In 1915, while the First World War was raging, George Herbert Cooper joined Burton Grammar School as one of a small number of Scholarship boys who had performed sufficiently well in an application test to avoid having to pay the then relatively hefty fees.

He performed very well at the school and was known for being methodically hard working which awarded him excellent examination results. After completing his Higher School Certificates in the sixth form, he left in 1921 for a place at Sheffield University to read Chemistry. In 1924, he gained a B.Sc and went on to take an M.Sc and Diploma in Education, again, both at Sheffield University.

George was extremely pleased at being able to secure a teaching post back at Burton Grammar School. He was appointed by the headmaster of the time, R.T.Robinson, who was very familiar with him having been the headmaster there for the whole of his time there as a pupil. I think even Mr Cooper would have been amazed to know at the time that he would go on to spend the next 42 years at the school in a career that would span no less than seven different headmasters. After a short probationary period from September 1925, he was formally appointed in January 1926. Despite his main speciality being Chemistry, staff requirements required him to initially teach a combination of Mathematics, Latin and English. As the teaching staff grew, his sole teaching subject became Maths.

George was interested in Drama whilst a pupil and, after the founding of the Burton Grammar School Dramatics Society in 1920, he appeared as one of the cast of its very first production, ‘Jedbury Junior’, where he played ‘Whimper’, manservant to the Jedburys. On his return as a master, he keenly became involved again and became assistant director to Mr E.C. Nicholson, and later took over the business management of the society as well as taking on a number of roles in its productions over the years.

Mr Cooper became known as ‘Black Hawk’ because of his stooped demeanour and rather jerky walk, usually in his robes, that characterized him. In the transition from the Bond Street to Winshill schools, for some reason, he instead became known as ‘Judder’.

In 1950, George became ‘Second Master’ to Horace Pitchford, qualifying by virtue of intimate and long experience of the running of the School. He was hold this position until his retirement some 18 years later whereupon, Geoffrey Henton took over and the post was changed to ‘Deputy Headmaster’.

Although still a member of staff, George was appointed President of the Old Boys’ Association for 1952/3.

When Bill Gillion, a Cambridge Graduate of Mathematics and strong advocate of academic excellence, joined the school as Headmaster, he had plans of improving academic success of the most talented students and, in particular, to prepare them for scholarships for Oxford, Cambridge and other Universities of Excellence. It was his opinion that the Mathematics Department at the school, headed by a methodical but not particularly dynamic or progressive thinking George Cooper, did not offer sufficient provision so he took the tough decision in 1958 to re-appoint Harry ‘Brab’ Smith to take over. George was to retain a position as a Maths teacher to the lower forms but also retained the position of ‘Second Master’.

Outside of the school, George was very involved with the Methodist Church where, among other things, he was organist. He was also an enthusiastic member of the Burton Historical and Archaeological Society.

George H. Cooper lived for Burton Grammar School. He was rather unobtrusive meaning that much of his effect on the School went largely unnoticed. He worked quietly away without getting or seeking much acknowledgement. After his eventual retirement in 1968, he maintained his association with the School through his continued membership of the Old Boys’ Association.

Retirement Dinner, Newton Park Hotel 1969

Standing: Percy Barratt, Geoff Henton, Jack Playll, Robin Langton, Hugh Wood, Richard Inwood, Mrs. Adams, Mrs. Read, Harry Smith, Frank Read, Jack Adams, K.T. Harris, David Davies, David Shrubbs, Norman Roe, John Redmond, Alan White
Seated: Horace Pitchford, George Cooper, Mrs. Cooper, Bill Gillion, Frances Gillion

Entry in Staff Book

The complete Burton Grammar School staff in 1900 was as follows:

Rev. T.W. Beckett (Spongy) – Headmaster
Taught Maths and History. He was sometimes assisted by a Mr Cole who left at the same time as Mr Beckett.
“Awe inspiring with a very strong presence”.

W.T. Jeffcott (Piggy) – Second Master
Taught Latin, French and Shakespeare (yes, a subject on its own!). He also took ‘New Testament Gospel’ for the first half hour on Monday, Wednesday and Friday.
“A good teacher but very sarcastic. Prone to dozing off in his chair at the end of the afternoon”.

