A Living Legacy

Head of Mill Hill School, Jane Sanchez, finds M c Clure’s spirit lives on and continueS to inspire

I MUST ADMIT THAT Mc CLURE IS SOMETHING OF A HERO OF MINE, AND IN RECENT MONTHS I HAVE BEEN RESEARCHING HIS LIFE AS WE MARK HIS CENTENARY. THERE ARE DAILY REMINDERS IN MY STUDY OF THE SCHOOL’S HISTORY, IN THE FORM OF ARTEFACTS, FURNITURE AND OTHER MEMORABILIA: BLAZERS AND CAPS FROM A BYGONE AGE; A PAIR OF FINELYMADE CHAIRS BEARING THE SCHOOL CREST, AND SHELVES OF LEATHER-BOUND VOLUMES TOWERING UP TO THE CEILING.

History can intimidate but for me, in the case of McClure, it inspires. Looking back at his remarkable 31-year tenure, I see familiar shadows, hear echoes of the School I know and have come to love in my 19th year here. For me, as Head, his spirit very much lives on, not least when taking a book from the shelves in my office and reading minutes from meetings recorded in his own hand.

While these artefacts, along with many of our school buildings, provide a material presence, of most significance to me is McClure’s tireless quest towards the betterment of the School both in his time and for the future. As he said himself: ‘I trust that the foundation which is now being laid may be one upon which my successors may build a nobler edifice than it has been given to me to do.’ McClure’s legacy remains very much alive: the work goes on.

It was characteristically self-effacing of McClure to project any praise into the future when there was so much tangible progress in his own time as Head. Just one year into office, the Mill Hill Magazine records the following, relating to McClure’s Foundation Day speech in June 1893: ‘Mr McClure went on to speak of the School, remarking that whereas at the beginning of the year our numbers were 79, now there were 99 boys in the School, and that we hoped very soon to reach the 100. ‘We were told by Mr Gladstone,’ he said, ‘that we could hardly consider ourselves a public school until we numbered 200 boys, and although at present we are far from that, nevertheless we hope in the not very distant future to qualify.’ Two years later, from a base of just 61 boys, numbers had leapt to 171, and by the turn of the century to 205 after a period of sustained growth.

It might be said that for a new Head appointed at 31 years of age, McClure worked miracles. As a man of deep Christian faith the metaphor certainly resonates. On his death, while still in post, the roll was approaching 300, and the future of the School was secure. For the time being at least. The Mill Hill of McClure’s day was a very different one in many ways from today’s, with boys only – the majority of whom were boarding. However, there are some key similarities, including an appetite for growth, with numbers rising over the past six years from 650 to 885. As a Foundation, without an endowment, we are ever-mindful of the need to manage our finances carefully, and to build healthy numbers, enabling us to generate a surplus to be invested in buildings and bursaries. It is exciting to be leading the School in such a dynamic phase.

The same magazine article continued: ‘After this, a reference was made to the Cambridge Local Examinations. Last year we could only record two in honours and seven in the ordinary class. This year we could point to eight in honours and seven in the ordinary class. Mr McClure next noticed the Oxford and Cambridge Schools Examinations, saying that this year for the first time in the history of the School, Mill Hill would become a centre for these Examinations.’

Elsewhere it is recorded that, ‘between 1891 and 1898, three scholarships and exhibitions were won; during the next 10 years the number increased to 30, the total number gained before 1922 being over 80.’ As with the success he achieved in increasing the size of the roll, McClure made great strides in building the academic reputation of the School over the next three decades, and forged links with the great universities, as well as establishing himself as an educational figure of national significance. In 1900, he became a member of the Senate of London University, and rose quickly through the ranks to become President of the Incorporated Association of Headmasters. He was also elected to the committee of the exclusive Head Masters’ Conference and was awarded a Knighthood for services to education in June 1913.

Although measures of academic achievement have evolved and diversified over the past century, in an increasingly competitive market it remains vital for Independent Schools to be seen to be doing the best for their pupils through public examination results and the destination of their leavers. While Oxbridge is still a metric, and we have our successes there, many other universities both in the UK and abroad have built their reputations and developed specialisms to reflect a rapidly changing jobs market, and UK universities’ fortunes have been transformed by the rise in their international student numbers in the past two decades.

With the use of baseline data, the emphasis has also shifted to consider ‘added value’ rather than simply GCSE or A Level results per se, and here we perform particularly well. I have long been a believer that a Mill Hill education is best characterised as offering breadth and balance, encouraging pupils to find their passions, and this is reflected in the diversity of courses that our pupils embark on when they leave the Sixth Form: around 60 per cent at Russell Group universities, with many others finding their niche in conservatoires, overseas universities or in pioneering programmes such as that offered by The Dyson Institute of Engineering and Technology.

