Children of Joseph John and Mary Sophia Sparkes

"At 24, William Street, Rochdale, Mary Sophia, wife of Joseph John Sparkes, a son."

"We have read with deep sympathy—and for my part wholehearted unity—Malcolm's statements to the Court Martial & the magistrates: & our thoughts have been & will be very often with him in his days of separation & punishment, & with Leila, & all nearest to him."

SCHEME FOR A TRADE PARLIAMENT.

Conference of Trade Unions Approves.

TO AVERT DISPUTES.

An important step in the direction of improving the relations between employers and employed, and of averting disputes, has been taken by the building trade. This industry, in which 800,000 men were employed before the war—about half of this number are now in the fighting forces or are engaged in munition works—has adopted the Parliament of Labour scheme formulated by Mr. Malcolm Sparkes, a member of the Society of Friends and conscientious objector, who is now in Wandsworth prison.

The National Federation of the Building Trade Employers of Great Britain and Ireland some time ago received a deputation from the National Associated Building Trades Council, and as a result of the discussion it was resolved to hold a joint conference, which took place at Pen Corner House, Kingsway, yesterday.

[ . . . ]

AN INQUIRY DEMANDED

After the conference the operatives' representatives discussed the case of Mr. Malcolm Sparkes, and the following resolution was passed: "That the National Associated Building Trades Council learns with regret that Mr. Malcolm Sparkes, a member of the Society of Friends, has been sentenced to imprisonment for conscientious objection whilst engaged on valuable national reconstruction work, and requests that his case be inquired into by the Government with a view to his release, and that in the meantime facilities be afforded to him so that he can continue his work in connection with the industrial parliament scheme.

MR. SPARKES'S CASE.

THE GOVERNMENT ADMIT A VERY WRONG DECISION.

The facts with regard to Mr. Malcolm Sparkes were stated by Mr. T.E. Harvey, M.P., in the House of Commons in the course of a debate in which Mr. Hayes Fisher, replying for the Government, admitted that the local tribunal which refused to recognise Mr. Sparkes' industrial reconstruction work as of national importance had given "a very wrong decision."

Mr. Sparkes, before the war, was managing director in a firm making woodwork for the building trade. In the course of 1915 the firm (in which he had not a controlling interest) accepted contracts from the Ministry of Munitions. Mr Sparkes thereupon resigned his position as managing director and arranged to be employed on purely civilian work, taking no profit from the munition contracts.

When the Military Service Act became law he was given 28 days by the Slough Tribunal to find some work of national importance approved by the Pelham Committee. That committee approved of his engaging in industrial reconstruction work in connection with the Garton Foundation. But the Slough Tribunal refused to accept this and sent Mr. Sparkes into the non-combatant corps.

He is now serving the second of his two sentences of 23 months hard labour for refusing to obey military orders.

Lord Parmoor: "Let me give three illustrations only of who these people are who are suffering in this way. I will take three notorious cases. One is that of Mr. Malcolm Sparkes, who is really the author of the much praised Whitley Report. He is a writer and investigator of great eminence, and even while in prison has been consulted by the Government in reference to this Report. What is his position? He has already suffered sixteen months of solitary confinement in prison. We are not so rich in men of that kind that we can afford to waste them in such a manner, apart from the torture which it is to men of that intellectual eminence to be in prison under existing conditions."

MALCOLM SPARKES (1897-98) is still in gaol. He received a visit from his wife on June 1st. The Editor was extremely interested in meeting one of the policemen (a man with several brothers in the Army) who had been present at his Tribunal. He spoke in terms of the most cordial admiration of M.S.

MALCOLM J. SPARKES (1897-98) has at last been let out of gaol, unconditionally. His services have been long very badly needed, and even while he was in prison he had frequently to be consulted about matters relating to the building trade.

Personality Behind the Building Guilds Movement.

