The ugly and criminal behaviour of John Smyth QC towards young men and boys at his home in Winchester and elsewhere, has become a well-attested episode amid similar abuse stories in the Church. Surviving Church has looked at the succession of accounts and reports about how things went terribly wrong in the failures to expose Smyth, both at the time of his nefarious activity and subsequently. We have looked at various reports published about the affair, including the Titus Trust report of 2021 and the recent Scripture Union report. The most recent exploration is, of course, Andrew Graystone’s book, Bleeding for Jesus, which appeared in the autumn. This latest report from Winchester College released on Tuesday 18th January is one that concerns itself with the activity of Smyth in and around the College. How was an individual with no official role within the College, able to get access to so many boys to groom and abuse a significant number of them?
The 197-page Review by Jan Pickles and Genevieve Woods, by careful interviewing of many of the witnesses of the event of the 70s and 80s, adds considerably to our understanding of what went on at the time. It is interesting to read some very vivid testimony. This gives us insight, not only in the personality of Smyth, but also into the religious atmosphere of the College at the time. To summarise the situation in a few words, Winchester College, in the 1970s, was host to a narrow strand of evangelicalism among many of the boys. This was linked directly to the Iwerne type of conservative Anglicanism which we have many times discussed. In a school of 600, some 100 identified as having had an evangelical conversion experience as the result of a decision made at the school. In one of the ten Houses into which the College is divided, there was one which claimed 75% as members of the Christian Forum. This was the organisation within the school which acted in a similar way to a university Christian Union. Only 15 boys in that House were not identified with this group.
Depending on one’s perspective, Winchester College was going through a religious revival or a troubling example of an infectious mass psychosis. Christian Forum had been founded by a maths teacher, John Woolmer. It began its life as a bible study group consisting of a handful of boys. Things changed after 1974 when Keith de Berry, a visiting preacher, held two meetings in the College. Some 30 boys then experienced a conversion to Christ. The Christian Forum then became the dominant expression of Christianity in the College. It was this rapid expansion of the Christian Forum and its need for ‘sound’ teaching and pastoral input that gave Smyth his opportunity. What could be more appropriate than to invite a local prominent Iwerne leader to speak at Christian Forum meetings? The invitation to speak gradually, as the Review makes clear, turned into a regular attendance and Smyth used his presence at the meetings to befriend particular boys and invite them to come to his house. There were plenty of takers, it appears, for the chance to be part of an ordinary family for Sunday lunch.
Winchester College is a foundation with considerable resources for articulating a thoughtful expression of Christianity. The school was able to fund no fewer than four chaplains in the period studied by the Review. Such chaplains would be among the most qualified and well-educated clergy in the Church of England. They were thus potentially able to present issues of faith in a thoughtful and challenging way. Nothing of this legacy of an intellectually stimulating presentation of the Christian faith seems to be remembered or found its way into the Review. The expression of Christianity that was prominent at the College seems to have been almost entirely of the Iwerne Camps/Bash variety.
An insight into the divided nature of Christian observance in the late 70s in the College can be discovered from some extracts of a school magazine written by the boys in June 1979. The contrast made seems to be between Christian Forum observance and no faith at all. In speaking about the Christian Forum, the anonymous editorial author in the Dossier’s Organ stated that the ‘School is very much divided into Christian and non-Christian houses. Or should I say Christian Forum and non-Christian Forum houses?’ The writer goes on: ‘The reasons for this are difficult to pin down, but the main one is that the leaders of the Forum are totally disconnected from the official school chaplains’ The Editorial recommended that the chaplains be put in charge of the Christian Forum so ‘that it would cease to be a breakaway group with a tarnished reputation’. The clear sensible understanding of the situation of division and polarisation was heard by the school and a mainstream evangelical, Mark Ashton, was soon appointed to be one of the chaplains in an attempt to weld this cultic section of the College back into the religious mainstream.
In the autumn of 1980, a new senior chaplain appeared in the College, David Conner, later to become Dean of Windsor after serving as Bishop of Lynn. I take an interest in his Review evidence because we knew each other slightly in Oxford in the mid-70s when we both helped out at the same church in Summertown. He was then a school chaplain in Oxford, and I was a research student. Although I am two years his senior, we were both familiar with the polarised situation in many Oxford college chapels when we were undergraduates in the previous decade. Members of the Christian Union routinely refused to have anything to do with either the chapels or the chaplains that cared for them. This situation was very similar to the one that David seems to have found in Winchester in 1980. From an Anglican point of view, the situation would have presented a clear challenge to his professional skills. The Forum was the dominant expression of Christianity, and he would have the clear task to present the breadth of the Christian tradition and suggest that living with questions was still part of Christian faith. Was he, in summary, going to help Winchester College become a place where Christianity was presented and lived out in a nuanced and rounded way?
The evidence of Conner’s testimony to the Reviewers states that he can remember little or nothing of his relationship with the Christian Forum and Smyth. The same failure of memory was apparent when approached by Channel 4 in 2016. Although Conner’s name appeared as a speaker at the Forum from time to time, his memory of any significant engagement with the organisation and their leaders is almost nil. This is indeed extraordinary. When Smyth became non-grata in the course of 1982, would he not as Senior Chaplain have been brought into the picture very early on? The obvious thing for him to have done is to think back over the previous two years and try to remember as much as he could about the Forum meetings he had attended. Is it not strange that the Forum, the most prominent expression of Christianity in the College at the time, should have not engaged his attention even if another chaplain, Mark Ashton, had been given the task of monitoring the Forum? Conner claims that he never met Smyth, even though Smyth was a regular attender at Forum meetings in the College. The presence of such an evangelical celebrity, as Smyth, would surely have piqued Conner’s interest. Quite apart from the reports of abuse, which only came out in 1982, Smyth, according to the boys’ testimony had a considerable effect on the boys he took under his wing. It is frankly strange if none of this got back to Conner.
