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An Introduction
The first recorded formal meeting of the Old Merchant Taylors’ was a dinner at Merchant Taylors’ Hall in December 1698. Dinners were repeated at various intervals until 1808, but the great upsurge in OMT activity came a few years after the migration of the School in 1875 from Suffolk Lane to Charterhouse Square. An old boys’ lodge of freemasons, the Sir Thomas White Lodge, was consecrated in 1879 and a School Dining Club was inaugurated in 1880.
The OMT Football Club played its first rugby matches in 1882 and the Cricket Club followed thirty years later.
After the First World War, a Memorial Fund was raised, partly to provide education for the sons of fallen OMTs and partly to establish a war memorial. Land at Teddington was purchased out of the Fund, a separate fund was raised to erect a pavilion and the OMT War Memorial Sports Ground was opened in 1922. In the following year the OMT Sports Club was formed.
Following the School’s move to Sandy Lodge, the Sports Club moved its home to its present location at Durrants, Croxley Green, which was opened in 1937.
In October 1947, the School Club, the Sports Club and the Golfing Society came under the newly formed OMT Society, although each section continued to manage its own affairs. The Society thrived and by 1955 there were over 2000 members. Two squash courts were built in 1964 and hockey was introduced in 1965.
In April 1977, Durrants Club Limited was formed and took on the responsibility for the operation of the Durrants house and grounds. The Club and the sports sections were opened to non-OMTs, but the directors of the Company itself must be OMTs.
Following legal advice received in 1997, the Society and the School, with the full support of the Merchant Taylors’ Company, reached an agreement under which the freehold of Durrants will be sold and the proceeds shared after relocating the Society and the OMT sports clubs to new facilities to be built within the School grounds at Sandy Lodge. The necessary legal and planning processes have been long and complex , but are now finally nearing completion in 2009.
The Society membership world-wide is now over 3000. It has a very close and supportive relationship with the School. Dinners, reunions and other functions take place throughout the year. Every member of the Society receives its “News Sheet” magazine, which is published three times a year and provides news, announcements, reports and photographs covering the wide range of OMT activity.
In the pages of this website, there are details of future events, links to the sports clubs and the School. It will not attempt to duplicate what has been published in the “News Sheet”, but will act as an easy reference and provide updated news on a regular basis.
Comments and ideas are welcome and should be sent to jim@milnet.uk.net