My father, John Penfold, who has died aged 89, spent three decades training teachers in the disciplines of craft, design and technology, having first taught the subject in secondary schools.
He was born in Edgware, north London, to Edwin, an accountant, and his wife, Alice (nee Rogers). After Orange Hill grammar school in Burnt Oak, he went straight to Shoreditch teacher training college, in the east of the capital, where he qualified as a design and woodwork teacher.
Following two years of national service in the army, where he rose to the highest national level at boxing, he worked at a senior school in Harrow before moving in the early 1960s to teach at Christ’s Hospital school in Horsham, West Sussex – in the process becoming friendly with Sir Barnes Wallis, of bouncing bomb fame, who was a trustee there.
Not long afterwards, having settled in Windsor, Berkshire, with his wife, Eileen (nee Robinson), a teacher whom he had married in 1955, he returned to Shoreditch college, which had moved out to Surrey, to become a lecturer and then senior lecturer, training undergraduates to become teachers in woodwork and cabinet making.
John remained at the college for more than 30 years. When it was threatened with closure in the late 70s, he and a colleague, Marge Smalley, negotiated its merger with Brunel University in the 80s. Together he and Marge then undertook a countrywide recruitment drive for students, with a unusually modern emphasis on attracting young women interested in teaching science, technology, engineering and mathematics.
He obtained a degree in economics and later a master’s in the role of education in manual subjects, research for which led to the publication of his book, Craft, Design and Technology: Past, Present and Future (1988).
He took early retirement from Brunel in his 50s to become a consultant to other universities and colleges in the south-east of England and was a GCE examiner in schools. For a time he also did work for Unesco, helping to train teachers in Indonesia and Malta. From 2015 onwards he taught furniture design to University of the Third Age students.
John was an active member of the community in Windsor, where he was an independent councillor from 2003 until 2015. Funny and considerate, he was a family man as well as a genial host, loyal friend and raconteur.
Eileen died in 2003. John is survived by his children, Julian and me, and his grandchildren, Tom, Fabienne, Leo, Jack, Joe, Morris and Olivia. Another daughter, Helen, died in 2000.
