the wellington college year book 2010/2011
20
mur r ay fowl e r
1991–2011
va l e t e
My first encounter with Murray Fowler was
as the geography teacher of form 4b at St
Edward’s School Oxford in 1982. Quiet,
even timid, his head remained well below
the parapet throughout the year. His exam
result, a somewhat lacklustre 47%, placing
him 14/22 in a class that was not full of
academic luminaries, did not suggest that he
would become one of the leading classroom
geographers of his generation, Head of
Department, Housemaster, Head of Lower
Sixth and, from September, Deputy Head of
Wellington College Tianjing.
There were many reasons for the
transformation. Crucially, he was taught
by someone else the following year and his
latent love of geography was allowed to
blossom. Equally crucially, he met Claire, in
the Dewdrop Inn, Summertown, on the night
after he had finished his a-levels. As young
lovers do and despite some opposition, he
abandoned his original university course in
Bristol and followed Claire to London to
complete his degree at King’s College. Deep
knowledge of the subject, developed there,
engendered within Murray the desire to pass
this on and the foundation from which to do so.
Having enjoyed a brief dalliance with
Charterhouse, he joined Wellington in
1991 and the rest, as they say, is history,
or geography, in Murray’s case. Ever more
confident with any geographical topic, always
ready to pull his own leg (just as well, as there
was no shortage of opportunity to do so),
constantly popular with students, increasingly
at ease with the demands of school and family
life but never compromising in the standards
he expected, his career has followed a steady
upward path.
Space limitations preclude a full summary of
their combined achievements but he, Claire,
Ollie, Max and Felix leave a huge gap as they
leave and not just in the fence of Stapleton
House, battered as it has been by every
conceivable round object. They depart with
many fond memories, enormous goodwill and
the best wishes of all at Wellington, as they
embark upon the next exciting chapter of life.