We are in this situation, once again, where Smyth succeeded in flying under the radar and avoiding the attention of those who might have protected his future victims. In a previous blog article, we noticed how a considerable number of prominent Iwerne network leaders, some of whom were Smyth victims, failed to do anything about Smyth or communicate any of their concern to others. Smyth was thus able to continue his abusive rampage for another 30 years in Africa. Conner was never part of the Iwerne network but has subsequently become an establishment figure in the Church. Does his failure of memory about the events of 80-82 have some connection with that privileged position he now occupies? A variety of other senior churchmen, including ++Welby, have found it expedient to play down their association with Smyth. Does the fear of association, and thus imputed shame, play a part in Conner’s protestations about the Christian Forum? ‘Clearly I have not remembered things accurately’ was his response when presented with evidence by the Reviewers that he had attended Forum meetings. It should be mentioned that if Conner had played a somewhat more vigorous part in the Smyth episode, the subsequent narrative of Smyth’s story might well have been considerably different. A little bit more curiosity on the part of Conner about this important personality who was invading the spiritual space of Winchester College, might have helped to bring Smyth to book much earlier. The absence of any definite answers in the Review, and failures to interview another surviving chaplain from the period leaves this reader with a strong sense of an incomplete story. A key figure who refused to be interviewed was Peter Krackenberger, an alumnus of Iwerne and member of the Winchester staff. He was a leading figure in the work of the Christian Forum throughout the relevant period. The lack of his testimony and the ‘loss of memory’ by Conner weaken the overall value of the Review.
The report contains a great deal of detailed material about Winchester College and to a considerable extent answers the question of how John Smyth, with his cultic ideas and psychologically disturbed personality, gained access to the College and the hearts and minds of some of those who attended the school. It is likely that Smyth bludgeoned his way into the sacred space of boys’ vulnerability by the sheer force of a charismatic personality. But, as we have indicated, the failures of memory and the passage of time have left important parts of the story untold. The Review is not, nor can it be, a full account of what happened in Winchester 40 years ago. We can still wish that there was evidence of a greater robustness and strength to defend the vulnerability, even fragility of the pupils of Winchester College by those professionally employed to protect them from a notorious predator, John Smyth.
I have no experience of Winchester College, nor any public school, but I do have considerable experience of Christian Unions and chaplaincy. And if CU members have often been too dismissive of the establishment Christianity promoted by chaplains, chaplains have too often been supercilious in their attitude to evangelical certainties. Both parties can be guilty of arrogance.
Actually I suspect the real attraction, in boys torn away from their homes and families, was the apparent emotional warmth of evangelicalism in contrast to the more intellectually credible chaplaincy Anglicanism. Iwerne in general, and Smyth in particular, seem to have practised a sort of upper-class version of love-bombing. That’s almost irresistible to anyone whose background has left them with a deficit of love and attention; and especially so to adolescents.
“Thrash-gate” would seem incomprehensible to a younger generation shielded from corporal punishment, but we have to remember how ingrained Smyth’s methodology was in an older generation. There is probably still a good number in senior positions privately agreeing with what he did. “It never did me any harm”. Memory lapses cover a multitude of different scenarios.
I particularly enjoyed Janet’s characterisation: ‘upper class love bombing’! However I would add a couple of things.
My public school was a day school with a strong Christian tradition, but as a keen evangelical I considered their approach to Christian living to be wishy washy and liberal. So I founded a Christian union, but was required to name it “Fellowship” to avoid socialist overtones. Truly I had a lot to learn.
Rigid evangelical intellectual thinking was designed to avoid emotions altogether. I suspect Smyth and Fletcher’s thrashings were calculated to eliminate errant feelings and that was why they were acquiesced to by vulnerable children who were desperate to achieve mastery over their vulnerability. I wouldn’t conflate this with self harm, but it’s on the same spectrum. They were longing for warmth but wanted to be cool and tough.
The school looked at our Christianity haughtily, and we did the same with theirs. I’ve found more of a middle position myself now. Neither pole had any place for emotions. The charismatics provided an outlet for this in my Christian development. Emotions are always present of course. At school they were expressed in gangsterism and mob rule, in strict evangelicalism in bullying and depression, in the charismatic world as experience-addiction and gullible suggestibility.
The beliefs that underpin Smyth’s work are still around.
I think Janet is spot on here re mutual aversion. Not re ‘more intellectually credible chaplaincy Anglicanism’, and particularly not at the date in question. In the 1970s we are at a high point of evidence-based apologetics from the evangelical sector. In the case of Michael Green, whose many books along these lines exposed gaping holes of laziness in the nonChristian ‘consensus’, that is especially significant because of the typically great influence at the relevant time of his latter-1970s (or Spring 1980?) mission to Winchester College. In the wake of this, the Christian Forum had grown to an unheard of 100.
Chaplains in some schools and university colleges have their enthusiastic followers numbering in single figures. Who can imagine how arrogant and (as already said) ‘establishment’ and ‘supercilious’ it would have been for someone who commands single figures to think it was their place somehow to shepherd those who command triple figures, and on a more intellectually-grounded basis. I say this in the 1970s because of the influence at that time of plenty of Anglican liberals whom no-one any longer quotes, but whose negative approach has proven a dead end in both scholarly and popular circles. And on the topic of intellectual credibility, what one often finds from the establishment end is ‘We know these doctrinal truths are true but we do not know by what means or mechanisms they are true.’ But that is easily refuted because if you do not know the latter how can you possibly know the former? Here we are at possibly the most intellectual school in Britain – will they have been impressed by that intellectually. Whereas the evidence-based verification-based approach of M Green will have gone down a storm. Sometimes unthinkingly called apologetics, it is actually something very positive rather than in any way defensive: an approach that is geared to highlighting the strengths of the Christian approach and secondly the intellectual weakness and psychological roots of the ‘arguments’ often employed to avoid it. It is mentioned in the report that the Christian Forum began as largely scholars (one eleventh of the school), and this at the most intellectual school in Britain. M Green’s Christianity was one of transformative joy, inviting the response ‘I want what he’s having’. This could according to Clare Amos below have been polar opposites to the chaplaincy. So it becomes a no brainer which of the two to choose.
