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Old Elizabethan Professor P J Rhodes, a leading ancient historian, highlights a QE connection in a new academic tribute to one of the world’s foremost experts on Greek art.

Peter John Rhodes (OE 1951–1959), who is usually cited as P J Rhodes, has penned a chapter entitled Buildings and History in a festschrift published this spring, Greek Art in Motion: Studies in honour of Sir John Boardman on the occasion of his 90th birthday.

In the chapter, Professor Rhodes, who is Honorary Professor and Emeritus Professor of Ancient History at the University of Durham, mentions that one of Sir John’s contemporaries at Chigwell School was J W Finnett. John Finnett went on to become a popular Classics master at QE, teaching Professor Rhodes when he was in the Sixth Form.

“In my 14th year of retirement, I remain reasonably compos et mentis et corporis,” says Professor Rhodes. “I am still academically active — reading, writing, participating in conferences, still doing a little teaching and higher-degree examining; an academically focused tour of Iran in 2000 gave me a taste for travelling to exotic places (all too often visiting them shortly before trouble strikes — but my reputation hasn’t yet led to my being denied entry to any country).”

He has also been inspired recently to look further into the history of Classics teaching at QE. In an article for the Old Elizabethans Association’s magazine, the Elizabethan, he charts the fluctuating fortunes of Latin and Greek at the School across the centuries, as well as recording his own memories of his teachers in these subjects.

He was at QE during the last of E H Jenkins’ three decades as Headmaster and was in the last year of two-form entry (60 boys) before the post-war expansion. The senior Latin master in that era was Percival Timson, who had been at the school since 1935. John Finnett joined QE in 1951, aged 23.

“Timson and Finnett were of different generations and different styles, but they made an effective pair,” Professor Rhodes recalls in the Elizabethan article. “Timson hated music: on one of the few occasions when he unbent, he explained that at Oxford he had done little work in his first year so needed to do a lot before taking Mods in his second, and at that stage found any sounds that might distract him intolerable. Finnett was keen on music, but regarded Mozart as the greatest composer of all time and everybody more recent as inferior to him.”

A particular inspiration was “rumbustious” Rex M Wingfield, who was his first-form master and first Latin teacher: “…I think he bears much of the responsibility for my having become a Classicist.”

Another Classics teacher was Lynton E Whiteley, from Cambridge. “…On arrival in 1953 he projected a fierce image, and though I think he mellowed I was always somewhat afraid of him.”

Professor Rhodes is the eldest of three brothers, of whom the youngest, John Andrew, also went to QE and later became a modern historian at Wadham College, Oxford (to which Prof Rhodes went as an undergraduate).

“At School I was in Underne House (under John Pearce); I was successful in the classroom but not on the games field (honour was eventually satisfied when I acted as scorer for cricket teams: the Second XI for two years and then the First XI for three); I was involved in music (as a pianist), in the Elizabethan Union and with the school’s printing press.”

He took Latin, Greek, Ancient History and History A-levels at QE. “I sailed through A Level and S Level, but it then took me two years in the Seventh Form to catch up with the kind of competitors who had started Latin at seven and Greek at nine and had spent their school time on little else.” [S Level, involving extra papers, was for those applying for state scholarships for university, before the later introduction of a universal grant system.] “Perseverance, and my parents’ patience, were rewarded, and I did in the end in 1959 achieve the Holy Grail of an Oxford Scholarship in Classics.”

At Oxford, he was a prize-winning undergraduate at Wadham. “As it happens, Finnett later went to Wadham too…as a visiting Schoolmaster Fellow. Sadly, in 1971 he died of cancer, aged only 43.”

Professor Rhodes was awarded a double first-class degree from Oxford. “I continued as a [cricket] scorer in my first year but not thereafter, did not pursue a career in the Union Society, but was involved in music (singing tenor, and, in the absence of better players, acting as a not very good organist).”

He went to Durham as a young lecturer in Classics in 1965 and rose to become, firstly, a senior lecturer, and then, in 1983, Professor of Ancient History there. He retired in 2005 and still lives in Durham.

During his career, he has published extensively on the Classical Greek world; his works span the decades, from The Athenian Boule, published in 1972, to a forthcoming edition of Herodotus, Histories, V.

