School was a safe haven that kept the boys protected even as the world closed in.

 

It would be remiss, though, to write of these decades and not mention an event that put a fine point on this era of turbulent change: the death of C.W. Lonsdale. The stalwart founder of Shawnigan Lake School passed away on August 3, 1952, in Penticton, BC after a drawn-out, but private, struggle with his health. He had officially retired from his position as Headmaster at the end of the previous school year and it was alarming to all, students, staff, and Old Boys alike, to learn of his passing. To them, it seemed like the death of a giant whose life was synonymous with Shawnigan Lake School, and for one to exist without the other was nearly unfathomable. Mr. Peter G. Kaye took on the mantle of Headmaster at a time when the School was reeling with the loss of its founder, the end of World War II, and economic hardships. Mr. Kaye believed in the School and worked tirelessly to continue C.W. Lonsdale’s legacy. Through sheer will and good sense, Mr. Kaye was able to build up the School’s student population to 140 pupils by 1956 and had a full staff employed at the School.

 

The School seemed to be reaching a new stride at the end of its fourth decade while learning how to exist without its founder. One can imagine that there were a lot of questions about whether Shawnigan Lake School would continue to exist without C.W. Lonsdale and we can say now, shortly after marking our anniversary, that the School was able to evolve and grow from C.W. Lonsdale’s legacy.