We are enormously grateful to Paddy for his exceptional act of visionary philanthropy, and for being willing to put his head above the parapet by going public with the news of his donation.
As you read this year’s Journal, the first two recipients of Paddy Dear Bursary Awards have just joined the school. More will come every year until September 2030, by which time there will be ten award holders across all year groups, enjoying an educational experience that they and their families thought would not be open to them. This wonderful gift will endow those ten bursary awards in perpetuity.
Paddy has also accepted an invitation from the Warden to join the Governing Body, with particular responsibility for development and the work of Win Coll Soc. Since autumn 2023 the Warden himself has been interim Chair of the Development Committee: it has been a pleasure and a privilege for us to benefit from his wealth of experience, and support and insights from the highest level of the school, over the past three years.
Through the generosity of people like Paddy, and our many hundreds of other donors, we are now able to offer financial support to every remarkable young person who needs it, via three distinct routes:
- Attracting outstanding talent through academic scholarships
- Supporting affordability through the Paddy Dear Bursary Award and other mid-range bursaries, improving affordability for families who can make a contribution towards school fees but cannot join us without top-up help
- Broadening access through transformative bursaries of up to 110% of fees
Thank you, all of you, whatever your personal contribution. Every penny that we receive really does make a difference.
There are two more areas where we have been particularly seeking your support this year: sport and the range of things which make a Winchester education truly distinctive.
Since it was founded in 2004, the Albert Gordon Sports Fund has been a driving force behind sporting excellence at Winchester. Inspired by the vision of past parent, Albert H. Gordon, and sustained by his sons John (E, 1966 ‑ 67) and Dan (E, 1968 - 69), together with the rest of the Gordon family and a dedicated group of OW sportsmen, the fund has helped transform sport at the school through the provision of coaching, improved facilities, and its investment in OW sport. We are grateful to everyone who continues to make this possible.
Secondly, this year’s Teaching Treasures appeal seeks to protect and sustain those things that make a Winchester education genuinely remarkable: Div, our dons, and the College’s exceptional collections. The very special nature of our collections is visible both throughout this publication and also in our Treasury museum, which celebrates its 10th anniversary this year. Treasury is open to the general public, free of charge, throughout the year and it is where I chose to be photographed this year. The opening up of this hidden trove of cultural and historic riches was made possible through the generosity of many individuals in the wider Wykehamical community, and our gratitude remains undimmed a decade on.
The final gift that I would like to highlight this year is a generous bequest from Tony Ayres (Co Ro, 1969 - 2009) to support the Quiristers. Tony taught physics at Win Coll for nearly 40 years, and continued to help part-time after his retirement. He was also a member of Chapel Choir, and famously founded Cantores Episcopi as a close harmony singing group in 1973. Tony died in 2024, and it seems fitting that we should receive this final and most generous gift to support the Quiristers in the same year that Winchester College merged with The Pilgrims’ School.
