Winchester in his Veins: P A T R I C K
MACLURE
‘I’ve been investigating you,’ Patrick Maclure
announces when I call at our agreed time for
our interview, and I’m momentarily terrified.
Has he discovered my deepest, darkest secrets?
U
nfortunately,’ he continues, ‘I couldn’t
find much as you have a blank entry in
The Register. He pauses meaningfully:
‘although I see your brother managed to respond.’
The Register, a Who’s Who of Wykehamists,
Fellows and dons, is published intermittently, the
current edition being the Seventh since 1907 and
masterminded by Patrick. I apologise for my lapse,
and he gives a dry chuckle. It seems I’m off the hook.
But this brief exchange, I soon realise, is emblematic
of his approach. Behind the schoolmasterly mock-
firmness is a seriousness of purpose: he’ll turn 80 in
March, yet his first instinct on talking to an OW is
to advocate for projects like this – filling in the gaps
that will allow for closer cooperation. I know from
my own research that sometimes even the smallest
of details can allow things to click into place and help
make new connections; suitably chastened, I resolve
not to ignore any future requests for information
from the school.
In his tweed jacket and trademark corduroy
trousers – often red or vivid green – Patrick has
been a familiar figure around the paths and corridors
of the school for several decades. Born just outside
Winchester in March 1939, he went to prep school
Horris Hill near Newbury, before taking his place at
Hopper’s. On leaving Win Coll, he did his National
Service with the Green Jackets, who were garrisoned
in Winchester, after which he taught French and ran
the football at Horris Hill for nearly 20 years, as well
as acting as Bursar.
After nearly 10 years as Bursar of Downe
House, he left for a brief spell as a head-hunter in
the publishing industry, but was soon head-hunted
himself, by Sir Jeremy Morse, (K, 1942-46) then
Warden of Winchester. ‘Jeremy knew I was slightly
at a loose end at that point in my life, and that I had
40 The Wykeham Journal 2018
He realised that the British
habit for extreme modesty
would have to be set aside.
lots of connections with the place, so he thought
I’d be useful and asked me to come back to
the school.’ He returned in 1989, aged 50,
and hasn’t left since.
His job was wide-ranging: he was, he says,
a kind of ‘amanuensis’, a roaming aide to the
Headmaster and Warden, advising on various
projects behind the scenes. In those days, marketing
and self-promotion were almost dirty words in public
schools, and ‘networking’ a concept that had not yet
been fully recognised. The school had carried out
a few concerted fund-raising appeals in previous
decades, which had usually taken the form of OWs
being asked to write to their contemporaries to
see if they might be interested in donating. Patrick
received such a letter himself within a month of
leaving the school in 1957: ‘I responded with a
seven-year Deed of Covenant for five pounds,
which ate into my monthly National Service
salary of 30 pounds!’
His commitment to becoming familiar with
every aspect of the school’s history and culture were
to prove an enormous boon in the coming years. He
realised ahead of others in similar positions at other
famous institutions that the British habit for extreme
modesty would have to be set aside if the school were
to develop to its full potential in the long-term.
Simply writing letters asking for donations was not
in itself going to be enough – nor would it add much
to the community, an aspect he was especially keen
to change. ‘We had to entertain, and we had to give
something back,’ he says.