N o .125
T he T rusty S ervant
Colin Badcock
(Coll, 39-43; Co Ro, 49-76; Fellow, 77-92)
Address given by Rupert Hill (F, 67-72) at
the memorial service in Chapel on Saturday,
20 th January, 2018.
From our Wykehamical viewpoint, this
story begins on 22 nd September 1939,
when Warden Baker admitted to the
Foundation the new Scholars on the
1939 Election Roll. 11 th on that Roll was
one Colin Francis Badcock. That date
marks the start of the lifelong association
with Winchester College, as Scholar,
don, housedon, Fellow, Sub-Warden and
– by no means least – benefactor, which
we celebrate today.
Colin was a relatively old ‘new man’
when he arrived: he reached his 14 th
birthday within a month of arrival.
He was the younger son of Paymaster
Captain Kenneth Badcock RN and his
wife Frances, who was the daughter of a
Newfoundland judge. His elder brother
David followed the more traditional
Dartmouth route into the Navy, but
was killed aged 18 as a Midshipman on
HMS Neptune, a light cruiser, when she
was lost with all hands bar one in an
Italian minefield in the Mediterranean
in December 1941. Neither Frances nor
Colin ever referred to David. He had
no other sibling, and, apart from one
very elderly cousin still living in North
America, there is no known surviving
family.
Captain Badcock was one of four
brothers. All the other three remained
bachelors – as Colin was wont to say,
‘We Badcocks never marry… [pause, and
then just before a “But Sir..?”] except my
father.’ Captain Badcock had a uniquely
distinguished career for a ‘Pusser’, serving
as Secretary to Commodore Tyrwhitt of
the Harwich Force throughout the Great
War, and winning both a DSO and a
DSC. He remained Tyrwhitt’s Secretary
until Tyrwhitt’s retirement as C-in-C,
The Nore, in 1933 and promotion to
Admiral of the Fleet, and himself retired
just before the outbreak of the Second
World War.
Colin came to Winchester from
Stubbington House School outside
Fareham – now long closed, but then
known as the ‘cradle of the Navy’ for
its pre-eminence in passing boys into
the Senior Service. Other things being
equal, I am sure that Colin would have
followed David to Dartmouth and into
the Navy. It is our good fortune that
other things were not equal, and that
perceptive staff at Stubbington House
advised Captain Badcock that the boy
was bright enough for a Winchester
scholarship. So instead of the Navy,
Colin tried for a scholarship here, and
succeeded. Many years later, when Colin
was a junior don and running a CCF
course on public speaking, a mischievous
member of the class, quite unaware of
Colin’s origins, suggested ‘Stubbing one’s
toe’ as the subject matter for a three-
minute impromptu speech – to which
Colin’s typically quick riposte was ‘I’m
well-qualified to speak on this subject –
I’m an Old Stubbingtonian.’
I will not recite all the details of Colin’s
time as a Scholar: the essentials are
faithfully recorded in that invaluable
work, the OW Register, of whose Sixth
Edition he himself was the co-editor.
What the Register cannot record are
his resulting love of Winchester and
the lifelong friendships made, both in
College itself and in the school at large.
Names are almost invidious, but I think
immediately of Johnny Stow, Henry
Lambert, John Corrie and my own father,
all in College, and all later inflicting a
gaggle of godchildren on Colin.
3
From Winchester, in January 1944, Colin
went, perhaps inevitably, to the Navy.
One can only imagine what Frances
Badcock must have felt as her younger
son joined the same Service as the one in
which his elder brother had died barely
two years before. He joined up at HMS
Collingwood on the same day as Henry
Lambert, and another recruit who, 74
years later, has written this tribute to
Colin’s Executor: ‘I was made the head of
our group... I was given two Wykehamists
as my deputies. One was Colin. I had
come from a humble background and
had not even gone to a grammar school,
so I found it slightly embarrassing to
have two impressive public school boys
under me. Colin could well have made it
difficult, but he did quite the reverse: he
lived up to the ideal of Manners Makyth
Man.’
Sub-Lieutenant Badcock RNVR was
demobbed in 1946, and went up to
Hertford, Oxford with a scholarship.
He took a Second in Mods, but before
he got to Greats he was recruited to
the Winchester staff in 1949 by Walter
Oakeshott, who needed an urgent plug
for the hole left by John Dancy’s illness.
‘But I haven’t got a degree,’ said Colin.
‘Never mind that,’ said Oakeshott. ‘Take
a War Degree and come anyway’ – which
Colin duly did.
Colin spent the next 13 years as a
don, latterly living with his mother in
Blackbridge House, which they both
loved, another 14 years in Chawker’s,
and then 15 years as a Fellow. It is a
remarkable record, and I am not going
to attempt to describe it in detail: many
of you will have your own recollections
of your encounters with Colin over
that time. You may have been a
Chawkerite; you may have been in his
A-ladder div; you may have been on
Arch:Soc: expeditions to the Classical