Sir Roger Young

Former headmaster of George Watson’s College Born: November 15, 1923; Died: February 16, 2017 SIR ROGER YOUNG, who has died aged 93, was once described by a senior colleague at George Watson’s College in Edinburgh as one of the most remarkable headmasters of his generation.

Born in Delhi in 1923, where his mother was principal of Lady Hardinge Medical College and his father was vice principal of St Stephen’s College, Sir Roger was educated at the Dragon School, Oxford, and Westminster School, London.

As well as his academic prowess, he was also a capable sportsman. Just as importantly, there was also music, drama, literature and art, his interest in and love of which grew over the years and which were the mainstay of the hugely successful, week-long festival of the arts, which he staged at Watson’s in the summer term of 1985 just prior to his retirement.

Like most of his contemporaries, war interrupted the final stages of his formal education, so, on leaving Westminster in 1942, he joined the Royal Navy and served as an ordinary seaman and then sub-lieutenant. His fleet was heavily involved with the manoeuvres to support the Normandy Landings, something for which Sir Roger and a few of his colleagues received the Legion d’Honneur medal in 2015 on the 70th anniversary of those momentous events.

After the war, having secured a closed scholarship to Christ Church, Oxford, he studied Classical Mods and Greats, and graduated in 1949 with honours and with distinction in Latin.

After Oxford, he spent time as a tutor at St Catharine’s College, Cumberland Lodge, during which time he became engaged to Mary Christie. In 1951, he became an assistant master at Manchester Grammar School and, from there, thanks to the foresight of Eric James who had spotted his leadership ability, he applied for the headship of George Watson’s College in 1958. Much to his surprise, and everyone else’s, he got it, aged only 34.

He took with him to Edinburgh the firm belief that young people should not be educated for the sole benefit of qualifications. In 1962, he told the Edinburgh Merchant Company “schools needed educated schoolmasters as opposed to trained teachers, and boys and girls need far more than exams to win in life”.

This belief was the main reason he created the institution of Projects at Watson’s which, to this day, is seen by many former pupils and staff as his greatest legacy to the school. Projects involved taking all third form pupils away to several different remote locations for two weeks of residential outdoor education and it meant that all staff could play their part.

Sir Roger always believed that you should never ask others to do what you were not prepared to do yourself. This is why he always chose to be a teaching head, even when there were many other pressures on his time, most especially when he was chairman of the Head Masters’ Conference (1976) and a governor of BBC Scotland (1979-84).

He taught English, Latin, Greek and Religious Education, but he was just as much at home teaching knitting to a class dominated by junior school boys or helping preparatory school pupils to learn to read. Yet, perhaps he was at his very best when he was teaching sixth form tutorial groups – an addition he made to the Watson’s curriculum in 1962 and a unique experience through which no pupil could pass without being profoundly influenced by Sir Roger’s commitment to the pursuit of excellence.

There were times when his capacity for work appeared superhuman. This was something which often infuriated his colleagues, the more senior of whom had, from time to time, to remind him what life was like for ordinary mortals. It was these senior colleagues – including several outstanding deputies – on whose wise counsel he relied when he was at his most controversial and headstrong and when he was, but for their intervention, about to make the wrong decision.

One of the fascinations of George Watson’s College and, many would argue, one of its most enduring strengths, is its ability to combine the more liberal, utilitarian interpretation of education with all that is good about tradition. For many schools, there is a tension between the two; but not for Roger Young. In Watson’s, they found the best of both worlds and it was undoubtedly one of the reasons why he was able to steer such a steady ship through the potentially stormy waters of merging two very different schools; George Watson’s College and George Watson’s Ladies’ College as he did in 1974. The merger was a huge success and it is part of the reason why Watson’s has always been in the vanguard of Scottish education.

Probably, the best day of Sir Roger’s life at Watson’s was when The Queen visited in 1982. It made Sir Roger, and his family, and his staff and pupils, very happy too, as did the honour of a knighthood which he received in 1985.

No obituary of Sir Roger would be complete without acknowledging the debt he owed to Mary, his beloved wife of 61 years.

His success was so largely hers and no governing council could ever have found a finer headmaster’s wife even if they searched the length and breadth of the country.

The combination of their deep compassion and Christian conviction, their integrity and loyalty, their devotion to their four children, Elizabeth, Patrick, Janet and Christopher, plus their wit and sheer enjoyment of life made them the most durable alloy in the school community and it made Watson’s the great school which it remains today.

Sir Roger was pre-deceased by Mary in 2013 and is survived by his four children Elizabeth, Janet, Patrick and Christopher.