No . 132
The Trusty Servant
Historical Headmasters : Fearon and Burge
The Editor , Tim Giddings ( Co Ro , 09- ) looks back on two headmasters , 120 years after the baton was passed between them :
Revd William Andrewes Fearon ( 1884- 1901 ): Maintainer of the Traditions
Fearon , the ‘ most Wykehamical of Wykehamists ’, only gained entry to the school by serendipitous chance . A son of the rectory from Sudbury in Suffolk , he lacked any connection with Winchester or the family wealth for a commoner place , but his uncle noticed that New College was being defrauded of some income from its property in Essex ; he tipped off the Warden , who gratefully promised to elect his nominee to College . Lacking a son of his own , the uncle put forward his nephew , who arrived in Chamber Court in 1852 , aged ten – a fairly normal age to start in those days when Fellows slotted their nominees into vacancies as they arose . Young William recalls being ‘ plunged straight into the Middle Ages .’ His account of it in his memoir , The Passing of Old Winchester , is full of medieval romance , but plenty of barbarity too : he earned the nickname ‘ Bruin ’ ( brown bear ) for his tight grip when forced to wrestle with the other College juniors on Meads for the entertainment of senior boys . He was a star pupil : top of the school academically for two full years , but also a fine sportsman – he was one of the senior eleven College Prefects who challenged and beat the rest of the School at cricket in 1859 and claimed that his boating trips on the canal were the embryo of Boat Club . He proceeded to New College as the senior name on the first roll to be elected by examination in 1859 , and took two first-classes in Mods ( Classics and Maths ) and then two more in Greats . He stayed on as a Fellow and Tutor of New College , before being called back to Winchester in 1868 by reforming Headmaster George Ridding ( 1867- 84 ) to take charge of one of the new purpose-built Commoner boarding houses : Culver House ( now Fearon ’ s , of course ). He was involved in the planning and sought to reproduce the College Chambers of his boyhood . He left to become Headmaster of Durham School , 1882 , but when Ridding departed to become Bishop of Southwell in 1884 , he was the natural choice to succeed him . Indeed , he was one of only two applicants and was appointed without interview .
Ridding ’ s tenure had been such a whirlwind of activity that the Warden of New College called him ‘ the Second Founder ’ ( see TS 123 ). But after every whirlwind comes a need for calm to allow matters to settle . Nearly everything had been transformed and the revolutionary needed to be followed by a steady hand to consolidate the changes . The
Wykehamist felt that it was ‘ almost impossible for anyone … to see what Dr Ridding has left yet to be improved ,’ but expressed ‘ confidence that that level will be maintained under [ Fearon ’ s ] guidance .’ He did not disappoint . He was an energetic , optimistic traditionalist , most at home belting out ‘ Domum ’ or cheering on his ‘ brother Wykehamists ’ ( as he always called them ) in Lords , VIs , XVs . During his headship Dogger ’ s Close and Kingsgate Park were purchased to extend the playing fields and Gunner ’ s Hole was renovated for the swimmers . When the school wished to mark the Quingentenary with a new building in 1893 , Fearon wanted to extend Chapel into the Warden ’ s Garden so that it could contain the whole school . But rather than dragooning the authorities into accepting his plan , as Ridding might have done ,
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