N o .125
T he T rusty S ervant
Winchester Classics:
a former Head of Department looks back.
Stephen Anderson (Head of Classics, 84-
08) considers some of the ways in which the
department changed as it gradually moved
from an older Wykehamical world into one
more recognisably modern:
When William of Wykeham founded
Winchester College in 1382, his express
purpose was to provide for his Oxford
college, (New College, founded in 1379)
a regular supply of pupils well grounded
in Latin. Latin can therefore with some
justification claim to be the school’s
senior academic subject. Indeed, for
nearly 600 years, along with Greek and
Mathematics, it constituted the staple
of a Wykehamical education, and so it
is the more surprising to discover that
the Classics department, as such, didn’t
formally come into existence until as late
as 1960.
For the first four and a half centuries of
its history, Winchester remained more or
less the same. By as late as 1830 there may
have been a few more pupils here, and a
little less daily religion, but, essentially, a
boy’s experience was much the same as
his mediaeval predecessor’s had been: he
rose as early as 5.30 am with no hope of
any breakfast until about 10; and most of
his time in lessons, the responsibility still
of only a very few masters, was, as it had
been from the foundation, devoted to the
study of Latin.
The nineteenth and twentieth centuries
were to be the years of expansion and
progress, partly in response to various
Acts of Parliament, most notably the
Public Schools’ Act of 1868 following
the Clarendon Commission of 1862,
but more especially the result of the far-
sighted reforms of great headmasters, in
particular George Ridding (1867-84),
dubbed the ‘Second Founder’, as they
reacted to the ever-changing educational
climates around them, but with a steady
determination to retain the best of what
had gone before.
Even so, until around the mid-twentieth
century Latin still retained a centrally
important position in a Wykehamist’s
education. It was still a div subject in the
Lower School, a boy’s progress through
the ranks depended on his success in it,
and most dons, who were largely Classics
graduates anyway, taught it. Specialist
VI Book work was the preserve of a very
small number of senior dons, usually
including the Headmaster, and under
his control. Indeed, as late as the early
1980s most Lower School Latin, by
now, admittedly, organised in sets rather
than divs, and some Greek too, was
still taught by general teachers drawn
from other departments, and bona fide
members of the Classics Department
(only four or five in number) would
expect perhaps to fill in a few holes here,
but to teach largely in Senior Part and VI
Book, the last three years in the school.
The present writer was the last don to be
appointed on this ticket.
But I get ahead of myself. The towering
figure over Winchester’s Classics in the
mid-twentieth century was JB Poynton,
a Wykehamist himself (Coll, 13–19) and
a sometime Fellow of Corpus Christi
College, Oxford. As div don of the senior
classical division, known as Sen Div or
VIA1, he held a naturally authoritative
position, and, as the years moved on,
found himself more and more fulfilling
the role of a Head of Department in
terms of organisa tion and administration.
But it was not until 1960, when he
formally retired (though he still did some
teaching afterwards), that his colleague
and former pupil, JG (Johnny) Stow,
9
(Coll, 37-4), became the first officially
appointed Head of the newly created
Department of Classics. In all only five
people have held this post: JG Stow (60-
69 and 79-84), JP Sabben-Clare (69-79),
SP Anderson (84-08), JP Spencer (09-
17) and SJ Harden (17-).
The department which I entered
in 1980 and took over in 1984 very
definitely belonged to a former age: all
sets at all levels changed both don and
boy personnel every term; apart from
actual classical texts, no text book of
any kind was used at any level, and the
Lower School in particular, where most
of the teaching was still done by non-
specialist dons, was awash with sheets of
paper produced on the Banda or Roneo
machines (the photocopier hadn’t yet
been heard of); complicated sets of
marks (I never really understood how
they were generated) were handed in
centrally twice a term, forming the basis
of removes (div changes), which could
– and did – happen at any time; the
timing of O Levels was a moveable feast
in almost every subject (I discovered
three weeks into my first term that one
of my sets was taking the exam in just a
month’s time); three books were taught
for A Level in a dreadful rush, the last
only started at the beginning of the term
in which the exams themselves took
place; bad results at both O and A Levels
were the norm, as the only external
examination treated with any seriousness
was Oxbridge Entrance, taken a term
after A Levels (the old, so-called seventh
term); boys chose their own tasktime
dons (I, with novelty on my side, had 11
such pupils in my first term, whilst some
others in the department had none); and
no Classical Society existed, nor were
there any foreign trips to either Greece
or Rome.