You’re right, Christopher, ‘intellectually credible’ was the wrong term for me to use. ‘Intellectual and spiritual depth and nuance’ would have been better.
There were and are many intellectually gifted evangelicals and I’ve been privileged to know many of them (including Michael Green, though that’s another story). The Iwerne variety, however, lacks breadth. There is more to Christianity – a lot more – than apologetics.
There is more than apologetics, though of course the question of whether something is true/evidenced or not could scarely be more fundamental. People are not going to devote their life to something ill-grounded. We mentioned that what Michael Green did was not apologetics in the sense of defending the faith, since he was always on the front foot as opposed to the back foot, arguing that the evidence is good and opponents’ arguments are weak.
I so wish I had in reality found ‘intellectual and spiritual depth and nuance’ in all of the chaplaincies I have known though it has been there in some. Nor has it been characteristically absent from evangelical ministries.
Your reference to ‘apologetics’ may not be relevant to Iwerne, since John Woolmer in the report says Iwerne-ites sat light to apologetics.
It seems likely that important parts of the story likely remain untold. I also don’t buy Conners inability to remember. It’s clear from this latest review that there was regular discussion of the Smyth problem. It’s also inexcusable for anyone like Krackenberger to refuse to take part. The victims deserve better, regardless of the time lapse, as they are still suffering deep trauma.
Many thanks for this. However is it *that* strange that there is such a memory lapse by Bishop Connor after an interval of 40 years? His memories might merely be the sort of impressionistic blur that are my memories of that time and, as such, would probably not be reliable testimony for the purposes of undertaking a credible review.
In addition, is it that strange that he had no say or influence in what happened? There was an ‘establishment’ Christianity in the school (represented by the college chapel, its foundations and chaplains) and there was the ‘sound’ and ‘disestablished’ Christianity (represented by the Forum). There was evidently a gulf of understanding, of comprehension, and of sympathy between the two, amounting almost to an hermetically sealed barrier. In the eyes of Smyth and his crew, Connor may have been a non-person; he might as well have been in the Antipodes. Moreover, because he may have been perceived as ‘unsound’ or as a challenge/threat to the Forum’s notions of Christianity, he may have been treated as ‘hostile’, and as someone and something to be blanked (and some us know how good some ‘Christians’ are at blanking others). Indeed, he might have been treated as even more of a threat than any agnostics or atheists.
At my school (where the headmaster was in orders and a quondam fellow of colleges at Cambridge and Oxford) there was the same, near-total, gulf between ‘official’ Christianity associated with the school chapels and the cathedral and the SU version of Christianity (which was not actually that strong by that time). To the SU faction, the chaplaincy might as well have been in a different school for all of the difference it made to the SU; in my last year the senior chaplain appointed one of the SU types as sacristan to try to bridge the gulf. It made no difference. Despite the school being in the precincts of the cathedral, I was the only pupil to attend cathedral services regularly, and apparently had been the only one for aeons. ‘Official’ Christianity was, therefore, practically non-existent.
The remarkable thing about the success of the Forum during the 1970s was that it was in a school which had a reputation for producing free-thinking and sardonic types: the sort who would become senior at the BBC or Guardian (viz. Seumas Milne) or who would go to the bar in the long line of Wykehamist judges. Perhaps it was a reaction against the uncertainties of the time, and in the mid/late 1970s there were many in Britain who thought everything was falling apart. This made it all the more important to cleave to old verities; the more rigid and uncompromising, the better: apparently, according to the polls of the time, the country was never as right-wing as it was in 1975-77.
Thank you! I had started a lengthy reply but yours appeared first and has saved me – and spared other readers! Accordingly I can skip the subject of David Conner’s ‘failure of recollection’.
The Christian Forum became a kind of cabal within the College and the report makes clear that it effectively ousted the role of the Chaplains – in itself extraordinary, but there it is. Others (outside the College) became aware of Smyth’s abusive activities before David Conner first learned of them; the report helpfully gives us dates extracted from contemporary correspondence. It also tells us that Smyth’s banishment from the College was announced by the Headmaster at a staff meeting without reasons being given.
Smyth was an enigma, and, as I have suggested on earlier threads, the supreme “double act”. He is the villain in this tragic saga.
We have yet to see what Keith Makin’s report for the C of E will make of all this. I’m concerned that some of the media reporting (sadly including the BBC) hasn’t been wholly accurate. I found the 197 pages of the report pretty heavy going, but it’s necessary reading for a more accurate and dispassionate understanding of these events.
And let us not overlook that the determination of the Iwerne leaders to protect “ John” ( with his lovely wife and three children) and to apologise to HIM if they misrepresented any part of his activities) has resulted in the best part of £1million much of it inconclusive because they still will not answer the questions “ what did you know, when did you know it and who did you tell”
Meanwhile nobody suspended or called to account.
Keith Makin is the CofE Sue Gray – at a snails pace
Indeed nobody called to account. 1970s isn’t that long ago. I was a pupil at that time at a bottom of the league comp. I have plenty of memories so I still don’t buy that Conner was entirely out of the loop. The latest review is clear that Smyth was a flamboyant character with flash car, expensive house, a high profile QC. How could Conner not remember him?
I don’t know, but I suspect that it’s highly unlikely that David Conner ever saw the house or the car. Smyth’s house was out in the country – only a Winchester postal address; my own situation is exactly the same. Rather remarkably, and excuse the tangent, I knew the Vicar of Christ Church, Winchester and its organist, the latter and his wife intimately, at precisely the time when John Smyth was, according to this report, a Lay Reader in that church, and I have no recollection of ever seeing him or even once hearing of him! I had encountered him in court some years earlier, and of that occasion I still have the clearest memories! Memory is related to the significance and importance of events one is attempting to recall. Smyth won the case in court and I remember it partly for that reason. I’m prepared to accept that David Conner might not have remembered Smyth’s visits to the Christian Union amongst its other guest speakers – but I don’t know, and think it is wrong to make assumptions.
