Edward James (Jim) Winchester Jim Winchester (P’47; Staff 1948; Bursar and Secretary to the Council 1972-88; part-time Administrator and Secretary of The Old Geelong Grammarians and the Geelong Grammar Foundation 198996) came to the School in 1941, evacuated immediately from Scotland, where he had been at a preparatory school, but in effect from Malaya where his parents lived. An outstanding athlete and ball-games player, he was Senior Prefect in 1947 and also Captain of Perry House, Captain of Cricket, Captain of Football, a Cadet Lieutenant, and a leading chorister. Most of the following year he devoted to helping with sport and physical education, after which he was mostly in Malaysia – which he represented in both Cricket and Rugby (in the latter as a State captain and later a referee) – pursuing a business and administrative career until his return to GGS in 1972 as Bursar and Secretary to the Council in succession to Peter Desborough, who had held those posts since 1954. Retiring from them in September 1988, Jim then served as Secretary of the OGGs and the Foundation until June 1996. His quiet efficiency ensured the smooth running of his successive areas of responsibility, and his loyalty and dedication to the School were absolute. Born on 28 August 1928, he came from Scottish stock and was the elder son of Dr John Wishart Winchester, known as Jock, and his wife, Isabella Easson Methven née Edward, known as Belle, of Singapore and other parts of South-East Asia, later of Omagh, Northern Ireland, and brother of the late Robin Winchester (Co’51). In 1953, in the School Chapel, he married Margaret Rees, who was secretary to Doug Fraser MC (Staff 1931-63) as Master of Junior School. Margaret, who later assisted similarly in the Music School, has long herself, like Jim, been a much-loved member of our community. Together, in Malaysia, they were hosts to visiting GGS parties. They had three sons – Richard, Simon (FB/L’75), and Michael (P/L’78) – all of whom spoke movingly of their father at his funeral service in All Saints’, Newtown, where Jim had long been a member of the choir, singing tenor and later alto. His other interests included fishing, flying, golf, and bridge. He died in Geelong, after a long illness with a rare form of Parkinson’s Disease, on 22 March 2010.
The Reverend Peter Ashley Thomson, A.M. Peter Thomson (GGS Staff 1959, 1969-72, 1974-83; Chaplain of Timbertop 196972, 1975-83; Master of Timbertop 1975-83), who died of emphysema on 16 January 2010, has been the subject of obituaries in many of the world’s newspapers because of his influence on the former British Prime Minister Tony Blair, a result of their going up to St John’s College, Oxford, at the same time in October 1972. Blair was then 19, and Peter, aged 36, although (in Oxford terms) an
undergraduate, became an important mentor. In the words of Blair’s biographer Dr Anthony Seldon (the present Master of Wellington College in England), “Thomson gave Blair the confidence to be the person he was feeling his way towards becoming”. He had a similar influence on others, not least at GGS, and another of his Oxford contemporaries who has acknowledged Peter’s importance in the direction of his life is the former Premier of Western Australia Geoff Gallop. Together they represented a revival of the Christian socialism popular half a century earlier and associated particularly with Archbishop William Temple, an important mentor of Sir James Darling (Headmaster 1930-61), who first appointed Peter to the GGS Staff in 1959.
The Corian of September 1983 carried eloquent tributes to his influence at the School. Michael Merrylees (Cu’85; Staff 1995-99) wrote: “I can only speak from one year’s experience, like any other who has been a boy or girl at Timbertop, but in that time I saw him work (chop, split, and cart wood, for instance), hike, run, and play harder and with more enthusiasm than any of us. He preached, bellowed, laughed, taught, ranted and raved – all with such determination and power as I’ve never seen before. Bad manners, selfishness, and bullying he would never tolerate, and there were all too many times during the year when he made his feelings abundantly clear. But his praise was just as great, for anyone who deserved it. Not once did he leave the Chapel pulpit without leaving us stunned, ashamed, inspired, or overwhelmed.”
