The Land of Lost Content

A brilliant classical scholar at Shrewsbury and Oxford, Anthony Chenevix-Trench suffered unimaginable hardships on the Burma Railroad as a prisoner of the Japanese during the Second World War.

Returning to Oxford to secure a First, Trench began a stellar teaching career back at Shrewsbury before his appointment as headmaster of Bradfield in 1955, aged thirty-six. His success there, forged through his charismatic personality, saw his appointment to Eton eight years later, but his administrative deficiencies and his predilection for corporal punishment upset the college’s establishment as he forced through unpopular reforms.