We had the same distrust between the chaplains and chapel Christianity on one side and the weekly meeting on the other at Charterhouse in 1964-69. I found one chaplain intimidating, and the other unappealing. Mind you, I was and am a very independent soul, and trusting or confiding in an adult was hardly my style. Some of the visiting speakers in chapel were unhelpfully liberal, as I saw it; the attitude of the meeting felt life-giving in contrast. The meeting ranged in attendance from twelve to sixty plus and then back to thirty while I was there. I have always been grateful for what I gained from it.
Very interesting comments from Steve Lewis and David Pennant. I’m sure the situation at Winchester in the 1970s/80s was even more complex than depicted in this report.
There is a mountain of details in the Smyth saga, which simply don’t get mentioned, but those are possibly more relevant to the forthcoming Keith Makin C of E report. As one example, Smyth was ‘turned down’ for ordination in 1981 according to the Scripture Union report. That date coincides with a major episode of abuse. The victim had by then left the College and (seemingly voluntarily) travelled to Smyth’s house (up in the hills and quite detached from Winchester). I can’t suggest any direct connection: it is just an interesting fact and apparently coincidental. The bishop at the time was John Vernon Taylor and it may simply be the case that he felt that Smyth was unsuitable.
“Keith Makin is the CofE Sue Gray – at a snails pace”
Yes, and I suspect that there are those in the current C of E hierarchy who are hoping that, as with Sue Gray, he will not pass judgment, but only state the facts as he finds them insofar as he is able to do so. As with it being a political judgment for Boris to decide in response to the Gray report when it is published (hopefully, next week, and in full), even though he should not need Sue Gray to tell him whether the gathering he attended on 20 May 2020 was a ‘party’ in breach of the coronavirus regulations, not a ‘work event’, so the responses of those named by Keith Makin as knowing of Smyth’s abuse and keeping their knowledge private, will be a test of their moral compass.
As for David Conner, as a C of E chaplain at the college, it beggars belief, even if he had no personal knowledge of Smyth’s abuse, that he did not ask questions to ascertain the reason why he was banished from Winchester College by the headmaster, John Thorn, in October 1982. Makin’s findings on this will be of particular interest.
Re the date of publication of the Makin report, it is interesting to compare the stance of the Winchester College reviewers in response to the receipt of late evidence, i.e. not delaying publication of the report, but stating that “the addition of an annex or addendum may be required”, with the glacial pace of the Makin review. An announcement on the C of E website on 29July 2021 states that “publication is expected in 2022”, but this would seem optimistic.
My only reservations about the report are that (1) I found it repetitive, and it could have been much more concise; (2) it lacks a chronology which adds so much more to working out what people knew and understood and did at any particular time. Mr Makin’s brief includes a specific requirement to provide a chronology and an executive statement. Those should provide far clearer answers to some of these questions.
Both the Winchester reviewers and Mr Makin were instructed to disregard introducing hindsight in their findings. That fact has not been understood in some of the media reporting so far.
I knew David Conner briefly, and not that well, during the period of years when he was incumbent of Great St Mary’s Church in Cambridge. I had known and admired his predecessor Michael Mayne, who I suspect was a difficult act to follow. David did not (in my view) have quite the kind of creative gifts that made Michael Mayne rather special. But what I do remember – particularly in relation to a service that David Conner led for the Cambridge Theological Federation fairly soon after he arrived, was how he came across to many of us as both depressed and depressive. The service was on Ash Wednesday but he gave us more misery than perhaps we needed or deserved. Thinking back, in the light of Stephen’s article and the comments above – I do wonder if David Conner was suffering at the time from what might be called clinical depression. And if so, whether that depression was in evidence at Winchester College, and whether it has also affected his ability to remember things – and is linked to the sense of him being at a remove from what was going on. Of course the depression could have been brought on by what was happening in the Christian circles at Winchester, and could have been rather circular. But certainly deep depression can genuinely be a cause of failure to remember – partly because one wants to forget.
Thank you, Clare for your speculations about possible depression and loss of memory. What I am led to conclude about the sequence of events and the apparent lack of engagement with members of the Christian Forum by the senior chaplain, is that there are indeed some salient facts missing. However much Conner and Forum Christians may have kept their distance from each other, we must suppose that, as chaplain, he took some professional interest in these boys and attempted to engage with them in some way. Also, we can suppose, not unreasonably, that Mark Ashton as the junior chaplain responsible for overseeing the Forum, occasionally reported to Conner about his efforts in this direction. We are entitled, I think, to attempt to fill in the missing gaps in a narrative that frankly does not make a lot of sense as it stands. Of course, there has to be speculation. The failure to check Smyth at Winchester. Iwerne and in the whole con-evo constituency, represents a serious failure and the whole Church was, to some extent, damaged because of it. It is comparable to the failure to stop Peter Ball and we know how much harm that has done to the Church of England. No doubt, historians in the future will pick up these puzzles and come to their own conclusions
In analysing these data, we must surely keep in mind a couple of objectives as well as who knew what/when etc. Top of the list for me is the desire to release captives. These are not just victims and survivors of abuse, but those members of the wider constituency who, maybe unwittingly, were part of the enabling system. They themselves sometimes suffer a lifetime of misery in the guise of faithfulness, visible to discerning others as depression, as Clare Amos observes. How can we bring deliverance to these folk too?
Secondly I do feel we should be aware of the risk of another John Smyth arising within our midst, and what would they look like? Thrashing young men is probably not going to go unobserved these days. I hope. But the heavy blows of bullying are still commonly passing without comment in all walks of life. Excessive deference has been noted frequently in these pages and a career future which relies heavily on the goodwill of your priestly boss are significant risk factors. Let’s keep our eyes open for these things too.
