The Richian is the school's official magazine which is generally published at least once a year. It summarises the events and happenings, endeavours and successes of school life, both inside and outside the classroom, frequently interspersed with examples of student work - poems, prose, graphics, artwork, etc. The Richian magazine often includes contributions from the Old Richians Association and Richian Alumni, providing interesting detail about those who have left school, with news of who's doing what and where.

While contributions come from all members of the school community, students and staff alike, final editorial responsibilities have usually fallen to an interested or appointed member of staff, although at times it has been due solely to the efforts of a committee of senior pupils that have defined the layout and content of a particular edition. In fact up until the late 1980s the process of putting together the annual edition of The Richian belonged very much to a small but talented team of student editors from the upper school with the Staff Editor only gently guiding or prompting as fit.

The first printed school magazines rolled from the presses in July 1909 as The Plutonian - the name derived from Plutus, the Ancient Greek god of 'Rich(e)s', as is explained in his erudite and somewhat magisterial editorial by R W Cushing BA Oxon. Costing just sixpence (6d) it was available from the school as well as from Messrs Davies & Son, Booksellers and Stationers, Northgate Street and Messrs G Harris & Sons, Outfitters, Southgate Street. Unfortuantely, the school archive possesses no subsequent school magazine editions post this first one of 1909 until 1921, when its title The Plutonian was for a while subceded by The Rich's School Magazine. In 1926 The Plutonian returned until it became The Gloucester Blue between the school years of 1930 to 1935. From 1936 it reverted somewhat to be called the Sir Thomas Rich's School Magazine and perhaps surprisingly continued with its termly editions throughout the war years, although these were published without the frivolous expense of the usual heavier weighted and stylised cover and bearing the subtitle War Edition, latterly with the war edition's number.

Post war, no doubt in an era of renewal and optimism, the school magazine changed its name once again and in the summer 1946 The Richian was born. It still continued as a termly publication until 1951 when its absence from the school archives suggests a break in publication (if anyone knows otherwise please contact the school) until it reappeared as six annual publications (1955/6 to 1960/1) before seeing through most of the swinging sixties as a twice yearly publication. Economic considerations reduced The Richian to an annual publication and as such it remained until 2007, when no member of staff could be found (or press-ganged!) into taking up the editorial reigns. Deputy Headmaster Mike Seales provided the impetus to resurrect The Richian for three superbly glossy editions from 2010 before the magazine suffered an identity crisis, merging with the School Newsletter as a half-termly colour brochure. In December 2014 The Richian re-emerged, but not able to live up to its intended termly publication strategy, it stuttered with none produced in 2016 and just the one hitting the presses in 2017. It was only then that the bullet was bitten by hiring professional graphics design skills with the prime responsibility of meeting at least a twice yearly publication schedule for the magazine.

Over the years the school magazine has seen many changes since its first issue as 'The Plutonian' back in 1909, with its style and format benefitting from the technical advances of the printing industry since its first publication. At the turn of the millennium (2000), advances in technology enabled more of the editorial and compositional processes in creating a full colour publication to be carried out "in-house" on a personal computer running industry standard graphics design software, to the extent that the editor at this time was himself able to produce the fully completed editions in electronic format ready for the printing company to commence its production runs. Thus prior to 2000 The Richian magazines in this archive are the retrospectively scanned images of the original paper copy, whereas from 2000 onwards they are the electronic masters presented in pdf format.

A good dozen years into the new millenium it became clear that a professional publication required not only top quality professional printing services but also, and more importantly, the appointment of a non-teaching specialist with editorial responsibilities for producing The Richian to deadline. A review of content and focus was also undertaken, as the magazine had to bridge the school website's quite static "corporate" information and the rapidity of news posting associated with its social media feeds. It took a few years for this to be comfortably established within the working life of the school.

At time of writing this is where things stand. What the future holds, remains to be seen.

Original printed copies of practically all issues of the school magazine, from The Richian right back to the original The Plutonian are held in the School Archive, which is housed in the Learning Resource & Sixth Form Centre, and may be viewed by appointment.

