The Wykehamist
VALE JFH
When Ralph Townsend asked me to be Head of the History Department in 2012, it was, I think, because I was the only member of it who read and replied to e-mail. As a new Head of Department in 2018, James Hallinan was expected to have‘ vision’ and a‘ strategic plan’. This was a new, modern, age for Winchester. A tentative grasp of Outlook was no longer the single qualifying factor for high office. Before James had a chance to focus his eyes and to think strategically, however, the Covid crisis took hold and forced him and his ACC colleagues to master a whole host of acronyms – CAGs and TAGs – and to tinker endlessly with vast spreadsheets of data. On 6 April 2020 – just one month after the country ground to a halt and we discovered what Skype was – James wrote to me that he was‘ slightly dreading what might be in TNT’ s instructions document’! When the second lock-down came in January 2021, and with it, more online lessons with cameras off and the accumulation of more marks and calculated grades, James was‘ hoping that there is a slapping hand against forehead emoji.’ There is not, apparently.
James was a true leader during that historic period. He took care of his charges; he was parental. He navigated the department through an incredibly tricky, stressful, and tough eighteen months. He was calm and considerate; he was incredibly informed, open and patient, and he consulted the History dons at every step. He left no one behind. And he always knew exactly how to handle the big, and potentially tricky, personalities that gathered together in A3( or on Teams) every week. James’ s reward for his excellent stewardship during the Covid years was responsibility for the EPQ – production logs, chasing Div dons to fill in boxes on screens, and reading and moderating diverse and varied projects about making skateboards, the impact of Tik-Tok on masculinity, and corruption in the pharmaceutical industry.
It was from that old Oxfordshire school, Abingdon, that we acquired James in 2018. No doubt, when Mr Fox did his gap year there as Head of Rowing in 2012-2013, he planted and watered the Winchester seed in James’ s brain. When he came for interview, he saw off some tough competition. And he soon got stuck in – well, he made a careful survey of the landscape and made some tentative steps. Using his customary diplomacy and light-touch approach, and always aware of what makes every one of us tick and tack, he shifted the department seamlessly from Pre-U to A-Level, and he helped us realize that we could teach any period of the past and improve as practitioners in the process. He established pedagogic-cum-pastoral relationships with his department and with his pupils – in his History and Div hours, in tutorials, and in university tasktimes. And he taught a huge variety of topics and periods – from the Mongols to the Nazis, from African kingdoms( examining the non-western world on its own terms, including before the arrival of European explorers and imperialists) to the seventeenth-century witch hunts. He encouraged his pupils to think about how to understand the past in different ways and from a range of different perspectives and intellectual traditions. He globalized the history syllabuses at Winchester, but never made the study of the past a ratification or attack on the present – such is the fashion of the time.
With his suave pepper-grey locks and musketeer goatee, he cuts quite the figure. And there is a hint of unknowability and mystery about him. Indeed, on one occasion, when his pupils were trying to guess his age( a game all teachers dread and fear), estimates ranged from mid-twenties to sixty-one! Anyone who saw him coach the young badminton players by gliding gracefully across the court and whipping a shuttlecock into the corner of the opponent’ s half knew for sure that he had the energy and spirit of a spring chicken. His youthfulness was further emphasized in his capacity as a board member of the Winchester Historical Association. He organized and orchestrated the annual lecture series, making sure that our keen historians went along, too.
James’ s greatest gift is his ability to empathize and to communicate effortlessly that empathy. For seven years, he has helped his colleagues, pupils, and tutees through rocky times and always in his usual selfdeprecatory, self-effacing, way. His decision to become a live-out don was Beloe’ s great loss. He is a much-admired tutor within those walls on Romans Road. He inspired and guided the Beloeites, and with doughnuts and coffee cake, he always offered a safe and comforting space for his tutees. And Beloe’ s loss is now Winchester’ s, for he is set to return to Abingdon to be Head of Politics. We wish him and his husband, Ben, well, and hope that he is not a stranger to this old place. He will be missed in every corner of it.
LMG
41