Moving Up the School

Abstract

The school into which Hal entered in 1918 was radically changed the next year, when Dr Fyfe replaced Dr Upcott as headmaster on his retirement. Many thought Dr Fyfe a strange choice, for previously he had been a teacher of classics at Oxford University and then a staff officer in the First World War, but never a schoolmaster. He was best known for his English translations of Aristotle and Tacitus and as he said, “I spent 16 years before coming to CH as a Don at Oxford, so I knew nothing about education.” Dr Fyfe was the only person interviewed for the post of headmaster. He was kept waiting by the interviewing committee for almost an hour while Armstrong spoke at length against appointing yet another classicist to the headmastership. But others on the interviewing committee prevailed. Dr Fyfe was appointed and it was not long before Armstrong and he became good friends. He finally appreciated the excellent influence that Armstrong had exerted to advance the educational standards at Housey and wrote, “Those who love Christ’s Hospital ought gratefully to remember Henry Armstrong. He was the school’s second Founder.”