Arnold James Parkes Andrews DCM (1895-1973)
“Kippy” (staff 1920-60) died suddenly at his home on 18th April, aged 78. This diffident and unassuming man, with his shy smile, gentle high voice and wry humour, will be clearly remembered by very many Shirburnians. In latter years, increasingly withdrawn, he was yet a frequent visitor to the Common Room, and his interest in the School never waned.
In 1914 when war broke out, he was a scholar at Oxford, and he immediately joined up as a despatch rider. This was an unorthodox move at a time when Commissions were being applied for and granted without any aptitude tests or special training. The motorcycle was coming in to replace the horse as the means of communication, and dangerous work it was mostly at night over hazardous roads and tracks. “Kippy” remained a despatch rider throughout the war and was awarded the D.C.M., a rare decoration for private soldiers, for his services.
After the war he returned to Oxford, took a teacher’s training course – a pioneer idea in those days – and came to Sherborne to teach Chemistry in September 1920. Needless to say he arrived on a motor bicycle! (He remained, as many will recall, a devotee of vintage cars all his life).
It is probably fair to say that he was more than anyone else the founder of the present large and flourishing Science Department. He will be remembered as a teacher who taught groups of individuals rather than classes, and made friends as well as chemists. Those taught by him will recall also his pleasure in contrived explosions!
He was the founder of the photographic society and its inspiration, but his principal out of school activity was the Swimming Bath. He treated the water with his own solutions long before the days of chlorination and filters, and spent many hours in the summer terms at the bath, officiating and making friends.
After the second war he spent some of his holidays giving lectures to troops in scattered stations overseas, visits which gave him and his hearers great pleasure. He retired in 1960.
His wife Vera, who will be remembered by many for her acting in amateur dramatics, predeceased him. He is survived by his son Christopher (OS), and step-daughter Barbara.
H.F.W. Holmes.
Old Shirburnian Society Annual Report, September 1973.
Tribute by H.S. Gervis on A.J.P. Andrew’s retirement, The Shirburnian, Michaelmas 1960:
In 1914, two world wars ago, A.J.P.A. was a scholar at Oxford; when war was declared he joined the army as a motorcycle dispatch rider. This was an unorthodox move at a time when commissions were being applied for and given, without any aptitude tests or special training, to all who could claim to be qualified by birth or education. The motorcycle was then a new-fangled scientific device about to replace the horse for the carrying of dispatches, and the dispatch rider was, in these days before wireless, the only link between a commander and his subordinates in the field. The carrying of dispatches, in almost total darkness, along roads blistered by shell holes and under constant fire, was the ideal war job for A.J.P.A., it required great personal courage and initiative, with no one to interfere. He remained a dispatch rider until the end of the war; how well he carried out his duties is shown by his D.C.M.
After the war he returned to Oxford and, always a pioneer, took a teacher training course at a time when it was still generally assumed that anyone who could learn would be able to teach. In September 1920, naturally enough on a motorcycle, he came to Sherborne to teach chemistry. There is a motorcycle, almost exactly the model he used, now at the Science Museum in London; he had been teaching chemistry ever since that journey.
He has done much else at Sherborne besides teach chemistry and encourage the growth of the science side from its first one or two high certificate, or as we now say A level, chemistry candidates in 1921 to fifty-five last summer. For many years he was the inspiration of the Photographic Society and encouraged a much higher standard of work by providing, made up by himself, standard developing and fixing solutions. He was the first to be concerned by the condition of the swimming bath and in the days before chlorination and filter plants. Surreptitiously at first, then in larger and larger does and with Bursarial approval, he poured the contents of strange jars into the water. It was largely due to his initiative that the school now enjoys clean looking water all the summer. The swimming bath was perhaps his major out-of-school interest at Sherborne. For many years he spent countless hours at the bath every summer, supervising, encouraging and making friends.
If there is one thing which the generations who learnt from him will remember, when the explosions and the stories are forgotten, it will be his friendliness. He never just taught a chemistry class, it was always a group of individuals that he was teaching, and each individual was encourage to become a friend as well as a chemist.
Now he has retired after forty years. It is hoped that he will long enjoy his leisure in Sherborne and that he will continue to visit his tea club from time to time. May it be many years before his Ford is no longer needed and becomes free to join the Rudge-Whitworth in the Science Museum.
Arnold James Parkes Andrews DCM.
Born 30 January 1895.
New College, Oxford.
Assistant Master, Sherborne School, 1920-1960.
Housemaster of Elmdene, 1942-1943.
Died 18 April 1973.