I should add that there was an earlier beating controversy which also amounted to a form of serious harm, which occurred in 1872. This was the ‘tunding’ or application of 30 strokes across the shoulders of a boy with a ground ash, the effect of which was not far off the cat. It ended up involving the then headmaster, George Ridding (often written about as a second founder of the school, and first bishop of Southwell) in a national controversy. The story is told by Peter Gwyn at pp. 431-77 here: https://archive.org/details/winchestercolleg0000unse/page/430/mode/2up?view=theater. The school has ‘previous’.
It was evidently the case that successive headmaster devolved a great deal of authority to senior boys. The question is whether the devolution of authority continued, albeit to a reduced extent, into the late twentieth century, and whether the school functioned as a number of fiefdoms in which the head was a king with limited powers and the housemasters were like barons, with semi-sovereign rights (this was the case in many schools until quite recently). Others, better informed than I am, might know. If there was an extensive degree of devolution, and if the backing of Christian Forum was concentrated in a few houses, then it might help to explain the wariness of the central authorities (including the senior chaplain) in curbing or monitoring its influence. Many senior chaplains, especially in those schools which had a significant number of chaplains, like Winchester and Eton, would not always have exerted particular authority over their clerical colleagues, and it might have been argued that they did not have the power to do so. Some of them might have taken a narrow and passive view of their responsibilities: a senior chaplain at Winchester (like the conduct at Eton) might have viewed his primary responsibility as being akin to a dean of chapel at a Cambridge college, namely presiding at college chapel services. Winchester’s chapel is, to an unusual degree, like that an Oxbridge college, its quiristers functioning in much the same way as the choristers do at New College. Think of Connor’s contemporary as chaplain fellow at New College, an admittedly different personality: the tragic Garry Bennett. Would someone like the notoriously waspish Bennett, a strong Anglo-Catholic with a good many chips on his shoulders, have taken an active interest in controlling OICCU’s activities within New College, or wished to have any engagement of any kind with OICCU? I very much doubt it. Whilst some of the criticisms of Bishop Connor may be plausible, context is all.
Unfortunately, absent the 1989 volume written by the late James Sabben-Clare (which is of moderate length but hard to find), there is no adequate history of the school, so it is difficult to gauge the influence/power of both the headmasters and the chaplains over the school as a whole. I have little doubt that the present head exercises a great deal of authority.
I think that Froghole is spot on when he speaks of aversion. The chapel and Christian Forum will have been labouring under a mutual aversion which will have led each to ”turn off” when the other was mentioned, and to blank out the topic. I hypothesise this not only from regular experience of such (generally ignorant and unthinking) snobbery, not least at the historical period in question, but also on the grounds of the especially radical all-out nature of this Christian Forum at this time.
And why else would Mark Ashton have had to be recruited at all? Having said that, he was an all-round schoolmastering asset that most schools would have dearly loved to get their hands on, and Winchester through and through.
We add to this that the historical period was one when an appreciable number of intellectually able evangelicals were bursting on the scene. Chief among these was Michael Green who led a mission to Winchester at exactly the period in question, the latter 1970s, and shortly before D Conner’s arrival in 1980. D Conner picks out this mission as significant for the temperature and debate in the school. The reason will likely have been that people picked up on M Green’s intellectual capacity and added that to the consideration of his other assets in which he will have far outstripped the chaplaincy. If he outstrips them in intellect as well, then he is making people question the lazy stereotypes of ‘Oh those awful evangelicals’. He was able to polarise Oxford University as a whole in this way (so that whole colleges warned against him) let alone one public school. This was a healthy polarisation that forced people to review what their assumptions were based on.
The Winchester chapel and original college buildings have remained substantially unchanged for more than 700 years. Winchester College has the oldest continuous choral foundation of any similar body in England. Far from being nicknames (as the current report implies), its governing body has been a Warden and Fellows from its founding by Bishop William of Wykeham in 1382, with the intention of supplying students to New College Oxford founded three years earlier – essentially a joint foundation by Wykeham at the time, with New College incorporating Winchester in its formal title.
But, I have already mentioned my understanding that in the mid-20th century the then Winchester headmaster Alwyn Williams forbade the practice of senior boys ‘tunding’ junior ones with ash rods. I believe it was the mid-Victorian headmaster George Moberly, later Bishop of Salisbury, who had introduced the birch at Winchester, and was roundly condemned for doing so in a recent College journal! Traditionally, unlike Eton, the birch was not used before then at Winchester. The Winchester ‘bibling rod’ applied to the bare lower back (not necessarily the buttocks, I understand) comprised four apple twigs in place of the Eton and Harrow-type birch which was always applied to the naked posterior. Smyth effectively reintroduced an abolished form of punishment!
Incidentally there are eleven houses at Winchester, although Stephen is correct in referring to ten separate residential houses for pupils. They are largely autonomous , each with its own Housemaster. The original foundation scholars, to the best of my knowledge, still occupy ‘School’. Whether they still wear gowns, I do not know. The present report deals quite specifically with the distribution of loyalty to the Christian Forum as between the different houses.
Apologies to Stephen for these digressions, but some of these records need to be set straight. Winchester is one of our most distinguished schools and, as I said on an earlier thread, I can confirm that a young relative of mine has flourished and benefited enormously by having been there in its present embodiment. Let’s not allow these events of 40 years ago to distort the picture in the 21st century of a great school – now entering its eighth century!
‘The original foundation scholars, to the best of my knowledge, still occupy ‘School’. ‘
They haunt it? Surely one of the chaplains can cleanse the place of ghosts?
I suppose it’s good to introduce some humour and lighten this serious and sad topic, but I think you understood perfectly that I was referring to the present scholars of the original 1382 foundation. However, I feel I have contributed all I reasonably can to restore some factual balance amongst the speculation about Winchester College, so I will now leave it there.
Well, no, I don’t know what ‘present scholars of the original foundation’ might mean, or who they would be. Aren’t all Winchester scholars of the original foundation?
Although I was born in Winchester, there was a huge class divide between us and them. These distinctions seem rather arcane to us plebs.
