History Trip, November 2012

Wellington College has only been open for just over a year and yet, in this comparatively short time, the College has established an enviable reputation for its sense of the past, amongst both staff and pupils. This is a school where pupils are encouraged to develop an interest, even passion, for history. This is perhaps not surprising, given the historic nature of Wellington College in the UK as the national memorial to possibly the country’s greatest military figure, the Duke of Wellington, and to the location of the College in the historic city of Tianjin,  overlooking the 2000-year-old Grand Canal.

Pupils at Wellington study many historic topics and periods, drawn from all over the world, and, in common with this global approach, forty pupils and four teachers embarked upon Wellington’s first History Trip, to Germany, Poland and the Czech Republic in November 2012. Following a brief stop-over visit to the all-too modern Dubai icons of the Burj Al Arab and the Burj Khalifa, the world’s tallest building, the party arrived in the German capital, Berlin. Here sites visited included the Brandenburg Gate, the Olympic stadium and that symbol of the Cold War and a divided Germany, Checkpoint Charlie. For many of the pupils, the Cold War and the Third Reich have featured prominently in the History courses they have at Wellington. The later theme continued in Poland, where a day was spent at the infamous Nazi concentration camp of Auschwitz. The trip ended in Prague, where the highlights included the imposing hill-top castle, St. Vitus Cathedral and the magnificent medieval city centre. Though many of the pupils admitted they also liked Prague because it gave them lots of opportunities for shopping!

The intention is to make the History Trip an annual event and plans are already in the making for a trip next year to north-eastern France, Belgium and Holland, which would include visits to Paris, Bruges, Amsterdam and, only too fitting for Wellington pupils, the site of the Duke of Wellington’s great victory over Napoleon at Waterloo.