Frank Willy, the first Housemaster of Raymond House, passed away on 30 January 2022; the day of the school’s foundation in 1860, a fact that as an historian he would have appreciated.
His and his wife Jennie attended Raymond’s 50th anniversary celebrations in October 2021, and he spoke wittily and movingly to the assembled audience, notably a group of Old Bloxhamists from his time in the house.
His widow Jennie writes: ‘Frank and I were both very pleased that he made it to the Raymond celebrations. He seemed so fit and well then. His illness and death came rather suddenly and unexpectedly. Thankfully, his mind was as alert as ever right up to the end. Our daughter, who lives in New Zealand, was amused to see in one of the hospital videos we sent her that the large tome he was reading was entitled “Going to church in mediaeval England”. He was still curious about everything right up to his last day, and read a copy of The Guardian every day too.’
Frank Willy taught at Bloxham from 1967 to 1974, arriving as Head of History from Victoria College, Jersey. A proud son of the West Country, he had obtained his degree at Bristol University. Aside from his stewardship of the History Department, he was known at Bloxham as a keen cricketer, an expert railway enthusiast, with a love of the Great Western, and a knowledgeable purchaser and drinker of wine. When the Junior Common Room (‘the Joc’) opened its doors in 1970, Frank became its first Chairman, and when Raymond opened the following year, he was the natural choice as its first Housemaster. This was a challenging appointment, with a house based for the first time on study bedrooms rather than dormitories and dayrooms, and made up of boys who had been transferred from the four existing houses in the school. Frank succeeded in welding them into a new and successful community, but at the cost of his health. Forced by doctor’s orders to relinquish his housemastership in 1974, he went on to Leeds University to read for an M.A. in Education, specialising in local history, which had been one of his passions at Bloxham.