Obits

These are obituary notices for former pupils which M.P. and Garry Humphreys have found when searching for HMGS material online. Additions are welcome.

ALEXANDER, David John. 1952-1957 (entered IVA). Colonial Officer and University Lecturer. To year in USA at Portland High School, Oregon; then BA and MA Keele including a year at Cambridge for colonial service. Colonial officer and university lecturer in Northern Rhodesia (Zambia). From 1975 lecturer in adult education, Edinburgh University. b 1938, Northampton; d 29 January 2011. Obituary here.

ARGYLE, William Johnson ‘John’. 1941-1949. M.A. B.Litt. D.Phil (Oxford) after National Service in the Royal Navy. Social Anthropologist. Lecturer, Rhodes University, then University of Natal at Durban. Lecturer, Queen Mary College, London. Professor of Social Anthropology, Durban, 1971-1996. Retired to Devon and then Bristol. b 1931 Matlock, Derbyshire; d 20 September 2021. Obituary here.

BAILEY, William Henry Mettam ‘Robin’. 1930-1936. Actor. b 5 October 1919, Hucknall; d 14 January 1999, Wandsworth, London. Wikipedia here. The Independent here.

BAXTER, Lionel Charles MBE. 1941-1949. National Service: RAF. B.A. Keble College, Oxford. Colonial Service in Nigeria and then City & Guilds of London. b 1930 Swanwick, Derbyshire; d 16 January 2018, Peterborough. Obituary: Keble College: The Record 2017-2018.

BRIDGETT, Michael Cyril. 1954-1959. d 17 October 2013. Notice in Nottingham Post.

BUXTON, William Ivor. ?-1961. Welbeck and Sandhurst; B.A. Mechanical Sciences (Electronics), St. John’s College, Cambridge. Major, Royal Corps of Signals; data security consultant. b November 1943, Notts; d 14 September 2016, St. Michael’s Hospice, Hereford. Obituary: The Eagle, St. John’s College, Cambridge, 2017.

CARSON, Michael A. 1954-1961. M.A.. Ph.D. (Cambridge). Professor of Geography, McGill University, Montreal; consultant from 1987 in Victoria, B.C., Canada in geomorphology and hydrodynamics. Ornithologist and snorkeler. d 21 July 2018. McGill obituary here.

CARSON-ROWLAND, Michael John. 1953-1959 (but also lab boy until 1961). b 25 September 1941, Chesterfield; d 24 May 2017, Forres, Inverness. Funeral Mass Pluscarden Benedictine Abbey 2 June 2017. Lived in Sheffield and after 2006 in Inverness. Obituary: The Journal of the Association for Latin Liturgy No 152 – Our Lady of Walsingham 2017.

CLIFFORD, Frank Ernest. 1951-1958. Astronomer and applied mathematician at the University of Sussex; leader of the university orchestra. MA, PhD (with Fred Hoyle and Roger Tayler), Gonville & Caius College, Cambridge. b 1940; d 15 April 1997. Obituary here.

COLE, Trevor David. B.Sc. Hull. 1955-1962. b 1944, lived at Stapleford; 15 May 2013. formerly Maths teacher at Ludlow College. Death notice in The Times and local newspapers

COOPER, Geoffrey Edward. 1956-1961. Local authority civil engineer. b 15 October 1944, Sherwood; d 1 March 2008. Notice: Mansfield & Ashfield Chad 31 March 2008.

CUNNINGTON, Dennnis Murray. 1936-1940. Sports journalist. Tennis correspondent, Press Association from 1956. Previously on Nottingham Journal; National Service: Sergeant, Sherwood Foresters. Lived at West Harrow. b 1924, Loughborough; d 19 July 2009. Information here but some other information no longer on the internet.

DIXON, Nigel David. 1954-1961/2. b 24 April 1943; d 7 April 1997 Mansfield. Chartered Accountant and Company Secretary.

DRINKWATER, David, 1955-1960, b 2 February 1944; d 15 September 2022. To the consternation of School management, he became an apprentice at the Royal Ordnance Factory Nottingham. This was a precursor to a distinguished career in engineering and engineering standards. Worked for a number of large organisations in a senior capacity in Egypt and USA as well as the UK. A keen cyclist, he covered 163,000 miles in his life including the four cardinal points of the UK.

DRINKWATER, John Brian. 1931-1948. MB ChB (Sheffield) FRCS. Surgeon Rear Admiral RN; Queen’s Honorary Surgeon. From 1987 director of support services, Muscular Dystrophy UK. b 5 June 1931, Beeston; d 11 February 2018, Cumbria. Obituary: Royal College of Surgeons here

EARNSHAW, Frank William. 1949-1954. Former President of Henry Mellish Old Boys Rugby Club. Senior Divisional Officer in the Nottinghamshire Fire and Rescue Service, Mansfield. b 28 November 1937, Hull. d 12 June 2013.

