David Tomlinson (1917-2000)

David Tomlinson was a boarder in School House between 1931 and 1935. After Tonbridge he joined the Grenadier Guards but bought himself out after sixteen months to seek work in the theatre. He started his stage career with the Folkestone repertory company but moved to London to join a company founded by John Gielgud. His London debut was in ‘The Merchant of Venice’ but in 1940 he was offered a film role by the director Anthony Asquith in ‘A Quiet Wedding’. He played in several other films until the war intervened. He joined the RAF, spending part of the war in Canada as a flying instructor.

After the war he had a major role in the RAF drama ‘The Way to the Stars’ again directed by Anthony Asquith and between 1946 and 1949 he made eighteen further films, mostly light comedy where his usual character was an amiable duffer. There followed plenty of work in the theatre and in films as he became one of Britain’s best known character actors. Among his films were ‘The Wooden Horse’, ‘Three Men in a Boat’, and ‘Tom Jones’, but by far his biggest success was in Walt Disney’s ‘Mary Poppins’ as the very proper London banker and stern father whose heart is melted by his children’s nanny, played by Julie Andrews. The film won five Oscars and has become an evergreen family favourite. There followed other family films like ‘The Love Bug’ but he retired from films in 1980 and lived quietly in London. He wrote his autobiography ‘Luckier Than Most’ in 1990 and died in 2000.