John Leonard Thorn

John Leonard Thorn (28 April 1925 – 20 October 2023) was an English schoolmaster, writer and educational consultant. He was headmaster of Repton School from 1961 to 1968 and then of Winchester College until 1985. He was chairman of the Headmasters' Conference for 1981.

Early life

John Leonard Thorn was born in Chiswick on 28 April 1925. The son of Stanley Thorn, a bookmaker, and his wife Winifred, a librarian, he went to school at Colet Court, where he won a scholarship to St Paul's School, London . He left school during the Second World War to join the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve in 1943. He served as gunnery officer with the rank of Sub-Lieutenant on the destroyer HMS Eskimo in the Indian Ocean. On returning to civilian life in 1946, he took up his deferred scholarship to Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, He began teaching at Clifton in 1949, where Lee had become headmaster. Thorn became head of the history department there, and then a housemaster.

John Smyth affair

While Thorn was at Winchester, John Smyth, a barrister who lived nearby, became dominant in the School's Christian forum. Smyth persuaded some 16 Winchester boys to undergo severe beatings as a kind of penance. When in 1982 Thorn discovered what was happening, he asked Smyth to sign an agreement not to contact young people at the college or elsewhere; this did not prevent Smyth from abusing other boys in the UK and in Africa. Thorn later said he regretted not reporting Smyth to the police, and felt to blame for acting too slowly.

Public service and retirement

Thorn used his year as chairman of the Headmasters' Conference in 1981 to oppose what he saw as excessive emphasis on A-level results for university admissions, and to champion public schools, since he believed that "education is far too important to be left to governments."

Publications

A History of England (1961, contributor)