Obituary - death of Lawrence Nocross - former head of Highbury Grove boys' comp

Published: 7 May 2010
by PETER GRUNER

LAWRENCE Norcross, the former headmaster of Highbury Grove boys’ comprehensive for 13 years, between 1974 and 1987, has died 
aged 82.

He was first appointed deputy to the then headmaster, the legendary Rhodes Boyson, in 1974. A year later, Mr Boyson resigned to become a Conservative MP, and Mr Norcross succeeded to the headship.

Daniel Norcross described his father as “inspirational” but also a “man of contradictions.”

Mr Norcross was a communist – he studied under the Marxist ­lecturer Arnold Kettle at Leeds University – and later became one of Margaret Thatcher’s key education advisers.

Daniel added: “He was also one of the most consistently outspoken head teachers of his day. He didn’t believe in patronizing working class children. Rather than dumb down the curriculum, he would teach them Chaucer.”

He was also an unapologetic fan of old-fashioned teaching, including streaming, houses and corporal punishment.

“He was one of the last heads in the state sector to keep corporal punishment,” Daniel added. “But he said he only ever used it a couple of times. It was mainly a deterrent. 

“What really angered him was that the people who wanted to take the cane away from him were not really informed about school.

“A lot of parents at Highbury Grove supported him because he was a bit of a disciplinarian. My father always believed that without discipline there would be chaos.”

In 1987 he took early retirement from Highbury Grove, claiming he was being hounded out by the “lefty lunatics” at the Inner London Education Authority.

Having previously become disillusioned with the Communist party, he had joined the Labour party. Now, however, he began to fear that Labour’s policy of egalitarianism – creating large comprehensives in which streaming was outlawed – would inevitably result in educational dumbing down.

Guided by Mr Boyson, he joined the Conservative party, and was a major contributor to papers produced by the right-wing Centre for Policy Studies. 

Together with other prominent educationists, he helped pioneer grant-maintained schools, and promoted school vouchers for poorer pupils.

In 1988, he was one of the major contributors to Tory education secretary Kenneth Baker’s national curriculum.

He firmly believed that only a standardised curriculum could prevent poor children from being fobbed off with what he sneeringly referred to as “an A-level in EastEnders”.

Lawrence was born in 1927, the son of a middle-class engineer and a house servant.

He enlisted in the navy in December 1940 and was sent to Burma, where he served as a signalman.

By the early 1950s a friend had persuaded him to enrol at Oxford’s Ruskin College. He then progressed to Leeds University, obtaining a degree in English. 

This, along with his previous experiences among unionised labourers, led him to campaign on behalf of the 

Communist party throughout the 1950s.

He died on January 31. His wife Margaret died last year. He is survived by his children Matthew, Alastair, Joanna and Daniel, and by two grandchildren.