Noel Howlett

Noel Howlett (22 December 1901 – 26 October 1984) was an English actor, principally remembered as the incompetent headmaster, Morris Cromwell, in the ITV 1970s cult television programme Please Sir! He was the subject of infatuation by Deputy Head Doris Ewell, played by Joan Sanderson.

Career Howlett made his stage debut at Folkestone in 1925 in The Second Mrs Tanqueray. At Northampton Repertory Theatre in 1930 he played Sherlock Holmes. He also appeared as Mr Williams in the 1948 film The Winslow Boy, starring Robert Donat. At Stratford-on-Avon in 1953, he played Old Gobbo (father to Donald Pleasence's Launcelot Gobbo) in The Merchant of Venice, Edward IV (brother to Marius Goring's Richard III), Baptista in The Taming of the Shrew and Gloucester in King Lear.

An early TV role was portraying a vicar in the 1958/59 BBC series Quatermass and the Pit. He appeared as Professor Rushton in a one-off 1967 edition ("Mission Highly Improbable") of The Avengers and as the Reverend Simon Blanding in a one-off 1967 edition ("Dead Man's Shoes") of Man in a Suitcase.

He also frequently broadcast and did a spell for the BBC as a member of their Drama Repertory Company (now the Radio Drama Company), one of his appearances being as Inspector Walter Neider in the 1965 Paul Temple radio episode, "Paul Temple and the Geneva Mystery".

Personal life and death Howlett was born in Bexley, Kent. Howlett had planned to become a parson, but was encouraged to learn acting as good training for his days in the pulpit. He spent two years as a schoolmaster before taking up acting full time. He never married and had no children. He died on 26 October 1984 aged 82 after a long period of ill health.

Selected filmography

Men Are Not Gods (1936) – Cashier (uncredited) A Yank at Oxford (1938) – Tom Craddock The Proud Valley (1940) – Company Clerk (uncredited) George and Margaret (1940) – Malcolm Jassy (1947) – Court Usher (uncredited) The White Unicorn (1947) – Sir Humphrey Webster (uncredited) When the Bough Breaks (1947) – Judge The Mark of Cain (1947) – Judge (uncredited) This Was a Woman (1948) – Chief Surgeon Barclay Corridor of Mirrors (1948) – Psychiatrist (uncredited) The Calendar (1948) – Lawyer Good-Time Girl (1948) – Clerk The Winslow Boy (1948) – Mr. Williams (uncredited) Saraband for Dead Lovers (1948) – Count Platen The Blind Goddess (1948) – Court Usher Scott of the Antarctic (1948) – First Questioner Once Upon a Dream (1949) – Solicitor The Perfect Woman (1949) – Scientist Your Witness (1950) – Martin Foxglove K.C. – Sam's Barrister The Reluctant Widow (1950) Laughter in Paradise (1951) – Clerk of the Court Cloudburst (1951) – Johnson Scrooge (1951) – First Collector Father Brown (1954) – Auctioneer One Good Turn (1955) – Jeweller Handcuffs, London (1955) – Jeremiah Rugeley Lust for Life (1956) – Commissioner Van Den Berghe Nowhere to Go (1958) – Uncle Tom Howard (uncredited) Serious Charge (1959) – Mr. Peters The Scapegoat (1959) – Dr. Aloin The Battle of the Sexes (1960) – Mr. White Mary Had a Little... (1961) – Pottle Victim (1961) – Patterson Lawrence of Arabia (1962) – Vicar at St. Paul's (uncredited) Tomorrow at Ten (1962) – Brain Specialist Murder at the Gallop (1963) – Mr. Trundell Kiss of the Vampire (1963) – Father Xavier Woman of Straw (1964) – Assistant Solicitor The Amorous Adventures of Moll Flanders (1965) – Bishop Quatermass and the Pit (1967) – Abbey Librarian The Bushbaby (1969) – Rev. Barlow Some Will, Some Won't (1970) – Endicott Please Sir! (1971) – Mr. Cromwell Mr. Selkie (1979) – Grandpa Ross John Wycliffe: The Morning Star (1984) – Archbishop Sudbury