Frank McEachran (6 June 1900 – 4 October 1975), sometimes known as Kek,[1] was a British schoolmaster and writer. He taught at English public schools and the University of Leipzig and wrote on philosophy, but his most commercially successful books were his anthologies Spells for Poets and More Spells which appeared in the 1950s.

He was an active proponent of Georgism.[2][3]

Early life

The son of an engineer from Wolverhampton,[4] McEachran was educated at Manchester Grammar School and then at Magdalen College, Oxford,[5] where he held a scholarship in modern languages. After graduating BA, he gained the further degree of BLitt, with work on Johann Gottfried Herder, whom he researched at the University of Leipzig. He was there in 1923, during the period of hyperinflation, of which he had vivid memories. Finally, McEachran took a Diploma of Education, for which he spent a term of teaching at Sedbergh School.[6]

Career

In September 1924, McEachran began to teach at Gresham's School, Holt, where he remained for ten years.[6] Among the boys he influenced while there was the future poet W. H. Auden,[7] and one writer on Auden detects traces of McEachran's "humanist world-view" in Auden's poetry until it was overtaken by the existentialism of Kierkegaard in the 1940s.[8] McEachran also taught the future communist James Klugmann, and the writer Alan Bennett used him as the model for the character of the schoolmaster Hector in his play The History Boys.[9]

McEachran left Gresham's in 1934, which a biographer attributes to a difference of opinion with the headmaster, J. R. Eccles. He was then out of work for several months and spent them on a walking tour of Greece and a journey from Odessa in the Ukraine to Leningrad, travelling with Intourist. These resulted in two diaries, "A Walk Round Greece" and "A Russian Diary", which were published in 1979.[10]

In 1935, McEachran was appointed as a schoolmaster at Shrewsbury School, where he spent the rest of his career.[5][11] At Shrewsbury he taught Martin Wainwright, who has recalled that "Frank McEachran stood us on chairs at school reciting poetry we'd learned by heart. Probably child abuse these days, but he called it Spells and I can still remember them all."[12] He is remembered at Shrewsbury School through the McEachran Room, where the Creative Writing Society meets, some still influenced by his writings.

Beyond his main job, McEachran also taught Italian, English, and philosophy, at other schools, including Shrewsbury High School, where one of his pupils was Mary Beard. She remembered him as eccentric and inspirational.[1]

McEachran's anthology Spells (1953), later re-issued as Spells for Poets, is divided into eight parts: 'Sheer', 'Queer', 'Fear', 'Love', 'Death', 'Odd', 'God', and 'Postscript'.[13]

McEachran died in October 1975 at Kingsland House, Shrewsbury.[14]

Books

Other selected publications

Notes

  1. ^ a b "Frank McEachran by Mary Beard", TES, 31 January 2014, accessed 11 June 2023 (subscription required)
  2. ^ Frank McEachran, George and Karl Marx, prosper.org.au
  3. ^ Frank McEachran, "The Impotence of Men", Land and Liberty Magazine, November/December 1975
  4. ^ Richard Davenport-Hines, Auden (1996), p. 39: "In his final year at the school he was impressed by a young master called Frank McEachran, an engineer's son from Wolverhampton..."
  5. ^ a b On Translating Nietzsche into English at archiveshub.ac.uk, accessed 1 May 2012
  6. ^ a b Laurence Le Quesne, "Introduction and memoir" in A Cauldron of Spells (Greenbank Press, 1992), p. x
  7. ^ Katherine Bucknell, Nicholas Jenkins, W. H. Auden, The Map of All My Youth. Early Works, Friends, and Influences (Auden Studies 1, Clarendon Press, 1990, p. 117)
  8. ^ John Bridgen, 'Frank McEachran' in Bucknell & Jenkins, W. H. Auden, The Map of All My Youth. Early Works, Friends, and Influences
  9. ^ Geoff Andrews, James Klugmann, a complex communist dated 27 February 2012 at opendemocracy.net, accessed 1 May 2012.
  10. ^ Le Quesne (1992), pp. x, xi, xl
  11. ^ 'Frank McEachran', obituary in Books and Bookmen, vol. 20 (Hanson Books, 1975), pp. 58–59
  12. ^ Listen Baroness Williams on her moral and religious beliefs at libdemvoice.org, accessed 1 May 2012
  13. ^ Frank McEachran, Spells for Poets: an Anthology of Words and Comment (Basil Blackwell, 1955; Garnstone Press paperback edition, 1974)
  14. ^ "MCEACHRAN Frank of Kingsland House The Schools Shrewsbury died 4 October 1975... £15062." in Wills and Administrations 1975 (England and Wales) (1976), p. 5986

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