Monty Rendall : A Newly Discovered Autobiographical Fragment
OBJECTS IN FOCUS
Monty Rendall : A Newly Discovered Autobiographical Fragment
For an individual who cast so very long a shadow of influence , Monty
Rendall , Headmaster of Winchester College 1911 – 24 , left few personal traces . Anecdotes are legion ; artefacts or buildings resulting from his energy and good taste constitute a glory of the local heritage . But letters , personal papers , and autobiographical accounts are puzzlingly sparse , and have generally escaped the searches of biographers .
This year , the school acquired a cache of Rendall papers , kindly donated by the family of Max Rendall , and including a 125-page typescript autobiography , begun in 1942 and remaining unfinished in 1945 . Passages of this must have been known to his biographer , Budge Firth , as they appear verbatim in his Rendall of Winchester ( 1954 ). But the typescript as a whole has never been published , nor an account given of its content or style .
This new find is very much a fragment , not a finished piece . It reads as a product of two halves , Rendall ’ s life before Winchester and his career there subsequently . In the first half one is hugely struck by the author ’ s ability ; in the second by his energy . Even Rendall ’ s admirers acknowledged his increasing isolation from reality as time moved on , and his mannerisms and idiosyncrasies became objects more of mockery than of imitation . Interestingly , one can almost feel Rendall ’ s interest in the subject matter wane as the years succeed , but the style remains direct , commendably un-fussy and unfailingly clear .
Young Montague Rendall , taken by H . W . Salmon , late 19th century ( 4 / 8 / 124 )
Rendall ’ s achievements were prodigious at Harrow , where he joined his uncle ’ s House as scholar , and also athlete . He recollects “ one perfect day in April 1881 , when I won the Gregory Scholarship , the Neeld Medal for mathematics , and all five events in the Athletic Sports . The long jump I won two years with 19 and 20 feet , the Cricket Ball twice with 98 and 99 yards : I also won the Shot Hammer and High Jump ”.“ I mention these trifles ”, he explains , perhaps with logic unconvincing , “ because they have added enormously to my pleasure among the Lake Mountains .” What Rendall regarded as the “ debacle ” of not winning a scholarship to Trinity College , Cambridge did not for long hold him back . “ In my third year I was placed with only two other men in the First Division of the First Class in Part 1 of the Classical Tripos …: Mr A Cook of King ’ s , a seasoned examiner , told me twice that in one Greek paper he gave me full marks , which he had never done before or since .” Rendall began a thesis on Plato , but left it off thinking someone else would obtain the
Vera Elizabeth Tcheremissinof , Bronze bust of Montague Rendall , 1939 ( AS32 )
Montague Rendall , 1924 ( 4 / 8 / 126 )
impending Trinity Fellowship . In the event the rival did not apply . “ This proved a cardinal point in my career ; but I do not think I regret it . I was approached with regard to the Tutorial Fellowship in another , an important , College : but I had no desire to stay longer in Cambridge .”
Why the change to the world of schools ? “ Four out of the first five of us became School Masters ,” Rendall explains :“ the gist of the matter is that we were following the real bias of our nature and tradition of our family .” This is perhaps not entirely so , for elsewhere in his writing Rendall stresses the importance to him of his father ’ s Oxfordshire parish , his upbringing in the rectory (“ now no longer a rectory but inhabited by a lady with 22 puppies ”), and his parents ’ deep religious faith . But the churchmanship Rendall himself espouses is described by him as “ propriety without colour ,” intended primarily to mean without ecclesiological extreme (“ a central position ” as he puts it elsewhere ), but also suggesting conformity rather than enthusiasm . Firth argues that Rendall never married because he could never find a woman he could admire as much as his mother — which perhaps sits oddly , or even explains , the fact that every woman mentioned in this fragment is preceded by an adjective descriptive of her looks . The exception — a Wagnerian soprano — more than confirms the rule . Rendall found schools irresistible , for he could not himself replicate the environment he most revered . Tristan would always steer clear of Isolde .
Schools also provided Rendall with the reassurance of known context . Rendall seems frequently to assert his achievements in an attempt to confirm his sense of himself as successful yet precarious insider . The issue begins ,
10 Winchester College Collections 2019 – 20