A HISTORY OF THE RGS IN TEN PEOPLE
Self: Digestive biscuits, boiled sweets. Tucker retired at the age of 66 and was awarded an Honorary Master of Arts by Durham University. He died in 1972, the address at Jesmond Parish Church given by the Archdeacon of Lindsfarne.
Arthur Robert Laws (1863-1945) I am indebted to Bryan Stevens for the following notes: if we are considering the School in terms of its personalities, then surely Daddy Laws, as he was affectionately known, has as good a claim as anyone. An enthusiastic and skilful teacher of Physics and Chemistry for over 30 years, he was the first to undertake any serious research, apparently entirely on his own initiative, into the story of the School and those who have passed through it. In 1925, the year he succeeded the redoubtable A History of the RGS continues with the ‘Bulldog’ Stallworthy as Second search for ten people who shaped or Master, he published a two volume history of the School down to influenced the history of the school. 1845, under the title of ‘Schola David Goldwater (51-62) ponders Novocastriensis’, comprising not only a historical account, but also on this difficult task. biographical notes on the masters and ONs of that period, so far as they could be traced. His grand design was to produce a third volume, on the same lines, to bring the saga up to copied from older boys. It was a Any attempt at producing a ‘Top Ten’ date, a vastly ambitious and probably vestige of his days in the School’s with ease was always fraught with unrealistic project, for which he spent evacuation to Penrith, a special train difficulty. We are now extending this most of his remaining years collecting having left Newcastle for Penrith on series into the next issue of ONA September 1st 1939. Many ON’s still material, giving up only in 1939. Magazine and there will be an online When I was compiling the School remember his kindly stewardship, vote in 2013. Continuing our notable Register years later, I came across when he served as Mr Thomas’s Old Novo stories (which include staff billeting officer. By the end of 1940, he all this material hidden away in a as well as pupils), we begin with: storeroom, very few people realising was fully responsible for five large it was there. Until quite recently, the Thomas Tindle Anderson (Tucker) ‘hostels’, no mean task in wartime School was not good at looking after was born in 1894 and is probably best circumstances, far from home and his its records and there are now no remembered for his gentle character distinctive silver hair might well have official details of admissions prior to during his 36 years in the Junior School dated from this time. 1906. Laws clearly had access to (1924-60), 27 of them – formally or the registers for the period 1870informally as its Head. His humanity His involvement with the Upper 1906, for he laboriously copied them had manifested itself in his pacifism School was through the many camps out before they were lost. Without during the First World War, something in England and Scotland he largely his work, the School Register which remained a difficulty for much organised, something he described of his life, as he continued to serve a to Laurence Watson in 1971, when he (publ.1955) would have been variety of causes dear to his heart, was 77, as the most rewarding of all his very sketchy. including the League of and later the concerns. He was always ready to United Nations, Spanish Food Aid recommend suitable clothing (“a shady For many years, a shortened version of Laws’ history (produced jointly with (during the Civil War), Save the hat”), buy the tickets, walk the fells, J.B.Brodie, Senior English Master and Children, War on Want to name a few. cook the food, and tell stories by the author of the School Song) was I recall, as a Junior School boy of the camp fire. A grocery list for 1956 presented to every new boy, sadly early 1950’s, Tucker having a speaks for itself; after five pages of mysterious tag – “put that light out!”, camp supplies, a barely sybaritic entry: now discontinued.
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