Talk:Tony Little (headmaster)

Ohconfucius added this stub on 30 August 2006 -

Untitled

I have expanded the page to establish the subject's notability, citing reliable sources. In any event, the headmaster of Eton College is always a prominent figure in the UK's large non-state-school sector. The job is so important that only significant educators are appointed to it. I suggest keeping the article.

Xn4 01:32, 7 September 2006 (UTC)

I would not say that the independent sector is large. I thought the figure 7 percent was usually given, which means that the overwhelming majority of people in the UK have been educated in state schools. I would further suggest that the headmastership of a public school is rather less weighty a responsibility than the headmastership of, for example, a comprehensive school of more than a thousand children, the majority of whom speak English as what we now called "an additional language", in east London. The former headmaster has something like twenty times as much money to spend per pupil and does not have to deal with any deficiencies in literacy or numeracy because such children will not have been able to pass Common Entrance (or whatever it may be called these days). In certain cases, for exmaple Royal Russell School, I know that there are pupils with learning, emotional, behavioural, etc difficulties, but this is rarely the case at Eton.

Eric Anderson (William Eric Kinloch Anderson) is a rather different case since he was not only headmaster of Eton, but also Rector of Lincoln College, Oxford (although I am told that he is regarded as having been a most undeserving candidate for the Rectorship), and now Provost of Eton - not that the Provost does very much as far as I know, as well as being a Knight of the Thistle, which is, frankly, his greatest claim to notability. He is apparently Visitor of Harris Manchester College, Oxford, which seems like a most odd choice, since Harris Manchester has traditionally stood for tolerance and widening access to education. (I never encountered Anderson myself, but a friend who was at Abingdon under his headmastership recalls his anti-Catholic rhetoric. You may know another Eric Anderson, professor of history at Pacific Union College, author of Race and Politics in North Carolina 1872-1901, contributor to Southern Black Leaders of the Reconstruction Era and Race, Class, and Politics in Southern History, and editor of Facts of Reconstruction. When I had these on a reading list I naively mumbled something about "the Rector of Lincoln" [being somewhat surprised that he had written on this topic], to the horror of my tutor, who replied that that Eric Anderson was "a man of very little literary merit").

The same might probably go for Michael William McCrum - looking at his article, it sounds like he was quite important as an educational reformer: the abolition of fagging, for example, and stripping prefects of the right to beat junior boys, marks a significant departure from two of the defining features of the public school experience of the previous hundred years. Like Anderson he was head of an Oxbridge college and published at least a couple of books.

Anthony Chenevix-Trench needs more information. As it stands it sounds like he was distinguished (would certainly be Who's Who) but not necessarily notable enough to go into an encyclopedia. As for Robert Birley, his political activities and his Gresham appointment ought to be expanded, but he does sound potentially significant.

Judging from the fact that only the most recent headmasters, apart from the famous Nicholas Udall from the 16th cent., are mentioned, I rather suspect that recent Etonians (or former pupils of other schools where they taught) may have had a hand in the creation of the articles. Nothing wrong with that, but it suggests they are included because they are recent memory rather than as a result of historical perspective.

If Tony Little must be included, I suppose it would be on a kind of snoberry basis, i.e. the head master (I think they prefer two separate words at Eton) of Eton is always a notable person. Anthony Seldon, on the other hand, is a genuinely notable person, lest anybody level at me the charge that I simply don't want public school headmasters to have articles about them. He has written more books than most university professors (although they may not be as important as the books written by university professors of course) and appears in the media regularly, as well as giving public lectures.

For what it's worth, that is my view.--Oxonian2006 17:54, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia is, of course, an encyclopaedia. It doubles as a dictionary of biography, both contemporary and historical. It should certainly follow its own guidelines on notability, but they are naturally less stringent than those of paper-based encyclopaedias, which are cramped by size limitations. 194.72.162.199 00:16, 30 September 2006 (UTC)

I agree with Oxonian's points. The article does not establish that the subject is notable. Eton is notable, certainly, but its headmaster? Would most people familiar with education in the UK know Little's name? Has he done anything to make a name for himself? What is it that makes him notable? Specifically, which of the notability criteria does this article satisfy? --Zippy 04:46, 25 November 2006 (UTC)

Headmaster vs. head master

I believe "headmaster" is significantly more common in general usage than "head master". But to the specifics: Oakham, I'm pretty sure, uses it in the one-word form. If the two-word form is used by Eton (quick research gives me conflicting results) then we need to get it right for each school. In both cases it is a job title and should therefore follow the practice of the employer concerned. Barnabypage (talk) 01:34, 23 January 2010 (UTC)

@Barnabypage: This comment is from a while back, but—though newspapers follow their own style guidelines—"Head Master" is the form used by Eton itself, Arthur Clutton-Brock's important 1900 book Eton and in Tony Little's 2015 book An Intelligent Person's Guide to Education. I've gone through and edited most of the relevant articles to bring them in line with this usage (including capitalisation). —Nizolan ^(talk) 20:04, 20 March 2016 (UTC)

Great, thanks for putting in the effort! Barnabypage (talk) 19:07, 22 March 2016 (UTC)