Allen Clarke

Jul 19 2007 by David Charters, Liverpool Daily Post

IN THE 1950s, progressive educationalists began to argue that a shining bike given as a reward for passing the 11-plus into grammar school should no longer be the token of success and division in our state schools system.

Schools open to pupils from a wide range of social and academic backgrounds were the way forward.

This was the age of the angry young men. The future of our education was in many ways an extension of the post-war debate about how Britain could be a fairer society. It was widely felt that grammar schools, which aped the manners and customs of public schools, and secondary modern schools for the majority, perpetuated Britain’s tiers of class.

Thrust into the limelight was the rather unlikely and diffident figure of Allen Clarke, a bow-tied academic from a minor public school background, who had helped in the reorganisation of German schools when he was a staff officer with the education department of the military government there, after his time as a gunner with the Royal Artillery.

In 1958, he was appointed headmaster of Holland Park in west London, Britain’s first purpose-built comprehensive school.

In fact, Clarke was as far removed as possible from the popular and erroneous image of the trendy teacher with whiskers and a bomber jacket inviting the pupils to use his first-name instead of “Sir”.

To begin with, Holland Park, despite its roll of 2,000 boys and girls, promoted qualities more readily associated with the public school stories in comics. There were houses, speech days, teachers in gowns, a high table and a school magazine. Clarke even had a cane, though he didn’t use it.

But there was a mixed intake, including children from different racial back- grounds, as well as skin- heads and followers of fads.

Even so, it was branded the “Socialist Eton” and seen by some as a safe bolt-hole for middle-class children. Among former pupils are Hilary and Melissa Benn, daughters of Tony and Caroline; Flora Fraser, daughter of Lady Antonia; Anjelica Huston, daughter of the film director John, and Polly Toynbee, the liberal/left polemicist.

But with consummate skill, Clarke, an old boy of Norfolk High School, who read history at London University, guided the school, retiring in 1971, when he was widowed. He is survived by two sons.

Allen Clarke, teacher; born August 21, 1910, died July 12, 2007.