My father, Michael Neal, who has died aged 97, was a housemaster at Eton after which headteacher of Cranborne Chase college for ladies in Wiltshire. An educator who listened to the younger, he was thought-about by scores of his pupils to be a kindly, mental pressure for good.
Born in Edgbaston, West Midlands, Michael got here from a line of Birmingham button producers on his father’s aspect, bicycle-makers on his mom’s. He was the son of Margaret (nee Wilson), a nurse, and David Neal, an officer within the first world conflict, later a chartered accountant; his great-aunt was the suffragette and people revivalist Mary Neal. Michael relished wartime evacuation from his Birmingham prep college to rural Shropshire; boarding at Winchester much less so. He rowed in school, and recalled competing at Henley on the day of the D-day landings.
Becoming a member of the Rifle Brigade in 1945, he was posted to Obligatory Palestine with the navy police earlier than going to College School, Oxford, to check historical past. Lively within the Oxford College Dramatic Society, he met Barbara Carter whereas they have been appearing in performs collectively. They married in 1952.
His first instructing job was at Dartmouth School, the place he taught naval cadets. Rehearsing for the Queen’s Coronation he drove the 1923 Rolls Royce he had just lately acquired (for £80) alongside the harbour entrance so cadets might practise their saluting. My mom, waving from the again seat, performed the monarch.
In 1954, he took up instructing historical past at Eton and was invited to arrange a brand new geography division from scratch. As commander of the cadet corps, he took boys tenting in Wales, a go to that led to our household buying Wegnall’s Mill, a water mill close to Presteigne, on the Powys-Herefordshire border, which grew to become my mother and father’ important residence.
A trainer of American historical past and a bibliophile who frequented the library on the US embassy in London, he was invited by the US Data Company to tour the US in 1965. There, he witnessed the civil rights motion and listened to Martin Luther King, and his outlook on world occasions modified for good.
Michael, who was recognized all through his instructing profession as “Dapper Neal” to pupils and colleagues alike, left Eton in 1969 to turn into headteacher of Cranborne Chase college, housed at New Wardour Citadel in Wiltshire – the primary male head of an impartial women’ college. In partnership with my mom, who taught drama, he created a flourishing and artistic college. He would comment that women have been “on the sting of rebelling on a regular basis” and “extra brave than boys at difficult you”.
My mother and father retired to Wegnall’s Mill in 1983, the place they embraced rural life. Michael served on the parish council within the close by village of Titley for greater than 30 years.
Barbara died in 2002. Michael is survived by 4 youngsters, his sons, Tom and Gub, his daughters, Tab, and me, 13 grandchildren and two great-grandchildren.
