Many headmasters have been legends in their own time and become mythical figures to later generations. Dr Arnold is the classic case. Headmaster of Rugby School for barely fourteen years (1828-42) he was so effectively immortalised by Dean Stanley's Life and Correspondence of Dr Arnold (1844) and Thomas Hughes' Tom Brown's School Days (1857), that even Lytton Stracey's brilliant Eminent Victorians (1918) was unable to destroy his reputation. Legends obscure and myths illuminate our understanding of Dr. Taylor and his achievement. Schoolboy legend held that "Spud" Taylor knew so few boys by name that he wrote "Persevere" on reports at random, but gave a half holiday to celebrate the birth of his sixth child. Staff myth holds that Tom revived the School after the War, accomplished its move from Hampstead to Elstree, and sat disconsolate in his study in Aldenham House unable to face retirement.
Dr. Taylor was a very able man. He had gone up to Christ's College, Cambridge, on an open scholarship in Classics, graduated with a first, won the Burney prize for Philosophy, and been awarded a PhD. He had spent a year at Frankfurt University, and in his spare time took a Bachelor of Divinity degree from London University. He was widely experienced. He had taught Classics to the Sixth Form at Bradford Grammar School and Worksop College, and had spent six years as the Headmaster of the City of Bath School.
He was energetic, enthusiastic and innovative. He took over as Headmaster of Haberdashers' at the start of the summer term in 1946, and within weeks had promoted school music, organised a sixth form dance, and made himself readily accessible to pupils and staff alike.
It soon became clear that his aims were to further raise the School's academic and cultural standing, and to use its metropolitan base to establish a national reputation.
At first the War cast a shadow. In July 1947 Fusilier P.J. Stevenson recorded in "Skylark" that the Intelligence Section of the British Army of the Rhine was identifying material "which might be used in a German rising" : Reconstruction of the bomb-damaged buildings at Hampstead did not begin until the summer term of 1948, and continued rationing ensured that the ninth Harvest Camp was held during the summer holiday. In October the Old Boys presented the Book of Remembrance to the School.
The shadow was soon shortened. In September 1946 Dr. Taylor had begun Subsidiary and General Studies courses, and appointed a Director of Music. During 1947, he had taken on a full-time Chaplain, transferred the carol service to St. Martin-in-the-Fields, and inaugurated Commendation Day at the Guildhall, besides again widening the curriculum.
School activities multiplied. In 1947 five boys had visited France. In 1948 a large group went on a ski trip to Switzerland, in 1949 Mr. Dudderidge and A.J. Woolford appeared on television; in 1954 an exchange party left for Emden, in 1955 the 1st. VIII competed in the Heidleburg Regatta, and in 1956 Dr. Taylor took the School's production of "Julius Caesar" on tour to Western Germany.
Haberdashers' had Direct Grant Status under the terms of the 1944 Education Act, receiving financial support direct from the Ministry of Education in return for admitting scholarship boys. Consequently numbers were growing rapidly and in 1947 Dr. Taylor moved the Preparatory Department to Chase Lodge (and in 1953 to Flower Lane) to gain space at Hampstead. As the 600 boys of 1948 approached 1,000 a programme of new building endeavoured to keep pace and during Commendation Day in 1958 Sir Edward Boyle, Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Education, recognised the result by calling Haberdashers' "one of the first flight of Direct Grant Schools".
The Governors sold the Hampstead site to the London County Council, which turned the buildings into a comprehensive school, and the thousand-odd Haberdashers left in July 1961. The new buildings at Elstree were officially opened by the Lord Mayor of London on the 11th of October, when closed-circuit television was used to transmit the ceremony from the hall to marquees in the grounds.
Preparations had been well-made. During 1959 Dr. Taylor had bought a famous Willis organ from Hove Town Council. In 1960 he had announced that in future all boys would receive an even sounder education by entering the sixth form after five rather than four years. When Mr. Oliver ("Pop" to the boys) retired Dr. Taylor split his duties between a Second and a Senior Master; the former to discipline the boys, the latter to manage the masters. Mr. Cheney was appointed as the School’s first full time Librarian, and Mr. Irving-Smith given the task of organizing General Studies. Without Mr. Rolfe’s work as Transport Officer most boys would not have reached Elstree at all.
The new school was organised on a House basis, each House being regarded as a forum for activities and haven for pastoral care. Each House had its own double room for meetings and lunches, some had their own and some shared cloak-rooms, and each encouraged its members to join its teams and accept positions of responsibility. A Boarding House was set up in Aldenham House itself. The Preparatory Department rejoined the main school, but was given a building of its own; usually called the prep. block, but sometimes known as the B.B.C. Block, a reference to its construction and use by the B.B.C. during the War.
Changes were legion. The annual Gilbert and Sullivan opera withered in the rural air, but school music and drama luxuriated in their new facilities and grew ever more polished. Rowing, fostered by Dr. Taylor in 1946, was ultimately a casualty of the move, but most sports, freed from the tiresome journey between Hampstead and Chase Lodge, benefited enormously. Not all the many new initiatives endured: extensive archaeological excavations led by Professor Swinnerton (Dr. Taylor's father-in-law) were eventually abandoned, bee-keeping was ultimately deemed too dangerous, and the School Press did not long survive the departure of its mentor, Mr. Broderick.
