On 15 May 2023, Dr Dominic Luckett, issued the following notice:
‘I have just been told the very sad news that Peter Lapping, who served as Headmaster of Sherborne from 1988 until his retirement in 2000, died this morning after a short illness. Those who knew Peter will remember him as an immensely wise, capable and caring man. He remained to the end deeply proud of his association with Sherborne. A loyal and devoted servant of the School, he will be greatly missed. Our thoughts and prayers will, I know, be with Peter’s widow, Diana, and other members of his family at this time of sadness and loss.’
Peter Herbert Lapping was born on 8 August 1941 in Panitola, Assam, India, where his father was working as a medical officer. He was brought up in South Africa and educated at St John’s College in Johannesburg and the University of Natal, from where in 1963 he was awarded a first class BA honours in history. Peter went on to read Politics, Philosophy and Economics at Lincoln College, Oxford and in 1966 was awarded a BA with a MA (honorary) in 1973.
After teaching for a year at Reed’s School in Cobham, in 1967 Peter was appointed Head of History at Loretto School where he remained until 1979, also serving as a housemaster (Pinkie House) from 1972 to 1979. From 1979 to 1988 Peter was Headmaster of Shiplake College, Oxfordshire, and in 1988 he was appointed Headmaster of Sherborne School.
In 2019, Peter Lapping kindly provided the School Archives with the following summary of his achievements while Headmaster of Sherborne School:
‘During his time at Sherborne School, all three separate sciences were made compulsory to GCSE and the Pilkington Laboratories were designed and built. The International College was established at Newell Grange and its excessive pressure on places was met by the transfer of Westcott to an International College girls’ house. The “new” Green was built while study wings were added to Harper and Abbey Houses. In addition, a permanent, professional Secretariat was created for the Old Shirburnians and the Foundation was established as a constant, regular fund raiser for the school.’
When Peter Lapping retired in 2000 as Headmaster of Sherborne School, Phil Jones, then Headmaster of Christ’s College, Brecon, and formerly assistant master and housemaster at Sherborne School, gave the following speech at the retirement dinner held in honour of Peter and Diana Lapping on 11 March 2000:
‘There was no doubting the build-up of curiosity and speculation prior to September 1988. The months leading up to Peter Lapping’s appointment were months dominated by the sort of gossip and speculation which only Sherborne can generate. One week, one candidate was the favourite because he had been seen buying a watercolour in Bill Anstey’s shop. Days later it was another candidate because he had plied a member of staff with gin and tonics at a meeting somewhere while only drinking tonic himself. And surely a third candidate had always wanted to send his son to Sherborne and he was ready to move?
For weeks and months no break time in Bow House was free of speculation on the part of some of the finest minds in Dorset, all of us rivalling Mystic Meg in our attempts at second sight.
What we should have done, of course, was to ask Custos. As we were to find out later, for some weeks a series of visiting parents had all mysteriously been called Mr and Mrs Cropper (based I think on Robin Macnaghten’s jest that somebody would come a cropper). Barbour-coated men – some of the Barbours were, I suspect, bought for the occasion on the basis of Sherborne being a country school – and navy-coated women had been taken around by the Custos in his unperturbable manner, but if we had been eagle-eyed and thoughtful enough we’d have registered how strange it was that these particular parents also seemed to have a school tour that included Abbey Grange.
The Governors didn’t help, of course – or perhaps they were just doing their job because they were making discreet enquiries as to what sort of qualities should be sought in the person appointed.
Eventually, of course, the moment of truth came and Bow House was packed as never before. From the steps the announcement was made. ‘The Governors announce that Mr Peter Lapping, currently Headmaster of Shiplake School, has been offered the post of Headmaster of Sherborne School and he has accepted.’ The first response was, ‘Where is Shiplake?’ Someone else appeared with The Public and Preparatory Schools’ Year Book with appropriate sections highlighted in blue. The book was left open at ‘the page’ for several days. Anyone who knew anything about Shiplake was an instant celebrity; even anyone who had boated down the Thames wasn’t far behind.
In the months that followed we all, either collectively or individually, had our chance to meet Peter and Diana. Housemasters each had a session on their own – Peter had on his light-brown country suit for the occasion, I seem to recall – and he asked each of us for the two things which we would most like him to achieve. Mine, I recall, were to ask him to create an environment where ‘shredding’ was a thing of the past and to try to unite what schisms there might have been at the time in the Senior Common Room by creating an atmosphere of mutual support rather than scoring points. How arrogant I was even to suggest such a thing and from my own experience, for the latter at least, I know what impossible targets I was setting.
To his credit, Peter listened, and we had a laugh or two before I left feeling that I wasn’t too sure about this bloke because he didn’t seem to give much away. How daft to expect him to. At that moment I resolved that in future I would tell him exactly what I thought. Communication, after all, is a two-way thing and it is no good saying that any Headmaster doesn’t communicate if you don’t go to speak to him.
