Cyril Alington - Career

Career

Alington's educational career began when he became sixth-form master at Marlborough College in 1896. He moved to Eton College in 1899, leaving to became headmaster of Shrewsbury School in 1908. In 1917 he returned to Eton to succeed his brother-in-law, Edward Lyttelton, as headmaster and he remained there until his retirement from teaching in 1933. He served as chairman of the Headmasters' Conference, 1924-25. At Eton, a building which houses much of the English department is now named after him, as is Shrewsbury's school hall.

From 1933 to 1951 Alington served as Dean of Durham. He had become a Doctor of Divinity at Oxford in 1917 and received other honours: he was chaplain to the King from 1921 until 1933; he was made an honorary fellow of Trinity College, Oxford in 1926, and an honorary DCL at Durham University in 1937. He received the freedom of the City of Durham in 1949.

He was endowed with almost every gift to ensure a successful career. Extraordinarily handsome, especially in later years when robed and in the pulpit, he impressed the great majority of boys at Shrewsbury and Eton. As a young man he was a very successful cricketer and for years afterwards he maintained a high standard as a player of fives and rackets. He possessed a wide and extraordinarily retentive memory which enabled him to produce the apt quotation for any occasion. He was a most facile and brilliant versifier and he composed some admirable hymns. He appeared on the cover of Time magazine on June 29, 1931. "An accomplished classicist, a witty writer especially of light verse, and a priest of orthodox convictions" ..."