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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