Charles Cotterill (“Skipper”) Lynham

14 June 1858 to 27 October 1938

LYN00001

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Stoke on Trent

1858

Charles Cotterill Lynam, son of Charles and Lucy Emma (nee Garner) Lynam (LYN00004), was born on 14 June 1858. He was baptised on 15 June 1858 at the Anglican church of St Peter Ad Vincula at Stoke on Trent (St Peter Ad Vincula, Stoke on Trent Parish Records, Plummer, Reverend Leslie (14 May 2015), Charles Lynam Yachtsman Married to Audlem Girl, Audlem History Society). His birth was registered in the third quarter of 1859 (GRO Staffordshire Vol 6B Page 164).

Charles Cotterill Lynam was the eldest (in surviving to adulthood) of fourteen children of the architect Charles Lynam and his wife Lucy Emma. Coincidentally Charles Lynam was one of 14 children, the size of the first intake to the Oxford Little Boys School in 1877.

Isle of Man

1870

Charles Cotterill Lynam was educated at King William's College on the Isle of Man, described by his brother AE Lynam as a romantic place in those days with few of the traditions or restrictions of the modern public school (Sidgwick, F (1940), The Skipper: a memoir of CC Lynam). Here he developed his love for the sea, which influenced so much of his later life (Plummer, Reverend Leslie (14 May 2015), Charles Lynam Yachtsman Married to Audlem Girl, Audlem History Society).

Stoke on Trent

1871

1871 Census – The Quarry, Stoke on Trent, Staffordshire

Charles Lynam, 42, architect and surveyor

Lucy E Lynam, 37

Charles C Lynam, 12

Robert G Lynam, 11

George Lynam, 10

Lucy E Lynam, 8

Henry M Lynam, 6

Mary Lynam, 5

Helen P Lynam, 4

William V Lynam, 3

John Y Lynam, 1

A governess and three servants

Charlie, as he was then known, was the son of Charles Lynam, an architect living in Stoke. His father was often absent from home and his mother’s influence was the stronger. His younger brother Hum saw that, even as a child, Charlie was developing skills that would serve him throughout his career as a schoolmaster. “To us younger brothers Charlie was the ‘big brother’. He assumed the paternal role when spanking was necessary and kept the peace amongst us, not by exhortation but by starting some game or occupation in which all could be employed with interest. (Devitt, Desmond, The Skipper’s War: Dragon School, Oxford and the Great War, page 25).

Oxford

1879

After graduation he worked for a short time in his father's office and then in 1879 won a scholarship to Hertford College, Oxford. There he played for the Oxford varsity chess team and the rugby football team and graduated in 1882.

After leaving school Lynam spent a short time in his father's office. In 1879 he won a mathematics scholarship at Hertford college, Oxford, and was awarded a second in mathematical moderations in 1880 and a third class in mathematics in 1882. He was a radical and something of an agnostic and read a long paper of the evils of war at the Union Society at a time when such views were certainly not popular. Meanwhile his passion for sailing was developing by cruising and sailing on the inland waters of the Thames. His chief activity, however, was Rugby Football. He played for the university for three years, being a three quarter in the renowned fifteen captained by Harry (Jugs) Vassal. Unfortunately, he suffered damage to a knee which left him with a permanent slight limp. (Plummer, Reverend Leslie (14 May 2015), Charles Lynam Yachtsman Married to Audlem Girl, Audlem History Society)

Stoke on Trent

1881

1881 Census – Hartshill the Quarry, Stoke on Trent

Charles Lynam, 52, alderman, architect and surveyor

Lucy E Lynam, 47

Charles C Lynam, 22

Henry M Lynam, 16

Lucy E Lynam, 18

Mary Lynam, 15

Helen P Lynam, 14

William V Lynam, 13

Thomas R Lynam, 9

Alfred E Lynam, 8

Richard B Lynam, 6

Katherine M Lynam, 5

James W Lynam, 2

Three servants

Oxford

1882

In 1882 Charles Lynam was appointed assistant master at the Oxford Preparatory School (now called the Dragon School) in Crick Road, which had been founded as a day school in 1877.

1885

In 1885 Charles C. Lynam married Catherine Alice Hall (1865–1957).

