No. 125
The Trusty Servant
The gradual modernisation of the department fully occupied most of my first decade in post. That may seem a long time, but it was necessary festinare lente, in order to make changes seem organic and integrated, and to keep revolt at bay, given that the initial reaction to any suggestion for change, however slight, would often be‘ over my dead body’! Still, more or less we got there in the end, and by 2009, when I finally handed over the reins, we had moved fully into the twentieth century, and were even knocking on the door of the twenty-first: all teaching, or virtually all, was in the hands of specialists; at all levels carefully constructed sets stayed together for at least a year, or sometimes, for continuity’ s sake, longer, and there were many fewer changes of don; the timings of public examinations had become fixed, so that there was coherent progress towards them; defined syllabuses were in place and professionally produced textbooks were used at all levels; and, to cater for wider interests in the classical world, there was a flourishing Classical Society and, at Easter, regular trips travelled abroad to Greece, Italy or Turkey. Quantum mutatus ab illo!
Just two things deserve special mention from my years in charge. The first is the publication in 2002, by John Falconer( Co Ro, 78-14) and Thomas Mannack of the Beazley Archive, Oxford, of the school’ s collection of Greek vases. Originally acquired as part of the college’ s five hundredth anniversary celebrations, these had been neglected for many years, but eventually in 1983 found a permanent home in the new Treasury, a mediaeval beer cellar converted into a tiny museum. Falconer’ s careful work in displaying them there and producing a catalogue bore eventual fruit in the publication of a fine volume in the Corpus Vasorum Antiquorum series, easily the most scholarly work to have emerged from Winchester’ s Classics Department in living memory – a real κτῆμα ἐς αἰεί.
And then there is A Level Ancient History, a subject which in 1984 had, at best, no more than an off-the-timetable half-life. I was convinced that in a department with such a high national profile this third classical subject should be established on a surer footing. It took some time; but by the early 90s, with Coralie Ovenden’ s help, I had set up a one-year AS Level with at least some timetabled lessons, and, as time moved on this became at first one set fully in the timetable, and later two separate sets. This was a successful enterprise with a good number of students and fine results. Unfortunately, our success was short-lived: some doctrinaire curricular re-organisation in 2010, after the introduction of Pre-U rather than A Level, summarily discontinued the subject, since when it has had no formal part in our arrangements. The decision to banish A Level Ancient History from Winchester’ s curriculum was a misguided mistake: the sooner the situation is rectified, the better.
The world, of course, didn’ t come to an end on 31 st December, 2008, and, as the department continued to adapt to the necessities of an ever-changing educational landscape, there were many glories still to come. I think particularly of Andrew Leigh’ s Winchester Latin Course and Winchester Greek Course, so wonderfully illustrated by John Falconer, of Julian Spencer’ s series of genial and informative trips to a variety of classical lands, of the Treasury’ s move to new and improved premises in the old Warden’ s Stables, and of Sarah Harden’ s production of Sophocles’ Oedipus Tyrannus, the department’ s first full-scale venture into the performance of Greek tragedy; but these are all parts of another story, and someone else must tell it.
No innovation?
18 th-century Classics at Win Coll under the Hated Huntingford
Tim Giddings examines Warden Huntingford’ s methods of teaching Classics, and finds him a man unduly disparaged.
George Isaac Huntingford( 1748-1832) is one of the most controversial figures in our history. School historian AF Leach called him‘ an unpardonable mix of feebleness and falseness’, and Budge Firth excoriated him as‘ a lickspittle to the great and a bully to the young, a pedant, a liar and a cheat’. He trod the usual Wykehamical path from College( elected 1762) to New College, and returned to Win Coll as Commoner Tutor in 1770. He advanced through the posts of assistant master and then fellow before leaving to run the school at Warminster in 1787. It was only a brief absence, as he returned as Warden in
1789, a post he held until his death in 1832. He was so devoted to his residence in the Lodgings that he did not let appointments as Bishop of Gloucester and then Hereford – secured through the influence of an early pupil, Henry Addington, our only Wykehamist Prime Minister – drag him away; he conducted most of his ordinations in College Chapel. The opprobium heaped on him
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