page_title: George Howson
section_title: Schoolmaster
hierarchical_section_title: George Howson / Schoolmaster
caption_attribution_description: English: Illustration of Gresham's School, Holt, from John William Burgon's The Life and Times of Sir Thomas Gresham (1839) "from a sketch made on the spot in 1838" (detail).
context_page_description: George William Saul Howson MA was an English educationalist and writer, reforming headmaster of Gresham's School from 1900 to 1919.
context_section_description: Howson's first position after leaving Oxford was as an assistant master at Newton College, in south Devon, from 1883 to 1886. He then moved to Uppingham School, where he remained for fourteen years, from 1886 until 1900, when he was appointed Headmaster of Gresham's School, Holt, continuing in post until his death in 1919. 
  When Howson arrived at Gresham's, a rather dusty ancient grammar school founded by Sir John Gresham, he found it in numbers much as it had been when established in 1555. In 1900, the school still occupied its original Holt town centre site and contained only forty Holt Scholars, plus seven boarders. However, Howson was appointed on the clear understanding that the school was to be enlarged, and The Journal of Education reported the two matters together: "G. W. S. Howson, science master at Uppingham School, has been appointed Headmaster of Holt Grammar School, Norfolk. The Fishmongers' Company is spending £50,000 on the erection of new buildings."
  During Howson's time as headmaster, a new set of school buildings was built on an edge-of-town site on the Cromer Road, transforming the school and quadrupling its population. The first such new buildings, designed by the architect Sir John Simpson, were opened by Field Marshal Sir Evelyn Wood on 30 September 1903. These consisted of School House (renamed Howson's in 1919, after Howson's death) and the main classrooms building, including a hall called Big School. More boarding houses were bought or built between 1905 and 1911. A new School Chapel was completed in 1916, during the Great War, during which one hundred Old Greshamians were killed.
  The poet W. H. Auden wrote favourably of the new school's private studies for boys, its warm classrooms, magnificent library and excellent laboratories.
  A portrait of Howson by his friend Sholto Johnstone Douglas hangs at Gresham's in Big School.
  In Who's Who, Howson stated his recreations as riding, fives, and trout-fishing.
  He died suddenly on 7 January 1919. His Executors were Charles James Howson and James Ronald Eccles. The Times said of him "Under him the school made rapid progress, especially in science teaching", and "He has been called away, as he would have wished, while in the faithful discharge of his duty. His death has left a gap which it will be well-nigh impossible to fill."
  
  J. H. Simpson later wrote of Howson's achievements at Gresham's: 
  He went there in 1900, when it was a little-known grammar school in a remote corner of Norfolk, and in the remaining nineteen years of his life he made it known throughout England for its bold and original methods.
  A new school library was built in memory of Howson and opened by Field Marshal Lord Milne in June 1931. On 31 January 1932, a bronze bust of Howson by Kathleen Scott was unveiled in the library by Howson's successor, J. R. Eccles.
caption: Holt School as it was on Howson's arrival
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