H.T. Walker (HT)
Taught English, History and Geography. An Oxford M.A. and a gentleman but clearly disliked being a teacher.
“A very nice man and good sort but very poor teacher”.

W.H. Walker (Blue-blood)
Taught English, and covered for a number of other subjects. He left in 1902.
“Known for wearing disproportionately large collars and cuffs. Very prententious and artificial. Not very popular”.

J.W. Mackay (Black Devil)
Taught Form II (second year) for most subjects and also took Elementary Latin.
“Very severe and dour. First formers dreaded becoming second formers”.

J. Mills (Nitty)
Taught Middle-School Maths and History. He also took ‘Old Testament Religion’, alternating with Mr Jeffcott, first thing on Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday.
“Very conscientious, a good teacher and very precise”.

G.H. Storer (Strongy)
Taught Chemistry and occasionally, Nature Study lessons.
“A keen teacher and very interested in spending time with pupils”.

Stevenson (Tommy)
Took Form I (first year) for all subjects.
“Very easy going and kind with his first formers”.

R.T. Robinson (Dickie)
Succeeded Mr Beckett as Headmaster in July of 1900 and he took over the teaching of Maths and History.
“Excellent mathematician and maths teacher with a number of characteristic mannerisms. Keen on History of old monasteries. Very sharp and very admirable”.

W.H. Robinson (Taffy)
Soon after R.T. Robinson joined in 1900, Mr Mackay left and was replaced by Mr Robinson’s brother. In addition to taking over Form II (second year), also taught more advanced Latin and helped some of the senior boys going to Cambridge with their compulsory Greek.
“Very loud, and so were his classes, but very willing to help pupils”.

Imminent changes
In 1902, Classroom ‘E’ was extended to make a Physics Laboratory about the same size as the existing Chemistry Lab. and J.W. Ramshaw joined as Physics master. He issued the introductory textbook, Edser’s ‘Heat for Advanced Students’, with a title that scared the life out of pupils at the time.

In 1904, J.W. Ramshaw left and was succeeded by A. Rigby who came from Leeds University. Around the same time, Mssr. A. Pecquinot arrived from France to teach French and introduced the very first French Oral examination.

J.W. Ranshaw
Slightly feared with a new subject (Physics)
“A good and interesing teacher. Very energetic and hard working”.

A. Rigby (Theta)
Arthur replaced Mr Ramshaw to teach Physics.
“Very keen but not at all inspiring and not as good as Mr Ramshaw who he replaced”.

A. Pecquinot (Pecky)
Came from France close to the Swiss border.
“A good teacher and very friendly”.

When I arrived with my brother, I about eleven and a half and he two years my senior, I felt myself a minnow among big fish. I was quite small for my age. What was still more frightening was seeing boys whizzing through the air holding on to pieces of wood tied on to the ends of ropes, the other ends of which were fastened to a circular metal plate at the top of a large, thick, shortened telegraph pole. I learned afterwards that it was a ‘Giant Stride’, and I enjoyed many a round on it myself in later years.

Assembly for prayers, read I his booming voice by the Rev. T.W. Beckett (headmaster) was followed by the daily hymn, sung to the accompaniment of a wheezy harmonium played by a young master named Cole (assistant to Mr Beckett). After he left, Mr Cyril Hartshorn took over but, as an accomplished musician, that harmonium was a real trial to him. He hated it but, with only 150 or so boys, no-one else could be found to be pressed into service.

Mr Beckett was to me, a very imposing person with very large hands, which were used in such a way as to put the fear of the Lord into us. On one occasion, Jack Rudd, a member of my brother’s form, felt the full weight of it. What Jack said I never knew but, as a result, he received a cuff on each side of his face. For two days, his face was red and swollen. Such things were completely accepted in the school in those days.

Mr Beckett left in 1900 to become Vicar of Anslow. Having been Headmaster since 1884, he had a special farewell at the annual prize-giving in the Town Hall. I was greatly impressed by Mrs Beckett who had looked after the twenty or so boarders. She had been greatly liked. With no public transport, except trains, and almost no motor-cars, boys from a distance had to board. Willie Wain from Bretby often came by pony and stabled it in High Street, near the market place.