Catherine Alice Hall (HAL00100), aged 19, married Charles Cotterill (“Skipper”) Lynham, a schoolmaster, (LYN00001) at Audlem on 6 August 1885 (MR).

Marriage at the Parish Church. Audlem church is being restored by the Midland Joinery Company, of whom Mr. Clark, of Birmingham, is one of the principals. The work is being well and rapidly executed in a first-class style. A beautifully designed roof of oak has been placed over the chancel, the old roof of the nave has been thoroughly cleansed, the gallery removed; the beautiful arcades of the nave, the clerestory windows and walls have been redressed and repaired, and a new heating apparatus has been placed, but there is still a large amount of labour to be expended on the fabric before it will be thoroughly restored. In the meantime the services of the church are being celebrated in the National Schools, but on account of the strong desire of the bride, a marriage was celebrated in the unfinished church on Thursday last, by the Reverend Cannon Atkinson, vicar of Audlem, assisted by the Reverend WW Tyson, of Butterton. The parties to the marriage were Mr Charles Cotterill Lynam, son of Mr Lynam, architect, of Stoke-on-Trent, and Miss Catherine Alice Hall, eldest daughter of Mr. James Hall, of Kynsal Lodge, Audlem. The bridesmaids were Miss Marianne Hall and the two Mises Lynam. Mr Hall gave his daughter away, and Mr Robert Lynam was the best man. The bells of the parish church were run at intervals during the day, and in the evening Mr Lynam gave a substantial supper at the Combermere Arms, Audlem, to all the workmen, about 30, who are now employed on the restoration of the church, of which Mr Lynam is the architect. Mr Beckett, clerk of the works, Mr. Williams, as foreman of the works, and Mr. Jones, as foreman of the stonemasons, together with Mr. Clark, junior, time keeper, presided at the supper. After the loyal toasts were given and responded to, the health of the bride and the bridegroom was given amidst loud applause. Mr Beeston, of Audlem, carpeted from the road to the altar, and Mr. Scott, of Newcastle Under Lyme, provided carriages. (Chester Chronicle, 8 August 1885)

Charles Cotterill (“Skipper”) Lynam directed his passion and emotional energy to his beloved school and to sailing expeditions to Scotland and beyond. There was therefore not so much emotional energy left to devote to Catherine, who increasingly led her own independent life.

1886

Charles Lynam became headmaster in 1886.

Skipper Lynam was one of the leading headmasters of his generation and was revered by all the staff who served under him and the boys (and later, girls) who attended the school.

Clarke’s leadership was tragically short-lived as he died of pneumonia in 1886. However, his vision was carried forward by C. C. Lynam, the Skipper, who had been teaching at the School since 1882, to Bardwell Road where it has remained for over 100 years. What followed was an extraordinary chapter in the Dragon’s history, with the Lynam family guiding the School through times of great change, whilst shaping the lively, free-spirited ethos that is still recognisable today (The Dragon School History).

1888

Their daughter, Catherine (“Kit”) Lynam (LYN0002) was born in 1888.

1887

Their son, Charles Gartner Lynam (LYN0003) was born on 13 August 1887.

1890

(Jackson’s Oxford Journal, 17 May 1890)

Skipper Lynam as headmaster of the Dragon School

1891

1891 Census – The Quarry, High Street, Stoke on Trent

Charles Lynam, 62, architect and surveyor

Lucy E Lynam, 57

Charles C Lynam, 32, school master

Helen P Lynam, 24, teacher

James W Lynam, 12

George Lynam, 30, surveyor

Thomas Llewelyn, a mathematics teacher was visiting

Two servants

1895

In 1895 Charles Lynam moved the school from Crick Road to Bardwell Road into buildings designed by his father.

CC Lynam became famous for managing the school according to principles of liberal humanism, "actively encouraging originality in boys and affording them every opportunity to discover and develop their own interest and genius. He was also a strong supporter of co-education, and his daughter was the first girl to enter the school."

CC "Skipper" Lynam promoted subsidised tuition for talented students unable to pay the full tuition and served as the Dragon School's headmaster from 1886 to 1920, when he retired. The Dragon School was co-educational from the 1890s onwards, gained a considerable reputation for its freedoms, and was sometimes referred to as Lynam's preparatory school.

