Just as many class room teachers are tempted to adopt a protective persona, so many modern headmasters are tempted to present themselves less as men than as managers. As a former Haberdashers' teacher, Mr. Dawson faced both temptations. His Skylark interviewers noted that he “refused to be drawn into any comments about himself”(1996) and realised that “there was no doubting he was in control” (1990).
Born in 1937, Mr Dawson was a pupil at Nunthorpe School near York, read History at The Queen's College. Oxford, was awarded a Diploma in Education with Distinction, and in 1961 began to teach at llford County High School. He joined the Haberdashers' History Department in 1963, was made its Head in 1965, and in 1971 left to become Headmaster of John Mason School in Abingdon. By 1979 he was principal of Scarborough Sixth Form College, and by 1984 was principal of King James College in Henley, from where he returned to Haberdashers' as Headmaster in September 1987.
It was a potentially difficult position. After sixteen years significant changes had taken place, but twenty two of Mr. Dawson's former colleagues were still teaching at the School. He would have to establish a new working relationship with them and with the rest of the staff, if possible without prejudice to either group.
His friends stressed his humanity and his professionalism. During morning assembly he had read his mail on the stage, at lunch time he had eaten early to secure a place on the billiard table in the staff Common Room, and it was even rumoured that he had smoked and drank. He had been an inspiring History teacher, innovative yet a stickler for disciplined hard work from pupils and teachers alike. Outside the class room he had coached cricket and hockey, directed school plays, and starred in the legendary staff play, Oscar Wilde's "The Importance of Being Earnest".
All this augured well. Between being appointed in 1986 and taking up his position in 1987 Mr. Dawson visited Haberdashers' many times, sometimes formally interviewing Heads of Departments and Housemasters, and sometimes informally, meeting staff, pupils and parents. In September 1987 he quickly resumed his high level of activity and involvement. He spent hours on the touch-line and boundary, supporting players and their coaches and talking to parents. He attended almost every single performance of every play and concert, and visited rehearsals as well. Nor was his interest confined to events at Elstree, for he visited school parties elsewhere in the United Kingdom and on the Continent, often making long detours from his family holiday in order to do so.
In 1990 the School's Tercentenary year encapsulated many of Mr. Dawson's enthusiasms, a concert at the Royal Festival Hall, a Families' Art exhibition, a grand Sports Day, a special Charity Appeal, and a veritable feast of school music and drama - a junior entertainment, a School play, and a staff play - "Tartuffe" - in which he took part. Skylark applauded his "gem of a performance" as Monsieur Loyal.
Mr. Dawson had a particular interest in school music and drama, A cello player himself, he often invited pupils to repeat an evening "Music in Miniature" piece at a morning assembly. He ran a number of very successful "Young Professional” concerts on Sunday evenings, providing a venue for musicians, many of whom were former pupils, and raising money for charity. In 1996 he was to join Mr. Wilkins in producing the School play: Skylark recorded that they directed "with an exquisite eye for detail”
To encourage pupils to participate in and value cultural events, and school and community service occasions such as Mencap Funday and the Old Folks' Christmas party, he instituted "Honours Ties" and "Certificates of Merit", modelled on games colours but awarded for exceptional endeavour in areas of extra-curricular activity where awards had not previously been given.
Mr Dawson took an early decision to give a member of staff the task of co-ordinating European awareness throughout the School. Another innovation was to appoint a long-serving teacher to support parent social activities at the School and to liaise with former pupils. In 1992 he fostered the formation of a parents' social Committee to gain support for parents' activities and to help at School functions. In 1995 he became President of the Old Haberdashers' Association and worked to strengthen its links with the School, besides improving its somewhat precarious financial position.
Mr Dawson was aware of future difficulties facing Haberdashers'. He accepted that the 1961 buildings had been given a life span of only twenty five years, so needed refurbishing or replacing. He believed that educational needs in the twenty first century would centre on information retrieval from the printed word and electronic sources, He considered that each academic department needed its own dedicated and well equipped teaching rooms. Thus with Mr. Dawson's vision, and the drive and energy of Mr. Gordon Bourne, the Chairman of the Governors, and the generosity of many donors to an appeal, work began on a major new building in July 1991. Many of us remember toasting Mr. Bourne as he coaxed a bulldozer into cutting the first piece of turf.
To the admiration and surprise of everyone in the School work progressed so well that the appropriately named Bourne Building was declared open by H.R.H. the Princess Margaret in October 1992. The complex houses a magnificent new School Library, a specialist Careers Library (partly financed by K.P.M.G.), an Information Technology Department, and (on the ground floor) the Classics and History Departments, plus a large foyer where pupils' creative work can be displayed. A kitchen and servery facilitate entertainment at concerts and plays held in the upgraded Hall.
Other developments followed in the wake of the Bourne. The former Library became the Modern Languages Centre, and was opened by Sir Leon (now Lord) Brittan, in 1994. English, Mathematics and Religious Studies were provided with fully self-contained teaching areas, and two Houses - Meadows and Hendersons - moved to newly-positioned House Rooms.
