TRIBUTES ENID GODWIN, LIVERYWOMAN & HEADMISTRESS OF THE MARY DATCHELOR SCHOOL Words of Appreciation by Vaninne Parkers (Chair, the ‘Old Girls Club’)
years. We’ve also been to see the Mary Datchelor stained glass, now hanging in Blackheath High. We’ve been on tours of Parliament, the Tower of London and more besides.
as a vehicle for understanding. He greatly enjoyed travelling and meeting individuals from other cultures; and he felt at home in most of the countries of the Middle and Far East.
[Enid passed away in December 2019.]
In 2014, we were delighted and grateful to be allowed the use of Clothworkers’ Hall, so that we could celebrate the 125th anniversary of our club. Dr Carolyn Boulter (Master, 2017-18) was our guest of honour. How we remember her and also her grandfather, Major Beachcroft when he was Chairman of the Governors!
Life for Hugh started out on the Cumbrian coast at St Bees, where his father – a man of the cloth – was headmaster during World War II.
O
ne can never know how farreaching may be the effects of a small generosity or a practical, but wise, decision. Miss Mary Datchelor’s bequest of 1726 – to enable the apprenticeship of two poor children of the City of London – eventually lost its original purpose, as social conditions changed. In the 1870s, her endowment was freed up; with it, the Mary Datchelor School was founded in Camberwell in 1877. The school struggled financially until it was transferred from the control of the Charity Commissioners to The Clothworkers’ Company in 1894. The Company provided generous support for generations of girls (and a few boys in early times), up to and during the post-World War II period, when the Mary Datchelor School entered the state system and came under the administration of the London County Council. It received additional help from the Clothworkers. The school’s closure in 1981, due to changes in education policy, remains a great sadness. All is not lost though. Nearly 40 years on, there is still a very active ‘Old Girls’ Club’ with 810 members worldwide. Miss Enid Godwin, the final mistress of the Mary Datchelor School, was one of them. The club holds regular local meetings with lunches, theatre or concert visits – essentially any excuse for friendly connection. Members have visited Wilson’s School to view the mural that once hung in the Mary Datchelor School’s main hall. The small draft for it was spotted and purchased at auction by an old girl in recent
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THE CLOTHWORKER | AUTUMN 2020
Even now, like birds coming home to roost, many of us gather at St. Olave’s, Hart Street, for the Mary Datchelor carol service each year. Sometimes members have come from the Highlands, Solomon Islands and once, Tasmania! On the day of the carol service, just as we notice the bust of Samuel Pepys up there on the wall, always looking towards that of his wife across the nave, so we remain forever mindful of the strong resonance that the Worshipful Company of Clothworkers holds for Mary Datchelor women.
HUGH BOULTER, CONSORT TO PAST MASTER CAROLYN BOULTER (2017-18) Words of Appreciation by Past Master Michael Jarvis (2016-17) [Hugh passed away this past June.] Hugh’s background was in education and charities. He had a most admirable passion for dialogue between faiths in the Middle East – in which he was an indefatigable chair, facilitator, trainer and mentor. He was awarded a PhD in which he studied the role of the Holy Spirit in Christianity and Islam
Leaping two decades, he took his first degree at Corpus Christi, which members of the Court will remember as the centre point of the Master’s Outing at the completion of his wife’s year of service. He is alleged to have taken the rather opaque comment of the Oxford careers office to heart: ‘Mr Boulter; it is a pity we no longer have an Empire; you would have made an excellent Colonial Officer’. Instead, he volunteered to teach in Nigeria and shortly thereafter found himself as acting headmaster. His administrative talent and quiet leadership were to permeate the rest of his career. Carolyn and Hugh were of course the first full-time occupants of the new Master’s flat at our Hall. I asked a member of the staff about their recollection of the Consort to our first Lady Master. The reply referred to how quite extraordinarily supportive Hugh was of Carolyn – the unobtrusive companion, always there when needed. And that same member of our staff suggested to me that one very high point of ‘their’ year must have been their 50th wedding anniversary celebration, perfectly timed to take place at Clothworkers’ Hall. Finally, a very keen cook himself, you may remember that Hugh sought recipes to which our 2017 St Thomas Eve oranges might usefully be put. He was very kind about my resulting marmalade!
