Frank Hutton- Williams BY JO AKRILL
I have found myself sinking into a deep leather armchair and slipping into an equally comfortable conversation with Frank, before realising, half an hour later, that he and I are both in danger of missing our afternoon registrations, having moved from discussing modern jazz to behavioural economics, via musings on life, love and loss. Learning for its own sake is something which Frank values highly. His delight in helping our students to develop their own literary tastes and to gain confidence in their own critical voices has been particularly evident within the Further English programme, which he has taught for three years, helping high numbers of students to gain places at top universities. But Frank takes equal – perhaps even greater – pleasure in bringing together students from our partnership schools. He speaks of how enriching it has been for College students to hear a wider range of voices in the classroom setting, and he has delighted in present- ing these groups with unusual pairings of poems. As Frank says, when you look at Marvell’s ‘To My Coy Mistress’ alongside the American poet Frank O’Hara’s ‘Arrival’, the latter poem ‘destabilises’ any certainties we might have had about the former. For Frank, having our prior notions destabilised – by literature and by each other – is a vital part of learning, and I have no doubt that he will continue to cherish this notion when moving on to Latymer Upper School in September, where he will be working on curric- ulum reform, including the development of a new alter- native to GCSE Literature. He will lose the long commute, and I imagine that, in addition to having more time with his family, he will particularly enjoy not having to rush for the train at the end of the day. Who knows: there might just be a room at Latymer containing a couple of comfy arm- chairs, and I hope that there will be colleagues aplenty ready to join him in conversation, ranging from neoliberal- ism and bebop to his beloved Joyce and Yeats. ◉
Frank arrived at the College in September 2019. Newly married to Claire (they tied the knot a fortnight before his first day of teaching), he had barely settled in before we were all hit by Covid. Frank took all of this in his easy, loose-paced stride, and within 18 months, which not only saw the arrival of his two daughters, Ada and Mae, but also the publication of his first book, Frank appeared
to have worked out what made the school tick, and was starting to demonstrate what he could bring to the English Department, and to the College as a whole. Armed with a smile to lighten the greyest day, and equally bright academic credentials, Frank came to us from Char- terhouse, where he had taught the International Baccalau- reate, bringing with him some highly innovative classroom practice. The range of topics on which Frank has given talks to students include Irish modernism (his academic specialism), Milton and individual liberty, and ecologi- cal writing and deep time, thus providing our most able students with high-level academic stimulus and challenge. But whether talking about Lucy Prebble’s play Enron in a Year 9 classroom, or exploring the intricacies of Joycean style in an Upper School Further English session, what is most evident is that it is teaching, per se, which energises Frank, and that he passes on this energy to his students, caring as much about their development as human beings as he does about their academic achievements. Frank is also a fine conversationalist. Many a time, pottering into the Common Room after lunch to check my pigeonhole,
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