The school is sad to report that John Thorn, who came to PGS in 1992 following his retirement as Headmaster of Winchester College, died on Friday at the age of 98. He is seen here in the Memorial Library on his 80th birthday (2005). John will be remembered by many students for his one-to-one tuition in English, History and Philosophy. Here is a tribute to John, published when he retired from PGS in 2009.

John Thorn 1992-2009

John Thorn came to PGS in 1992, having already retired after

eighteen outstandingly successful years as Headmaster of

Winchester College. During that time he had also twice been

chairman of HMC. Tony Evans had taught at Winchester under

John, and he told me that John was keen to do some part-time

Sixth Form work if I didn't mind. Within five minutes of meeting

him, I knew we had to have as much of him as possible. PGS

has been more lucky than many of its pupils know in managing

to keep him for sixteen years, until last December when he

finally decided the time had come to step down.

John read History at Cambridge, but the richness of his mind

disdains such simple labels and he is equally at home with

the classics, English Literature, political theory, philosophy,

music and much else. Moreover, he has at his command a

beautiful English prose style: lucid, elegant, witty, with a dash

of Regency raciness. From teaching practical criticism to

small groups he moved on to one-to-one tutorials in which 

the pupil's essays would be taken apart and re-arranged to

make sense, all with a kindly twinkle but with a firm insistence

on clarity of thought and logical exposition. In suggesting the

wider reading essential to success at A level and in university

applications he has been invaluable, and the influence he has

had in the school has been out of all proportion to the number

of pupils he has taught. You might think such an eminent

man would not easily adapt to a less prominent role, but no

role assumed by John can be anything but distinguished.

He added immeasurably to the merriment of the English

Department. Its members past and present will salute him in

his second retirement, and will remember him with love.