GARDINER, Percy Alec. 1929-ca 1937. M.C., B.A. (French) (University College, London), MEd (Nottingham). b 15 November 1918, Stapleford; d 29 October 2008, Scarborough. 1939 enlisted Sherwood Foresters; commissioned 1942, Leicestershire Regiment, T/Capt 1945. M.C. gazetted 3 May 1945 for ‘gallant and distinguished services in North-West Europe’. Assistant Master, Ilkeston Grammar School 1948-1950, Manchester Grammar School, 1950-1954 (French, English and RI); Founder Headmaster. Boreham Wood Grammar School. 1954-1961. Head, Scarborough High School for Boys, 1961-1974. First principal of Scarborough Sixth Form College, 1974-1979. Organist, Scalby Methodist Church for 25 years.

GARTON, Geoffrey. 1939-1946. B.A., D. Phil. (Oxford, chemistry). b 6 October 1927, Nottingham; d 2016 Ramdsen, Oxfordshire. Governing Body Fellow and Bursar of Wolfson College, Oxford. Obituary: Wolfson College Record 2017.

GILES, Clive Francis (‘Jazz’). 1953-1958. b 1942. d 11 July 2010. Notice in Nottingham Post.

GOULDING, Ronald William. 1957-? M.A. (Cambridge); Ph.D (London, Royal Postgraduate Medical School and MRC Cyclotron Unit, 1981). b 9 August 1946, Beeston; d 25 March 2009, Edinburgh. Notice in Nottingham Post

GOURLAY, Kenneth Alexander. 1929-? B.A. English (St Edmund Hall, Oxford). Military service. Teacher, UK and Uganda. Ethnomusicologist in Uganda, Papua New Guinea and Nigeria. Ph.D. 1971. Finally Senior Fellow in Music Studies, Africa Department, School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London. b 8 March 1919, Beeston; d 4 November 1994, Surrey. Biography and Archives here

HALLAM, Donald [1940-1945] b 17 November 1928, Beeston; d 2017, Canada. See here

HARRISON, John Rufford 1940-1947. Ph.D. Chemistry (King’s College, London) b 5 May 1930, Beeston; d 28 January 2017, Concord, New Hampshire. Worked for DuPont in USA. Vice-President, International Table Tennis Federation (involved in Nixon’s ‘Ping-Pong diplomacy with China). See here.

HENSTOCK, Ralph. 1933-1941. Mathematician (Henstock-Kurzwell integral). Scholarship to St John’s College, Cambridge then war service at Ministry of Supply’s Department of Statistical Method and Quality Control in London; PhD (Birkbeck College, London). Assistant Lecturer, Bedford College London, 1947–48 and Birkbeck, 1948–51; Lecturer, Queen’s University Belfast, 1951–56 and Bristol University, 1956–60; Senior Lecturer and Reader, Queen’s University Belfast, 1960–64; Reader, Lancaster University, 1964–70; Chair of Pure Mathematics, New University of Ulster, 1970–88. b 2 June 1923, Newstead; d 17 January 2007. Autobiographical note here and mathematical career here.

HOLGATE, Sidney (‘Syd’) CBE. 1929-? b 9 September 1918, Hucknall; d 17 May 2003. 1st Class Hons Maths Durham 1940. Taught for year at Nottingham High School then returned to Durham (Ph.D. 1945). Master of Grey College, Durham 1959-1980. Noted for having batted against Harold Larwood and Frank Tyson. Obituary: The Times 10 June 2003; Grey College Association website.

JACKSON, Malcolm. 1953-1960. d 19 September 2015, Nottingham. Notice on legacy.com

LANDER. Michael James. 1955-1961. B.A. (Medical Electronics, Open). b 31 October 1943 Beeston; d 14 June 2022. Technician in electronics, University of Nottingham then medical electronics in industry. Told he could only expect a short life while at HMGS, he had a successful early ‘hole-in-heart’ operation in 1966. Remembered at HMGS for his cigar tube rocket launches over the school field.

LEE, John Michael. 1942-1950. Christ Church, Oxford. 1958-67 Lecturer and Senior Lecturer in government, Manchester. 1967-69 H.M. Treasury. 1969-72 Institute of Commonwealth Studies. 1972-81 Reader in Politics, Birkbeck College. 1981-1992 Professor of Politics, Bristol. 1993-95 Visiting Fellow, LSE. Author of books on politics and history, e.g. The Churchill Coalition, 1940-1945. b 29 March 1932, Sheffield; d 2 February 2022, Twickenham. Papers deposited in Nottinghamshire Archives including an autobiography.

