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WILLIAM TEMPLE - HEAD OF REPTON SCHOOL AND CHURCH OF ENGLAND

The office of Archbishop of Canterbury is the most senior in the Church of England. Here Peter Seddon presents a brief biography of William Temple (1881-1944), the former Headmaster of Repton School who was Head of the Church of England between 1942 and 1944.

A portrait of William Temple (1881-1944) the former Headmaster of Repton School who was Archbishop of Canterbury from 1942 until his death in 1944

William Temple was born in Exeter, Devon, on 15 October 1881.

He was educated at Rugby School (1894-1900) and Balliol College, Oxford (1900-1904), where he was President of the Student Union.

After graduating from Oxford he became a tutor at the Workers' Educational Association (WEA), and was later to serve as the organization's president (1908-1924). During that period he decided to enter the Church and he was ordained on 19 December 1909. The following year he became Headmaster of Repton School, and stayed in that post until 1914.

It has been written of him in the school history that he was 'somewhat rotund, and rather an overgrown schoolboy'. He did not marry until after he left Repton, and during his tenure as Head he lived at the school with his mother, by all accounts a redoubtable lady.

His resonant first words as Head - addressed to the somewhat apprehensive boys at his opening assembly - were recorded for posterity:

'Here am I, the newest of all newcomers - pray for me!'

Ice duly broken, he went on to become a very popular Headmaster.

During the First World War after he had left Repton, Temple became the Honorary Chaplain to George V. He also became the leader of the Life and Liberty Movement. A socialist, Temple joined the Labour Party in 1918.

In November 1920 David Lloyd George offered Temple the Bishopric of Manchester. He became a national figure in 1926 when he urged the government to seek a negotiated agreement to the General Strike.

Temple also served as the Archbishop of York (1929-40) and was appointed Archbishop of Canterbury in 1942. In these posts he became an outspoken advocate of social reform and was heavily involved in the campaign against unemployment, poverty and poor housing.

He remained Archbishop of Canterbury until his untimely death at Westgate-on-Sea, Kent, on 26 October 1944, aged only 63.

His successor as Head of the Church of England was Geoffrey Francis Fisher, who by remarkable coincidence had also been his successor as Headmaster of Repton School.

When Fisher retired as Archbishop of Canterbury in 1961, his successor in turn was Michael Ramsey, who had been a pupil at Repton School during the time of Fisher's headship - it completed an unlikely Repton hat-trick which will surely never be emulated.

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