In September 1900, Mr R.T. Robinson, from Wyggeston School, Leicester, succeeded Mr Beckett and caused something of a stir when he introduced Saturday morning school from 9:00 – 12:30am in place of Wednesday afternoon from 2:00 – 4:00pm. His reason seemed shameless; we were fresher in the morning and Wednesday afternoon could be used for games. He omitted to mention the extra one and a half hours work. In fact, not many boys played football and cricket in school at this time. The games were run by a Sports Club to which members had to pay a fee of 2/6d (12.5p) per term and supply their own gear, and pay for travelling to such places as Ashby, Lichfield and Atherstone. This was prohibitively expensive for quite a number of boys in those days of large families and low wages. The days of financial backing by the Local Education Authority or the ‘State’ were yet to come. There were also ‘bathing sheds’ by a backwater of the Trent used for swimming. “The Field”, as we called it, lay immediately behind Peel Croft, and the pavilion was a very drab, corrugated iron covered hut, the only window being a large wooden panel on one side, which could be pushed open by an iron rod and fastened by then putting the end in a staple. There was no groundsman. It was a DIY world in those days! We rolled the pitch and marked out the whitewash lines ourselves. For non-school matches, ‘Tommy’ Stevenson, who took Form I for all subjects, and who had been said to play on occasion for Warwickshire, and W.H. Robinson known as ‘Taffy’, and the Headmaster’s bother, and still later, A. Rigby the Physics master, all played in the cricket team. R.T.Robinson himself, by now known as ‘Dicky’ ,turned out at centre half in the football team at least once. J.W. Ramshaw, who joined the school when the Physics Lab. was built, also played football at times. Two record scores of later days in1905 stand out in my mind as I was Captain then. We beat Congregational Church 24 goals to nil; Sam Oulton scoring eighteen.

When I first went to Burton Grammar School, I was put in the fourth form on the strength of my having gained one of the three ‘Feoffees’ Scholarships but, having done no Latin or French ever before, I had to catch up with my classmates. In wat was called ‘Extra Division’, I did intensive Latin Primer and ‘Gepp’ work for about eight lessons a week with ‘Piggy’ Jeffcott, and spent the whole of Monday, Wednesday and Friday afternoons doing French, missing all lessons in Music and Art. By the end of the school year, which ran from January to December in those days, I had advanced far enough to start on Vergil’s Aeneid IX in Latin Div. IIb, and ‘Remi et ses Amis” in French Div. IIa. ‘Cambridge Local Examinations’ were compulsory for fourth forms and above so, at aged twelve, I joined my brother and a lot of other boys in evening preparation from 6:00 – 8:00pm at the school from around mid-October to early December. I remember the gas lit rooms with incandescent mantles (the school had no electricity then). One incentive for these examinations for the more gifted boys and their parents was that, for 1st Class Honours 36/- (36 shillings or £1.80) worth of books of one’s own choice were awarded. 24/- (24 shillings or £1.20) was awarded for 2nd Class and 12/- (12 shillings or £0.60) for 3rd Class. In those days, when all books and stationery had to be paid for by one’s parents, such awards were very welcome. Books belonging to school-leavers were often bought second-hand for new boys. Several of mine belonged to someone called ‘Billy Balfry’ who had himself inherited them from an older brother, hence they all had ‘J.C.K. Balfry’ in them.

Earlier on, I mentioned Jack Rudd’s beating by Mr Beckett. R.T. Robinson gave one beating which I should think stood out for years in the minds of all who heard it. Len Hearn, who later gave money for a prize to the school, and so must have forgiven the indignity, was the victim. Having been previously reprimanded for smoking by ‘Dicky’, he was seen smoking again in High Street. The whole school was assembled and ‘Dicky’ lectured us about the offence. He then ordered Len to go to his study. In a few moments, we heard a “swish”. Being boys, we started to count and we became more and more amazed. It went on until we had counted 21 strokes, but not a single cry. Later, I asked Len why he hadn’t shouted out and he said “If he’d have given me one more, I would have yelled the place down”.

During the Second Boer War (1900 – 02), we began Military Drill after school and Sergeant-Major Maher put us through our paces either in the school playground or on ‘The Field’. We also had targets under the covered shed in the playground for rifle-shooting. We used ordinary rifles with tubes inside them making them suitable for the short 22-yard range. ‘Kitten’ Thompson established himself as our ‘crack-shot’.

