Sir Walter Oakeshott (1903-87)

Walter Oakeshott came to Tonbridge in 1917, joining Judde House. He had a distinguished school career rising to be School Captain (Head of School) in 1922. Winning a Classical exhibition to Balliol College, Oxford, he went on to take first class honours in Mods and Greats and many university prizes.

He began his teaching career at Tooting Bec School before moving to Merchant Taylors’ School. He moved to Winchester College in 1931 from where he took a year’s leave of absence in 1938 to serve with the Pilgrim Trust’s inquiry into unemployment. In 1939 he was appointed High Master of St. Paul’s School where almost his first job was to supervise the school’s evacuation to Wellington for the war’s duration. In 1946 he became Headmaster of Winchester where he shone as a teacher and inspirer of the young.

In 1954 Oakeshott became Rector of Lincoln College, Oxford. He stayed in this post until 1972, presiding over a period of considerable expansion of the college. He was also Vice-Chancellor of Oxford University from 1962-4. During his time at both Winchester and Oxford he took a keen interest in the restoration of historic buildings and in works of scholarship, where his most learned writings were in the field of medieval art history. He was elected a fellow of the British Academy in 1971 and knighted in 1980. He was also Master of the Skinners Company in 1960-1 and took a keen interest in the affairs of Tonbridge. It is as teacher and scholar that he is most fondly remembered. He died in 1987.