We hope you enjoy browsing these online versions and discovering the Rich's - and Riches - of yester-year.

Phil Brown
March 2020

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 The Richian - 2018 onwards

Editor & Production: Sara Vielvoye

With Linda Herron's departure the newly appointed Marketing, Communications & Events Manager Sara Vielvoye took on board the responsibility for the production of The Richian, adopting a focus in content to complement and bridge the freshly redesigned school website and the school's social media feeds.

The first few Richians published under Sara's Editorship are available below. From 2020 onwards The Richian can be found on the main school website under the Parents Section, School Magazines.

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 The Richian - 2014 to 2017

Production: Linda Herron
Editorial Assistance: Rachel Sargeant

December 2014 saw the launch of the 'new' school magazine, which combined the Newsletter and The Richian, with an intended publication rate of one edition every term. However, limited resources and staffing only saw five issues hit the presses during this period. In addition, the new social media presence of Sir Thomas Rich's on Facebook and Twitter prompted the questioning of the future of a 'traditional' school magazine.

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 Sir Thomas Rich's Newsletters - 2011 to 2014

Editor & Production: Linda Herron

By the end of 2010 the termly school Newsletter, had grown in quality and content, continuing to be produced for distribution to boys and parents, as regularly as every half term during the academic year 2012 to 2013. It was even considered at this point that the Newsletter, now being printed externally by a professional printing company, could be a fitting replacement for The Richian magazine. Here below are the 9 editions of the Newsletter that were published during this time.

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 The Richian - 2010 to 2013

Editor: Mike Seales
Production: Linda Herron

After an interval of 4 years without publication, The Richian eventually returned thanks to the persistance of Deputy Head Mike Seales and his cohort of Sixth Form volunteers, ably assisted by Linda Herron in the Administration Office, whose skills with the publishing software converted piles of student gathered copy into polished and professional-looking publications, ready for Severn Print to do their stuff. Flicking through these 3 superbly produced 'glossy magazine' publications reveals how much material was increasingly being duplicated from the professional looking half-termly newsletters, prompting questions over the future viability of The Richian.

The interim period 2007 to 2010 of Richian absence was partially filled by the termly in-house produced newsletter being promoted to a multipage colour leaflet (including photographs), which also helped develop the DTP skills and confidence in the Administration team in preparation for work on the more complete Richian publication.

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 The Richian 2007

Editorial Team: The students themselves
Staff Editor: Simon Pickard
Production: Julie Austin

This lovely one-off production not only returned to the larger format A4 page but also saw the return to a student editorial team being responsible for the compilation of the magazine. Its delayed publication only served however to highlight those issues already discovered by Pauline Smith in the late Eighties - that meeting strict deadlines with scant dedicated resources was nigh on impossible in the increasingly busy and academically success-focused environmentment of the school. (Especially when the editorial team have important examination periods to complete, leaving straight afterwards for pastures new at a key moment in the magazine's path towards publication!)

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 The Richian - 2000 to 2006

Editor & Production:   Phil Brown
Printed by: Jonah Graphics  &  Severnprint Ltd

Building on the good results of his predecessor Peter Lloyd, who held the editorial reins during the nineties, Phil brought his skills with industry standard graphics design and publishing software and procedures to the The Richian, turning the traditional, and mainly monotone, 'school magazine' formula into professional publications which were colourful and informative summaries celebrating the annual cycle of life at Rich's.

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 The Richian - 1992 to 1999

Editor:   Peter Lloyd
Designed by: Anne & Peter Lloyd
Printed by: AM.PM Printing (Former Pupil Andrew Bartlett)

