the wellington college year book 2010/2011
the wellington college year book 2010/2011
103
102
The J.L. Bevir Memorial Fund
was set up in ???? in memory of
the man who was atWellington
as both boy and lifetime teacher
and also was co-founder of
the OW Society and the
WellingtonYear Book.
The Fund is administered by
the OW Society.
bevir report
ben butcher [t 2005–2010]
beyond
wellington
The Foreign & Commonwealth O?ce
J.L. Bevir Memorial Fund
The Bevir Trust has made the following awards
in the academic year up until 9th June
Ben Butcher £500 towards teaching in
Ecuador
Adam Seldon £450 towards community work
and conservation in Ecuador
James Milburn £500 towards a medical
elective in Tanzania
Sarah Burgin £600 towards a university
medical school trip to Ghana
Amelia Christie Miller £500 towards a
Raleigh International community project
in Nicaragua
Genny Porter £500 towards an Operation
Wallacea expedition to Honduras
As of 9th June, the assets of the Bevir fund
are cash with Bank of Scotland £19,209.51
and the J.L. Bevir Memorial Fund portfolio
value £112,629.43.
Herbert Old Wellingtonian Trust
The Herbert Trust has made grants totalling
£22,000 to help with the education of five
children of ow parents this academic year.
The Herbert Trust Portfolio
value £362,588.86 on 9th June
A
rmed with funds from the
Bevir Trust, in September
I left for Quito, the capital
of Ecuador, to take part
in a five month voluntary
project teaching English and piano at two
separate schools. My day would begin at
around 6:00 a.m. as I would get up to catch
the school bus to the Francisco Guiner school
in the Comité del Peublo barrio, the poorest
district in the ancient Incan city of around two
million people. The children, aged from five
to twelve, were taught around three hours
of English a week—more than they would
learn in sciences and history, emphasising the
importance of the language in Latin American
society as a way out of poverty. Although I
was the main teacher I was lucky enough to
have an Ecuadorian assistant who more often
than not know better grammar and spelling
than me (albeit Americanised !).
In the afternoons, after a typical delicious
lunch of rice, beans and plantain, I would head
to the music school which specialised in keeping children off the street by teaching them
musical instruments, but also language and
civics. I taught piano to children ranging from
five to eighteen. Teaching piano was immensely challenging, giving me a new found respect
for my music teachers — nothing was more
annoying than a child who didn’t practice !
The weekends would give me a unique
opportunity to visit different parts of the
small but immensely diverse country, be it
the jungles of the western Amazon or the
bustling and unpredictable cities of the Pacific
coast. Ecuador, split into three regions of
jungle, Andes and coast, is a fantastic place
to stay for a few months; only then can you
appreciate what it really has to offer. I even
had time to visit the Galapagos Islands, whose
scientific significance is only now starting to
be fully understood.
wellington & diplomacy
e d wa r d c h a p l i n
[hn 1964–1968]
British Ambassador to Jordan ????–????
Iraq ????–????
Italy ????–????
Governor atWellington ????–
he Great Duke was a diplomat as well as a soldier
and statesman. So it is fitting that so many ows have
served in the Diplomatic
Service (ds) and continue to do so.
Their names are recorded in Patrick
Mileham’s excellent Wellington College — The
First 150 Years. They include two post-war
Heads of the Diplomatic Service: Frederick
Hoyer-Miller (1957–1962) and Michael Palliser
(1975–1982). They and two other ds Heads,
Denis Greenhill and Patrick Wright, although
not themselves ows, took their turns as
Governors, as did Harold Nicolson, another
ow diplomat as well as writer and politician.
Among post-war ow politicians, three have
served as Ministers in the Foreign or Foreign
and Commonwealth Office (fco): Patrick
Gordon Walker, briefly Foreign Secretary in
Mr Wilson’s first administration, Humphrey
Atkins and Richard Luce under Mrs Thatcher.
I worked closely with Richard Luce in the
1980s when he was Minister responsible for
the Middle East. As desk officer for Lebanon
and Israel, I accompanied him on a memorable
trip via Cyprus and an raf helicopter to
visit the British contingent of the ill-fated
Multinational Force in Beirut — which no
doubt included a few ow soldiers !
T