JOHN BRETT GARDENER (1930-2025)

It is with deep sadness that we announce to the Bishops and OD community the passing of Mr John Brett Gardener (1930-2025). He died peacefully on 13 February 2025. Mr Gardener served Bishops in so many ways, having attended the Prep and College as a schoolboy. He was the school’s 11th Principal. Mr Gardener served Bishops with distinction as a teacher and finally as its Principal. He was a Council member and a Vice President of the ODU.

John Brett Gardener (1948G) entered Bishops Prep in 1939, the year the Second World War broke out. At assembly that day, the then Head of Bishops Prep, Mr George Charlton, announced - following a long list of rugby fixtures: “Boys, I’m afraid I have to inform you that we are at war with Germany.” The nine-year-old Gardener was heard to whisper, “Which school is Germany?”

John went up to College in 1943 and was a prefect in Gray House in his Matric year, 1947. In Post-Matric a year later he was made Senior Prefect (Head of School.) UCT and Oxford University followed and then a seven year stint at Wynberg Boys’ High School – an institution for which he retained a great respect and fondness. In 1962 he joined the Bishops staff and taught English and Latin there until 1970 when he was appointed Headmaster of Kingswood College, Grahamstown (today, Makhanda.) His Bishops career resumed in 1975, serving as Vice-Principal from 1977 to 1988. At the end of 1988, he succeeded the late John Peake as Principal, becoming the first OD, the first South African and the first grandfather to be appointed to that office. It was the last of these citations which gave him the greatest, wry pleasure. In 1992 he retired but retained a keen, undimmed interest in the school serving on the College Council and numerous of its sub-committees and becoming an honorary Vice-President of the OD Union.

As a schoolboy, John participated widely in most land-based sports with fast bowling, tight scrumming, high jump and hurdles as particular specialities. His athletic tussles with Clive van Ryneveld on the Frank Reid track, with Chris Chataway on the Iffley Road cinders and Piet Koornhof in an Oxford line-out, provided him with rich material for subsequent stories, possibly slightly embellished over the years. His 1947 Matric Senior Certificate contained a clutch of distinctions and he won prizes for English, Classics, Mathematics, Physics and Chemistry. He was acknowledged, in the schoolboy argot of his day, as a brainbox. His range of extra-mural activities included The Ten Club, the Democritus Society and the Cadet Corps where he commanded an inter-school platoon who acted as a guard of honour to mark the 21st birthday of the then Princess Elizabeth – on one of her rare visits to Cape Town. On this occasion the SADF catering corps had provided a batch of beyond sell-by date pies and half the platoon keeled over with food poisoning. Luckily their Student Warrant Officer had brought his own sandwiches.

In 1948, in his first year at UCT, he was elected as the Diocesan College Rhodes Scholar and took up his place at Magdalen College, Oxford between 1950 and 1951. Sadly, a combination of ill-health and acute homesickness cut short his Oxford studies under CS Lewis (a somewhat diffident tutor apparently) and he picked up at UCT again in 1951. There he obtained a BA with distinctions in Classical Culture and English and went on to complete an MA and a BEd before joining the Wynberg staff. More importantly in 1955, he married another, equally gifted, Wynberg teacher, Beryl Canning, a good family friend from Rosebank Methodist Church. They had three boys, James (1956) Richard (1960) and Andrew (1962). In 1962 he returned full circle to Bishops becoming Housemaster of Gray House and throwing himself into every single aspect of school life. It was always, to quote Sue Gardener, “his happy place”.

Kingswood College, Grahamstown were looking for a young, energetic, reforming Head in 1971 and John was appointed to the all-boys Methodist school with its proud, rugged frontier tradition. The school was to provide him with both his finest hour and his greatest sadness. Skilfully, sensibly and sensitively he transformed the school into a co-educational establishment with an inclusive, open and caring culture – and a much healthier bank balance. Tragically in 1974 the family lost their middle son, Richard Brett Gardener, just short of his 14th birthday, after a lifetime’s stoic battle with asthma. This prompted a move back to Cape Town and Bishops and another seventeen years serving the school he loved in innumerable roles. Ask any student from any of his time at Bishops what they recall of JBG and you will get a glimpse through many different lenses of a heart of gold.

After his retirement as Principal in 1992, John and Beryl moved from Rondebosch to Fish Hoek where they had many happy family associations. Following the shock of Beryl’s untimely death on 1st January 2000, he continued with his work as the Chair of the Western Cape branch of the Independent Schools Association of Southern Africa and through ISASA became involved in IQAA, the national Independent Quality Assurance Agency, founded in Johannesburg by Sue Rees. A happy benefit of this voluntary and all-absorbing work was his 22 year marriage partnership with Sue. John and Sue re-located to Claremont in 2006 and settled into a lovely home which quickly became the IQAA nerve centre and high command. From this base they toured the country acting as mentors, lobbyists and coaches in a highly specialised educational field in which the Rees-Gardener team were highly regarded - often with some trepidation.

Their final retirement spot was Cle du Cap, Kirstenhof where John spent many happy years and just one brief month in their excellent Health Care facility. Sue continues to live there both peacefully in her beautiful garden corner and forcefully in her extensive governance role. She is well supported at this time by her three children Jonathan (Johannesburg), Jo (Claremont) and Simon (Munich) and their respective families.

In 2024 John was awarded the Order of Simon of Cyrene, the highest lay person’s honour afforded by the Anglican Church both for his manifold services to education and as the author of scores of well-loved hymns, one of which, “Who will save our land and people?” will be sung at his memorial service in the Memorial Chapel at Bishops at 1pm on Thursday, 20th February. Written in 1983 as part of a long commitment to fighting for social justice using his sharp array of theological and literary weapons, it is a hymn which is still sung with fervour by congregations throughout the land, nowhere with greater pride than at The Good Shepherd, Kirstenbosch, and it has retained all its crusading resonance.

In 2020, Bishops conferred on one of its finest sons, the Bishop Gray medal.  This is the highest award the school can bestow on ODs who have provided distinguished service in their chosen field. In his citation Dr Paul Murray, DC Historian and OD Ambassador, wrote the following that beautifully sums up the customary modesty of Mr Gardener:

Mr Gardener, reflecting on his more than 80 years of association with the school, said: “There have been ups and downs, with some things I certainly could and should have done better. But perhaps high on the OK list has been the number of good friendships that there have been with staff members, parents and boys”.

Our condolences go to Sue, his wife, and to his sons James and Andrew, and their families.