The Guild movement behind the National Building Trades Federation, which is receiving astonishing support for the idea that schemes for the erection of workmen's dwellings organised by municipalities and local effort should be controlled and managed by direct labour, supplied through District Committees, has for its governing genius Mr Malcolm Sparkes, a builder in a small way of business at Willesden, London.

Little is known even to-day of one of the most remarkable personalities in the Labour movement. For six weeks prior to the outbreak of war the London building trades were in the throes of a great strike. Mr Sparkes was then a member of the Employers' Federation, and when that body decided to enforce a national lockout "young Sparkes," as he was known familiarly among his friends, resigned, thinking that some better way could be devised to stop a disastrous struggle.

The war came. Mr Sparkes was conscientious enough to apply his principles on industrial strife to national warfare, and refused to be in any way associated with the international struggle. He nearly lost much of his business, but in April, 1919, he was nominated a member of the committee appointed by the Building Trade Council to consider the question of scientific management and reduction of costs, with a view to enabling the building industry to render efficient public service.

The subsequent interim report, which created a sensation because of its extraordinary fresh and original ideas, was largely his handiwork, and to-day it is the charter of the Building Trades Guilds which are springing up to revolutionise the building industry.

Malcolm Sparkes dealt with the increase of cost of building materials, largely due to the existence of combines and rings, and asked the Government to purchase the necessary materials through the Co-operative movement wherever possible, and thus protect the community against exploiters.

On this subject Dr. Addison was non-committal.

"Guild Socialism was much stimulated during World War I by the rise of the left-wing shop stewards' movement, demanding "workers' control" in the war industries. After the war, the building workers, led by Hobson and Malcolm Sparkes, founded building guilds that built houses for the state; but after the economic slump of 1921 the state withdrew financial help and the movement collapsed."

Many authors who tackle the subject of ethics and economics reveal a lamentable lack of knowledge of either one or the other. In this booklet, which is intended primarily for those who are concerned about the relationship between Christianity and social and industrial problems, Mr Sparkes shows himself to have some of the parboiled notions of the Socialist in regard to industrial affairs, and his notions of morality are at times equally queer. Neither his head nor his heart functions properly. [ . . . ] While extolling service to the community, Mr Sparkes also sees fit to whitewash the General Strike. That revolutionary assault, which is now condemned by the more thoughtful Labour leaders, had precious little Christianity about it. [ . . . ]

HELPING INDUSTRY.

Five-Year Plan to Deal with Unemployment.

WHILE all political parties are devising schemes for dealing with unemployment, the Economic Committee of the General Council of the Trades Union Congress has been invited to discuss sympathetically a memorandum which, besides providing some novel features for dealing with the present trade depression, proposes a five-year industrial programme and a scheme calculated to cost £1,000,000,000.

The main object of the scheme, it is stated, is the relief of unemployment, and Mr Malcolm Sparkes, one of the pioneers of Guild Socialism in the building industry, is responsible for its conception.

Briefly, Mr Sparkes advocates the establishment of a British development service, the constitution and details of which would be organised by a National Industrial Council representative of all industries, and responsible to the country through Parliament.

[ . . . ]

In the view of Mr Sparkes, the scheme would gradually eliminate the need for national employment insurance, which is now costing the nation nearly fifty millions per annum. It would give greater flexibility to labour, stabilise conditions, preserve wage rates, and enable schemes of public utility to be undertaken with adequate supervision.

Mr Sparkes's scheme is calculated to cost £1,000,000,000, and his plan is that it should be embodied in a five-year industrial programme.

Recently, it is understood, the scheme came before the Emergency Committee of the Building Trades Operatives' Federation, and, in view of the proposals it contained, was sent for the consideration of the Economic Committee of the T.U.C. General Council.

PEACEMAKER DEAD

A prominent member of the Society of Friends, Mr Malcolm Sparkes, who was the originator of the Building Trades Parliament scheme out of which grew the Whitley Councils, died at his Beaconsfield home yesterday at the age of 52.

While Mr Sparkes was in prison during the War as a conscientious objector he was consulted by the Government about his proposals.