The original foundation will have specified a total complement of a certain number. So if the number has since increased, the supernumeraries are not ‘on the foundation’. Likewise at Westminster Abbey, only 10 boy choristers are on the foundation, but 22 or 24 now sing in the choir daily.
It’s simplest for me to quote here from Wikipedia:
“Winchester College was founded in 1382 by William of Wykeham, Bishop of Winchester and Chancellor to both Edward III and Richard II, and the first 70 poor scholars entered the school in 1394. In the early 15th century the specific requirement was that scholars come from families where the income was less than five marks sterling (£3 6s 8d) per annum; in comparison, the contemporary reasonable living for a yeoman was £5 per annum. It was founded in conjunction with New College, Oxford, for which it was designed to act as a feeder: the buildings of both colleges were designed by master mason William Wynford. This double foundation was the model for Eton College and King’s College, Cambridge, some 50 years later.”
Especially interesting to note (in the context of current perceptions of privilege) the ‘poor scholars’. As related in my earlier comment the scholars still live separately from the commoners who occupy the separate ten boarding houses each with its own Housemaster. I don’t claim specialist knowledge of these matters. The member of my family who joined the College in the sixth form was a commoner.
William Wynford was also responsible for the transformation of Winchester Cathedral’s Norman nave to its Perpendicular reincarnation.
The purpose built scholar study rooms with (if memory serves) double oak doors as in Oxford University etc help us understand (a) why some of the most stellar scholars were raised at Winchester, (b) one reason why Winchester is ‘a world apart’.
In fairness to Froghole, I must add a short postscript. I think his explanation of a possible failure of communication between the chaplains and the supporters of the Christian Forum is entirely plausible. I was possibly carried away by the introduction of the 19th century ‘tunding’ episode which clearly reflected serious discredit on those involved at the time but, in my view, does not help in discussing the present topic.
The best education children can get, is to have well balanced parents who engage with them daily. It’s fine to grow up in museums if you like that sort of thing, but in the real world it’s not entirely necessary.
The more we subcontract our children to others, the more likely it is we expose them unwittingly to people like Smyth.
Buying steps up the ladder can seem like a good investment for a children, but not if they go up the wrong one and fall off, if unsuited to heights.
One advantage of the expansion of higher education and the existence of many perfectly good state schools, is the reduced awe felt for ancient places’ alumni.
At the core of Church central leadership, there is still a generation of anachronistic hidden qualification going on, like “were you at Iwerne?”, but now these are actively being forgotten.
However it wouldn’t surprise me at all if a revised set of “off the books” pre-qualifications sets in connected with say seniority in a merchant bank or attendance at the right sort of global consultancy firm. Oil is falling out of fashion, but let’s keep our eyes open.
Steve, I agree with all that you say about a happy and normal family home environment. I went to a state grammar school (for which I am very grateful) but ‘even’ there several hundred boys, effectively the whole junior school, were abused by a predatory PE teacher. When the headmaster learned of this, the man disappeared overnight, no police involved or prosecution that we ever heard of – not unlike Smyth. Additionally this man targeted individual boys, surprisingly including school sports champions, for further sadistic beatings, but this was largely neither known nor understood by the rest of us at the time (1950s) – were we more naïve in those days? There’s nothing new on this earth. We just have to hope that greater awareness will prevent such things happening in future.
I think you’re correct. I was terribly naïve. People were. We used gallows humour to get through the rough times with deflection. Still do.
I admire those who work for justice (“love in action”) and conciliation, and will do what I can to support them. And yet I am ambivalent about the Smyth affair. There are lots of questions that could be asked of organizations and individuals, not least the ABC. But what’s the point?
Smyth is dead. Some of his victims are dead. Some of those who shielded him are dead, and those that are not, along with those who have no relevant recollections, are supremely well connected. Furthermore, there is seemingly no shortage of funds in the conevo constituency to pay for obfuscation, cover up, whitewash and the mitigating machinery of reputation protection industry. I shall be astonished if anyone living is held responsible. Digging around in the past is essential to understand the present and plan for the future, but have we not come up against the law of diminishing returns in this case?
“To prevent this happening again” some might say. Well, it will. It is happening now. Somewhere a religious nutter is trying to persuade the lonely, the vulnerable, the disturbed that their version of religion is the panacea – that yielding to the discipline of the leader will bring salvation.
We’re up against human (animal) nature.
As a survivor, I can say that it’s very important to me that the truth is known. Truth has a value on its own. Most survivors I know would say the same. It matters to us that the truth is out there. We’re hamstrung, of course, by legal considerations – especially those who have been forced to sign NDAs/confidentiality clauses, or who are vulnerable to revenge from our abusers if we talk.
It matters enormously to some of Smyth’s survivors that not only is the truth about Smyth known, but also that the truth of the ongoing coverup is known too. If it matters to them it matters to me
As for what good it might do – other than to the victims, who matter most – the hope is that those revealed to be guilty of coverup won’t gain any further promotion, even if they don’t suffer any other penalty. And that the Church will finally learn that secrecy and lies don’t work. ‘You shall know the truth, and the truth shall set you free.’
Yes. I am now fairly sure there will never be any restitution for me. But the snag is, even if there is, without openness, it will become payment, of one sort or another, instead of putting it right. Like the “Saturday fathers” who go for loads of expensive treats instead of building a proper relationship. I’d like to be in a good relationship with a good church, actually. Why can’t that be an option?
You’re despondent Stanley
Thank you for the courage in your comment Stanley. I am not at all well informed about the Smyth case but I find that focus on the past and trying to understand the truth acts as a deflection from the real and terrible issue in all abuse cases, “how do I live my life now so I am not crippled by what happened”.
Graystone’s book was supposed to be the truth yet survivors still clamour for a document that gives ‘the truth.’ That is not a judgement, I completely get it but when Makin’s report is in survivors still have to reconcile themselves to the past, there is no magic wand.
Abuse now seems to me worse than ever, school children are afraid of being stabbed, cyberbullying is rife, sex trafficking happens in quiet towns. Abuse changes and adapts to the age we live in so reports from the past have limited value in having a big impact on it now.
