Cyril Alington

Cyril Argentine Alington (22 October 1872 – 16 May 1955) was an English educationalist, scholar, cleric, and author. He was successively the headmaster of Shrewsbury School and Eton College. He also served as chaplain to King George V and as Dean of Durham. "But it is for his schoolmanship and writing that Cyril Alington is best remembered. In the 1910s, he wrote two delightful studies of life at Shrewsbury and in 1922 his first novel, *Mr Evans*, a detective story set against the background of a test match between England and Australia. Alington would go on to write other detective stories including a series featuring the Venerable James Castleton, Archdeacon of Garminster. While *Archdeacons Afloat* (1946), *Archdeacons Ashore* (1947) and most of Alington's other crime fiction was well regarded at the time, some critics considered his books to be 'anaemic' given the relative absence of violence... In parallel with his career as a detective story writer, Alington also maintained a steady flow of non-fiction books throughout his life. The majority have religious themes and others relate to the history and day to day life of Eton. There is also a history of Durham cathedral, a ‘semireligious’ autobiography and an insightful post-war ‘political and personal survey’ of Europe. As well as books, Alington wrote hymns and poetry— including the famous ‘To the School at War’, a poem written in 1916 and taken up by schools around the country. He also wrote two comic operas, very much in the vein of Gilbert and Sullivan and, as ‘S. C. Westerham’, he wrote a Wodehousian novel, *Mixed Bags* (1929)." -- [from *Bodies from the Library 2*, Tony Medawar (editor), 2019.]