MARTIN, Eric James. ?-1941. Notts County Cricket Club 1949-1959; one game for Notts County FC. b 17 August 1925, Lambley; d 1 October 2015, Woodthorpe. Obituary here.

MORLEY, John Harwood. 1945-1953. M.A. (Exeter College, Oxford). Museum curator at Leicester, Bradford. Director, Royal Pavilion, Brighton; Keeper of furniture and interior design, Victoria and Albert Museum. b 5 December 1933; d 3 May 2001. Obituary: The Guardian 10 May 2001.

MURDEN, Michael Albert. 1947-1954. RAF Technical College, Henlow. Squadron Leader RAF. expert on metal fatigue; Civil Aviation Authority. b 1 December 1935, Beeston; d 25 August 2013, Yorkshire. Obituary: Yorkshire Post 5 October 2013.

MURRAY, Sir Kenneth FRS. 1941-1947. Left in Lower VI to work at Boots as junior technician; moved to Glaxo and p/t degree at Birmingham (1st Class Hons Chemistry). After a Ph.D. he worked at Stanford University for 5 years. In 1964 to Medical Research Council’s Laboratory of Molecular Biology, Cambridge. To Edinburgh 1967 (Senior Lecturer in Molecular Biology; Reader 1973; Professor 1984). A founder of Biogen, he produced the first vaccine against hepatitis B; his profits were used to fund a charity, the Darwin Trust. Royal Medallist of the Royal Society, 2000. b 30 December 1930, East Ardsley, Yorkshire (moved to Kirkby-in-Ashfield where his father was school caretaker); d 7 April 2013, Edinburgh. Biographical Memoir of the Royal Society: here.

NICKOLS, Herbert Arthur. 1941-1944. BSc (Electrical and Electronic Engineering, Imperial College, London). Demonstrator at Imperial until 1949 then to St, Edmund’s School, Canterbury to teach physics for a term; he stayed (instead of taking up a place to train for the priesthood ) for 31 years, becoming house master, senior science master and deputy head; Headmaster, Westonbirt School, 1981-1986. b 17 January 1926 Ilford, Essex; d 3 February 2017. Some information here but link to more detail no longer exists.

NOON, David A ‘Danny’. 1947-1955. Squadron Leader RAF. Killed along with pupil while instructing on a Jet Provost from RAF Syerston which crashed at East Drayton, near Tuxford on 30 December 1966. Details here.

POKORNY, Michael Robert.1948-1956. M.B. Ch.B. (Sheffield) DPM. Psychiatrist, psychoanalyst and psychotherapist in practice in Harley Street. Chairman, UK Council for Psychotherapy, 1989-1993. b 6 February 1937, possibly in Hamburg; d 11 June 2017, Nottingham. Born Austrian; Naturalized 1947 when living in Beeston. Obituary in British Medical Journal behind paywall.

RAYMOND, Robert Alwyn. OAM, Hon DLitt (Sydney). 1936-1938. Journalist, television producer, director and writer. Brought by his mother to Nottinghamshire from Queensland after his father died. His mother ran a shop in Bulwell and then a boarding house in Nottingham. Draughtsman at Ericcson Telephones. Joined Daily Sketch in 1940, then Sydney Daily Mirror and the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) in London. Youngest accredited war correspondent and covered the D-Day landings. Post-war: freelance journalist in London (e.g. New Statesman); 1953 to Gold Coast (Ghana) as press officer for Volta River hydro-electric project and then the Prime Minister for the independence celebrations. Returned to Australia in 1957 and joined ABC. Proposed and established Four Corners, the still extant current affairs programme. Then to Channel Nine and Channel Seven. Founded own production company and produced a series of on the natural history of Australia. Board of ABC 1983-86. b 7 July 1922 Canungra, Queensland; d 26 September 2003. Autobiography, From Bees to Buzz-Bombs, University of Queensland Press, 1992, describes life at the Mellish. Biographical details here and here.

ROWBERRY, David Eric. 1951-1958. Musician. Entered the Newcastle music scene while a student at the university. Mike Cotton’s jazz band and then Mike Cotton Sound from 1962; Replaced Alan Price in The Animals, 1965. From 1966 session musician in London. Returned to performing in 1999: The Animals and Friends. b 4 July1940, Mapperley; died 6 June 2003, London. Newspaper obituaries here, here and here.

SENESCHALL, Roy. 1942-1950. Company Secretary, Pilkington Glass Ltd. b 1930 Shardlow Registration District; d 22 February 1995, Warrington. (School prize book from 1949 for sale on eBay 2021).