The Winchester Review and Graystone are sketchy about the pre-Woolmer stages of the Christian Forum at Winchester. But it seems important, even if clarification can’t help the victims.
Graystone says that the pre-Forum group met at Peter Krakenberger’s house. This location is wrong, since Krakenberger didn’t join the staff till 1973. The Report says that according to John Woolmer, while he was away from 1969 to 1971, Smyth started a Christian group in his house near Winchester for Wykehamists ‘with a direct link to Iwerne’. These must have been Iwerne boys under his tutelage as an Officer, whom he was ‘discipling’ as a group rather than individually. Woolmer says that he founded the Christian Forum after returning to Winchester in 1972 as ‘a direct move to bring the secretive group at Smyth’s house into the open.’ Presumably Smyth welcomed this ostensible frustration as the perfect Trojan Horse for gaining access to the school.
What seems to emerge is a concerted series of steps: Smyth becomes a Iwerne officer in 1965, moves near to Winchester in 1968, starts a Iwerne follow-up group between 1969 and 1971, and cooperates with the group’s move into the College in 1972; Krakenberger joins the school in 1973 as maths teacher (perhaps with the maths teacher Woolmer’s support); Woolmer conveniently arranges a mission by the more widely acceptable ‘liberal’ evo Keith de Berry, swelling the Forum’s membership; then, also conveniently, Woolmer leaves; Krakenberger takes over the administration of the Forum; Smyth, who is reputed to control Krakenberger, becomes the effective director of the Forum, with access to as many boys as he wants.
Possibly this was originally a campaign planned by Iwerne HQ to gain access to Winchester College, tragically hijacked by Smyth. Graystone says that Krakenberger was ‘prayed in’ by David Fletcher: this presumably involved string-pulling, so it seems likely that Smyth’s move into the territory was similarly orchestrated. Iwerne profited from its opponents’ attempt to obstruct it, but by doing so opened the door to Smyth’s malpractices.
By declining to contribute to the Review, Peter Krakenberger has aroused the suspicion that he was effectively the facilitator of Smyth’s agenda, although he didn’t know about the beatings. I was once a Senior Camper at the same time as Peter Krakenberger. I liked him, and we became briefly friendly. From my memories I judge that the descriptions of him in the Report are accurate: excitable and ‘black and white’. Up to 1982 he seems to have been completely under Smyth’s control. His excuse for not taking action when he witnessed Smyth behaving oddly — ‘not for a junior don like him to question a senior member of the Church’ strikes one as ridiculous: evangelicals are perfectly capable of flouting senior members of the Church. The Review mentions that several people had concerns about a friend of Krakenberger’s. Could this association have been part of the hold that Smyth…
‘not for a junior don like him to question a senior member of the Church’ strikes one as ridiculous: evangelicals are perfectly capable of flouting senior members of the Church.
I think if that had read “senior member of Iwerne” it would make more sense. Smyth was senior in the hierarchy that mattered to Krakenberger as opposed to the official hierarchy of the church (which he probably viewed as suspect).
Not for nothing was Jonathan Fletcher,, a mere rector in the official c of e hierarchy, described as the “Pope of conservative evangelicals”.
An excellent analysis bringing together many jigsaw pieces. A further consideration is that Winchester will have been unusual for a school of its type in not having a Christian Union or Forum already by 1970. Which only makes it more plausible that John Smyth’s house move (conceivably) and his Bible groups initiative were part of the plan to remedy this; certainly P Krakenberger’s gaining entry was part of such a plan.
Not so sure about J Woolmer getting out at the right time in order that the hardliners could take charge. He would not have been 100% keen on their taking charge, from what he writes. It may have been more that he was (typically) irresistibly persuaded to join his old Principal (who knew his evangelistic and ministry potential of old) at St Aldate’s. Quite possibly there was no-one on earth that either of them would rather have worked with. And he had not done ordination training merely to return to his old stamping ground.
One sees a certain amount of ‘When the cat’s away’. JS behaves differently when absent from D Fletcher. JS takes charge of Winchester College Bible studies as soon as J Woolmer is temporarily away. JS takes advantage of the school’s liberal regime. He doubtless takes advantage of the fact that the house where many victims were from had a housemaster part-preoccupied with a terminally ill wife. In Africa, JS takes advantage of the fact that the Brits who know him are no longer seeing him.
I agree entirely with what you say about Woolmer. I would have been clearer but was trying to keep within the word limit (the keen-eyed will have noticed that my last few words about the hold JS may have had over PK got lost). I meant it was very handy to Iwerne that the non-Iwerne Forum leader left the school. I believe that there was very little love lost between the de Berry kind of evoism and the Iwernites, but others have commented more expertly.
At St Ebbe’s in the late eighties David Fletcher paraphrased the end of Matt 7 to the effect that Jesus said that those who cast out demons were the category of people to whom he uttered ‘I never knew you’. I may be slightly inaccurate here, but it was somewhat in that direction away from the precise text that he spoke. The precise text is that there is a category of people that will point to their having cast out demons not that casting out demons is ipso facto bad.
This is relevant because here in the 1960s onwards (and we are aware of D Watson’s crippling symptoms as a result of the constriction he felt from Bash’s rejection of what he felt was the new found freedom of the charismatic movement) we have battle lines drawn between the charismatic and noncharismatic. Again we observe that Michael Green retained respect on both sides. But his ministry together with that of John Woolmer majored on the gifts of the Spirit and the casting out of evil spirits (a chief emphasis in Woolmer’s writings, where he goes into their joint ministry at St Aldate’s and St Matthew’s and Oxford city in the latter 1970s).
No love lost? Yes, in that particular respect. But not in others. St Ebbe’s in the shape of D Fletcher was invited, and happy, to share St Aldate’s’s pulpit.
There is no way that Iwerne, with its traditional roots and its respectability and hatred of the undignified, would have touched certain aspects of the charismatic movement with a bargepole. In this they are to a large extent right, but I think they threw out the baby with the bathwater.