Mr Dawson appreciated the importance of the School's catering arrangements. He re--established a kitchen in Aldenham House and brought the old Refectory into use for evening dinners and meetings. Similarly, he re-established the practice of serving cricket teas in the pavilion, greatly enhancing the social side of matches. Early in 1995 Chartwells took over the administration and provision of catering, issued "smart" cards for use in the Bates Dining Hall and School shop and increased the variety of food and drink on offer, In March 1995 David Thomas (Head of Physical Education, 1948-1968) opened the Astro-Turf all weather playing surface, for hockey and soccer in winter and tennis in summer, perhaps it will eventually gain a pavilion of its own.
The academic curriculum was an area of actual difficulty. Haberdashers' had had essentially the same curriculum since 1961. It now had to cope with the demise of Oxbridge entrance examinations, the impact of G.C.S.E., and the introduction of a new pattern of Advanced level exams. To assess these developments Mr, Dawson set up his Renaissance Committee, a name which implied that Haberdashers' needed to undergo a revival of learning. Staff reaction was mixed. Some staff believed that his subsequent committees and working parties were devices to secure consent for his own views. Some that they provided an opportunity to push themselves and lobby for their own views.
Others feared the neglect of what they felt to be important issues and problems: appointment procedures, salary structures, teaching burdens, pupil numbers and quality, the rather uncoordinated rise of modular "A" levels, etc. After having been encouraged to discuss, a number of staff resented, as, they saw it, being excluded from decisions.
Comparatively few staff took the opportunity to discover what was going on in other class rooms and departments, or to reflect upon their own teaching methods and professional position.
Perhaps that was why Mr. Dawson eventually persuaded them to accept the Governors' decision to implement a form of appraisal, although not the variety which had aroused so much hostility in the state sector. Their reaction was equivocal. Those who saw appraisal as another chance to push and lobby eventually became frustrated. Those who suspected that the time involved would produce little of any consequence argued that institutionalised introspection might be a substitute for action. They believed that the sources of the staff’s dynamism and of the School's spirit were elsewhere.
In some respects a school exists independently of its headmaster. Pupil ability, ambition and energy have long created a common educational experience at Haberdashers'. Much of the School's depth and richness is provided by concerts and plays, C.C.F. camps, sports tours and ski-trips, and by the multitude of clubs and societies, Some of them are semi-secret enclaves in which are forged bonds of friendship and loyalty, and occasionally enmity, hidden from other pupils. One wonders what Saul Barrington meant when he told 'Skylark' that the 1987-88 Cricket and Rugby tour to the Far East “Was all rather crazy and wild”.
However, pupils do change. For many years Haberdashers' had had a mixture of white Anglo-Saxon Protestants and Jews, with very small minorities of Roman Catholics and boys of oriental background. In Mr. Dawson's time the School's ethnic and religious diversity broadened, pupils of Asian origin accounting for approaching one third of the School community. He responded by instituting a range of religious assemblies on Thursday mornings, and it may be that they have contributed to a greater awareness of cultural and social individuality amongst the pupils.
Long-serving teachers provide a School with educational and personal continuity, but teachers also change. In the words of the once well-known hymn “Time, like an ever-rolling stream, bears all its sons away.” In 1988 Leo Guidon and Barry Goater, in 1989 Basil Flashman, in 1994 Keith Cheyney, Roger Wakely and Mike Anderson, and in 1995 John Rolfe each retired from full time duties, in every case after working for over thirty years at Haberdashers'. To commemorate their outstanding contribution to the School Mr. Dawson founded "The Termites", a dining club for those who had served for at least one hundred terms. To make it easier to fill their places he had several bed-sits and flats installed in Aldenham House, and made available to new teachers.
Headmasters, pupils and teachers have different roles and responsibilities, so do not always see eye to eye. Occasionally teachers did wonder if Mr. Dawson related to them as a man or a manager, if they detected an impatient stare, or if he was too deeply wedded to the personal and professional attitudes and friendships which he had formed during his first period at Haberdashers'. Occasionally, too, they noticed a dichotomy between their view of the Headmaster and the pupils' view: whereas they felt him inclined to give pupils the benefit of the doubt, some pupils felt that their teachers' intercession was necessary to protect them from his justice.
During Mr. Dawson's final year it became clear that he regarded his two periods at Haberdashers' as the high points of his career. For all the tribulations which it was capable of causing, he loved the School. He had vastly improved its many facilities. He had proved to be a man of warmth and compassion, always willing to see good in others, and agonised over difficult decisions lest a wrong one be made. He had rendered to no one evil for evil. He had been well-supported by his wife, Marjorie, and together they had extended the hospitality of the Headmaster's house to staff, pupils and visitors to Haberdashers'. They had confirmed the School's reputation as an educational, a cultural and a pastoral community, one in which staff and pupils could develop and flourish, the latter whilst preparing to enter the wider world.
When Mr. Dawson retired at the end of the Summer Term 1996, Haberdashers' saw the departure of a distinguished generation: the Headmaster himself, David Davies (1959), Antony Clark (1960), Alan Taylor (1961) and David Griffiths (1968). The 1960s were finally over at Haberdashers'. What would the future bring?
John WIGLEY.
(First published in the OHA Magazine 1999-2000)