The co-curricular plays a vital part in the building of breadth and balance, and in this area, like many others, I feel a kindred spirit in John McClure.

‘In 1902, the Head was able to announce at an Old Millhillians Dinner that the School had gained that year five University Scholarships, which for their numbers was considerably more than their share among other schools. These results, he went on, were not achieved by boys whose brows were “sicklied o’er with the pale cast of thought” but by strong, energetic, healthy boys. They were a living proof, he said, that there was no incompatibility between really fine brain-work and really fine work on the cricket or football field.’ we now offer pupils the opportunity to access over 200 Clubs and Societies each week. Complementing the ‘brain-work’ of their academic studies, I fervently believe that these aspects of what comprises a Mill Hill education are key to building character, developing confidence, and nurturing well-rounded individuals: et virtutem et musas.

Much has been done in recent years to build on our longstanding tradition of co-curricular provision including Drama, Music and Sport along with the Combined Cadet Force (CCF) and the Duke of Edinburgh programme.

We also encourage our pupils to feel part of a community to which they can contribute and from which they can benefit, whether through our formal partnership with our neighbours at Copthall School, or our long-standing Overseas Partnerships with Sri Jayendra School in Tamil Nadu or links with the Tag Rugby Trust in Zambia and Zimbabwe or the many other partnerships which we continue to forge.

As a former Head of PE and Director of Sport, I can also associate with McClure’s enthusiasm for the principle of healthy minds going hand-in-hand with healthy bodies. As his daughter Kathleen Ousey recounts in her biography, ‘McClure of Mill Hill’, quoting a former pupil: ‘He took great interest in athletics. Often in early days he played single-handed hockey with us in the playground and his appearance struck us as something like a great eagle hopping about and flapping his wings. This produced the original designation of him as The Vulture, but it was considered disrespectful and was replaced by The Bird.’

As in this vignette, what emerges is a picture of a Head with a sense of humour who liked nothing more than to engage with his pupils, whether in the classroom, the corridor, the Chapel or the playground. He was described by friends as, ‘a big, cheerful, strenuous man, with unusual ability and freshness of thought, who was also an ardent musician, a telling speaker abounding in racy humour, and emphatically a convinced and broad-minded Christian.’

He was a Northerner, brought up in Wigan in Lancashire, and there was a practicality, directness and vigour which endeared him to staff and pupils alike. Reading of the ‘rich, mellifluous Lancastrian tones’ in which his speeches and sermons were delivered, I cannot help but think of the allusion I always make in Open Morning presentations to my Black Country twang – still aware of being from ‘out of town’ after all these years.

The impact of McClure’s influence on his pupils resonated long after they had left school, and one such paid tribute to the Head’s guiding principle of seeing the best in them and giving a second chance: ‘He never despaired of the worst of us; he made us believe in ourselves because he believed in us, and many a boy who was going wrong has regained his grip on himself because the Head never let go his hold of him.’ Again I find myself concurring on this forgiving philosophy, and ‘going above and beyond’ for pupils is a favourite phrase of mine. Time and again the challenging pupil, whose behaviour may stem from difficult personal circumstances or simply adolescent turmoil, turns out to be the uplifting success story.

In my 15 years as Deputy Head (Pastoral), and more recently as Head, so many such stories spring to mind. At an OM dinner in Los Angeles two years ago, I was greeted with particular enthusiasm by former pupil Misha Crosby (Weymouth, 2000-05) who recalled sitting outside my office on more than one occasion to explain his latest ‘pushing at the boundaries’. I was heartened to reflect that he still appreciated the fact that he had been given a second chance, and to see how his creative streak has driven him on to build a highly successful career as an actor, director and producer with leading credits in film and television in the UK and the USA. Misha put it well when he spoke of ‘valuing the opportunity to fail in a safe space’, which echoes so closely McClure’s self-professed inclination to see the best in his pupils, avoiding draconian measures in all but the most extreme of cases.

Researching school life in McClure’s day, it is interesting to find parallels with the present; his abolition of the practice of reading at meals, for example, to encourage conversation, and our own ‘invisibility policy’ regarding mobile phones in the Dining Hall, which has the same aim. The importance of interacting with those around us in the school community has been thrown into stark relief as we rediscover the art of being together after 18 months of on-and-off lockdowns, isolation and remote provision during the pandemic, which continues to rage on globally and at home. Although we are approaching the end of an unbroken Autumn Term, uncertainty remains; we continue to report on Covid cases in my weekly letter to parents and are required to have contingency plans in place in case public examinations are cancelled for a third year. I have been struck by the fact that everyone in the school community is having to rebuild those interpersonal skills, and I do not underestimate the lasting effect on the wellbeing of all. It is hard to express the elation I felt at the recent Inter-House Drama Festival final, as I saw the stage in The Large once again thronging with talent, movement, energy, passion, conviction, humour and life. That McClure made it through to the finals seemed fitting; and Sir John would have approved of the wit and outlandishness of the winners, Weymouth.