The contrast between Woolmer and Krakenberger (answerable to Smyth) regimes is clear in Thorn’s autobiography: the former was more at ease with himself and the younger less so. Smyth was Krakenberger’s senior at Iwerne and (slightly) in age, and he would not be likely to regard him as anything different outside Iwerne.
Thank you Edmund for your perspective. There is a complexity here that needs to be understood. Speculation, even from the outside like mine, has to be considered important for getting the total picture. Your inside surmises are very interesting. The Trojan Horse idea is extremely credible. I hope Makin sees this point. None of us can be blamed for maybe getting things wrong, when we do. The whole Iwerne enterprise needs to be understood in every aspect both for the history of the con-evo constituency and the wider Church of England.
The fact that Oxbridge students were pushed strongly towards St Ebbe’s and the Round Church is mentioned in the report. In 1991, one juniorish senior-camper (sic) said to me, jokingly but puzzledly as though he had spotted a matter for attention: ‘I can’t believe you attend[ed] St Aldate’s not St Ebbe’s.’. The point being that John Woolmer was of St Aldate’s, he invited Keith de Berry also of St Aldate’s for the 1974 mission, and once he was at St Aldate’s from 1975, he will have been instrumental in securing the further invitation to Winchester of his Rector Michael Green for a later mission. In 1975-87 while Michael Green was at St Aldate’s the Ebbes/Aldates dichotomy was less clear cut, since M Green at St Aldate’s was not only a product of Iwerne and highly influenced by Iwerne’s well-organised training and by its founder, but also one who emphasised Bible exegesis strongly. So that neutralised any complementary advantage St Ebbe’s might have had. At other times, the Iwerne-evangelical vs relaxed-evangelical dichotomy between these 2 churches would have been even more pronounced than it then was.
However, there was no embargo. So one Iwerne-ite began by attending St Aldate’s; but the hugging culture coupled with the effervescence of the typical student attendee was in danger of proving a distraction and he moved to the greater formality of Ebbe’s. From 1986 David Fletcher’s presence as Rector meant that no Iwerne-ite was absent from Ebbe’s; and they had the added advantage of regular brainy and pastoral preaching from N T Wright.
I attended the Round Church at Cambridge and learned a lot there. I can remember two sermons now, and also I was once struck by a fellow undergraduate putting a fifty pence piece into the collection, which was serious money in the early seventies: two pounds withdrawn from my bank with a cheque would last me a fortnight. A second class stamp was two and a half pence, I recall. (Please save your stamps and send them along to me…)
Re the Makin ‘Smyth’ Review, the C of E website posted this update on the timing of the Review yesterday, 24 January 2022:
Makin review: https://www.churchofengland.org/media-and-news/press-releases/update-smyth-review
It says:
“Since the deadline for submission of evidence the reviewers have been compiling data and timelines, and setting up any further meetings as needed. They hope to have a draft version of the report ready at the end of April which will be followed by a representation process. The length of time that takes will be dependent on the volume of representations needed and the level of engagement and feedback provided by the various people and organisations involved. When more details on this are finalised a publication date will be set.”
This is particularly in response to Edmund Weiner’s comment…
I too noticed the lack of information in the Winchester review about the early history (it was admittedly beyond the scope of the review).
Eric Nash started the Iwerne camps in the 1930s, and he targetted the top 30 public schools. I’m sure that must include Winchester College. So was there a link between Winchester and Iwerne prior to 1970? What form did that link take? I believe attendance at the camps was by invitation only, so a link would require someone who was in a position to select and invite pupils from WInchester.
Smyth didn’t meet Nash until 1965, so any activity by the Iwerne Trust at Winchester before then must have involved someone else. But who and how? The fact that Smyth was running a christian group in his home for Winchester pupils around 1970 suggests that the Iwerne Trust was operating at Winchester by then, but, again, we don’t have details.
This is pure speculation, but I wonder if Smyth learned from Nash that the Iwerne Trust had need for a worker at Winchester, perhaps because their previous worker had moved away or run into difficulties. So Smyth could have taken that role on, moved to Winchester, and started the group at his home with boys who had already been to the camps.
I agree that the whole thing appears to have been carefully planned over many years by Smyth, who undoubtedly was a very evil and manipulative man. He gets himself into the school, develops a system of grooming pupils, and by 1975 he has at least one victim who he can control to such an extent that he can give the poor boy a caning which is kept secret. This was more than an isolated incident with a particularly vulnerable individual, as his abuse increases and a number of other boys are beaten until he is finally exposed in 1982.
If everything Iwerne-related was strategic, then this is highly possible. And of course, being strategic is a good thing – it is the same as being organised, being prepared, being longterm.
You mention 1975. This is the year that John Woolmer leaves, and the year of the first victim record. Doubtless the 2 may be related.
And in any case why would they need to pray in P Krakenberger to this particular school? We know there was no CU at the time JS started Bible studies in 1970. There may have been one before. Iwerne targeted the top 30 schools, no exception, but they had to ‘get into’ each one individually. And given that (a) they were a parallel set up to the existing chaplaincies and therefore potentially redundant and (b) they were potentially controversial for putting professing Christians, not least staff and chaplains, on their prayer lists – this was a tough ask (all credit to the notable diplomacy of John Eddison and David Fletcher). Eton fell out with Iwerne for this very reason. Of all the schools, Winchester is the most similar to Eton.
The higher-end schools and boys were the ones they wanted most. But also those were the very schools that were apparently the toughest nuts to crack. Sherborne and Radley and Repton were the sorts of schools that were more amenable. Very regular prayer went into Iwerne. One can imagine that Eton and Winchester will have been high on prayer lists at various times. Once Winchester came onside, then a great deal was invested in it. The boys on Smyth’s list were precisely the ones that were being fast tracked by Iwerne even before the truth came out. (That those individuals reached that level is not entirely unconnected to their well-intended zeal for self-improvement through self-abasement. But of course the Winchester College revival was a good and notable thing if one leaves out Smyth.)