In a cricket match in 1902 against the Burton Gentlemen, for whom S.H. Evershed, recently Captain of Derbyshire C.C and his brother, Frank Evershed, a Rugby International, played, my brother managed to score 30. They were so impressed that they awarded him with a bat. From then, they continued to award two bats for the best batting and bowling averages. In 1907, I finally got one for batting and H.A. Jones, who later became Dean of Manchester, got the one for bowling.

In 1905, ‘The Cygnet’ came into being. At a meeting in the Chemistry Lecture Room, H.S. Staley was appointed its first Editor. He left at the end of term to go to Birmingham University and later to Cambridge and I succeeded him as Editor.

When Mr Beckett died in 1907, I together with Arthur Bonfield went to represent the school at his funeral.

We always had prayers again at the end of afternoon school. After the service, the Headmaster read out the names of all boys who were to stay behind for detention for various misdemeanours.

We wore red and blue wide-striped caps, commonly known as ‘bull-scarers’ which cost 2/6d (12.5p) or round black or dark blue ‘polo’ caps with the school badge on the front. No blazers. The school caps annoyed the local ‘Park Street Boys’ and there were frequent battles between them on the way to and from school.

David Mart was born in Ashby before moving to Stapenhill where he attended St Peter’s Junior school. His father was a grocer and managed a store in the centre of Burton for a number of years before eventually becoming a manager for Fine Fare supermarkets and having responsibility for around 50 stores.

When David started school, with a birthday in July, he should have been one of the oldest in the class but it was decided that he should be able to cope with the work a year above and so started school early.

In 1956, David went to Burton Grammar School but, effectively a year ahead of himself, it sometimes proved a struggle to be the youngest in the class. His greatest love was Mathematics which he largely attributes to the inspiration of his maths teacher of the time, a certain Harry ‘Brab’ Smith!

David left the Grammar School in 1963 with a fixed mind that he was going to himself teach Mathematics. He qualified from Borough Road College in 1966 and was delighted some five years later to be given the opportunity to be a member of Harry Smith’s team at the Winshill Grammar School in 1971. He confesses to finding it a little daunting at first, going into the Staffroom with many of his old teachers who were now colleagues. It didn’t take long however, to feel like a member of staff rather than a pupil.

Mr Mart faced more of challenge than he at first perhaps anticipated. He had taken over from Mr James (Jomo) Moore whose lessons had been riotous and everyone was very considerably behind the expected syllabus and had grown comfortable with the culture that Maths was something of a free-for-all. To this day, my first lesson with Mr Mart provides me with a very clear memory of the school as he very successfully asserted himself where Mr Moore had failed. Maths lesons were suddenly very different with a necessarily increased workload to make up for lost time.

I can put hand on heart and say that this had a big influence on my life. Unknowingly, I had a reasonably strong natural ability for maths. The ‘O’ Level most had once dreaded turned out to be something of a breeze and I went on to take a number of mathematically intense higher education courses and fairly maths dependent Engineering career with good confidence. It is partly in gratitude for such influences that I felt that this website was worth doing. Thank-you David!

At the end of his first year, I can remember our class making the unprecedented gesture of clubbing together to purchase a bottle of wine to present to him. Ironically, David also has a clear recollection of this as the first gesture of the start of being accepted by pupils as someone who could help them learn if they were prepared to put in a little effort.

He also recalls his first 4A being academically challenging in a way that he thoroughly enjoyed and hadn’t experienced before; and 5C being equally challenging in a different way… but a great bunch of lads !?

He took time away from Burton Grammar School in order to get a degree at Nottingham University. During his time away, the school had undergone the transition from the Grammar School so when he returned, it was to the newly created Abbot Beyne Comprehensive school. This provides him with a fairly unique history with the school; seeing the changeover from Bond Street to Winshill School as a pupil and later, seeing the changeover from Burton Grammar School to Abbot Beyne Comprehensive School as a teacher.

Life, he recalls, was very different and demanded entirely new skills. He proved however, to be well equipped and made good progress in the new regime. He soon became Head of Year and, after going on to gain a Masters Degree from Nottingham, became ‘Pastoral and Academic Coordinator’ before finally being appointed ‘Assistant Headteacher’. He finally retired in 2005.

