Present at the London Section 2001 Dinner were:
Chairman: John Hawkins (58-66)
Principal Guest: The Bishop of Exeter, the Right Reverend
Michael Langrish
Representing MGS: Dr Martin Stephen (High Master), Ian Thorpe
(62-69, Surmaster), Rodger Alderson (58-65)
Representing the OMA: Tim Hall (41-46)
David Adams (54-61), Barry Akid (45-52), Jeremy Atherton (71-77),
Philip Barnes (39-46), Glen Brook (63-69), John Caygill
(48-56), Alan Corbishley (53-58), Brig. Anthony Cowgill (32-34),
Peter Craze (staff 75-83), Alec Elmer (50-57), Nicholas
Gartside (86-93), Peter Gee (50-58), Andrew Herring (79-85),
Andrew Hilson (53-60), Ian Millar (46-52), Robert Miller (55-62),
John Newton (49-55), James Nuttall (37-44), John Pickerill
(41-47), George Richardson (46-54), Kenneth Robbie (64-71),
Ian
Shepherd (39-47), Charles Sinton (86-93), Simon Stocks (79-85),
Barry Verber (54-61), Edmund Wilkinson (49-54)
The Right Reverend Michael Laurence Langrish, Bishop of Exeter,
spoke as follows:
It is very good to be here with you, and with such a large
group of people with roots and associations with the North
West of
England where I was fortunate to spend 7 years of my ministry.
In 1993 I moved from the West Midlands to Merseyside to
become Bishop of Birkenhead. I was the third Bishop but only
the first to live in Birkenhead itself …
You might be forgiven for wondering about my reasons for
being here other than being a direct Episcopal successor of
your
founder Hugh Oldham. He was the 30th Bishop of Exeter, I am
the 70th. But actually I feel that there are rather more
connections than that simple historical fact. He had his roots
deep in Lancashire - in Oldham, whence his name. So in a
sense do I - although in my case - Old Trafford: cricket,
that is, and not ‘United.’ Hugh Oldham’s brother
was Abbot of St
Werburgh’s in Chester, which is where I had my former
Episcopal stall. He was also, throughout his working life,
deeply
concerned with issues of education, as I have been in mine.
In other respects, though, I rather hope that I am not so
like
him. He was quite clearly a wheeler-dealer, who not only knew
how to look after his own interests, but was also very ready
to defend them. For example, he managed to gather to himself
a vast array of ecclesiastical offices including parishes
in the
city of London, Hertford, Hampshire and Lincolnshire, a Deanery
in Dorset, an Archdeaconry in Devon, the Masterships of
hospitals in Staffordshire and Bedfordshire, and prebendal
stalls in the Cathedrals of St Paul’s, Lincoln and York
- drawing
the incomes of then all at one and the same time. A contemporary
wrote of him: "He was careful in the saving and defending
of his liberties for which continual suits were between him
and the Abbot of Tavistock." And indeed at the time of
his death
he was under excommunication for his vexatious law-suits,
and could not be buried until a pardon was procured from Rome.
Such are the moral foundations on which you stand today!
Yet, you and your predecessors, and successors, have been
able to enjoy the deservedly renowned education which
Manchester Grammar School has had to offer, precisely because
of two other features of this man, both of which governed
how he used much of his wealth, no matter how ill-gotten it
may have been.
The first was his conviction of the importance of learning,
in a very broad sense, and his dedication to making available
opportunities for its pursuit. The same contemporary I have
already quoted went on to say: "he was a man of more
devotion
than learning, somewhat rough in speech, but in deed and action
friendly ( I daren’t say a typical Mancunian!). Albeit
he was
not well-learned, yet a great favourer and furtherer of learning
he was."