Affectionately known as The Skipper, in the preparatory school world Lynam became renowned for his advanced views. In 1893 he was a founder member of the Association of Preparatory Schools (IAPS), and first editor of the Preparatory Schools Review. As chairman of the IAPS in 1908, and again in 1921, he made an inspired plea for a wider cultivation of a liberal humanism by all teachers of youth, actively encouraging originality in boys and affording them every opportunity to discover and develop their own interest and genius. He was a strong supporter of coeducation, and his daughter was the first girl to enter the school. (Plummer, Reverend Leslie (14 May 2015), Charles Lynam Yachtsman Married to Audlem Girl, Audlem History Society).

Portrait of Lynam in the main hall at the Dragon School

1901

1901 Census – The School House, 30 Bardwell Road, Oxford

Charles Cotterill Lynam 42, schoolmaster

Catherine A Lynam, 35

Charles G Lynam, 13

Catherine M Lynam, 12

Alfred Lynam, brother

Mabel Lynam, sister in law

Charles C. Lynam greatly enjoyed sailing and cruising and often invited friends and Dragon School's staff members to accompany him in yachting. He disliked being addressed as "Sir" and preferred to be called "Skipper".

As a yachtsman Lynam had a touch of genius. His cruises in Blue Dragon I, II, and III up the west coast of Scotland and across the North Sea to Norway and the North Cape became legendary. In recognition of the latter, a distance of 1387 miles, he was awarded the challenge cup of the Royal Cruising Club. (Plummer, Reverend Leslie (14 May 2015), Charles Lynam Yachtsman Married to Audlem Girl, Audlem History Society)

Skipper Lynam had in his life time three boats which sailed under the name of ‘Blue Dragon’.

Blue Dragon I Blue Dragon II in the Shetland islands in 1909 Blue Dragon III

Some publications include:

Lynam, Charles Cotterill (1907). The Log of the "Blue Dragon," 1892-1904. Written by Various Hands and Now Revised and Set Forth by C.C. Lynam. Illustrated with Sketches, Photographs and Maps.

The Skipper

CC Lynam edited a celebrated cruising trilogy penned around Lynam's voyages.

Lynham CC (1907), The Log of the 'Blue Dragon' 1892-1904 (covering early voyages in the small yawl). The Log of the 'Blue Dragon' 1892-1904 is a classic yachting travelogue written by various hands and edited by Charles Cotterell Lynam (known as C.C. Lynam), documenting cruises aboard the 25-foot gaff-rigged yawl Blue Dragon. C.C. Lynam, M.A., owner and skipper, revised and compiled the logs written by himself and his crew. The Blue Dragon, a small 25-foot gaff-rigged yawl was used for intrepid family cruises around the Scottish Western Isles and British coastal waters. Originally published around 1907, with a popular second edition published by Frank Sidgwick in London in 1908.

AN ESSAY IN SCOTS

(By a Saxon Chiel)

The Bairdweel Road is unco braw, Its charms I’m no denyin’, Indeed, gude sirs, ye never saw A sight mair edifyin’. Tis theer oor bonnie schule-hoose stands, Where every gleg wee “nipper” (A word in use in southron lands) Daes credit tae the Skipper.

But eh, by far I’d sooner be Aroond these islands cruisin’. Though schule’s as braw as braw tae me, Faith, this is mair amusin’! I’m varra, varra fond o’ Greek, I lo’e ma English dearly, But Hieland places, sae tae speak, They touch ma hairt mair nearly.

Dagont! I wud the Autumn Term Was nae sae quick i’ comin’. One’s schule-days crawl like ony worm ; One’s holidays are hummin’. Sae need we leave the bonnie sea For books and vain endeavour ? Nay, Skipper, let me sail wi’ ye For ever and for ever!

Here the cabin-boy found a triplebarbed fish-hook imbedded in his third toe,-and the skipper’s rhapsodies were effectually terminated by the necessity of performing a surgical operation.

I did not care much for our skipper’s hat myself. It was of straw and had been sat on; the rim was broad and ragged, and the ribbon was set at an angle, projecting above — the crown on one side; when well wet, it looked — respectable ; but the skipper said we must be educated up to that sort of thing, and he clave to that hat.