Born on 19 March 1936, he was the second of four children of a Melbourne estate agent, George Thomson, and his wife, Madelaine, of Brighton. Leaving Brighton Grammar School at 16, he was for a time rent-collector in his father’s business and then entered Ridley College to study Theology. Already a strong radical streak was evident when he spent some months on the GGS Staff in 1959, later in which year he was ordained deacon, with priestly ordination following in 1960. His first curacies were at the Melbourne Diocesan Centre (1959-61) and Sunshine (1961-62). At St Alban’s, North Melbourne, he brought jazz music into services and met Helen Sumpter, whom he married in 1961 and with whom he had five children: Damian (Cu/L’80), Serena (Je’80), Luke (Cu’82), Christian (Cu’82), and Quentin (Cu’84).
After Adelaide and work in residential university communities in Melbourne, Peter went to England in 1996 to help Tony Blair, who became Prime Minister the next year. As vicar of St Luke’s, West Holloway, and chaplain to the Bishop of Stepney, he developed the Community Action Network – and then returned to Melbourne in 2001 to be chaplain of the important Anglican welfare agency the Brotherhood of St Laurence. This ministry he continued part-time until ill-health led in 2008 to his retirement to his farm near Mansfield. In 2005 he was appointed a Member of the Order of Australia (AM) “for service to the community through support of projects to assist and improve social justice and community development”.
In England from 1962-64, serving in the diocese of Ely, he was a curate at Fen Ditton and then vicar of Upwood with Great and Little Raveley. While vicar of a struggling suburban parish in Melbourne, St James, East Thornbury (1964-65), he taught maths at the local high school so that his clerical stipend could go back to the church; but this was not appreciated by the diocesan authorities, and for some years he worked as a real-estate agent in the family business. In 1969 his life took a decisive turn when he began what transpired to be a first period, until August 1972, as Chaplain of Timbertop. Another headmaster of GGS – this time Tommy Garnett (1961-73) – was persuaded by Archbishop Frank Woods (President of Council 1957-77) and by Peter’s own charm and idealism that he and the School could work fruitfully together. This they did for the next nearly 15 years punctuated by Peter’s two-year absence at Oxford, to read the Honour School of Theology (relishing life there while missing his family dreadfully; at St John’s he had rooms regularly visited by the ghost of Prince Rupert of the Rhine), after which he had a term as a Chaplain back at Corio and, having deeply impressed a third headmaster, Charles Fisher (197478), returned to Timbertop not only as Chaplain but also as Master (now called Head) – remaining there until he left in May 1983 to be Master of St Mark’s College in the University of Adelaide, where he stayed (greatly loving Adelaide) until 1990.
On his election as leader of the Labour Party in 1994, Tony Blair said: “If you want to understand what I’m all about, you have to look at a guy called John Macmurray. It’s all there.” For his involvement in the application of essentially family virtues – mutual affection and respect between members – to social contexts, Peter Thomson might well have said something similar. Already deeply imbued with Macmurray’s thought, he called, during a visit to Scotland with Blair and Gallop in 1974, on the octogenarian Macmurray in Edinburgh, where their guru had been Professor of Moral Philosophy. A critic of the egocentric tendency of Cartesianism (preferring “I do, therefore I am” to the famous Cogito, ergo sum) and a counterpoint to the influence of F. A. Hayek and Milton Friedman in the 1980s – the Thatcher years – Macmurray’s influence has been theologically towards action rather than belief and politically towards cooperation between the individual and society (neither being predominant) in personal relationships. For his disciple Peter Thomson, friendship was always crucial. Peter’s funeral, at which Geoff Gallop spoke, was appropriately held in the Chapel of St John the Baptist at Timbertop and conducted by the Reverend Jeff O’Hare (Cu’79; Chaplain 200306), whose life Peter had influenced and who had followed him not only on to the GGS staff but also as a chaplain of the Brotherhood of St Laurence.
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