Richard Arthur Palmer was the only Master (teacher) among the young men who, one day in May 1940, climbed up into the High School Tower, and carved their names and their message into the stone of one of the windowsills:
Richard Palmer worked as a Master at the High School from 1922-1958, although he had originally arrived as a ten year old boy on September 18th 1913. His father was a commercial traveller, Arthur James Palmer, of 64 Ebury Road, between Sherwood Rise and Hucknall Road.
His early career was very spectacular: having already been awarded a Sir Thomas White Junior Scholarship, he won the Mathematical Set 2a Prize, the 3A Form Prize, the Mathematical Set 3a Prize, Mr JD Player’s Prize for Arithmetic Junior, the Mathematical Set 4a Prize, the Mathematical Set 5a Prize, the Science Set 5a Prize, the Fifth Form A Prize, the Mathematical Set 6b Prize, Mr JD Player’s Prize for Arithmetic Senior, and passed his Lower School Certificate with six First Class passes. Richard passed the London University Matriculation Examination in the First Division, became a Prefect and was promoted to Sergeant in the OTC. Already awarded a Foundation Scholarship, he also won a Sir Thomas White Senior Scholarship, the Mathematical Set 6a Prize, a Silver Medal for Mathematics and Dr Gow’s Prize for Geometry. Richard passed his Higher School Certificate and the London University Intermediate Science Examination and became the Captain of Rugby, the Captain of Cricket and the Captain of the School. In the OTC he won the Certificate “A” Prize and became the Acting Company Sergeant Major. In 1920-1921, he won a second Silver Medal for Mathematics, the CG Boyd Prize, the Mathematical Set 6a Prize, again, and was Captain of Cricket, again.
What a list!
Not surprisingly, he won a Scholarship for Mathematics at Queens’ College, Cambridge. Here is their Mathematical Bridge. All the stresses are calculated, and the bridge is constructed entirely without nails or screws and will only fall down if exactly 3.142 people stand on it in the middle. These lot are hopeless:
For family reasons, though, Richard was unable to go to Cambridge, so the Headmaster, Dr Turpin, immediately offered him a post on the staff, and he started to teach in the Summer Term of 1922, after spending the Easter Term as Captain of the School, again.
As a Master he was a Vice-President of the Debating Society, he commanded the Officers’ Training Corps, and while Mr Chamberlain was at Munich in 1938, Mr Palmer, with his colleague, Mr “Uncle Albert” Duddell, organised and helped dig a huge maze of zigzag trenches across the lawns at the front of the school. Let’s hope that they remembered to tell the Headmaster what they were going to do!
Mr Palmer played for the Staff Cricket Team and, during the war, he helped coach the School’s First XV rugby and First XI cricket. In 1941 he became Senior Mathematics Master for a short time. The following year, he went back to command the Officers’ Training Corps, became House Master of Mellers’ House and the Master in Charge of the Playing Fields. Here’s the OTC in 1941:
Mr Palmer spent all of his summer holidays from 1940-1949 organising the wartime School Harvest Camps, where he did all the cooking, and worked from 05:30 to 23:00:
Outside the School Mr Palmer commanded a company of the Nottingham Home Guard.
His character was very quiet, modest and unassuming, but he was always very keen and enthusiastic in everything he did. Mr Palmer was an extremely dutiful man and he showed wonderful loyalty to the School. He did not value material rewards and he prized above all his Territorial Army Decoration and the gold watch presented by his friends, the farmers of Car Colston, who had allowed him to run the School Harvest Camps on their land. Mr Palmer had what was, at the time, a record of forty four years’ unbroken association with the School. That record has since been broken.
He retired to his house at 28 Bingham Road in Nottingham, but he passed away after a long illness on January 10th 1958. His obituary in the Nottinghamian said that:
“the School can have had no finer son or more faithful servant than Richard Palmer”
which is why I have written about him in such detail, lest, disappointed, he should turn away on his heels, and walk off into the mists of time for ever.
John Knifton 