Former Lancaster Royal Grammar School Third Master Gordon Robinson dies at age of 91

A former Third Master at Lancaster Royal Grammar School has passed away at the age of 91.
Gordon Robinson.Gordon Robinson.
Gordon Robinson.

Gordon Robinson taught at the school for 40 years, before spending an active retirement travelling and doing DIY.

Gordon was born in Kingston-upon-Hull to Mary and Herbert Robinson. He was educated at Hull Grammar School, first in Hull and, when he was evacuated during the war in 1939, at facilities shared with Thorne Grammar School.

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He went on to Hull University where he obtained a BSc in mathematics.

An accomplished sportsman in his youth, he was in the university first team for both rugby and cricket.

During the war, he served in the Home Guard and in the Royal Observer Corps alongside his father.

72 years ago Gordon started ‘courting’ Joan and they married in 1947, in defiance of an arcane rule that forbade Royal Artillery Officer Cadets from marriage.

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On completion of his National Service, during which he also served in the Royal Army Education Corps, Gordon qualified as a schoolteacher and in 1949 was appointed as a mathematics teacher at Lancaster Royal Grammar School.

Gordon joined the school’s Combined Cadet Force becoming Commanding Officer in 1956, rising to the rank of Lieutenant Colonel.

Awarded the TD and CCF medals, he was LRGS’s longest-serving Commanding Officer, only resigning in 1982 when he was appointed as Second Deputy Headmaster, known as Third Master. He finally retired from teaching in 1989.

Joan and Gordon enjoyed caravanning and took their family all over Europe many years before foreign travel was commonplace.

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Their travels continued in retirement, visiting their property in Spain and Gordon still towing a caravan into his 90th year.

He was a keen DIY-er, taking on ambitious building projects. He was also a very skilled mechanic and was able to repair most things using odds and ends stored in numerous jars and boxes in his jam-packed semi-organised Aladdin’s cave of a garage.

Gordon died peacefully in hospital on November 23 after a short illness, with his family at his bedside.

He was predeceased by his brother Herbert and grandson Gabriel and is survived by his wife Joan, his sister Edna, his children David, Elizabeth and Gordon, his grandchildren Owen, Oliver, Eleanor and Annabelle and great grandchildren Niko and Emily.

Gordon will be remembered fondly as a warm-hearted, generous, understated man with a wonderful sense of humour and a very distinctive laugh.

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