We are sorry to report that Gareth Banting (MCR 1972-1983) died on January 5th at the age of 76.
He taught History and introduced Politics to the curriculum, and also ran the shooting team as well as being involved in the CCF. At the time he left Alan Megahey wrote: “He gave a great deal to the teaching of these subjects at Cranleigh. He was one of the initiators of the ‘lecture system’ in History – whereby sixth formers get their first taste of sitting in a lecture and taking notes. Together we saw the A level candidate numbers rise from under 20 to over 40. He had made himself an expert in all sorts of arcane and wonderful parts of the English History syllabus – the Royal Navy, Lord Salisbury, and even (when prevailed upon) the working classes. And in his politics teaching he not only got very good results, but also was a fount of knowledge of things political in Common Room. [He] fathered our shooting team (vanishing to Bisley unsung and regularly); he nurtured the sixth form buttery and oversaw its (highly successful) move to the farmhouse; he was house tutor of 1 North during the early years of the present writer’s reign, and was a marvellous support. He was a self-effacing CCF officer of long standing.”
He married Michèle, who taught music at Cranleigh, in 1977 and the following year they had a son, Tim. Gareth went to Allhallows on the Dorset coast where he taught History and Politics and, again, ran the shooting team. He was there for 15 years until the school closed in 1998.