Samuel Harvey Reynolds

Samuel Harvey Reynolds (1831 – 7 February 1897) was the first pupil of Radley College and later became a renowned divine, journalist and man of letters.

He was the eldest son of Samuel Reynolds, F.R.C.S., a surgeon from Stoke Newington. He entered at Blundell's School in Tiverton on 6 February 1846, but left the following June. On the foundation of Radley College, in 1847, he became the second of only two pupils (the first to register was George Melhuish) when the school opened on 17 August 1847. In 1897 he wrote and published posthumously his reminiscences of the school. In it he described the terrible rioting, and ensuing beatings meted out by the bespectacled Warden. For a long time he remained the oldest boy in the school to whom Singleton and the other Fellows looked for responsibility towards the younger pupils. Boys ignored the Warden's censure to prayer, which he hid a multitude of bad habits and "inattention". He was scathing of Singleton's "treatment of his boys" although he had never actually been delegated duty as a Prefect.

In 1850 Reynolds was awarded a scholarship to Exeter College at Oxford, placed in the first-class degree in classics at moderations at Michaelmas 1852, and in the first class in literae humaniores at Easter 1854. In 1853 he obtained the Newdigate Prize and the Chancellor's English Essay Prize, his theme being 'The Ruins of Egyptian Thebes.'

On 2 February 1855 Reynolds was elected probationer fellow of Brasenose College, and actual fellow on 2 February 1856. He edited Bacon's essays and wrote Notes on the Iliad. He afterwards became tutor and bursar of the college. In 1856 he obtained the chancellor's prize for an English essay on ' The Reciprocal Action of the Physical and Moral Condition of Countries upon each other.' He proceeded M.A. in 1857.

Intending to be called to the bar, Reynolds was admitted a student of Lincoln's Inn on 23 October 1858, and for some time read in the chambers of equity counsel. Following an accident which injured his eyesight he abandoned the law and returned to residence in Brasenose. In 1860 he took deacon's orders. He devoted himself to college work, and filled in succession the offices of Latin lecturer, tutor, and bursar.

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