Many of the prizes awarded at our Senior and Junior Prizegiving's carry the names of Old Boys and are funded from endowments left to the School through the years.

The Jack Birdling Memorial Scholarship is currently awarded for Year 12 History.

Jack Birdling was a student at Christchurch Boys’ High School in 1906 and 1907. This year marks 100 years since his death at the Battle of the Somme in 1916 – his descendants contacted the School on the anniversary of his death to alert us to this.

Lieutenant Arthur John Ware (Jack) Birdling was an officer in the Canterbury Mounted Rifles and later the Canterbury Infantry Regiment and was part of the Sixth Reinforcements sent to Europe in 1915. Upon his death, his mother received several letters from his friends and commanding officers.

Brigadier W. G Braithwaite comments - “I knew your boy very well indeed and admired his sterling qualities. He was a first-class regimental officer and his commanding officer always spoke of him to me in the highest regard.”

Major John Studholme wrote “His was that happy sunny nature that springs from goodness of heart. He seemed to always do the right thing and avoid the wrong instinctively….His men simply loved him, though he was a good officer and would not overlook bad work or slackness.”

The School Magazine of April 1917 includes a note from the War Office “that the officer was mentioned in a despatch from Field-Marshall Sir Douglas Haig, dated April 9th, for gallant and distinguished service in the field.”

From the School Magazine of 1933:

“The Jack Birdling Memorial Scholarship.-This Scholarship, which was awarded in 1925 for the first time, has been founded by the parents of an Old Boy, Jack Birdling, who was killed in the Great War. The Scholarship, which is worth approximately ten pounds, is tenable for one year, but a scholar is not debarred from competing again. It is awarded on the results of an examination in prescribed portions of Imperial History, and all boys are eligible as competitors. The subject for this year is: The British in India.”

A century after his death, the School still honours Jack Birdling, a man who would always ‘do the right thing.’