We spent Sunday morning in Loch Aline, but in 1 noon made Fishnish Bay, where the skipper compounded a famous soup of potatoes, carrots, hare, peas and apple jelly. Here, in the morning, the skipper, whilst doing a job on the bowsprit, was pulling himself along by the shrouds, when the dinghy slipped away and left him sitting in the shallow water, a ludicrous position, and the bosun smiled!

The skipper wore a grey flannel suit and a red tie, trousers tucked into sea-boats, and his hair curled.

Beat up into the bay, and anchored in three fathoms close to the Witch, a small schooner of about 100 tons. Walked to the castle and chapel ; saved the life of a wretched sheep that was caught inextricably in briars, and was on its back hung up over the side of the cliff.

Lynham CC (1911), The Log of the 'Blue Dragon II' in Orkney and Shetland 1909-1910 (aboard a larger 43-foot yawl). The narrative captures the crew's intrepid journeys navigating the unpredictable, tidal waters surrounding the Northern Isles of Scotland (Orkney and Shetland) between 1909 and 1910.

Lynham CC (1913), To Norway and the North Cape in 'Blue Dragon II' 1911-1912. This volume is an illustrated travelogue and personal log detailing Lynam’s ambitious journey across the North Sea and up the rugged Norwegian coast.

Lynam, Charles Cotterill (1917), Songs of the "Blue Dragon".

"Skipper Lynam", The Skipper’s War.

Devitt, Desmond, The Skipper’s War: Dragon School, Oxford and the Great War. This 300 page hardback book, which is published by Scala, covers the years 1877-1920 and tells the story of the emergence of a small school in North Oxford under a charismatic headmaster and the remarkable generation that experienced the First World War. The story of these hundreds of lives and deaths connected by five years in a north Oxford prep school is almost an encyclopaedia of the war. The Dragons evacuate from the beaches of Gallipoli, are killed at the third Battle of Ypres, meet Lawrence of Arabia and Marie Curie, grapple with the German High Seas Fleet in the Battle of Jutland, save the wounded at the Easter Rising and are shot out of the sky by Baron von Richthofen. There is an excellent video which also tells this story.

1917

John Betjeman and his family used to holiday at Trebetherick in Cornwall, where they met up with Skipper Lynam’s brother ‘Hum’ and his family. John had not been happy at his school in Highgate and Hum persuaded the Betjemans that John should attend the Oxford Preparatory School. The future Poet Laureate John Betjeman joined the Oxford Preparatory School as a ten year old boarder in the Summer Term of 1917. John was very homesick to begin with and Skipper spent some time with him, arm on his shoulder, getting him through it.

He later wrote about his time at the school in ‘Summoned By Bells’ (Chapter V Private School — To the Dragon School in Oxford; bicycling to look at church architecture) in which he recalled Skipper Lynam reading out the names of those who had died “for King and Country and the Dragon School.” The news, John could see, caused Skipper considerable grief, but for the boys what was of far greater interest or concern were their bicycles, gangs “and what there was for prep.”

(Betjeman, John (1960), Summoned by the Bells, Chapter 5).

Before the hymn the Skipper would announce

The latest names of those who'd lost their lives

For King and Country and the Dragon School.

Sometimes his gruff old voice was full of tears

when a particular favourite had been killed.

Then we would hear the nickname of the boy,

‘Pongo’ or ‘Podge’ and how he'd played 3Q

For Oxford and, if only he had lived,

He might have played for England, which he did,

But in a grimmer game against the Hun.

And then we'd all look solemn, knowing well

There'd be no extra holiday today.

And we were told we each must do our bit,

And so we knitted shapeless gloves from string

For men in minesweepers, and on the map

We stuck the allied flags along the Somme;

Visited wounded soldiers; learned by heart

Those patriotic lines of Oxenham

“What can a little chap do

For his country and for you”

“He can boil his head in the Stew”,

We added, for the trenches and the guns

Meant less to us than bicycles and gangs

And marzipan and what there was for prep.

