Halstead Declamations

Our Sixth Form scholars opened the Summer Term by competing in the annual Halstead Declamations.

Originally called Sixth Form Speeches, the traditional event dates back to the founding of the College in the 19th Century and became a formal event in 1940. The name Halstead refers to General John Halstead, the father of a Bradfieldian who founded the competition.

The event is hosted by the Head Girl and Head Boy who compete alongside fellow scholars and are judged on their spoken delivery, understanding and engagement of a piece of prose or poetry that they have selected themselves. Speeches can be in any language and on any subject.

This year saw a wide variety of speeches with scholars portraying the fragility of Elizabeth Eckford in her Little Rock High School interview, the emotion and anger of Charlie Chaplin in an extract from The Great Dictator, the remarkable humility of Malala Yousafzai in her riposte to the Taliban and a very entertaining version of Rowan Atkinson’s ironic and condescending warm welcome speech from one of his 1990s stand up performances.

Headmaster Dr Christopher Stevens had the difficult task of judging the competition and congratulated the scholars on “the high quality of all the fascinating, insightful and stirring speeches.” After taking some time to deliberate, Dr Stevens awarded the prize to Louie (D) for his authentic and engaging recitation of Mark Henick’s Why We Choose Suicide.