Arthur
'Alfie' Baxter [1925 - 1973]
Mr.
Arthur Baxter's sudden death in
December was a shock to us all
and a tragedy to the School and
his family. He had taken up his
position as Deputy headmaster but
fifteen months before, after
having served the school for
seventeen years, mostly as Head
of History Department and Sixth
form tutor, but also, of course,
as the most enthusiastic of
cricket masters and supporter of
the Dent project.
It
is not solely for what he did
that we will remember him, but
for what he was as friend and
teacher. He had all the qualities
of a true schoolmaster; indeed,
he was a man who loved tradition,
not because of its
sentimentality, but because it
sustained and strengthened in an
era of constant change and
irritation.
He
was a master of quiet
conversation, of gentle but
striking wit, of vivid
reminiscences of other people and
events. We flourished as a result
of his good comradeship,
stimulating teaching and belief
in the highest academic,
standards. Nothing, except
perhaps a perfectly executed
cover drive, or lst XI victory,
gave him more pleasure than the
achievement of an Oxford Open
Scholarship by one of his
pupils (John Parkinson's at
Brasenose awarded in 1972 was in
itself a memorial to him).
He
was one of those quiet, but
thoroughly effective men whose
strength came from a closely
reasoned personal philosophy. We
cannot measure what he gave to us
"in the significant hours of
our life” but we are
grateful that our paths ran side
by side for so many of his
forty-eight years. [J.C.S.
Weekes]
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