Illustration from John Betjamin’s Book

The Skipper and his pet macaws , 1917 He organised sports competitions at the school with wounded officers during the War

Skipper wrote a letter to his old pupils at the end of the war:

To you and all my dear old boys who have lived through the Great War and have served our country on sea or land or in the air, abroad or in home defence or in any other work of national importance, I am proud of you all for the noble work you have done and the great example you have set us all, the sacrifices you have made, the discipline and self control to which you have so willingly submitted, the wounds maybe and the hardships you have borne. I glory with you in the victory you have won. You have fought in a just cause and you have triumphed. But the cost has been heavy. Out of 408 of you who have served, 73, 18%, will come back to us here no more. They have given their lives. All honour to them, and we thank God for them. Their memory will not fade and their example will be a possession for ever, but their loss is a bitter grief to us. At one time I looked forward to a great gathering of the old boys when the War was over, but now there will be too many empty chairs, too many faces of old ghosts, looking in upon our feast and I do not feel that I could face it at present. Later on, when time has to some extent soften the sense of loss, I hope that this promise of this gathering will take place and meantime let me say how gladly we shall welcome any of you individually who can come and pay your old school a visit.

Yours, with love and gratitude,

Skipper

1920

A pivotal moment came in 1878 when, according to legend, the children played their first rugby game behind No. 1 South Parks Road. Seeking a club symbol, the children were inspired by Rev H. B. George, a School Governor, and the image of St George and the Dragon on gold sovereigns, and they chose a dragon. In 1920, after 34 years at the helm of the Oxford Primary Sschool, Skipper announced at prize-giving that he was handing over the running of the School to his brother, Hum, and the following term Hum decreed that, as the boys had always been known as ‘Dragons’, the O.P.S. should now be the Dragon School. The name became a beloved symbol and, before long, family members were stitching dragon emblems onto School clothing. A dragon has represented the School’s identity ever since. (The Dragon School History).

London

1921

1921 Census – 6 Parliament Hill Mansions, St Pancras, London

Catherine Alice Lynam, 55

Charles Garner Lynam, 38, born at Audlem, Cheshire, an engineer with Messrs Armstrong Whitworth.

1938

In retirement he was a keen sailor and world traveller. At age eighty, after recently returning from a voyage to Australia, he embarked on a voyage from England to Padang aboard M. V. Alcinous (Blue Funnel Line). On the outward voyage, he died of angina and, according to his wishes, was buried at sea on 27 October 1938. Lynam Charles Cotterill of Bardwell court Bardwell Road Oxford died 27 October 1938 at sea Probate Oxford to Catherine Mary Barclay (wife of the reverend Cyril Lancelot Thorold Barclay clerk) and Jocelyn Hunphrey Rickman Lynam schoolmaster. Effects £2343 2s 4d (Probate Record).

After his retirement in 1920 he continued his travels around the world, and on board the MV Alcinous, bound for Australia, he died on 27 October 1938, and was buried at sea (latitude 37° 13’ North, longitude 11° 107’ East).

In October 1938, the MV Alcinous made historical logs during its outward voyage from Europe. Charles Cotterill ("Skipper") Lynam suffered from angina and passed away. Following his final wishes, he was buried at sea from the deck of the Alcinous on 27 October 1938. Another passenger on the same 1938 voyage was the renowned English philosopher and historian RG Collingwood.

RG Collingwood, a fellow passenger, wrote a note of sympathy to Skipper Lynam's brother Alfred Edmund "Hum" Lynam (but did not mention that a hammerhead shark and a carpenter's error nearly created an embarrassing situation).

Frank Sidgwick (1879–1939), scholar, publisher, writer of light verse, and old boy of the Dragon School, wrote The Times obituary for Mr. C. C. Lynam.

MR. C.C. LYNAM

HEADMASTER OF THE DRAGON SCHOOL

“Mr. Charles Cotterill Lynam, the ‘Skipper’ of the famous Dragon Preparatory School at Oxford from 1886 to 1920, and an honorary Fellow of Hertford College, died at sea on Thursday at the age of 80. The eldest surviving child of the large family of the late Mr. Charles Lynam F.R.I.B.A., of Stoke-on-Trent, he was born on June 15th 1858. He was educated at King William’s College, Isle of Man, and at Hertford College, Oxford, where he took honours in mathematics. For three years he played Rugby football for the University, being for some time the time a ‘three-quarter’ in Harry Vassall’s famous XV. But he did not get his ‘Blue’; in his last year he had begun teaching at the day school in Crick Road, Oxford, which had recently been started, under the Rev. A.E.Clarke, by a few Oxford Dons for their sons, and could not or would not play in out-matches. After taking his degree in 1882 he became assistant master at the school, and on the death of Mr. Clarke four years later he was appointed headmaster. He retired in 1920, and was succeeded by his brother, Mr. A.E. Lynam.

