Lives Remembered


Hugh Waring Maw June 1920 ~ March 2018 Head at Sibford 1956 ~ 1962


Hugh Maw was the fifth Head of Sibford School ... taking over from Arthur Johnstone. His funeral was held on Wednesday 4 April at Stourbridge Crematorium and was followed by a reflection on Hugh’s life at Stourbridge Friends’ Meeting House. A Memorial Meeting to celebrate Hugh’s life will take place at Bull Street Meeting House in Birmingham on Sunday 17 March 2019 at 2pm, all welcome. Hugh’s family have written the following for The Rocket.


Missionaries. He was educated at the Downs School, Colwall and at Leighton Park School, Reading, before studying Zoology and Botany at Bristol University. He registered as a Conscientious Objector in 1939 and after a gruelling tribunal received an unconditional exemption from military service so he could continue his studies and then train to be a teacher. Hugh’s first teaching post


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was at Sidcot School, where he taught PE and biology and where his mother, Mildred, was matron. It was during his time


28 / The Sibford Rocket


ugh Maw was born in India, the fourth son of Quaker


Service (FRS). In January 1946 he started six months of training before going out to Berlin with the FRS for a year followed by a further six months in Cologne. Hugh’s diaries from this time were later written up and published in 2014 as a book titled ‘The Training and Experience of a Quaker Relief Worker’. It was in September 1956 that Hugh commenced his Headship at Sibford School. He set about transforming the school and relished his role.


He modernised the management


at Sidcot that his friendship with Daphne Southall (at Sidcot 1939- 46) first began, allegedly following an incident when he wrote in red ink “7 out of 10. Not good enough. See me”!


Hugh and Daphne subsequently married in 1949 and went on to have three children and several grandchildren and great- grandchildren. Hugh left Sidcot in 1945 to work as an assistant PE and Swimming Instructor at the Bournville Day Continuation School, a job he combined with being a youth worker at Cadbury’s. Whilst enjoying his time at Bournville he became increasingly aware of the utter destruction and deprivation abroad as a result of the war and felt he was being called to volunteer with the Friends’ Relief


system and implemented a major building project to create three boys’ dormitory houses, which freed space for more classrooms, a new Art Department and a purpose-built Music School. He believed strongly in educating the person as a whole and built towards this end. Sport, other outdoor activities and musical productions became an important part of school life. After leaving in 1962 he maintained a life-long affection for Sibford and actively supported the Old Scholars’ Association for over 60 years. At the end of his career Hugh turned to teacher training and became a Principal Lecturer at the City of Birmingham College of Education on a pioneering Health Education course. Alongside his lecturing he was involved with Youth and Marriage Guidance counselling and was for a time Chairman of the Institute of Health Education.


In 1978 Hugh took early


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