Focus On In this issue we are focusing on Rev John Royds following his death in March 2011 aged 90 years. John Royds was Headmaster at Uppingham from 1965 - 1974.
‘Almost his first action as Headmaster was to redesign and rewrite the school prospectus: a thin and selfeffacing affair became attractive and handsomely illustrated….One of his most important innovations was a system of tutors for those in the 6th Forms….providing a safety valve for a boy who did not see eye-to-eye with his housemaster….He presided over the conversion of the Memorial Hall – the Undercroft became a Sixth Form Centre and Bar – and the Victoria Block (with a Language Laboratory), 1970 saw the Sports Hall opened, and the Cavell science block, and in 1972 the new Theatre was opened, converted by Christopher Richardson from the first School gymnasium (the Boer War Memorial). He came to Uppingham at a time when automatic deference was changing into criticism of every rule and convention. He was broad-minded enough to abolish Thring’s 100 year-old rule that boys’ trouser pockets be sewn up. He abolished compulsory attendance at matches and concerts, and introduced voluntary membership of the CCF’. John Royds was a great man, and a headmaster who I certainly viewed with awe and respect. I remember his lessons in the 6th form on Philosophy, as an extra, reading and discussing Descartes, Mill and others. I remember, as a School Praeposter, being prepared and rehearsing with him to read the lesson at morning chapel. The chapel was easy; but reading in the School Hall remains the most terrifying thing I had to do at school! Finally and most importantly, the appointment to see the Headmaster on your birthday each year; for me in June,
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was truly extraordinary. He knew everything about you and was keen to find out what the school was doing for you; and what you were doing for the school. I do hope this is still a tradition at the school; as it really made you feel that the man at the top was interested in you! I met him a few years after leaving Uppingham, and he was a spiritual man, but he remained for me, inspirational. Uppingham was very fortunate to have him. Hugh Stimpson (C 69)
When I started at Uppingham in 1968, very little seemed to have changed since my father was there a quarter of a century before. However, I gradually realised that whilst retaining most of the traditions and disciplines that had served the school so well, the Headmaster was also making it a more human and flexible organisation. I can still vividly recall waiting outside his study on my first birthday at the school to meet him personally for the first time, being intensely nervous but (when the green light eventually flashed to indicate I could
The Magazine for the Old Boys & Girls of Uppingham School
