Junior Housemasters

[Kit Bartlett]

how much authority and responsibility was allocated to the above I do not recall any parent ever dealing with them in any
Matter.
Some houses managed without them for a period, notably Barnes A from 1942 to 1944 and Coleridge B from 1941 for quite a time,

[sejintenej]

In Col A it was pretty minimal; I remember Herbert taking evening prayers once when Kit was unavailable and if he hadn't been one of the housemasters I wouldn't have been able to switch from German to Spanish.

[michael scuffil]

A dogsbody job in most cases. Newsome once offered me a teaching post at CH, and near top of the list for my turning it down was the realization that I'd have to be a junior housemaster.

You had a study in the (noisy) boys' section of the house. You had a bedroom in the attic if you were unmarried. You had to referee rugby matches and put in an appearance at cricket. You had to be present at matron's inspection on your duty days, you had to take Duty on your duty days. In fact you had to be generally 'available' on your duty days (to give permissions and suchlike). On the whole you were spared from seeing parents, though. You did not of course take part in Housemasters' Meetings at which serious decisions were taken.

There were a few exceptions. Bullard was junior housemaster of Maine B for donkeys years and managed their house funds; quite exceptionally, he was a lot older and in some ways more distinguished than the senior housemaster. ColA managed to collect some quite distinguished junior housemasters too (David Herbert, Jesson-Dibley, Corks).

[sejintenej]

. ColA managed to collect some quite distinguished junior housemasters too (David Herbert, Jesson-Dibley, Corks).

Luck of the draw; we also got Potts who was also my A level Chemistry teacher. Just out of uni, he needed some "experience"

[jhopgood]

Whilst I was there Barnes B had Paddy Cullen, followed by Neil Simms and Pete Brotherton. Senior Housemasters at the time were Cherniavasky, Miller and Goodall.
Barnes A had Bob Sillett as Junior Housemaster at the same time.

[sejintenej]

John mentions going through multiple housemasters. In my time we had only Kit Aitken and the junior ones were invisible.
What were people's experiences of changes in housemasters? Were the changes flawless or, like the change from the Oil to Seamen, like an earthquake?

[michael scuffil]

I certainly remember the change at ThB from JH Page to Pat Cullen. Chalk and cheese.

This started when Page got married to Macnutt's daughter. He moved into a house in West Gun Copse Road, but said it was too far away from Thornton B (!). However this was probably just for public consumption. I think Seaman had asked him to take charge of ThA, which was going through a difficult patch, and ThA had married quarters attached.

So along comes Pat Cullen, and what happens? He gets married and (for a term) lives in Worthing, spending only his duty nights in ThB. Seaman let him do it for a term, but even that was dodgy IMO. Then he moved into King Edward Road (still not exactly next door).

I knew Pat Cullen quite well from German before he came to ThB, so the shock was not too great. But when we left one term, Page's study was institutional cream and green, with a faded Impressionist print on the wall, and stinking of whatever it was that JHP smoked. When we came back, the study was redecorated in strong colours (primrose and lilac, I think), with a large original abstract painting on the wall, and the armchairs newly covered. And the aroma was of freshly-ground coffee and pipe smoke.

On the more serious note, though: JHP was old school, not intellectual, straight as a die, very conscientious, very fair (a great plus point) and you knew exactly where you were with him. ThB was a bullying-free house, and it was due to him. Pat Cullen thought he was liberal, and gave us to understand he thought as much. But he wasn't, really. The result was you could never really predict his reactions, and ultimately he gave the impression of weakness. Where Page would have said: 'Scuffil, it's nearly midnight. Go to bed!', Cullen said: 'Look, Michael, do you realize what time it is?'

[Kit Bartlett]

When World War 2 ended both Kit Aiken and Arthur Rider returned to c h after war service. Actually Kit had been at elsewhere immediately prior to 1939' I forget where but did not return there because the hilly terrain would have hampered his mobility on account of losing a leg in Normandy, Kit went Coleridge B as Junior House Master in January 1946
Arthur went into Coleridge A in May 1946 for one term, the intention being that he would succeed Blamire Brown on his retirement in July , To most people's surprise he went to Middleton A and Kit to Coleridge A as Senior House Masters,
one wonders how the histories of both Houses might have been affected had tie decision been reversed.

