Roy McComish

John MacLachlan Roy McComish (28 February 1922 – 15 June 1995) was a Scottish educator, headmaster, artist and British Army officer who founded the independent boarding school Box Hill and served as its first headmaster. Prior to founding Box Hill, McComish was a housemaster and art master at Gordonstoun, an independent school in Scotland, and he included some of that school's educational ideas in the formation of his own school. As headmaster of Box Hill, McComish was one of the founding headmasters and leading organisers (along with Jocelin Winthrop Young) of the Round Square, an international network of schools, based on the educational concepts of Kurt Hahn founder and headmaster of Gordonstoun. Utilising his skills as an artist McComish designed the associations logo.

In 1953 an earthquake struck Greece, a disaster which caused the death of thousands of people and the destruction of many buildings. McComish became the school's first headmaster and Jocelin Winthrop-Young became one of the school's first governors. Gordonstoun, Salem, Anavryta and Box Hill were 'taken for granted' as the already established and pre-eminent Hahnian schools. Gordonstoun, Salem, Anavryta and Box Hill were 'taken for granted' as the already established and pre-eminent Hahnian schools.

On 5 June 1966, Kurt Hahn's 80th birthday was celebrated at Schule Schloss Salem, and Jocelin Winthrop Young who was now the headmaster of Salem invited Roy McComish as the headmaster of Box Hill School as well as the headmasters of Gordonstoun, Louisenlund, Anavryta, Battisborough, the Athenian School and the Atlantic college to discuss the establishment of a Hahn schools conference. This meeting was chaired by King Constantine and during its course an agreement was reached on naming the conference 'The Hahn Schools', it was then decided that the first conference would be held at Gordonstoun in 1967. At this first conference at Hahn's insistence the name 'The Hahn Schools' was dropped in favour of a new name 'The Round Square' after an iconic building at Gordounstoun. The six schools that attended this first conference and were the founding members of the Round Square were Box Hill School, Gordonstoun, Anavryta Experimental Lyceum, Schule Schloss Salem, Aiglon College and Abbotsholme School.

At the 2nd Round Square conference held at Box Hill the principles of the association were established and co-education was the first of the sequence of conference themes that was discussed. Box Hill became an important central location for the Round Square and conferences were often held there. At the 1980 Box Hill conference R.S.I.S. (Round Square International Service) was created to promote and organise overseas voluntary service projects in much the same way as the project in Cephalonia Roy McComish retired as headmaster of Box Hill School in 1987 and was replaced by Dr Rodney Atwood.

Legacy Founder of the Round Square Jocelin Winthrop Young noted the importance of Roy McComish and Box Hill School.

" Finally Roy McComish, without him Round Square would not have survived. To explain why, I must go back to a serious miscalculation in my original plan for the conference the administration and organisation were to be undertaken by different schools and thus infrastructure would fall away. But it just didn’t work out that way. Heads were too busy – and rightly so – dealing with their own schools. I was handicapped as I was unable to find a secretary who could write English and take dictation in that language. Therefore I had to do all my own correspondence, and this continued for 20 years until I finally became emancipated with a P.C. Throughout these years Box Hill was the centre of the association and Roy’s team of David Larg as treasurer, and Kay Holland as secretary to R.S.I.S. provided the administration. The McComish’s small drawing room became our headquarters and with Barbara McComish providing a bottomless tin of digestive biscuits and necessary relaxation by playing Bach to us on the piano, we got ahead. He pioneered all our main undertakings in India, Africa and the Middle East. He is an optimist and I a pessimist, if I may steal someone else’s definition: “One who has a pessimism of the intellect but always tries to hold on to an optimism of the will”. Roy designed our logo and his sketches of Hahn are unique. The most loyal of Hahn’s supporters, for years he used to propose at the conferences that the name revert to the original “Kurt Hahn” conference. However, he would not like me to treat him too seriously, so let us go back to that Box Hill co-education conference. At the final plenary Roy summed up in the presence of the delegates and Upper School and I quote: 'In Box Hill we have a good co-educational tradition and you will never see boys and girls walking in the school grounds hand in hand'. There was a joyous roar of laughter from all in Upper School; quite undismayed he added: 'Well, not when I’m there!' ". Jocelin Winthrop Young OBE, founder of the Round Square on Roy McComish