John Henry Brookes and Headington
John Henry Brookes (1891–1976) was born in Northampton. He qualified as an art teacher at Leicester School of Art and Crafts, and later learnt the art of silversmithing.
In 1928 Brookes became headmaster of Oxford School of Art in St Ebbe’s. In 1930 he moved with his wife Helena and children Joan and Peter into a brand-new detached property in the Slade in Headington called the Gate House. Now numbered 195 (below), this remained their home until 1975, and Brookes took a great pride in its garden, which he looked after himself.
In 1934 Brookes was appointed principal of the newly merged Schools of Technology, Arts & Commerce. By 1944 his "college" was spread over 19 buildings throughout Oxford, and he campaigned ceaselessly for new buildings. In 1947 the city bought 33 acres of land on Headington Hill, and plans for a new technical college on this site were eventually approved in 1952. The junior technical school, named Cheney School, was opened in 1954, and the first students moved into the Oxford College of Technology next door during 1955, the year before Brookes retired. The college was officially opened in 1963 by the Duke of Edinburgh, by which time it had 800 full-time and 6,000 part-time students.
Brookes lived to see his college become a Polytechnic in 1970. He died at the Churchill Hospital, Headington on 29 September 1975. When Oxford Polytechnic became a university in 1992, it was named Oxford Brookes University after him.
Note that there is a
much fuller entry on John Henry Brookes
in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography
(added in 2006 and available in online version only)