Alleyn Club News
The President: Dr Colin Niven OBE Palmes académiques (52-60) ..........................................................................................................
There, he taught Tony Blair who later, as Prime Minster, opened the three Dulwich Colleges in China. Next, in Sherborne, Colin ran the Modern Languages department. This would lead eventually to his being the founding headmaster of Sherborne, Doha. (The Emir had been a pupil in the mother school in Dorset.) Since Dulwich days, when he was a Sergeant Major and won the Christison sword, he had been keen on the CCF and at Fettes had been attached to the Royal Scots; at Sherborne he served with the Devons and Dorsets. When Principal of Island School, Hong Kong, he gained a doctorate from Lille University, played rugby and hockey for the Hong Kong international veterans, and was a book critic on the radio. He wrote studies of Voltaire, Thomas Mann and Roger Vailland and now judges the Duke of Edinburgh’s English Award and, as a governor of the English Speaking Union, judges the Marsh Prize for Children’s Literature in Translation. He has helped judge the Miss World pageant three times and as a volunteer assisted the anti-doping section in the equestrian events at the recent Olympic Games. Colin became Principal of St George’s Rome, which Brian Howes (OA) had run, and then returned to Dulwich to be Headmaster of Alleyn’s and later President of its former pupils’ association, the Edward Alleyn Club, making his current role in the Alleyn Club a unique double. He then, as Master of Dulwich Colleges China, started the school in Shanghai and helped to set up those in Beijing and Suzhou. Recently, he visited the site of Dulwich College Singapore and attended a delightful OA dinner there. In May he returns for the tenth anniversary of Dulwich College Shanghai. An eighth headship took him to start St George’s British Georgian School in Tbilisi, completing 50 years in teaching. Now President of the Dulwich Society, a Friend and former Trustee of the Dulwich Picture Gallery and a lifelong member of St Barnabas Church, he owes a huge debt to the College and the local community, and following a succession of brilliant Alleyn Club Presidents, hopes to emulate their splendid enthusiasm and commitment.
Colin Niven was the second of three brothers at Dulwich, Peter being the eldest and Alastair the youngest. The sons of a City of London policeman, they benefited greatly from the Gilkes Experiment. Mr Gilkes was Master in Colin’s first year, followed by Mr Groves. His brothers and he won State Scholarships and Exhibitions to Caius College, Cambridge. Colin captained an unbeaten 2nd XV, played his final game for the 1st XV, and was three years in the hockey XI. He won his weight at boxing and high jumped for the athletics team. More than his studies or his sport, though, his supreme love has been for cats! While School Captain, Colin supervised form JC, a thoughtful move by the Master that encouraged him to teach French and German. He started in the Lycée in Châlons sur Marne, then in Samuel Pepys Comprehensive in Deptford and in his own primary school, Dulwich Hamlet. During his Dip Ed course at Brasenose College, Oxford, Colin was sent to Sedbergh, where he helped Alan Barter, who had coached him at Dulwich, with the rugby. After spells in Dax, Bourges, Caen and Bamberg, he returned to Edinburgh, the city of his birth in 1941, to work at Fettes, where he became a housemaster.
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