Myth of schoolboy’s death in cupboard

There is no doubt headmasters shape a school’s direction and are often remembered by pupils for years afterwards.

But one headmaster at Tonbridge School is still the subject of conversation 250 years after his death.

James Cawthorn was born in Sheffield in 1719 and was headmaster at Tonbridge School from 1743 until he died in 1761 – killed when he was thrown from his horse.

Reputed to be a strict disciplinarian who terrified his pupils, he at the same time seems to have been a kind mentor to some of the school’s most prominent old boys – including George Austen, father of the novelist Jane – and to William Woodfall, considered the father of parliamentary reporting.

George Austen, after graduating from Oxford, became Mr Cawthorn’s deputy and he and Cawthorn are credited with founding the school’s first library.

Author Martin Cawthorne holds a distant family connection with the head teacher. The Cawthornes (with and without an E) stem from the village of Cawthorne in the West Riding of Yorkshire.

He said: “It’s a very, very distant link. There was a chap called William Cawthorn who lived in the 1570s and he had three sons called William, Robert and John. The headmaster is descended from one son and my family from another.”

Mr Cawthorne has written the book about the headmaster to learn more about his complex character.

In particular, there’s an enduring myth the headmaster once locked a pupil in a cupboard as punishment, forgot about him, causing him to starve to death.

The story proves to be untrue, but as Mr Cawthorn said: “There’s now smoke without fire” and a pupil at the head’s previous school – the Soho Academy – had died in unfortunate circumstances killed by another pupil. James Cawthorn, George Austen and the Curious Case of the Schoolboy who was Killed, by Martin Cawthorne, costs £12.99. ISBN 9781785898600 It is available from Orca Book Services on 01235 465521.