Born at Rochdale, Mr Sparkes was a founder and first general secretary of the London Guild of Builders and invented the drytone process of colouring timber without stain.

MALCOLM SPARKES

Death of a Prominent Quaker

There died on Thursday, amidst some of the most historic associations that the Society of Friends can offer, one of the best loved Quakers of the day. Hee was Malcolm Sparkes, the founder of the Building Guild, and, as he has been called, the "Quaker Dreamer." He died at his home in the picturesque Jordans Valley.

Since 1927 he had lived at High Garth, Pitkiln-lane, near Beaconsfield, and before that at Gerrards Cross. Up till the time of his death, he was Clerk of Jordans Meeting and had reached his 51st year.

Malcolm Sparkes was best known, perhaps, for his tenacious grip on his belief in the ideal things of life, and because of this he was a generation or two in advance of his age, as the dreamer-prophets often are. Allied to his idealism, however, was a businesslike sense of reality, and this combination found expression just after the war, when he founded the Building Guild. During the war, he was several times before the Military Tribunal as a conscientious objector, and it was one of his pleas for exemption that he could do more useful service at home in organizing the building trade according to a scheme he had worked out.

On February 11, 1919, lie left Wormwood Scrubs Prison after two years' detention, which he suffered on account of his stand for peace against war. During those two years the solitude had almost revolutionised his mind, for as one of his intimate friends has put it, "It seemed to open him out." The germ of the idea of the Building Guild had its birth during that time. Afterwards, he published a book on the subject, and worked extremely hard to bring the idea to fruition.

Broadly speaking, the Building Guild is a co-operative movement among the building and allied trades. The managing committee is elected by the men themselves, and as a unity they would undertake work. Before and during the early years of the war, Malcolm Sparkes was a director of Cleavers, Ltd., a joinery works at Park Royal. At the time of his death he was a director of Drvtone Co., Ltd., of London. He was educated at the Quaker schools at Ackworth and Bootham (Yorks), and it was whilst at Ackworth that he met his future wife. They became head boy and girl of the school, and began the romance which ended in marriage.

The funeral took place at Jordans Meeting House on Monday, when a large and representative gathering was present. At the graveside, where the service was all the more beautiful because of its simple and open character, Ernest Warner, Robert Medal and Mrs. Paine spoke words of appreciation and comfort. At the service in the Meeting House, Maurice Rowntree spoke of his association with Malcolm Sparkes during the war.

"I was in prison with him," said Maurice Rowntree, "and it was then that he became full of the idea of the reconstruction of industry on Christian lines. They had to let him out, so that he could work out his idea. He was a man of glorious optimism, ever undaunted by obstacles."

Others spoke of Malcolm Sparkes as a dreamer; as a man who made an opportunity of every disappointment; and as one whose whole life was summed up in the words, "What we can see, others can see."

Amongst the gathering were several who had served imprisonment with Malcolm Sparkes because of their convictions.

The mourners were the family and relatives, and included Mrs. S. Sparkes (mother), Elizabeth Sparkes (widow), Margaret and Barbara Sparkes (daughters), John and Rodger Sparkes (sons), Mr. and Mrs. Brian Sparkes, Mr. Wilfred Sparkes, Mr. and Mrs. Eric Sparkes (brothers and sisters-in-law), Mr. and Mrs. Ernest Jackson, Mr. Henry Jackson, Mr. Albert Jackson, and Mr. Wilfred Jackson (brothers-in-law and sister).

