Fr. Hunwicke, Common Room (April 2024)
Fr. Hunwicke, (March 13 1941 – April 30 2024) taught Latin and Greek Language at Lancing from 1973 to 200. Here he is remembered by four of his former pupils.
John Hunwicke was a remarkable teacher. A scholar of very considerable intellect, his erudite approach inspired in his pupils an academic aspiration that was, for many, transformational. However, whilst this may be a strange thing to say about a man of the cloth, what I remember most fondly about John Hunwicke was his irreverence. He gave the impression of having a healthy scepticism for authority and its expectations, no more obviously evident than in the glint in his eye and the barely suppressed smile at the corner of his mouth as he came down from the pulpit in Chapel after a sermon that barely stretched into a third minute.
Regular one-on-one prose composition sessions during lessons were a memorable feature of Latin A Level with Father Hunwicke, always accompanied by the unmistakeable aroma of strong coffee; he encouraged us to be tireless in our pursuit of linguistic accuracy and authenticity. His enduring legacy is of several generations of OLs with a deep love for language and literature and for the love of learning for learning’s sake, all underpinned by a clear understanding of the importance in scholarship of challenging and questioning.
Simon Allen, Head’s 1989-1994
The Telegraph obituary for ‘J.W.H. (ipse)’ (as he always inscribed personal copies of textbooks in his characteristically neat, staccato script) described him as “[s]cholarly, erudite and brimming with mischief,” and spoke of his “mischievous sense of humour and… indifference to authority.” The good Father unfailingly brought all these attributes into the classroom for anyone fortunate enough to have been taught by him during his years at Lancing.
His reputation as a formidable and demanding teacher preceded him – the walls of his Great School classroom were famously decorated floor to ceiling with sheets and sheets of A4 handwritten lines that he’d dished out in punishment for all manner of transgressions – but if a student accepted his on occasion admittedly acerbic style of teaching, he would invariably get the very best out of them academically.
I am no exception. I stand firmly by my contention that but for the guidance of Father Hunwicke, I would not have been accepted at Oxford to read Literae Humaniores (even though I know he’s passed on, I will not say ‘classics’ for fear of incurring JWH’s wrath and/or displeasure). Throughout my degree I stuck by his mantra when translating ancient texts: “Surfers do it standing up; Father does it literally.”
And to this day, I write ‘M.J.D. (ipse)’ when I inscribe any book.
Matthew Dick, Teme 1990-1995
It is his humour I remember first. I laughed a lot in his classroom. “The Torah didn’t fall out of a cow’s backside…” Alarming as he was when wielding a spear as a teaching aid, the waggish glint in his eye was the Hesperus to his stricter Phosphorus. In other words, they were both the same. Facund, exacting, and yes…loveable, he tutored as much by personal example as by his blackboard, (which in a typically sensual gesture he refused to have replaced by a whiteboard).
Some of his greatest hits (for me) were:
That pious devotion proceeds andante not larghetto – (see his Eucharistic celebrations)
That precision too can have u’-um-ahh, u’-um-ahh, meandering flair – (but I digress…)
That silence is a carrier wave of pastoral care – (an unfashionable view, but one which ever afforded me the widest of turning circles)
That a gold standard academic test is the Mandy Rice-Davies defence – (well, he would say that wouldn’t he!)
These are things you cannot teach. The lucky student simply witnesses them. If you never knew him, you missed something. Though he has gone to his reward, many of my synapses still belong to him.
Joshan Esfandiari Martin, Old’s 1989-1994
John Hunwicke led Lancing in Eucharistic prayer in a time when the wider Church of England was experiencing marked declines in attendance, and many sought spiritual relief beyond the bounds of traditional global religions. Sunday services across the UK were no longer giving people what they wanted or needed, so fewer folk made time for it.
However, like every chaplain or cleric visiting Lancing at that time, Father Hunwicke preached to a brimming Chapel. To be sure, Lancing services ran counter to the wider trend as showing up remained mandatory for the School. Our gothic revival Chapel was a central part of the weekly rhythm of life at Lancing, just as it continues to define the image of the institution today.
But imagine if churches across the Anglican world had had the option of a broadcast JWH sermon on their Orders of Service? I can see queues for the pews. Because as a preacher, Father understood his audience, and gave us material designed to surprise, delight and provoke.
On those Sundays where Father was preaching at Lancing, the main question on our minds would be: just how outrageous will he be today?
His perspective on Anglo-Catholicism was traditional. Yet his sermons were anything but: variously acerbic, elegant, laugh-out-loud funny, spicy, and informed by current affairs on the school campus and in the wider world. And breathtakingly brief. His rule: never speak for longer than four minutes (many sermons were shorter still). The result: intricate arguments, allusion enabling succinctness, mosaic tiles of thought building toward a provocative picture. Preaching like a lightning strike.
To preach is to seek to persuade. Father Hunwicke faced a school community of people with no faith, some faith and deep faith. He knew this and sent us into the school week ahead with a big idea to contemplate. He left us then – and he leaves us now – wanting more.
Andy Whitehouse – Sanderson’s, 1990-1995