He has held a number of visiting fellowships; Wolfson College, Oxford (1984), University of New England, Australia (1988), Corpus Christi College, Oxford (1993), and All Souls College, Oxford (1998). He served as President of the Classical Association from 2014 to 2015. In 1987, he was elected a Fellow of the British Academy and in 2005 was made a Foreign Member of the Royal Danish Academy.

“In Durham I continued with choral singing for many years, and again in the occasional absence of better players, as a not very good organist, and for a few years I was involved with a printing press; I have also been an active member (including two stints as secretary) of the Senior Common Room of University College.”

In the mid-2000s, soon after his retirement, the then-Headmaster, Dr John Marincowitz, told him on a visit to the School that he hoped to reintroduce Latin soon. Professor Rhodes has been heartened to learn not only that this was subsequently done – it is now a curriculum subject – but that Greek is today also available as an extra-curricular subject.

The annual staging of a School Play in recent years marks not the beginning of Drama as a major facet of life at QE, but its renaissance. Work recently undertaken on the archives has brought to the fore photos and documentation from large-scale productions throughout the 1950s.

These plays included Shakespeare (Henry IV, Part I, 1953; Julius Caesar, 1959) and perennial favourites, such as George Bernard Shaw’s Pygmalion (1951), as well as The Would-be Gentleman (1952, adapted from Molière’s Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme) and the now little-performed comedy by James Bridie, Mr Bolfry (1954).

The performances were reported in the Elizabethan magazine of the day and attracted proper, critical reviews from the Barnet Press – and even, on occasion, in the national papers. In 1958, an unnamed critic for the Times Educational Supplement reviewed Nightmare Abbey, Thomas Love Peacock’s 1818 gothic satire: “Queen Elizabeth’s School, Barnet, is blessed with a healthy and ambitious dramatic tradition, and cursed with a constricting stage.” The reviewer went on to praise the cast for “playing their extraordinary characters as if they believed in them, never allowing them to degenerate into burlesque”, while offering a couple of suggestions to the producer.

For most, if not all, of these plays, that post was filled by English teacher Jack Covington. A glance through the programmes reveals some other familiar names, too, including Captain Absolute in the 1950 production of Sheridan’s The Rivals played by one K R Cooper – current Governor Ken Cooper.

After training as a solicitor with Allen & Overy, one of the ‘magic circle’ of top London law firms, Samir Manek is now pursuing his interest in the regulation of markets in his powerful role with the UK’s Financial Conduct Authority.

“I supervise a global investment bank to ensure adherence with the letter and spirit of the rules and assist with investigations into, and prosecution of, white-collar crime at investment banks,” says Samir (OE 2001–2008).

“Understanding the reasons for the 2008 financial crisis and the regulatory response to it has been the thread that has run through my academic and professional career. Working at the FCA gives me a unique insight into this area, with the opportunity to shape the regulatory landscape.”

Samir, who attended the most recent Old Elizabethans Association dinner in the autumn, remembers his years at the School with gratitude. “QE instilled a strong sense of discipline and drive in me. I have the School’s ethos and all my teachers to thank for this – in particular, Ms Maule [now Assistant Head of English, Victoria Maule] for her enthusiasm and encouragement.

“I graduated with a first-class degree in Law from the University of Warwick, my brother and I being the first generation of my family to go to university.”

During his course, Samir became President of the Warwick European Law Society and was involved in the university debating team. He also spent a year abroad at Utrecht University.

After gaining his Postgraduate Diploma in Legal Practice, Samir joined Allen & Overy. He took up his post with the FCA in April 2017.

Santino Boffa has followed a varied career path on his way to becoming the top global recruiter for a fast-expanding technology company.

After reading Law at Sheffield, Santino (OE 1996–2003) first became a professional football coach and then took a number of different posts in recruitment. A secondment in 2014 saw him helping to launch a global banking programme – Santander’s My Rewards – to over 3 million account holders.

Then in March 2016, he began working for Qubit, a Software as a Service (SaaS) start-up company specialising in personalisation, where he is now Global Talent Acquisition Manager. Qubit, which has received more than $76m in venture capital funding, helps more than 300 of the world’s top consumer brands to understand and influence how people interact with them across multiple digital channels, including web, mobile and email. Customers include John Lewis, TOPSHOP and Hilton Hotels.

His London-based job involves recruiting engineers globally, with a specific focus on software engineers and product managers. He is also responsible for shaping and executing global recruitment strategies and building world-class teams.

