Our father, Philip Wraight, who has died aged 97, was a secondary school headmaster for 26 years. He began teaching in 1946 at Seaford college in West Sussex, but exchanged the South Downs for the Staffordshire Moorlands in 1958 when he became head of the new Warslow secondary school near Leek. Remaining in Staffordshire, he became head of the Forest of Needwood high school near Burton upon Trent in 1966, a position he held until his retirement in 1984.
Philip shared the progressive ideas of JHP Oxspring, Staffordshire’s former director of education, and, like him, was an advocate of rural-based, comprehensive secondary schools. During the 1970s, through the University of London, Philip visited Sweden, Russia, Hungary and Poland to discover how other countries organised their schools.
Notably self-effacing, Philip worked as a headteacher with great diligence and integrity, and gained much respect for enabling happy and successful school communities to flourish. It was a source of much local regret that under a controversial “rationalisation” programme in 1984, Philip’s last year before retirement, the highly regarded Forest of Needwood school was forced to amalgamate.
Philip was born in Faversham, Kent, the only child of Frank, a finance officer, and his wife, Lilian (nee Dove). He attended Caterham school, Surrey, and in 1937 went to Jesus College, Oxford. There Philip knew Harold Wilson, whose intellect he greatly admired. In 1938-39, Philip was secretary of the Oxford University Peace Council, a forum for discussion and action on human rights and justice in Europe, Japan and China. Margaret Bramall (later director of the National Council for One Parent Families) was the council’s chair, defeating another future prime minister, Edward Heath, for the position.
In 1940, during the second world war, Philip joined the Royal Artillery. He was stationed in India and took part in the Burma campaign, rising to the rank of captain. On leave in Sri Lanka (then Ceylon), he met our mother, Elsie (nee Wilson), a volunteer nurse from Dundee, and they were married for 70 years.
Philip’s values were in keeping with someone of his generation. He was formal (he wore a jacket and tie every day) and principled – and above all, honest and fair. The fact that all three of his children became teachers is testament to his influence and inspiration.
Philip is survived by Elsie, by us, by our sister, Margaret, and by four grandchildren and five great-grandchildren.