The new buildings were themselves soon supplemented. In July 1967 a mammoth fete opened a building appeal so successful that the foundation stone of a new library was laid in September 1968. During May 1969 Princess Margaret (an Honorary Freeman of the Haberdashers' Company) toured the School and the library was opened in September. Building continued and in September 1971 Mrs Thatcher (the Secretary of State for Education) opened what is still prosaically called Phase III. (The original Library became the Sixth Form Common Room, and the "new" Library is now the Modern Languages Centre, having been replaced by the Bourne Library.)
The 1960's saw important changes amongst the masters. Encouraged by the 1963 Robbins Report, which recommended the rapid expansion of higher education, Dr. Taylor made a point of appointing teachers who could specialise in Sixth Form work and coach the growing number of Oxbridge candidates. When Mr. Crossman and Mr Pask retired in 1964 Mr. Lewin and Mr. Barling became Second and Senior Master respectively. When Mr. Lewin died suddenly in 1968 Mr Barling ("Taffy" to the boys, "Dai" to the staff) became Second Master, a post which he held until his retirement in 1982.
The Sixth Form was influenced by the political and social changes of the 1960's. The campaign for Nuclear Disarmament attracted the support of many boys, and at Commendation Day in 1962 a group of Sixth Formers heckled Air Theodore McEvoy, an Old Boy who had returned to remind them of the Soviet threat. Towards the end of the decade many of the sixth form grew more and more hirsute and demanded the relaxation of the dress regulation. Some boys were said to pull on short haired wigs as they approached the School and others held a lunch-time demonstration in the Quad. Dr. Taylor, who kept resolutely to the "short back and sides" fashionable in his youth, responded by setting up three Advisory Councils which voted to support traditional styles of appearance, a vote soon honoured more in the breach than the observance. In the early 1970's it was even rumoured that an Old Boy was a member of the self--styled Angry Brigade which bombed the Home Secretary's house in nearby Hadley Wood.
When Dr. Taylor retired and he and his wife Margaret left the School in July 1973, it was after a series of tributes and presentations which had begun in March with a gala concert at the Royal Festival Hall, and which marked the atmosphere of mutual respect and goodwill in which he completed his twenty seven years as Headmaster. It was a fitting tribute that in November the School gained its best Oxbridge results to that date, 26 Scholarships and Exhibitions compared with the 10 of 1960. Mr. McGowan, who had taken over as Headmaster in September, told the boys that Dr. Taylor might properly be regarded as the School’s second founder, and announced that he would be commemorated by the T.W. Taylor Music School whose construction was to begin in 1974.
Like all Headmasters, Dr. Taylor had not been free from criticism. In the late 1940's some older staff wondered why a German-speaker had apparently done no war-work, in the 1950's, some grumbled that he was reluctant to discipline the boys, and in the 1960's considered that he devoted too much time to his many out of school commitments. The majority, particularly the younger staff whom he had appointed and encouraged (and often inspired), appreciated his individuality and verve. They look back to a more relaxed time when Tom seemed capable of bearing almost any burden and solving almost any problem, when a quick and rhetorical "All well?" from him might be followed by a welcome promotion or salary increase. Perhaps Old Boys remember him best opening his letters at the table on the stage before Morning Assembly began, smiling alertly and enigmatically as they sang "Jerusalem" and "To be a Pilgrim" in excited and stifling end-of-term Assemblies, or shaking hands with Sixth Form leavers.
Dr. Taylor was a shy but gregarious man with a quick-silver mind, detached but humane, fully-known only to a few intimates, but with a wide circle of friends and admirers who gave him their confidence and to whom he gave wise advice and counsel. He was an academic administrator of the greatest distinction. He believed that civilised behaviour followed from the pursuit of academic and cultural excellence. He benefited from the opportunities offered by the 1944 Education Act and the 1963 Robbins Report. He could not have moved the School from Hampstead to Elstree without the support of the Haberdashers' Company and the loyalty of his staff, but that great achievement was the turning-point of his life's work, for it so accelerated Haberdashers' development that it enabled the School to challenge and soon to overtake the long established and nationally-known public schools.
Haberdashers' as it is today - with its magnificent grounds, superb facilities, and high standards - remains recognisably Dr. Taylor's creation. It was not necessary for Dr. Taylor to be immortalised in words as Dr. Arnold had been, since the School itself is Dr. Taylor's living memorial.
John WIGLEY.
(Taken from the OHA Magazine 1997-1998)
From Christopher Drew:
I read with interest the (above) appreciation of Tom Taylor. I first met him at entrance exam interview - and found him somewhat frightening. The sense of nervousness he induced did not reduce much over my years at school.
Yes indeed John Barker of the Angry Brigade was an Old Haberdasher. I recall he was sentenced to 10 years (or maybe more). He defended himself and was commended by the judge for the quality of his defence.
My recollection of the Air Vice Marshal prizegiving is slightly different. There had been rumours of possible intended disruption - but the actual event went quite smoothly. A stunned silence is the most apt description - with very muted applause. Several masters commented the next day (to my form and sets at least) that they were surprised by the lack of response - but impressed by the school's good manners.