The second point of note about him was his sensitivity to,
and ability to read, the signs of the times. And so some time
between 1513 and 1516 we find him advising his friend Bishop
Foxe, Bishop of Winchester, against building an Oxford
College to cater for young monks. "What, my Lord,"
he reported to have said: "shall we build houses and
provide livelihoods
for a company of bussing monks, whose end and fall we ourselves
may yet to see? No! no! It is more meet a great deal that
we should have care to provide for the increase of learning
and for such as who by their learning shall do good in the
church
and commonwealth." With the information, in fact just
round the corner (Would that I had a stockbroker with such
foresight!)
The result of that advice was the founding of Corpus Christi
College in 1516 - 17, towards which Oldham himself contributed
the very large sum of 6000 marks, apart from other gifts.
More importantly, from your point of view, he, at the same
time,
conveyed property and assets to become the foundation of Manchester
Grammar School.
Two things of note about this man then, both of which have
contemporary relevance today.
The first, a conviction in the importance of learning and
education - and education which is both broadbased and humane,
and directed to the well-being of society. Education in this
sense is about far more than acquiring skills and qualifications,
or
equipping for employment, as vitally important as these things
are. It is also about enabling people to truly know themselves,
and to do so by knowing and appreciating the world and the
culture of which they are a part. It is about helping people
to
form within themselves a coherent, well grounded and realistic
world-view against which the inevitable vicissitudes of life
can
be handled and judged. It is about developing wisdom, prudence,
understanding and value, as much as knowledge, skill,
competence and expertise. Yet there is a very real danger
that in much of our education system today it is this
understanding which is being lost. Today’s "Times"
for example contains an article in which a number of authors
and artists,
all of them former teachers, reflect on why they left the
profession. They include the authors Louis de Bernieres and
Nick
Hornby, the dramatists Alan Bleasdale and Jimmy McGovern and
the performer "Sting". One, Roddy Doyle, seems to
speak
for them all: - "I did it for 14 years, loved it for
11, liked it for one, tolerated it for one, hated it for one.
I’d never go back. I gave
up finally because it became a job for a machine, teaching
other machines how to cope with exams. The job had soured.
I
was sitting down planning classes, opening the same bloody
book, looking at the same photograph and the same notes
about the same poet and thinking " I don’t want
to do this anymore".
How far from Oldham’s vision of a broad humane education.
The second quality I take from Hugh Oldham, though, is his
capacity to put his finger on the pulse of what was happening
in
the world of his day, and so both to be open to the future
and critically appreciative of what it might be. But, in general,
such
an ability to read the future comes, perhaps oddly, out of
a deep knowledge and reading of the past. So many of the great
steps forward in almost any realm of human endeavour - science,
the arts, civic or spiritual life - can be seen to have their
origins in those who were already deeply grounded in a knowledge
and understanding of what had already been achieved and
received from the tradition that had been established before.
Paradoxically the very ability not to be imprisoned by precedent,
indeed to be able to open up well-worn traditions for new
exploration, can only spring out from a really thorough grasp
of what
that precedent and tradition have really been about. It is
such a grasp that differentiates true creativity from simply
blundering
forward in the dark. And in so many areas of life today such
informed creativity is precisely what our society needs.
Here, I believe, are reminders of some of the key functions
of a good education -
(1) the development of men and women with a breadth of understanding
of themselves and the world around them, (2) rooted
in a depth of knowledge of the past from which they have sprung,
that (3) enables them to be genuinely open to the future
that lies ahead.
Yet from schools through to Universities such a vision for
education does seem to be under very considerable threat today.
And in a society which often seems to either devalue, or
be unwilling to seriously explore, its inheritance; which
can be
profoundly sceptical of much authority, and which at times
appears to accord the highest value to the short term, the
individualistic, the functional and the pragmatic, such an
understanding of the role of education may come to be seen
to be,
more and more, one which is profoundly counter-cultural -
and increasingly difficult to maintain.
But it is a role of great integrity and value, and one in
which to date Manchester Grammar School has a record of which
to
be proud . And so in proposing the toast to the school, may
I add - may it long be so.
Would you all please rise and join me in drinking to "The
Manchester Grammar School."