Wisely, Peter kept his counsel for the first year. He didn’t have much choice, having lost his Chairman of Governors and Bursar, a circumstance which gave us the first sign of his imperturbability. Some inactivity was forced, of course, and after not learning his lesson in staff hockey matches, Peter decided to play cricket and made the mistake of playing a cover drive. A cover drive is far too ambitious a shot even for a Headmaster and he fell in a heap. Achilles tendon plastered, walking around with a stick did little for Peter’s dignity for a few weeks, but I don’t suppose he worried about that any more than playing the village idiot in a Robert Glen play later on. It wasn’t altogether the easiest of beginnings and for a while Abbey Grange was more like Emergency Ward 10.
Peter tried to get to know and encourage the boys too, especially the new ones. I have a favourite story of this period of Peter asking a new boy in The Courts, ‘Do you know where the Library is?’ – to which the boy replied, ‘Yes. Shall I show you?’
Diana, too, was getting involved in Sherborne and getting to know the system. Peter would be first to acknowledge the immense, immeasurable support given by Diana. By far the greater part of it has been unseen by the rest of us but words like ‘bedrock’ and ‘anchor’ spring to mind. Like all good Headmasters’ wives, Diana’s own presence on public occasions is just the delicate embroidery on a strong weave which she created, supporting and influencing every single aspect of school life. If Sherborne of 2000 has a different style and different standard in its ambience from the Sherborne of the 1980’s, then Diana is owed a huge debt of gratitude, almost as great as the debt we owe her for making sure Peter took care of himself.
Who else but Peter Lapping would alter the start of term in order to take in the first day of the Lords’ Test Match? Amongst Peter’s passions for cricket, and rugby, there is also a deep conviction of how the game should be played. Foul play or cheating is always a reason for sadness not condemnation. Peter’s Corinthian values were carried forward in his view of sports scholarships, a view unpopular in some quarters no doubt, but held with fervour, convinced of the unfairness of depriving those who have served their time in junior teams of the chance of glory at the top. It might be galling to lose to Bryanston these days, but hardly surprising if half their team come from Brecon.
If, for varied reasons, like age and infirmity, time for personal involvement in rugby or cricket was not possible, there was no letting up on the early morning swimming regime. This too had and amusing consequence when Peter, fresh back from Hong Kong, decided to go for his early morning swim and was halfway across Abbey Road before he realised that it was in fact 2.00 a.m. and his body clock had led him astray.
Let us imagine how we will look back on the Lapping years. When I reflect on the state of Harper in the 1980’s and the deficiencies in Abbey, Wallace, and The Green and now look at the vast improvements in facilities in the Houses, the standard of accommodation, the appearance of the School, the landscaping of gardens, I marvel. This sort of achievement needs a brilliant Bursar and supportive Governing Body, but also a Headmaster with personal qualities of drive and determination, a long term vision and the confidence to push it through, patience, a proper caution and an ability to hold his nerve.
In doing all this, being a historian helped because Peter brought with him an awareness of the past and a sense of duty to it which had to be matched up to the need for change and modernisation. I remember vividly the pains Peter and Diana took to invite all those retired people with Sherborne connections – former Housemasters for example – to a series of gatherings to explain what was being planned and why. It extended ownership of the plans and I know it was done as much with a genuine and honest desire to recognise the past contributors as it was with a sense of the political value of consultation.
It is a Headmaster’s lot to be between a rock and a hard place. When I was here I recall the debate about the lengthening tail of our entry and the need to keep up standards. Now I marvel annually at the position that Sherborne occupies in the national league tables. The School’s standards have been kept and have gone up even if numbers have fallen. Knowing the dilemma and having the confidence to take one line or the other takes real courage. It mustn’t be thought that Headmasters don’t hear all the Common Room talk – they do, but can’t be seen to react as they might want to. It is a very hard and lonely place to be at times and perhaps Peter will install for his successor, above his Conference Room doorway, one of those flickering electronic signs that you have in Sherborne Post Office, on constant play, reading ‘The price of complaining is a viable alternative.’
Another memorial will be the Sherborne Foundation. It requires vision, again, to look beyond the short term financial pain, probably general disapproval when something new is introduced, in order to safeguard the future. What wouldn’t Peter have given to have had predecessors who had done what he has presided over – accumulated current funds, promised legacies, both helping safeguard the future of the School and in doing so developing such contact with the Old Shirburnians that they, courted and consulted, are starting to send their sons or grandchildren to the school?
Think, too, of the entertaining which Peter and Diana have done by week, by month, by year after year. Like it or not, the Headmaster is seen as the flagship for the School. And to sustain that level of exposure you need to be professional.
Rock solid acknowledgement of his duty, conviction and vision for the future, stamina to achieve it, great integrity. These are great qualities but above all of them, and this for me is the hallmark of the man, in all the time I have spent in Peter’s company here and subsequently in other circumstances when his guard might have dropped and he might have been tempted to be indiscreet, I have never heard him say an ill word about anyone, Governor, colleague or parent and never heard him speak of any boy, however malignant the rest of us might have felt him to be, never speak of him without affection and understanding. Not many of us could have that said of us.
Peter and Diana, you have done wonders for this place, given it the formidable combination of two things that cannot be measured, your energy and your love.’
Posted 16 May 2023 by Sherborne School Archives
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