In 1887 he married Catherine, daughter of Mr. J. Hall, of Kynsal Lodge, Audlem, Cheshire, and had a son and a daughter, both of whom passed through his school, the latter being the first girl to enter, while his son became a master on the staff. J.H.R. Lynam, son of A.E.Lynam and nephew of C.C. also became a master at the school and was an international hockey player.

Mr. Lynam was an original member of the Association of Head Masters of Preparatory Schools, being elected chairman of the council in 1908 and again in 1921. In 1895 he founded, and for five years edited, the organ of that body, the ‘Preparatory Schools’ Review’.

Originally the official title of the school was ‘the Oxford Preparatory School,’ but later it was changed to the Dragon School. Just before the end of last century it was moved to Bardwell Road, in buildings designed by Mr. Charles Lynam senior. Boarders began to be taken in the early nineties, and soon equalled or even outnumbered the day boys. But it would be misleading to write in official terms of the school or of its headmaster. Long before the end of last century ‘Lynam’s’ had a reputation far beyond the bounds of Oxford; and it is in many ways significant that from the early nineties its presiding genius was known as ‘the Skipper’ – not merely at first sub rosa by the school and the staff in unofficial hours, but in the event by the formally rhetorical parent on speech day. The use of the nick-name, so appropriate to one who was headmaster half the year and yachtsman the other half, was characteristic of the absence of stiffness and formality which the school imbibed from him.

In a crisis now happily forgotten at one of the great public schools, a goaded assistant master once suggested in private the postulate that ‘if a headmaster can’t preach and can’t teach, he ought to be either a scholar or a gentleman.’ Three of those qualities were patent in the Skipper, but preaching, in its ordinary sense, he deliberately avoided. His one sermon was the example he set to all alike; and if its text can be stated in brief, it lies in the root of the word ‘generosity,’ not only in its current connotation but also with a flavour of its classical forebears. So, too, he was a pedagogue in the purest sense of the word – a companion of his boys, not an Olympian wielding the ferule. No one was prouder or happier than he in any honour won by them in their educational routine or afterwards in the world; no one saner in realizing its relative value. One of the most brilliant of his old pupils, speaking at an Old Boys’ dinner, put the rhetorical question : what was the distinctive character of the school and its training? and found the answer in the Skipper’s refusal to force his boys into conventional moulds, in his active encouragement of originality, in his affording them every opportunity to discover and develop each his own interest and genius. The Skipper attached great importance to leaving boys free to do what they liked with their spare time, instead of forcing them into a scheduled programme out of school as well as in school.

Ashore or at sea, the Skipper’s innumerable minor capacities made him a good man for an emergency. The geniality and sweet reasonableness that could soften and convince an irate harbourmaster in a midnight gale, or persuade a gamekeeper that the Skipper and twenty or thirty boys were doing no damage, or even were friends of the owner, stood him in good stead also in the drawing-rooms of querulous parents. In the amenities of life he was a keen player of bridge and chess; an indefatigable sketcher in pencil, water-colour, or oils; a most voracious reader of fiction; a capable plain cook. For thirty years he annually ‘produced’ a play of Shakespeare at the school (and surely nowhere is Shakespeare so well acted), often painting the scenery, and always coaching and prompting the boys and their sisters in the rehearsals, through that post-Christmas holidays period when one influenza germ will decimate a cast at the eleventh hour,