[michael scuffil]

Who was the longest-serving senior housemaster under the old dispensation (between the move to Horsham and the introduction of senior and junior houses)? Did anyone move from a senior to a junior house (or vice versa) when the new system was introduced (because I daresay some people may have thought they were better suited to one or the other)?

[J.R.]

There were a few exceptions. Bullard was junior housemaster of Maine B for donkeys years and managed their house funds; quite exceptionally, he was a lot older.

Was he not a maths master, Michael ?

The name rings a bell and I'm sure he took me for maths for one year. A genius with figures, if memory serves !

[Kit Bartlett]

W.T, Buck did 29 years from 1902 to 1931 Blamire Brown did 25 years 1921 to 1946

[michael scuffil]

There were a few exceptions. Bullard was junior housemaster of Maine B for donkeys years and managed their house funds; quite exceptionally, he was a lot older.

Was he not a maths master, Michael ?

The name rings a bell and I'm sure he took me for maths for one year. A genius with figures, if memory serves !

He was a maths teacher, and certainly a genius with figures. He was also responsible for the timetable. He died quite suddenly in about 1961, near the start of the summer term I think, and his classes were taught by maths grecians for the rest of the term.

He was, I think, a bit of a recluse. Seaman pretty well said as much in his eulogy at the funeral, which was held in Chapel. Seaman started (and you have to imagine his voice): "John Bullard, or rather 'Bullard', for he was not a man who formed close friendships..."

[J.R.]

He was certainly very 'invert' in class, but I do well remember one of his 'party tricks' , which was to get a pupil to call out a number in the thousands which he would write on the blacl-board, then get another pupil to call out another similarly high number.

By the time he had written the second number on the board, he had multiplied both the numbers together in his head.

[Chris T]

Old Blue JE Bullard was a bachelor and an interesting fellow. He left CH, obtained a first in Maths at Cambridge and hence a BA, which he never converted to a MA. (He may have also been a Wrangler.) After entering the Civil Service he rose to great heights. It was alleged that had he stayed on till normal retirement he would have attained at least an Under Secretary’s post and probably a knighthood too. However he took very early retirement so that he could come and teach maths at CH in the early 50s, becoming junior housemaster of Maine B. I think he followed Morton Peto in that position. So he was not at CH for terribly long.

He was a brilliant mathematician, although he never taught grecians. However on the very, very rare occasions when Messrs Armistead and Maconnell, who did teach maths grecians, had a problem with which they struggled (typically an Oxbridge scholarship question) they would take it to him and (for the one occasion for which I can vouch) he solved it. Arriving at CH in his 50s after having been an office worker for many years, he presumably was not very fit. It is alleged that a few days after the start of his first term in Maine B he was asked to referee a junior rugby match, by the house captain. He did so and was so clearly unfit (physically) and unclear about the details of rugby refereeing, that he was never asked again. Perhaps someone from Maine B can comment further. Before coming to CH he lived somewhere in the West End of London and, for some years immediately before CH, shared a house with Leonard Woolf the widower of Virginia.

Apart from maths he knew a great deal more and I recollect that he once gave a most far sighted lecture, entitled, “Fast Electronic Digital Computers”, which was written up in the school science magazine. In it he told his audience, who knew absolutely nothing about those devices (as did about 99.999% of the rest of the world then) that “during your lifetime your existence is going to be radically changed by these machines”. What prophecy! He also arranged a visit for science grecians in about 1956 to the world’s then largest commercial computer, owned by the J Lyons Company (a very far sighted company which had a string of tea shops, sold tea and other packaged food stuff and later also computers for commercial companies. They had financial difficulties and all was disbanded or sold off a decade or so later.)

[Kit Bartlett]

Other long serving Senior Housemasters include M.H. Jones Preparatory A and A, H. Buck Coleridge B both well over 20 years. Many moons ago I wrote an article on this subject for The Blue