Amongst others present were Maurice Rowntree, Roy Calvert, Ernest Warner, Horace Herbert, Robert Medal, Mrs. and Miss Matthews, Mrs. E. Crawshaw, Mrs. G. Trailing, Mrs. J. Polge, Mr. and Mrs. Wm. Ward, Mr. and Mrs. Mossman, Mr. Simpson, Miss Crook, Mr. and Mrs. and Miss Gillison, Mr. and Mrs. Crooksbank, Mr. and Mrs. W. Crookshank, Mrs. P. Bigland, Mrs. Bertram Crossfield, Miss Mabel Westlake, Mr. and Mrs. G. Grubb, Mr. and Mrs. R. Bigland, Mrs. B. Paine, Mr. G. Bolam, Mr. and Mrs. A. Moorhouse, Dr. Mary Morland, Mr. and Mrs. F. Hancock, Mr. and Mrs. H. Pickles, Mr. and Mrs. A. P. I. Cotterell, Mrs. J. North, Mrs. W. Saunders, Mrs. W. Hughes, Mrs. Mathams, Mr. Ryan, Mrs. Dalton, Miss Beakbane, Mr. and Mrs. J. Cyster, Miss Pushee, Mrs. Greenwood, Mr. and Mrs. Edmund Cooper, Mrs. Cuthbertson. Mr. and Mrs. Jowett, and Mrs. Everett.

An Appreciation.

Malcolm Sparkes will be remembered chiefly for his connection with the Building Trades' Parliament, the Whitley Report, and the Building Guilds, writes one who knew him intimately. His mind was always busy with economic problems. When the war broke out he was assistant managing director of H.C. Cleaver, Ltd., and when his firm took government contracts, he felt that as a Quaker, who thinks all war unlawful, he must refuse dividends from these contracts. He then was at work on his scheme for Industrial Parliaments at the time. In the summer of 1916 he became liable for military service, but as manager of H. C. Cleavers he was entitled to exemption. Should he accept the exemption and have time for his schemes? He decided to maintain the ancient Quaker testimony against all war, returned his exemption badge, and resigned his position as manager.

Then followed many tribunals when he tried to get exemption on conscientious grounds, and meanwhile worked on his industrial schemes. He was daily awaiting arrest as an absentee, when he heard from Arthur Greenwood, asking him to write a memorandum for Mr. Whitley. On January 28, 1917, he passed the final proof of the Whitley Memorandum, and on January he was formally arrested and tried at Beaconsfield Police Court as an absentee. Thus, one year after he had first approached the carpenters' and joiners' about an Industrial Parliament, the general lines of his scheme were adopted as the pivot of the Government reconstruction policy, and issued to the public as the now famous "Whitley Report on Joint Standing Industrial Councils."

While in Wandsworth Gaol he was consulted on the working out of his ideas by the Government, the Bureau of Industrial Research at Washington, the Garton Foundation, and others. In November, 1917, the anomaly of a man being imprisoned by the Government, and yet helping them in this way, was brought to the notice of a very highly placed personage, who used every effort to get him released. They tried to release him on medical and other grounds, but he refused any release except unconditional release as a conscientious objector. He one of the very few who obtained this.

This was granted him in 1917. In 1920 he started one after another two of the experiments in Guilds. "The Building Guild" and "Guild Housing. Ltd." The main idea of these Guilds was complete democratic control in the industry. But it was found difficult to combine this idea with the initiative and promptitude which is essential for successful business.

Since the Guilds movement he has been building up a business of his own, where his own discoveries in the stainless colouring of wood have been carried out in architectural woodwork.

For the past three years he has been busy on another scheme of industrial reconstruction, from which he had already enlisted the sympathy of many industrial leaders, and it seems very grievous that such a man should be removed from our midst at such a time.

 "At 24, William Street, Rochdale, Mary Sophia, wife of Joseph John Sparkes, a son, who was named Wilfrid."

The Friend XXIV Apr:105; The British Friend XLII June:89

SPARKES, Wilfrid (Scholar 1895–1899), was the second of four sons of Joseph John and Mary Sophia Sparkes, of Rochdale, both parents were Ackworth Old Scholars. On leaving school he joined the staff of the London and North Western Railway at Euston and remained with the Company until he retired in 1945.

He was musical and a competent hockey player until he suffered an injury to his chest during the First World War when serving with the Royal Engineers in Italy; as a result he was seldom free from pain during the rest of his life.

He maintained his many friendships by his wonderful facility for writing letters and James Westwood writes of him . . .

