Colin Hannaford, Honorary OW

(3 June 1943 –  22 July 2022)

The Waynflete Office has heard from former colleagues of the death of Colin Hannaford, ex-MCS Maths teacher and MCS parent to OW Alexander Hannaford (1998, deceased).

The following obituary has been edited from one printed in the Oxford Mail.

Colin Hannaford died at his home in Oxford age 79, with his German-born partner Brigitte at his side.

Alexander, his and his ex-wife Sandra’s only child, died some months before he did.

Colin Hannaford was born in Plymouth and after attending state school went to the Royal Military Academy at Sandhurst, and was commissioned in 1963 into the Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers.

After serving in Northern Ireland in the early 1970s, he left the Army in 1975.

His military service in Northern Ireland profoundly influenced him to devote his life to peace.

On leaving the Army, Colin and his wife became caretakers of the small island of Inch Kenneth off the island of Mull in the inner Hebrides. Inch Kenneth was owned by friends as a holiday home and was normally deserted.

This was a fulfilling time, for Colin at least, as he was able to use his practical skills to meet the challenges of this remote life, to reflect, and to write.

After becoming an alumnus of Trinity College, Cambridge, he qualified to teach mathematics, and here he was advised by a group of eminent scholars, led primarily by Trinity’s Dean of Chapel, Bishop John Robinson, the author of the famous theological polemic, Honest to God. They all took a serious interest in his experiences and encouraged him to “incorporate the result in your teaching”.

In 1976, now aged 33, he began his teaching career at Magdalen College School.

In 1979, aided by his fluency in all the major European languages, he was appointed as head of mathematics of the European School at Culham near Abingdon.

This was founded in 1978 to provide education to the children of staff working for the European Atomic Energy Community (Euratom) on the Joint European Torus (JET) fusion energy research programme nearby.

Subsequently, he became its head of ethics.

He taught there, “learning a lot from my pupils”, for the next 25 years.

Within 10 years of joining the school, and until he retired, his senior pupils began consistently to achieve the highest grades in the Baccalaureate of all the then 13 European Schools.

For the past 20 years this philosophy of mathematics education has been taught to student mathematics teachers in Mercer University, widely considered one of the most successful teaching colleges in the United States.

After retiring, Colin was twice invited to lecture to staff and students of primary and secondary teaching at Oxford Brookes University.

His method of teaching mathematics was translated into many languages and adopted by the European Union and a number of countries.

In 2009, he was invited by the Qatar Foundation for Education to organise a conference in Windsor Castle for Qatari and other Arab teachers to learn his approach.

He was latterly Honorary Professor for The Pedagogy of Mathematics at Malaga University.

In 2021, he published his last book: A Tidal Wave of Human Consciousness To Stop Wars.