McClure never lost sight of the vital role the Old Millhillians Club played, acknowledging that the School’s very survival had, at times, depended on their support, financially and in governance. The link between McClure and Old Millhillians was never more intensely felt than in the years of the Great War, when every Old Millhillian lost in service was another name for him to read out in Chapel, another heartfelt letter home and another pang of personal grief. As has been recorded elsewhere in these gathered essays, these were the pupils he had taught, counselled and played music and sport with during their time at School. Though buoyed by his Christian faith, the fact that he survived this burden of office (which doubtless took its toll on his health) gives the measure of the man. He was a great attender of the Club’s events, notably the dinners which took place both in London and the provinces. I also look forward to attending them in the coming centenary year, after many months of restricted travel resulting from the ongoing pandemic.

As noted in Ousey’s ‘McClure of Mill Hill’ regarding Old Millhillian dinners: ‘The greatest of these occasions for him was in 1912, when the Club commemorated the 21st year of his Head-mastership in a special toast coming after that of the School. The more formal celebrations – the unveiling of his portrait in the Dining Hall, the presentation of the School’s gifts of silver-plate, the opening of the McClure Music School – were to come the next day; but the real welcome from the Old Boys was given at the Dinner.’

McClure spoke with feeling about the debt he owed to the whole School community, not least the Old Millhillians, for the support they had given him over these two monumental decades in the School’s history: ‘I think that

I may truthfully say the feeling that all around you were eagerly watching, not to criticise, but rather to see where and how you could give a friendly hand – that attitude has done more for the success of Mill Hill than any work that I have been able to accomplish, because it has made one feel that one was only a part of a great body of men all of whom had the same object in view and were working towards the same end.’

To the modern reader, crediting ‘that great body of men’ for their support in what he had accomplished over the previous 21 years as Head may somehow jar, not least given the unwavering support of his wife,

Mary, through the years. As Roderick Braithwaite puts it in ‘Strikingly Alive, a history of Mill Hill School from 1807 to 2007’: ‘If anyone can be said to have established a yardstick by which the role of all later First Ladies of the School might be judged, it would be Lady McClure. She quietly backed her husband in everything – publicly and privately, in peace and war, in sickness and health – at the School and Belmont.’ The same speech goes on to acknowledge this: ‘And I hope that you will forgive me on an occasion like this, gentlemen, for saying that there is a sixth element, and I regard it as perhaps the greatest element of all – far greater than the Headmaster – and that is the Headmaster’s wife. What she has meant to me… words can never tell.’

It appears that McClure’s perspective was, in many ways, Victorian; unsurprising given that the last ten years of the Queen’s reign coincided with the first ten of his Headship, and he was, after all, running a school for boys taught, for the most part, by men. However,

I sense that McClure was above all a humanist whose ‘genial wisdom’, as his daughter puts it, would have embraced the Mill Hill School of today for its inclusion of girls, its moving with the times to switch from being predominantly boarding to one which is 87% day, and the fact that over 30 nationalities are represented among our boarders

Doubtless, too, he would be impressed by Mill Hill’s expansion to incorporate five Schools, the two most recent being Mill Hill International on the site of what was The Mount School and Cobham Hall in Kent. Similarly,

I have no doubt that McClure would embrace the non-denominational nature of today’s Chapel Services, knowing, as close friend the Reverend T H Darlow puts it: ‘That the things which unite us utterly outweigh the things which divide us.’

Our recently licensed Chaplain, the Reverend Antony Wilson, has made one of his first Chapel Service themes ‘faith’, questioning the notion of ‘all Faiths and none’ to validate the concept of faith beyond religious denomination, encouraging pupils to consider the importance of trust and of conviction.

Three years into my own Headship, I know exactly what McClure meant by the ‘friendly hand’, recognising not only the support I too have received from these same quarters, but also the inspiration which I have felt in the background from my predecessors –notably Sir John David McClure and another of his admirers, William Winfield, who put his faith in me by appointing me as Deputy Head almost 20 years ago. The strong link between the Old Millhillians and the Court of Governors continues too, both through the commitment of the Life Guardians and the Old Millhillians Club, and there is a powerful sense of a single thread of faith running from the School’s foundation up to the present day.

Like William Winfield, who writes so eloquently of his own experience in this publication, I share a sense of the life-affirming, all-consuming significance of Mill Hill School, and the immense privilege of being handed the baton as Head. As McClure puts it: ‘I feel in some way that I cannot express the influence of the School upon my life… That School, I say, has laid its hand upon us all.’

Additional Editorial Content: Tony Binns, Assistant Head (External Relations)

An Old Boy makes a rueful comment: