Everything about George Howson totally explained
George William Saul Howson MA (
8 August 1860 -
7 January 1919) was an
English educationalist and
writer, reforming headmaster of
Gresham's School from 1900 to 1919.
Early life
Howson was of the four sons of William Howson of
Settle, author of
An Illustrated Guide to the Curiosities of Craven (1850), and Headmaster of Penrith School; and the grandson of the Reverend J. Howson, second master of
Giggleswick School. He was himself educated at Giggleswick, which he left in July 1879, and then at
Merton College, Oxford. He matriculated at Oxford in 1879 and graduated
BA (taking a First in the Final Honours School of Natural Science) in 1883 and
MA in 1886.
All of his brothers attended Giggleswick School, Hubert Howson (born 1857) becoming a lawyer and settling in
New York, and Charles James Howson (born 1852) becoming a bank manager and
Justice of the Peace at
Chesterfield.
Schoolmaster
Howson's first position after leaving Oxford was as an assistant master at Newton College, in south
Devon, from 1883 to 1886. He then moved to
Uppingham School, where he remained for fourteen years, from 1886 until 1900, when he was appointed Headmaster of
Gresham's School,
Holt, continuing in post until his death in 1919.
When Howson arrived at Gresham's, a rather dusty ancient
grammar school founded by
Sir John Gresham, he found it in numbers much as it had been when established in 1555. In 1900, the school still occupied its original
Holt town centre site and contained only forty
Holt Scholars, plus seven boarders.
During his headmastership, Howson achieved a completely new set of school buildings on a new edge-of-town site, transforming the school and quadrupling its population. The first such new buildings, designed by the architect
Sir John Simpson, were opened by
Field Marshal Sir Evelyn Wood on 30 September, 1903. These consisted of School House (renamed Howson's in 1919, after Howson's death) and the main classrooms building, including Big School. More boarding houses were acquired or built between 1905 and 1911. A new School Chapel was completed in 1916, during the
Great War, during which one hundred Old Greshamians were killed.
The poet
W. H. Auden wrote favourably of the new school's private studies for boys, its warm classrooms, magnificent library and excellent laboratories.
In
Who's Who, Howson stated his recreations as
riding,
fives, and
trout-fishing.
[
]Author
Howson's publications include his Sermons by a Lay Headmaster, Preached at Gresham's School, 1900-1918 (Longmans, Green and Co., 1920).
Bibliography
- Simpson, James Herbert, Howson of Holt: A study in school life (Sidgwick & Jackson, 1925, 93 pp)
Further Information
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