Frederick William Sanderson

Frederick William Sanderson (1857-1922) was a famous schoolmaster of Oundle School from 1892 until the time of his death in 1922. Sanderson was educated at Durham and Christ's College, Cambridge. He was assistant master at Dulwich College in 1885, lectured at various colleges until 1892, when he went to Oundle, then a small country boarding school, where he continued as headmaster until 1922.

Biography

Unlike other famous schoolmasters (like Arnold of Rugby), Sanderson was not born to the world of public schools. His relatively humble origins, his northern accent and his lack of Holy Orders gave him a rough ride with the Classical dominies whom he found on arrival at the small and run-down Oundle of 1892. So difficult were his first five years, Sanderson actually wrote out his letter of resignation. Fortunately he never sent it. By the time of his death thirty years later, Oundle’s numbers had increased from 100 to 500, it had become the foremost school for science and especially engineering in the country, and he was loved and respected by generations of grateful pupils and colleagues. He was said to lack fluency as a public speaker, but his sermons in the School Chapel could achieve Churchillian heights.

At Oundle, he was appointed with the specific objectives of reorganising teaching, introducing fresh subjects of study, and raising pupil numbers and the status of the school. He succeeded in all these objectives, establishing the science and engineering departments. He built new laboratories and workshops, and introduced a co-operative method for engineering and other subjects. He was an authority on hydrostatics and electricity, but nothing human was alien to his interests.

Sanderson died in 1922, after struggling to the end of a major lecture to a gathering of scientists, at University College, London. The chairman, H. G. Wells himself, had just proposed a vote of thanks and called for the first question from the floor, when Sanderson dropped dead on the platform. The lecture had not been intended as a valediction, but the eye of sentiment can read the published text as Sanderson’s educational testament, a summation of all that he had learned in 30 years as a supremely successful and deeply loved headmaster.

How Sanderson worked with the boys of Oundle

Sanderson’s passionate desire to give the boys freedom to fulfil themselves would have thrown Health and Safety into paroxysms, and set today’s lawyers licking their chops in anticipation. He directed that the laboratories should be left unlocked at all times, so that boys could go in and work on their own research projects, even if unsupervised. The more dangerous chemicals were locked up, “but enough was left about to disturb the equanimity of other masters who had less faith than the Head in that providence which looks after the young.”

The same open door policy applied to the school workshops, the finest in the country, filled with state-of-the-art machine tools which were Sanderson’s pride and joy. Sanderson’s hatred of any locked door which might stand between a boy and some worthwhile enthusiasm symbolised his whole attitude to education.

Far from seeking garlands in examination league tables by fostering only high flyers, Sanderson’s most strenuous labours were on behalf of the average, and specially the ‘dull’ boys. He would never admit the word: if a boy was dull it was because he was being forced in the wrong direction, and he would make endless experiments to find how to get his interest. At the same time he did not neglect obvious talent, but here he felt the problem was easy.

He loved to give a clever boy abundant time and material to revel in his special subject. To do this he would spend immense labour over complicated details of organisation; his extraordinary intuition and memory -– he knew every boy by name and had a complete mental picture of his ability and character -– alone made it possible to deal with each individual according to his needs. But if some boy was standing still and showing no sign of life, he would adopt any expedient to get his attention. It was not enough that the majority should do well. “I never like to fail with a boy.” In spite of -- or perhaps because of -- Sanderson’s contempt for league tables, Oundle did well in them.

Sanderson’s tradition that the whole school, not just the choir, even the tone deaf, should rehearse and bellow a part in the annual oratorio, also survived him, and has been widely imitated by other schools. His most famous innovation, the Week in Workshops (a full week for every boy in every term with all other work suspended) has not survived, but it was still going during the seventies. It was later killed by exam pressure, of course, but a wonderfully Sandersonian phoenix has risen from its ashes. The boys, and now girls, cooperate out of school hours to build cars, to a special Oundle design. They don’t just assemble a kit, with parts supplied from elsewhere. So far as possible all the parts are cast, by the young people, in the school’s own foundry. They have cooperated to build more than thirty sports cars during the past five years, and they are now working on an aircraft.

After Sanderson's death

H. G. Wells said of Sanderson: “I think him beyond question the greatest man I have ever known with any degree of intimacy.”

On the night of 22nd September 1965, a fire almost completely destroyed the hall of the Grocer's Company in Princes Street, London EC2. Busts of both Winston Churchill and Sanderson were completely melted down. Fortunately casts were available of both, so that they could be replaced.

References

* H. G. Wells: "The Story of a Great Schoolmaster: being a plain account of the life and ideas of Sanderson of Oundle" (1924)
* Richard Dawkins: “The Joy of Living Dangerously; Sanderson of Oundle” in A Devil's Chaplain. Previously published as “ [http://www.guardian.co.uk/Archive/Article/0,4273,4455275,00.html The joy of living dangerously] ” The Guardian, 6 July 2002.
* “ [http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,727575,00.html Sanderson of Oundle] ” Time Magazine, 8 October 1923.
* R. Hansen: “The Technology Workshops at Oundle” International Journal of Technology and Design Education 9: 293–303, 1999.
* C. Freebairn: "Sanderson of Oundle: The Life and Work of F. W. Sanderson, Headmaster of Oundle School, 1892–1922" Pomeroy, Oundle, England, 1992.
* R. J. Palmer: “The Influence of F. W. Sanderson on the Development of Science and Engineering at Dulwich College, 1885–1892” History of Education 6(2), 121–130 (1977).