With a change in format to a more budget-friendly A5 page size, The Richian began to benefit from the new desktop computer technology that was becoming more readily accessible in schools and at home. With his good lady wife helping with the design and (onerous!) proof-reading tasks, Peter was able to make use of its word processing and desk top publishing software to define style and layout of magazine articles prior to print-setting, with the electronic transfer of text and images dramatically shortening the liaison stage with the print company. At the expense of the student editorial committee, Peter could exercise more direct control over the assimilation and collation of articles and as a result The Richian quickly developed its own uniformity of style, layout and content. Although the unique artwork that often characterised earlier hand-scripted editions of the magazine was all but absent, the uniformity of the typesetting, sprinkled with a liberal amount of the newly available (and cheeky) 'clipart', in many ways more than compensated for it. Most photo images remained monotone but their reproduction quality in printing was generally greatly improved. The increasing availability of digital photographs towards the Millennium also added value to the process as well as the end product. Under Peter's editorship The Richian was packed with informative and celebratory articles from all areas of the school's life and community - a particular nicety were his articles looking back at the life and times of Sir Thomas Rich's through the Decades.

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 The Richian - 1986 to 1991

Staff Editor:   Pauline Smith

During this period The Richian took on a more professional gloss. Although the 32 page A4 size format was maintained (except the 1987 edition which came in with a non-standard size), the matt paper gave way to glossy (perhaps indicative of a different printing method and which enabled better reproduction of an increasing number of black-and-white photographs), some new 'features' such as the Short Story Competition were inaugurated (which promoted greater interest and involvement from students) and the role (staff) editorial advisor became 'Staff Editor', with Pauline Smith taking a more hands-on involvement in the final make-up of the magazine, which perhaps started the decline of the Student Editorial team as the main driving force and decision making body behind the magazine's design concept and content. The advent of the school's first computer suite also saw the involvement of many pupils word processing articles and reports.

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 The Richian - 1977 to 1985

Staff Editorial Advisor:   George Haynes

These editions of The Richian fall well into the category of '... devised, designed, created and compiled by ...' (mainly) 6th form students. The highlight of each edition is the fantastic and sublime artwork - unique line art, freehand drawings and sketches (of a very high quality) complementing nearly every page. It is very difficult to make comparison with the much later colourful photo-packed editions but in many respects these Richians display a far greater and more natural creativity. Each year English teacher George Haynes would gather a small but dedicated editorial team to produce the annual edition of the school magazine, limited only by a few parameters such as the affordable practicality of the final printing & publication process. The end results definitely belong to the students although as one editor did write: ''Mr. Haynes does think up new and original ways of presenting this magazine long before anyone else becomes involved. This does not mean, however, that our creativity is denied. He carefully manipulates us so that he's always right!''

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 The Richian - 1970 to 1976

Staff Editorial Advisor:   Donald Moss

With the Editorial quoting "...for reasons of economy ..." these editions from 1970 onwards became annual publications rather than the hitherto bi-annual offerings.

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  The Richian - 1962 to 1969

Staff Editorial Advisor:   Donald Moss

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  The Richian - 1955 to 1961

Awaiting document scanning & upload

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  The Richian - 1951 to 1955

There appears to have been no editions of The Richian produced during this period.

If anyone knows anything to the contrary (and are even able to provide this archive with any missing editions), then we would welcome hearing from you.

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  The Richian - 1946 to 1951

Awaiting document scanning & upload

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  Sir Thomas Rich's School Magazine - 1936 to 1946

Awaiting document scanning & upload

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  The Gloucester Blue - 1930 to 1935

Awaiting document scanning & upload

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  The Plutonian - 1926 to 1930

Awaiting document scanning & upload

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  The Rich's School Magazine - 1921 to 1925

Awaiting document scanning & upload

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  The Plutonian - First Issue 1909

Editor:   R W Cushing   BA Oxon

The Plutonian Vol 1 No 1 appears to be the first ever official printed school magazine.

While we feel certain that this was not effectively a 'one-off' publication - due to the Editor writing in his Editorial that this was to be initially a twice annual publication with the hope/intention to progress to a termly one - there exist in the school archive no subsequent editions after this first one, until (with its change of name) The Rich's School Magazine appeared in 1921. While the tragedy of the Great War might have interrupted continuing plans for The Plutonian, we feel sure that there must have been printed some editions from the pre-war years. Although The Plutonian does reappear in the school archive between 1926 and 1930, we would very much like to know and hopefully obtain copies of any editions following the first edition of 1909, of which we have just the single copy.

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