"Wilfrid Sparkes was the last of four loyal Ackworthians who never spared themselves in their work for their old school—a noble band.

"For something like thirty years I have never met Wilfrid but, for many years I have enjoyed a lively and witty correspondence with him. 'Dear James,' he once wrote, 'it is delightful getting letters from you on what the B.B.C. call V.H.F. and long may it continue.'

"He bore his long illness with unbelievable fortitude and very rarely referred to it: in a recent letter however, he added—'I get on very slowly and it is a super-wearisome business.' But, despite that, I can imaging him saying:

'I have lived: nor shall malinger fortune ever

Take from me what an earlier hour once gave'

"His letters, in spite of his disabilities, were models of neatness and his handwriting marvellous. He was an amazing master of statistics especially when travel facilities, railway, shipping lines and modes of communication were concerned. He also had made a wonderful collection of Ackworthiana, to add to which was a real joy to me.

"This is the comfort of friends that, though they may be said to die, yet their friendship and society are, in the best sense, ever present, because they are immortal," Wilfrid Sparkes died November 16, 1958, aged seventy-four years.

"William Street, Rochdale, Mary Sophia, wife of Joseph John Sparkes, a son."

"24, William Street, Rochdale, Mary Sophia, wife of Joseph John Sparkes, a son."

BRIAN SPARKES (1900-02, and Master 1914-16) has rejoined the Bootham staff, after a period of two years and a term at Ackworth, and friends of the school will be extremely glad to know that he and Mrs. Sparkes are back again. Brian Sparkes was formerly an exhibitioner of Merton College, Oxford, and on coming to Bootham taught Classics and English, and was class master to the Upper Schoolroom.

On the Saturday following Mr. Sparkes gave a lecture on locomotives. He made the subject interesting even to those who knew very little about it, and showed some excellent slides.

"We were all glad to find Mr. Sparkes back at work after his illness, but Penn boys, past and present, will be sorry to know that Mr. and Mrs. Sparkes have left Penn House, after living there since it was opened in 1921."

Reporting on the year at Bootham, Donald Gray said that in the events of the past year at School the most important, he thought, was one that they must all regret. For many years Mr. and Mrs. Sparkes had presided at Penn House, and it had been a great chapter in the history of the School. Last summer Mr. Sparkes had to undergo a serious operation, and the doctor's orders were that he must give up the housemastership. [ . . . ] He was glad that Mr. Sparkes was now back again and in full vigour.

BRIAN SPARKES

I once heard a famous school described, from the assistant master's point of view, as "a good school to have been at." The criticism implied in this two-edged comment can never have been applied to Bootham, for few schools can have been so fortunate in the long and devoted service of their assistant masters. The thought of Brian Sparkes's 28 years not out, has led me to delve for statistics in the Register, and to make the discovery that since 1885, when the late O.B. Baynes joined the Staff, no fewer than fifteen assistant masters have averaged more than 20 years' service apiece, and some of these are going strong still. Brian Sparkes's score ranks high in these averages.

He came to Bootham in the difficult year 1914, and two years later, as a newly-married man, was despatched, as a C.O. by the Tribunal to take the place of the English Master at Ackworth, whom they had just transferred to York to work in a temporary hospital. When this futility expired, he returned to Bootham in 1919, and he has been there ever since, being the first Housemaster of Penn House and Senior Housemaster for more than 20 years. During this long period he has played a leading part in many school activities.

I have always regretted that I left Bootham ten years too soon to be taught Latin by Sparkes. Though it is unfashionable in Quaker circles to admit it, Latin, as he taught it with his high standard of accuracy and clear-thinking, remains surpassed as a grounding for the educated man. He never spared himself, and expected from those he taught the same thoroughness that characterised all that he did himself. Moreover, though Latin is usually classed as a "dead language," he never allowed you to forget that it once had been very much alive and that the culture which evolved it still lives in all of us.

Some might regard Brian Sparkes as a martinet, but his discipline, which never was in question, was achieved almost without recourse to punishment and, if his wit and sarcasm inspired awe, he never used them to lash any but the slacker or the fool.