As soon as a term was ended (and sometimes before) the pedagogue dissolved into the mariner. His love of cruising began with schoolboy escapades off the Isle of Man, and developed by way of undergraduate canoe-racing into the devotion of nearly all holidays to the sailing of his own craft. His first yacht, the ‘Yellow Dragon’, was wrecked on the Happisburgh Sands in 1891, and he and his “crew” – an Old Boy, afterwards killed in the South African War – were rescued with difficulty by a Lowestoft trawler. The first ‘Blue Dragon’ was built for him by Theo Smith at Medley on Port Meadow, Oxford, and launched in 1892; her chronicles being written in ‘The Log of the “Blue Dragon”, 1892-1904,’ it suffices to say that he sailed her down the Thames and kept turning to the right until he made Cape Wrath. She was seven tons, Lloyd’s register; he cruised sometimes single-handed, but by preference with family or friends aboard – never a paid hand, and but once a pilot. In 1905 he sold this boat, and bought the ‘Isla’ from the then headmaster of Rossall, renaming her ‘Blue Dragon II’. In her he revisited the Western Isles, Orkney and Shetland, and in April 1911, made an epic crossing of the North Sea to Norway, reaching the North Cape in the following summer. For this feat he was awarded the challenge cup of the Royal Cruising Club. He was sailing that boat up the Christiania Fiord in 1914 when the news of the outbreak of the War reached him, and he only returned with difficulty to England, leaving her behind in Norway. While the war lasted he cruised ashore in a motor vehicle that was both ambulance for the wounded sent to Oxford hospitals, and caravan for holiday trips. ‘Blue Dragon III’, purchased after the War, was an “auxiliary” from the start, and though the Skipper, then over sixty, still preferred to sail, he welcomed the independence of wind and weather supplied by her engines.

With his school, as with his yacht, he was a ‘captain courageous,’ instinctively enterprising himself, and inspiring his crew with the confidence of his enthusiasm. To the looker-on, scholastic or nautical, many of his adventures appeared rash – were, indeed, frequently called so. But the Skipper, sitting at the helm of school or ship, continuously exercised a sixth sense of seamanship, which effectively took the wind from his critics’ sails.”

(The Times’, October 29th 1938)

Death of Mr CC Lynam. Headmaster Son of a Famous Architect. The death has occurred at sea of Mr Charles Cotterill Lynam, eldest surviving child of the late Mr Charles Lynam, FRIBA, the famous architect, of Stoke-on-Trent, at the age of 80 years.

A great lover of the sea, Mr CC Lynam was headmaster of the Dragon Preparatory School at Oxford from 1886 to 1920, and was affectionately known as the “Skipper”. Educated at King William’s College, Isle of Man, and at Hertford College, Oxford, where he took an honours degree in mathematics, he became assistant master of the Dragon Preparatory School in 1882 and four years later was appointed headmaster. When he retired in 1920, he was succeeded by his brother Mr AE Lynam.

Mr CC Lynam, a noted yachtsman, married, in 1887, Catherine, daughter of Mr. J Hall, of Kynsal Lodge, Audlem, Cheshire, and both their son and daughter passed through their father's school, the latter being the first girl to enter, while the son became a master on the staff. Mr JHR Lynam, son of Mr AE Lynam and nephew of Mr CC Lynam, was also on the staff of this famous preparatory school.

(Evening Sentinel, 29 October 1938)

Frank Sidgwick then set about writing a memoir in celebration of Skipper’s life. Sadly, he died before its completion, but these words found in his notes, make a fitting conclusion: “Like others of his generation from his part of England, he had, at least at one time, the endearing old-fangled habit of ending his letters without the formal ‘yours.’ I have been turning over many which end simply ‘Love, Skipper.’

Added to the gravestone of his brother, Dr Robert Lynam: Also of Charles Cotterill Lynam His Borther who died at Sea Oct 27^th 1938.

Bibliography

Betjeman, J (1960), Summoned by Bells, London: John Murray.

Devitt, Desmond (2020), The Skipper’s War: Dragon School, Oxford and the Great War, London: Scala Publishers.

Jaques, CH (1977), A Dragon Century: 1877 to 1977, Oxford: The Dragon School.

Lynham CC (1911), The Log of the 'Blue Dragon II' in Orkney and Shetland 1909-1910 (aboard a larger 43-foot yawl). The narrative captures the crew's intrepid journeys navigating the unpredictable, tidal waters surrounding the Northern Isles of Scotland (Orkney and Shetland) between 1909 and 1910.

Lynham CC (1913), To Norway and the North Cape in 'Blue Dragon II' 1911-1912. This volume is an illustrated travelogue and personal log detailing Lynam’s ambitious journey across the North Sea and up the rugged Norwegian coast.

Lynam, Charles Cotterill (1917), Songs of the "Blue Dragon".

Sidgwick, Frank (1940), The Skipper: A Memoir of CC Lynam, 1858 to 1938, Oxford: The Dragon School.