![\"Woodfield](\"https:\/\/ted.adventist.org\/sitenews\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/09\/images_Woodfield_portrait.jpg\")
<\/a>Andreas Bockmann, now a professor at Friedensau University in Germany remembers him as \u201cIndeed, a gentleman from the 19th century!\u201d He added, \u201cAs foreigners we knew full well, if you understood a sermon by John Woodfield – with all its literary allusions – you had pretty much mastered the English language.\u201d<\/p>\n\u2018The good Doctor\u2019, as some of his students used to call him, still reads a poem every day \u2013 and a lot of other things. On the table beside his chair, sits a pile of literature and history books. Still exercising his gift as a painter, he has recently completed a self-portrait in oils. Upstairs, he is still working on his memoirs and continuing to fulfil his mother\u2019s description: \u2018Those Woodfields, always scribbling.\u2019 These days, he \u2018scribbles\u2019 on his computer!<\/p>\n
It was Woodfield who encouraged the current Newbold Principal, Dr John Baildam, to move from Stanborough School to teach at Newbold, incidentally following in Woodfield\u2019s steps. Yet an illustrious career in education seemed improbable for the young Woodfield, born in Hereford in 1916. When his parents became Seventh-day Adventists his father lost his comfortable job and ended up selling Christian literature door-to-door, which, Woodfield recalls, \u201cput bread on the table but no butter.\u201d<\/p>\n Woodfield left school at age 14 to be apprenticed to a cabinet maker. However, a generous gift from an Australian church member set him on his life’s pathway of teaching and study. Married now to Jean Lauderdale, John and his growing family lived and worked at Stanborough Park until, in 1954, they moved to Newbold College, Binfield, where John began his work as a lecturer. His studies continued at London University’s Kings College and in 1964 resulted in a PhD in English Literature – only the third Newbold lecturer to gain a doctorate since the foundation of the College in 1901.<\/p>\n A fuller account will appear in the next edition of The Newboldian<\/a> under the title \u2018A poet among Puritans.\u2019 [tedNEWS]<\/p>\n<\/a><\/a>
After graduating in 1939, John ministered in Derby and Hull for a short time being offered a teaching position at Stanborough School, Watford, alongside the opportunity of further studies in his chosen field of English. He jumped at the chance. \u201cI taught everything except mathematics,\u201d he says. \u201cThey didn\u2019t trust me with that!\u201d. All along, he had continued to study by correspondence and in 1945 graduated with a BA Hons in English from the University of London. In 1946, at the age of 30, he was promoted to headmaster.<\/p>\n<\/a>
In retirement, gardening, painting, woodworking, bee-keeping and writing have filled his days with pleasure. That passion for service, hard work and excellence has rewarded him with the knowledge of a job very well done.”<\/p>\n
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