Robert (Robin) Anthony Atthill (1912-1994).
Those of us who had the good fortune to be members of the History and English Group while Robin Atthill taught at Sherborne were fortunate indeed. At a time when the School still had something of a reputation for muscular Christianity, Robin and his colleagues in the department, notably H.H. Brown and V.H.H. Green, brought a welcome breath of enjoyment and intellectual substance to their teaching which helped to give their pupils a more rounded education than might otherwise have been the case in those days.
Tall and aquiline, with an endearing stammer (Robin’s rendering of ‘Down into the base court’ from Richard II has gone into OS folklore), he was a man of immense talent and charm. In particular, his enthusiasm for Shakespeare and his ability to communicate this converted many of his pupils, who might otherwise have shied away from the work, into lifelong devotees.
On a more personal note the writer still vividly remembers being greeted in the Courts by Robin on the first day of the Autumn term in 1945 to be told that I was the first pupil at Sherborne to be awarded a Distinction in English Literature in my School Certificate. In any other place we might have danced a jig we were both so pleased. It was his enthusiasm for literature – and not only Shakespeare – which pointed me in the direction of a career into books and publishing and I am grateful to him for sowing the seed.
Not only was Robin a fine teacher of English Literature but he had a great love of music which he was happy to share and lucky indeed were those of us who were invited to his house to be introduced to Mozart’s Don Giovanni, among other works played on his treasured 78 records on a pre-war gramophone.
Sherborne’s loss was definitely Downside’s gain when he left to become Senior English master there in 1948 but it is conceivable that if he had not made the move he might not have been inspired to write his two splendid books on the Mendips (Old Mendip and Mendip – A New Study) and one on the Somerset and Dorset railway. These works, all of which have bone into several editions, brought him to the attention of a wider public and deservedly so. Robin was also the author of The Curious Past, a collection West Country Studies, and a volume of poetry, If Pity Departs.
Robin died peacefully, aged 81, on 12 February 1994 at Oakhill, Somerset, and will be mourned by hundreds of his former pupils, as well as the lovers of his books and his three children, to whom we extend our sympathy.
Bruce Gordon Coward (a 1943-47), Old Shirburnian Annual Record, November 1995.
Robert Anthony (Robin) Atthill.
Born 7 March 1912.
Educated at Stowe School.
Scholar of Trinity College, Oxford. MA.
Taught at Ampleforth School.
Assistant master, Sherborne School, 1942-1948.
Senior English Master/Head of English, Downside School, 1948-?
Died 12 February 1994.