No boy ever outwitted Brian Sparkes. I can remember one instance—how I heard of it I cannot now imagine, for it was certainly not from the principal actor himself—when a very bold member of E Latin one April Fools' Day had fastened the duster to the drawer with a concealed drawing-pin and doctored the chalk. The usual silence reigned as B.S. entered the class-room, but on this occasion it was heavy with delicious expectancy. Without allowing a smile to betray his appreciation of the situation, B.S. slowly drew a clean duster from his pocket and proceeded to clean the board. But hope did not die completely until a fresh piece of chalk emerged from the same place. Who can wonder at his prestige!

No boy now at school will think of B.S. as a gamesman; but those whose hair is now grey will recall that at school he won his First Master's colours at cricket and football, was Games Master at Rydal Mount, before he came to Bootham, and for many years after that, until serious illness removed him from the field, was a stalwart of the Bootham teams. Not, perhaps, a brilliant performer, except at hockey, for which he won his colours with the Oxford University Occasionals, he was always a batsman to rely on, or a half-back whose dogged persistence and accuracy often held the side together.

Anyone who knew the Senior Essay and the Senior Debating Societies before he entered on his long presidency of both, will have been struck by the immense advance in writing and speaking achieved during that quarter century. They were Brian Sparkes's particular concern. It often fell to his lot, as President of the Essay Society, to express public comment on immature youthful efforts. His criticisms were always constructive, informed with a wisdom born of experience, and skilled in selecting for commendation what was good. Often have I admired his chairmanship of the Committees of these Societies. Always full of original ideas himself, he never imposed them on others, but had the rare gift of calling out talent and instigating collaboration. He and his wife contrived and made a triumphant success of those memorable summer evening "Collations," at which many had their first experience of after-dinner speaking in welcoming a distinguished guest.

Sparkes, like others of his family, possessed a remarkable gift for organisation. Twice he was called upon to exercise it as Headmaster, once when A.R. was visiting South Africa, and again, many years later, after the death of Donald Gray. It was no easy task thus to be called upon to direct the work of his colleagues, but the Committee's choice was an obvious and a wise one, and on both occasions the life of the school ran smoothly under his tactful and capable leadership.

Who now remembers, I wonder, a riotous evening towards the end of the first period, when the whole staff unbent in an extravagant entertainment to the School? B.S., in blue pierrot costume, for once showed off his great gifts as a mimic and comic narrator, previously known only to his colleagues. Two others fought a tough round with the gloves, that threatened at moments to become too serious, while everybody sang. It was B.'s idea that two of us should sing different songs at the same time. I can't remember who won. Perhaps this was a mistake, for he had a good voice himself, that I can only remember hearing once on the J.B. platform, and that was in a masters' quartet. He did much for the music of the school in those days; he and his wife, who is an accomplished pianist, kept the Music Society going, before there was a resident music-master.

He is a keen botanist, too, and many will recall his suggestive and stimulating exhortations as curator of botany, or the delight he took in making a beautiful garden at Penn.

For many years an Elder, he was deeply concerned for the ministry at Clifford Street. His own ministry, which was saturated with his wide reading in philosophy and poetry, if it usually passed over the heads of the very young, often stimulated and braced the older boys, for it possessed those classical qualities of clarity and allusiveness, regrettably rare in Quaker utterance, that too frequently has recourse to bogus sentiment and woolly benevolence. For the School he composed a series of fables that were eagerly awaited and long remembered. Witty, topical and allusive, they were brilliantly entertaining, while they aroused just the lively discussion that their author intended. Why has only one of them been published?

On re-reading what I have written, I am struck with horror by its resemblance to an obituary notice, and in one sense I think it is, for school memory is short, and when "Plug" returns, as I hope he will in the future, to give his lecture on "British Locomotives I have worshipped," the Headmaster will have to introduce him to youngsters to whom the Sparkes legend has already grown dim. That is the price that a schoolmaster must always pay. May he carry into retirement the knowledge that the high standards he always set himself and exacted from generations of his pupils have played an important part in making Bootham the great school we know and love.