David still lives in Newhall with his wife, Gill of over 40 happy years. He has two children and three grandchildren who live in New Zealand.

“A picture paints a thousand words“, and one of the aims of this website is to provide where possible, an archive of pictures that have been painstakingly restored to their original pristine condition. Many of the pictures I have managed to unearth however, show signs of being over fifty years old. I have had to work with paper distortion, coffee cup rings, scratches, creases and even writing across the face.

The 1968 intake group photo had a number of damaged areas. Graham Coleman’s face, for example, was badly scarred and yet looks perfect here. How?

Faces have the advantage of being symetrical. The undamaged side of the face therefore provided the perfect patch once cut out and horizontally inverted. After a small amount of careful rubbing out around the edge of the patch and a bit of smoothing, the face is as good as new. The rest of the scratch is covered with a simpler patch taken from the rest of the background, using a ‘cloud’ shape rather than a sharp rectangle because the human eye is remarkably good at detecting straight lines of repair. Finally, some filtering is applied to sharpen and clean the image and a hue is applied to give it a very faint, warm, cepia type effect. The whole process is done at exactly twice full size and reduced again on completion.

It is even possible to convert black and white photos into a colour one although it is a time consuming process. This example shows a brief extract of the same 1968 intake photo.

This is used very sparingly however, because a colourized picture can look a little artificial making it far less effective than the original monochrome.

…

In some cases, the original pictures are so poor that they can only provide a framework for the restored picture. In this picture of the original grammar school, still standing in Friar’s Walk, the original image from the BGS website has little hope of being restored because there is simply too little to work with.

Using the original as a template, texture is carefully added. The sky, for example, is cut out to reveal the sky placed underneath from a completely different picture. In the same way, some of the pictures on this website never even actually existed! They have been constructed from the best available photo source. In one instance for example, a master’s head has been stuck onto a different body because no suitable picture could be found.

Whilst I try to keep the picture quality of this website as high as possible, images are sometimes of lesser quality than I would like. I can assure that this is not through my being lax; it is because I sometimes have poor quality sources to work from.

• Some sets of photos (from a particular photographer) are all printed on ‘canvas effect’ paper, which produces graining when scanned.
• Some scans have been performed without disassembling the cardboard mounts producing a few millimeters gap which reduces quality.
• Some original photos have not been particularly good (over/under exposed, poor depth of field).
• Some images have been ‘over-cooked’ when being compressed by older compression techniques.

By way of example, this shows a staff group together with what I had to work with. The original image was skewed, scratched, under-exposed, cropped (you can see that as in a number of cases, the windows are my own construction and the floor has been ‘hand painted’.

I am producing the best I can, with particular consideration to making faces as clear as possible, and if ever I stumble across a superior source, I am always happy to start from scratch on a replacement.

If YOU have a better version of a picture that is already featured, I am still very happy to receive the best possible scan (or photo in the post).

Although hand-written and scribbled on, the below Staff List provides a valuable record of School Staff.

There was a full school photo taken in 1920. Whilst the quality is much lower than I would like, it is the best I can put together from the available resources and it does at least serve to provide a flavour of what the school was like at the time.

Click here to view large image

The year was significant because the number of Grammar School pupils exceeded 200 for the first time. At this time, the vast majority of the school was fee paying and ‘School Certificates’ and ‘Higher School Certificates’ were the standard qualifications being some 32 years before the replacement by ‘O’ and ‘A’ Levels.

 In 1920, just 17 ’School Certificates’ were awarded together with 3 ‘Higher School Certificates’.

Back Row: Martin Smith, Andy Fawkes, Paul Farnsworth, William Smith, Chris Birkin, John Butler, Nigel Radford, Peter Evans, Roy Brassington, Terry Morse
Front Row: Steven Dines, Richard Cope, David Kirkland, John Hutt, Ezra Somekh (Form Master), Paul Robinson, Martin Taylor, Paul Andrews, Michael Bexon

Back Row: Norman Jones, Dennis Grimsley, M. Bates, H. Wilson, B05
Middle Row: Atkinson, D. Barker, Philip Bond
Front Row: P. Williams, J. Parker