The Evelyn Waugh Lecture

Evelyn Waugh Lecture 2021 Jeremy Tomlinson

A Housemaster’s Report

The Evelyn Waugh Lecture was set up in 2008 to honour and celebrate one of the College’s best known and most distinguished pupils, and to use the occasion as an opportunity to thank all those who support the Lancing Foundation in its work.

Jeremy Tomlinson was in a unique position to give this year’s Evelyn Waugh Lecture, as a former Housemaster of Head’s himself: the House where Waugh lived for five years as a pupil from 1916–1921. The lecture, entitled A Housemaster’s Report, began with some comments drawn from Waugh’s final Lancing report (given to the College by the family). Head Master Bowlby’s comments contain a vivid echo of Willie Gladstone’s advice to David Hare 40 years later. Jeremy moved on to discuss various passages in Waugh’s work relating to his schooldays. He used references and quotations from Waugh’s school diaries between 1919 and 1921 and his autobiography A Little Learning to indentify moments in several of the novels where Waugh’s Lancing experiences are an influence. He ended with the diary entry for 15 December 1921 when Waugh had just received the news of his open scholarship to Oxford, as an example of his self-awareness.

This was a fascinating tour through the impact of Lancing on Waugh’s life and writing and how his teachers (notably J F Roxburgh) assessed him. Jeremy talked about the burgeoning relationship between Lancing and its most famous novelist. It is clear that the narrator of Brideshead Revisited is an OL and, in fact, the essence of Charles Ryder’s Schooldays is a remarkable tribute to the social and pastoral culture of Lancing. He noted that Waugh’s school diary ‘tells the story of his rapid personal and intellectual development during his final seven terms, in the context of an exceptional period in Lancing’s history’. Waugh commented that ‘The more I see of Lancing, the more convinced I become that our generation is a very exceptional one’. For the reader there is the pleasure of seeing the diarist becoming a novelist and indeed ‘six years after leaving school he wrote a best-selling novel’. The lecture was peppered with wonderful observations: ‘Waugh regarded P G Wodehouse as the absolute master of narrative prose. There are many similarities, but Waugh is laced with vitriol – or plum tart, if you will.’

Our grateful thanks to Jeremy for making our 12th lecture such a special occasion and for delighting us, in his inimitable style, with this rich critique on one of Lancing’s most distinguished pupils. There is much more to read, and you can do this here: https://evelynwaughsociety.org/2021/ annual-waugh-lecture-more/

The list of speakers for this lecture has been impressive: renowned journalists; playwrights; authors; professors; lyricists; knights and ladies; and finally a schoolteacher. As it happens, 2021 marks the centenary of Evelyn Waugh leaving Lancing and 50 years since this year’s speaker started teaching English at the College. 2008 Sir David Hare OL 2009 Mr Alexander Waugh 2011 Sir Christopher Hampton CBE and OL 2012 Revd Professor Richard Griffiths OL 2013 Mr Anthony Andrews and Mr Derek Granger 2014 Sir Peter Bazalgette 2015 Charles Moore, Baron Moore of Etchingham 2016 Lady Selina Hastings 2017 Sir Alan Moses 2018 Sir Tim Rice OBE 2019 Mr William Boyd 2021 Mr Jeremy Tomlinson

Jeremy Tomlinson (right), seated in Evelyn Waugh’s reconditioned armchair (shown above), in front of Waugh’s Lancing School Report, with the Head Master’s first edition of Brideshead Revisited.