Iain Campbell

Iain is undoubtedly the most remarkable sportsman ever to represent Canford. He played for the first teams in all the major sports from 1943 to 1946, winning his colours each year. In the academic year 1944/45 (his penultimate at Canford) Iain was captain of rugger, hockey, squash, tennis and athletics!

Missing from this extensive list of captaincies for that year is cricket, but it was his cricketing exploits that are perhaps best remembered. In his first season in the first team (1943), he averaged 24.00 runs and did rather less well the next year with an average of only 13.36. In 1945, however, he scored over a thousand runs - which included his famous 215 against Downside - at an average of 79.00. But his annus mirabilis was undoubtedly 1946. The Canfordian cricket report begins: “The season has been a memorable one and has produced some cricket that few of us are likely to see again. I. P. Campbell, the captain, has had another astonishing season and around him there has been built a worthy side. Followers of statistics will doubtless know what records he has established and his batting has been a delight to watch. Except for times when he became impatient he has batted with suitable restraint and has managed to curtail the pulled drive-—a shot which cost him his wicket more than once in 1945. As a captain he has handled the rather limited bowling strength with a skill that has enabled it to dismiss sides for moderate totals. His presence behind the stumps has influenced the fielding and throwing in, and he has kept consistently well.”

Iain’s batting average from his fourteen innings was an astonishing 116. His season included two double centuries, three centuries and five fifties; and the total of 1277 runs that he amassed remained the schoolboy record for the next 38 years.

After Canford, Iain toured Canada with the MCC and was a rugby trialist for Scotland. However, not all his achievements were at the highest level of sporting endeavour. The 1950 Oxford Letter in the OC Newsletter informs us that I. P. Campbell is “performing on the shove-halfpenny board to good effect”.

After Oxford, Iain went into teaching, spending a term under former Canford housemaster Mr Kittermaster at King’s College, Worcester before starting at Rugby in September 1952. He also taught at Cranleigh and twice had posts in Rhodesia before taking up the headship of King's College, Auckland in 1973. He retired in 1988.