Geoffrey Hewitson
Winchester housemaster who was also an excellent footballer
GEOFFREY HEWITSON, who has died aged 83, was an outstanding teacher, housemaster and second master at Winchester College for 37 years.
As a gifted soccer player, he was awarded his Cambridge Blue in 1957 and from 2001 to 2006 was chairman of the amateur football club Corinthian Casuals, for whom he had played more than 80 games as a young man.
He was, however, a greater man than the sum of his achievements. Widely respected by his colleagues at Winchester, who elected him chairman of Common Room, he was known for his good humour, his modesty, his deft handling of all types of situation and the fairness of his judgments. When he became acting head for a term in the headmaster’s absence, he showed how easily he would have filled the role in any school.
The standard imitation of him began with a shrug of the shoulders and the words, “I’m a reasonable man” – and so he appeared to generations of pupils.
Geoffrey Hewitson was born in Hackney on February 1 1935, the only child of devoted parents determined to do their best for him. His father, who had started work at age 14 in a Northumberland coal mine, re-mortgaged the house to buy him the Cambridge soccer Blue blazer.
Evacuated during the war to Hertfordshire and something of a late developer, he surprised everyone by passing the 11-Plus exam and going to Sir George Monoux Grammar School in Walthamstow. After a slow start as an A-level scientist he switched to History, discovered a lifelong interest and won a place at Selwyn College, Cambridge.
Before going up he did his National Service in the RAF, where he spent much time playing football and tennis, representing the RAF at doubles. Asked later whether he had ever been to Wimbledon, he would reply with an ironic smile: “Only as a competitor.” He would then add: “We lost 6-0, 6-0.”
At Cambridge he was coached by Bill Nicholson, who would later manage Tottenham Hotspur. Hewitson loved recounting one of Nicholson’s half-time talks: “You’re the most intelligent side I’ve coached – and the worst footballers.”
After Cambridge he had a difficult choice. Fascinated by how such things as classic cars worked, he became a management trainee at a building firm. But his academic ability, his sporting skill and his natural affinity with people marked him out as a schoolmaster, first at Forest School in East London, where he was later a governor, and afterwards at Winchester.
Regarded by some colleagues on arrival as a mere games player, Hewitson soon proved himself to be something of a renaissance figure, with interests in pictures, porcelain, church architecture, classic bicycles, French wine and Italian cars.
His tenure as housemaster of Kingsgate House began in 1970. He brought to it an instinctive understanding and amused tolerance of teenage boys at a time when the enforcement of traditional discipline had become harder. For the nervous or vulnerable his manner was reassuring and his attention constant. But he set clear boundaries. On one occasion he refused a boy’s request for an absence. “Aren’t you even willing to discuss it?” cried the boy. “Perfectly willing.” replied Hewitson. “But on one condition: I win.”
His calmness and moral conviction, allied to a laconic sense of humour, provided adolescent boys with the guidance and security they needed. Nothing threw him. Strolling into the kitchen where his wife was having elevenses with a friend, he commented wryly: “A normal morning in the House. The meat for lunch has gone off and there’s been a stabbing.”
His wife, Shirley, who died in 1980, was the perfect support for him, as was his companion in later life, Judy Shedden. He is survived by his two sons.
Geoffrey Hewitson, born February 1 1935, died February 13 2018