Sir John McClure

Headmaster of Mill Hill School 1891-1922

Sir John McClure

Headmaster of Mill Hill School 1891-1922

NEWLY-APPOINTED HEADS TEND TO FACE ONE OF TWO CHALLENGES: SOMETIMES OUTGOING INCUMBENTS HAVE STEERED THEIR CRAFT WITH GREAT MASTERY BUT THE FUEL HAS BEGUN TO RUN OUT AND THE DIMINISHING BOW WAVE SUGGESTS THAT THERE IS LITTLE FORWARD MOMENTUM – SOME STOKING OF THE BOILER IS NEEDED. ALTERNATIVELY, AN UNFORESEEN STORM HAS FORCED THE SHIP ONTO THE ROCKS AND THE GOVERNORS HAVE TO PLACE ALL THEIR TRUST IN THE NEW APPOINTEE REPAIRING THE DAMAGE. IT WAS THIS LATTER KIND OF EXTREME CRISIS THAT JOHN Mc CLURE FACED WHEN HE ARRIVED AT MILL HILL IN 1891.

The second half of the 19th century was not an auspicious time for Mill Hill. A rapid turnover of four headmaster-clerics failed to keep the ship afloat between 1852 and 1868. It was difficult to recruit boys from a diminishing congregation of Protestant dissenters. Numbers had fallen steadily since Thomas Priestley (1834-52) had retired as Headmaster.

When only three boys arrived for the new school year in September 1868, the decision was taken to close the School. New capital was raised however and Mill Hill re-opened a year later with 34 entrants. The New Foundation introduced a crucial change: henceforth the School ‘shall be open to the sons of parents professing other religious tenets’. This relaxation of the Founders’ prime desire to educate sons of Congregationalists offered recruitment opportunities which the new Headmaster, Dr Weymouth (1869-86), happily exploited. Numbers rose to a peak of 70 in 1880, but then fell steadily again to just 15.

The most famous of Mill Hill’s teachers, James Murray (1873-1884 including his time as a lexicographer working in the Sciptorium) had been a crucial and ambitious player in Weymouth’s team.

When Murray left for Oxford to pursue his edit of a new English Dictionary (ultimately published in 1928 as ‘The Oxford English Dictionary’), Weymouth, now 64, collapsed under the strain and was quickly replaced by Charles Vince (1886-91), a Cambridge don who had briefly taught boys at Repton. That experience was to prove sadly insufficient and within five years the ship was again drifting dangerously off-course.

Vince’s disappointing tenure had the Governors wondering whether Mill Hill was viable and, if so, who precisely would be the man to convert the poisoned chalice into a precious vase offering a burgeoning school an undreamt-of golden era where young men would be instructed in the Faith and the Word and inspired to achieve outstanding academic success and sporting glory. The word ‘rollercoaster’ was too modern to appear in the Murray (Oxford) dictionary. Chambers however provides a helpful definition of the word’s figurative sense: ‘a series of unexpected changes of fortune or emotional swings’. ‘Rollercoaster’ neatly summarises the constant tension and excitement which have characterised much of Mill Hill’s history. The late-Victorian era was no exception, but McClure was destined to flatten those ‘Russian mountains’.

In making their new appointment, the Treasurer Thomas Urquhart Scrutton (School 1840-42) and other Governors of 1891 decided in extremis to throw caution to the wind. From the outset they made clear to everyone that the School would close ‘in the event of the utter falsification of their hopes’. Their choice of new Headmaster was bold. John David McClure was just 31 years old. He was born in Wigan, home of mills and coal mines, but also of a strong Nonconformist community which profoundly influenced his upbringing. His mother was from Kirkcudbrightshire and the McClure line went back to the Isle of Skye, suggesting Presbyterian roots. McClure spoke later of there being an element of Puritanism in his religious belief. He graduated with a London University BA in Intermediate Arts while holding an early teaching position at Hinckley Grammar School.

In 1882 he won a scholarship to Trinity College, Cambridge, where he read Mathematics. Here much of his intellectual strength was honed. He was one who had ‘a strong reverence for fact’ and ‘laid more stress on reasoning than on style’.

He was also highly active in the Nonconformist Union where he was regularly invited to give papers covering topics as diverse as Church Music and Recreation for the Working Classes.

After Cambridge, McClure hesitated over career direction, then headed for the Inner Temple. To be called to the Bar however required an income of at least £150 pa. He did not have it. What was more, he was now married, so needed urgently to find financial stability. Postponing his ambition to become a barrister he took on examining and lecturing for the University of London; he had only recently been appointed Professor of Astronomy at Queen’s College when Mill Hill called. Of his intellectual depth and breadth there was little doubt. But lurking in the minds of the Governors must have been that grave concern that ‘their man’ had no experience of teaching beyond those four years at Hinckley Grammar. Nonetheless the reports from Cambridge suggested that here was someone highly talented academically whose nonconformist credentials were beyond doubt. He arrived at Mill Hill in September 1891, eager to meet the fresh challenge, but also understanding that he was very much ‘on trial’.

The Governors’ courage was fully vindicated. In the end, McClure stayed for 31 years. He fulfilled his first challenge effortlessly. He was exceptionally able in recruiting new boys, increasing the numbers fivefold to well above 300 by the time of the Great War. As a result, the School needed a constant supply of new buildings to provide the necessary domestic and academic facilities. Of these the major ones were the new boarding houses Collinson and Ridgeway, but he was also the inspiration for the building of the new Chapel (the old chapel being converted into the Large), the Marnham Block, the Winterstoke Library, the Fives Courts, the Music School and, lastly, the Gate of Honour. He extended and improved the grounds, upgrading many of the fields for sport. He actively promoted the opening of Belmont in 1912 as the Mill Hill Junior School.

The centennial celebration of 1907, including the notable presence of the Prime Minister Sir Henry CampbellBannerman as guest of honour at Foundation Day, marked the transformation of what had been a struggling minor school into a highachieving and nationally-recognised Public School.