In July 2017, Santino visited the School to help out as part of a careers event. "It was great being back at QE. The School Hall seems a lot smaller these days - and I was really impressed with the new facilities," he said.

"My memories of the School include early-morning games lessons in the old swimming pool in the middle of winter, with the roof leaking. The students today don't know how good they have it!"

He said: "I like to spend my time outside work travelling to new countries and watching my beloved Arsenal home and away."

In July 2016, Santino married Carmela Vitale, who works in advertising.

Yusuf Sherwani is combining his love of technology with his expertise as a medical doctor to help people give up smoking.

Yusuf (OE 2003–2010) has produced Quit Genius, an app which aims to make therapy for people trying to stop smoking more cost-effective and scalable.

"Quit Genius became a passion during medical school after I saw how difficult it was for clinicians to prescribe effective behavioural therapy that could help people change their habits to help prevent disease,” he said. In an interview with the American technology magazine, Wired, he explained that the problem with the face-to-face support often used to help patients stop smoking is that it is simply not financially sustainable. "We're replacing the patient/therapist relationship with the patient and an app."

Quit Genius is among a number of start-ups seeking to demonstrate that "supportive… treatment can be as effective as reaching for your phone”, the article explained.

The app was developed by Yusuf's company, Digital Therapeutics, of which he is CEO, and backed by a partnership, Velocity Health, set up by two large players in the fields of technology and healthcare, namely Wayra UK (which is, in turn, part of Telefónica) and Merck Sharp & Dohme UK (MSD). Velocity Health is an ‘accelerator’ for innovative healthcare solutions. In addition to the backing from Velocity Health, Quit Genius attracted support from angel investors.

Imran Hamid, chief commercial discovery for MSD, told Wired: "We're witnessing the birth of digital therapeutics as a class of medicine in its own right."

In 2017, Yusuf graduated as a doctor from Imperial College School of Medicine, but opted to pause his clinical training to focus on Quit Genius.

"I probably discovered my entrepreneurial streak during my time at QE," he recalls. I started my first online start-up whilst in Year 9, creating a network of online bulletin boards which quickly amassed millions of monthly visitors, before selling the business in Year 11."

In the Sixth Form, Yusuf asked to study Computing, which the School had not previously offered as an A-level. "I'll always admire the fact that QE agreed to create a class for just three of us who wanted to study the subject!

"During that time, I also founded a consumer electronics e-commerce platform which relied on importing high-end audio equipment from China with a friend and contemporary at QE, Zainul Dhalla, which I carried on working on during my gap year.

"The project was actually very successful for a number of years, helping us pay our way through university. However, eventually, we found it too gruelling an experience to juggle Medicine and Law respectively with a growing business and took the joint decision to wind it down. Several other start-ups have subsequently copied the same model and have been successfully operating for a number of years."

Reflecting on his life so far, Yusuf adds this: "I'll simply say that there's light at the end of the tunnel for those who don't make prefect!"

Sixth-former Eddy Burchett gained a global perspective on work experience with a charity striving to alleviate international poverty at grassroots level.

The Jewish charity, Tzedek, gave Eddy and three fellow students a challenge: they had to select a good cause and then create and deliver a fundraising campaign, bringing in as much money as possible.

“By the end of the week, we had raised over £380 for a programme in Ghana which aims to improve education and reduce class sizes, ensuring children are receiving the best possible education.”

This, he explained, was in line with Tzedek’s philosophy of providing facilities for self-betterment, rather than simply handing over large sums of money. The charity runs a number of projects in Africa and India.

“Our fundraising activity involved visiting as many educational sights throughout central London as we could within a space of two-and-a-half hours. We shortlisted 15 locations, and were dropped in a random location, so we could not plan the route in advance.”

With the boys pitted against a girls’ team, the challenge took on a highly competitive character.  “In the end, the boys visited 11 out of the 15 locations, running 11km, whereas the girls only visited six.” 

Afterwards, Eddy found time to reflect on what he had learned through the whole experience: “The main lesson was to not take for granted the education we receive in developed countries: although I had not been to some of the locations I visited, such as the Natural History Museum, for years, they were all available to me, whilst in Ghana students struggle to have any sort of education.

“I would strongly advise work experience for a charity; it shows that you are willing to do good for the community, rather than simply looking for ways to make money,” Eddy concluded.