We all wish him and his wife many years of health and leisure in the better world, which his clear thinking, devotion and wisdom have assuredly helped to build.

P.C

SPARKES.—April 16, BRIAN SPARKES, late of Bootham School, dear husband of Grace E. Sparkes—Interment Friends' Burial Ground, York, tomorrow (Tuesday), 2.30 p m

Brian Sparkes

In warm sunshine at York a company of Friends gathered at the Friends Burial Ground with Grace Sparkes and her daughter Anstice to give thanks for the life of Brian Sparkes, and all that it has meant to the meeting at Clifford Street and the well-being of Bootham.

Fifty-five years ago a red-haired little boy came on from Ackworth to Bootham and rapidly went up the school. He was fortunate in having among his masters men like Neave Brayshaw, Francs Sturge, and his own uncle Francis Pollard; and in Meeting he listened to the ministry of scholars like Fielden Thorpe, Edward Worsdell, and John Wilhelm Rowntree.

Brian Sparkes was exceptional, even as a boy, and his hobbies included such diverse interests as plants, old churches, and the engine sheds at York Station, used in those days by nine different railway companies. In later years he lectured on the development of the locomotive and the superheating system.

After leaving school, and some preliminary study at London, he joined the little group of Bootham boys at Oxford, where he read Greats and was awarded a Commoner's Exhibition at Merton. Though his tastes were always scholarly, increased physical strength helped to make him a competent games player, especially at hockey, which he played for the University Occasionals, And, though quiet and orderly himself, he thoroughly savoured the college life of those mellow boisterous years before the first World War.

Except for a few years at Ackworth, almost all his active life was spent at Bootham. He was an exacting and successful master. His boys sat in some awe of him, but they respected and responded to the clarity of his teaching. Even the laggards drove themselves to attain the 'usual standard' whenever those words appeared in his perfect handwriting on the Upper Schoolroom blackboard before a Latin test.

Like many strong characters, he was not always easy to work with. His health was not robust, and colleagues sometimes found him irritable and impatient. But in the absence or illness of the Headmaster he was the obvious Acting Head. His appraisal of boy nature was remarkable, and, when reports were being considered, his private comments for the delectation and edification of other Housemasters were eagerly examined, and most illuminating.

This faculty made him an ideal president (for more than 20 years) of the Senior Debating and Essay Societies. Under his guidance boys learned to pass an essay in review with considerable discernment. He himself seldom omitted to make some constructive criticism on whatever had been read—remarks which were much looked-for and never hurtful—no mean achievement in one who had a ready and rather caustic wit. The standard of writing steadily rose, and the society grew in numbers and repute. His own writing was not extensive, but his Bootham Fables, given to the School from time to time on Sunday evenings, were delightful essays of serious purpose in humorous guise, and intensely appreciated.

Classical scholars with a deep concern for the spiritual life have not been numerous, even at Clifford Street. The Biblical knowledge of Brian Sparkes, his scholarship and philosopher's training, combined with his gift for clear expression, made his ministry more than ordinarily helpful to many. Indeed, as was most fittingly said at the graveside, in following his thought one became debtor with him, to the Jew first and also to the Greek.

In the last years of his life there came upon him much physical weakness and a disconcerting forgetfulness in little everyday concerns, from which, however, he was very largely shielded by the devoted attentions of his wife.

V.W.A.

"At 24, William Street, Rochdale, Mary Sophia, wife of Joseph John Sparkes, a son, who was named Eric."

E. Sparkes came to school in September, 1904, and leaves No. 18 on the list. He has passed London Matric this Summer; has played regularly in both 2nd elevens, being a pretty "bat"; and has been an influential member of the photographic club. His photos of the Bootham School Camp are famous, being published in this magazine a year ago. He is following his brother in entering the office of a firm of furniture-designers.