SCHOFIELD, Geoffrey Brealey. ca 1935-1940. Radiation Doctor and Engineer. To Boots as analytical chemist; then p/t and fl/t degrees in engineering, Nottingham; engineering Sub/Lt RNVR. To Sheffield University medical school (MB ChB 1953). Medical officer East Midlands Gas Board; UK Atomic Energy Authority medical staff, 1958; AIMechE, 1959; British Nuclear Fuel from 1971 becoming chief medical officer. Expert on radiation medicine. FFOM, 1984. b 1924, Sheffield; d 31 May 1985, Cumbria. Obituary here.

SCOFFIELD, John ‘Jon’. 1943-1949. Nottingham College of Art. Theatre set designer. Television executive, producer and director. for ATV, LWT and Central; commissioned Spitting Image. Twice nominated for BAFTA. b 30 April 1932, Nottingham; d 21 May 2018, Chesterfield. Career: here; Obituary: here.

SPOLTON, Lewis. 1929-1932. B.Sc., M.Ed. Head, Ravensdale School, Mansfield in the 1950s and later Lecturer in Education at University College, Swansea. Author of: Ninety North: the story of Arctic exploration (Johnson & Bacon, 1963); The Upper Secondary School: a comparative survey (Pergamon Press, 1967); World Weather and Climate (Cambridge University Press, 1974). Meteorological Branch RAF (Flt Lt 1943). b 10 August 1914, Kirkby-in-Ashfield; d 28 August 2001, Hampshire. Uncle of J.M. Spolton, member of staff (q.v.).

STONELAKE, Maurice Henry. 1943-1950. An A.T.C. cadet, he was fatally injured while piloting a Cadet Mk 1 glider at R.A.F. Rufforth. The glider nosedived after being launched and crashed from about 70 feet. It was his 40th flight. Inquest verdict: Accidental Death. E.A. Hutchinson attended the funeral on behalf of the CCF and the school. b 29 May 1933; d 18 August 1950. Reports in Yorkshire Post, 31 August 1950; Nottingham Journal, 24 August 1950.

STORR, Richard Charles. 1954-1961. BSc Chemistry (King’s College, London), PhD Chemistry (Leicester). Originally of Forest Fields then Nuthall, took up work at Leicester University during PhD, moving to Liverpool University as Lecturer in Chemistry. Working in research in organic chemistry (Treasurer/Secretary of the Heterocyclic Group of the Royal Society of Chemistry 1986-89) and lecturing at Liverpool from the late 1960s until retirement. Resident of the Wirral. b 1942 Nottingham; d 29 May 2018. Brother to Jeremy G Storr (1958-1965).

STORR, Jeremy George. 1958-1965. BA English (Sheffield, 1968), PGCE (Nottingham, 1969), MA English Language (researching dialects of the Erewash Valley – 1981). Originally of Forest Fields then Nuthall, resident of Sheffield from the mid-1960s. English teacher at Holgate Grammar, Barnsley 1969-1975 then Head of English at Wisewood Comprehensive, Sheffield 1975-1995. Known at Henry Mellish for his sketching skills (see cartoons Centaur 1964/5). After retirement worked as watercolour artist, painting commissions and selling artwork in galleries including paintings of landscapes and scenes across Yorkshire and the Bristol area. b 1946 Nottingham; d. August 2022. Brother to Richard C Storr (1954-1961).

STUART, Michael Louis. 1949-1954. RAF, electrical engineer at Ministry of Defence, Scottish Home and Health Department and then Health and Safety Executive, Buxton, Derbyshire. Local historian and archaeologist, particularly of Longstone, Derbyshire; inspired by master as HMGS which can only have been Stan Revill. b 26 February 1938, Beeston; d 3 September 2011, Derbyshire. Obituary here.

TAYLOR, Gordon John. 1954-1961. b 1 August 1943; d 16 January 2008. Conservative Party Councillor for Beeston North, Broxtowe District Council. Notice: Nottingham Post.

THOMAS, Geoffrey Charles. ?-? B.A. (Lancaster, theology and politics). Career adviser; Manpower Services Commission, Sheffield; M.A. (Sheffield on greyhound racing industry). British Greyhound Racing Board (chief executive from 1996). Freelance journalist from 2003 including weekly racing supplement for Daily Star. b 1958, Nottingham; d 24 September 2018, Islington. Obituary: The Guardian here.

WARD, Edmund. ?-1944. Novelist, playwright and scriptwriter and programme creator for films and television. b 23 February 1928, Carlton; d 12 July 1993, Dublin. Obituary: The Independent: here; Career details here.

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