Rollo John Oliver Meyer (15 March 1905 – 9 March 1991) was an English educationalist who founded Millfield School in 1935 and Millfield Preparatory School in 1946. He was also an all-round sportsman who played cricket at first-class level in both England and in India. He died in Bristol on 9 March 1991.
Early life
Meyer was born the son of clergyman Rev Rollo Meyer in Clophill, Bedfordshire. The family moved to Watton-at-Stone, Hertfordshire in January 1911 when Rollo became the rector there, and Jack grew up in the village rectory overlooking the new cricket field. The teenage Jack played several cricket games for the village team. In 1923 a young Alan Turing stayed at the Meyer's rectory home for the summer, the Turings being family friends. Jack was educated at Haileybury College, where he stood out as a cricketer.
He was a forceful right-handed batsman and a right-arm bowler of medium pace picked out by the Wisden chronicler of public schools cricket of the time, H. S. Altham, for the amount of bowling work he got through, the maintenance of line and length in his varied bowling, and his flair for the "big" occasion. He was at Pembroke College, Cambridge between 1923 and 1926, gaining a double first in classics, and then went to India to work as a cotton broker for 10 years.
The educator
Millfield
Meyer was accompanied on his return to England from India in the mid 1930s by seven Indian boys, including six princes, having been entrusted with providing them an education. He set up Millfield School in Street in Somerset in 1935 and remained as its headmaster for the next 35 years. He was known as Boss at school. The new school theatre at Millfield is named after him.
Millfield from the outset was an unconventional public school, with an emphasis on all-round excellence, and not just the academic, including strength in areas such as sports and the arts. Meyer had a flexible attitude towards school fees, charging wealthy parents some of the highest in the UK but waiving them entirely for some pupils whom he considered deserving. Meyer's philosophy at Millfield was, "...to nurture talent by providing the very best facilities, teaching, coaching and opportunities in which young people can exercise and explore their abilities; and to give awards to those in financial need."
Links between Millfield and Somerset County Cricket Club remained close; in 1960, Meyer recruited Colin Atkinson, who had played Minor County cricket, on to the Millfield staff. Atkinson played regularly for Somerset from 1960 to 1962, and then was released from school duties to captain the county side from 1965 to 1967. When Meyer retired as headmaster of Millfield in 1971, Atkinson succeeded him.
After Millfield
Meyer then went to Greece where he took charge of a newly established English-language school, Campion. He remained headmaster for seven years and inspired a number of tales of his eccentricity which were still being recounted two decades later. In 1980 Meyer split with the school and founded another English-language school, St Lawrence College. One second-grade pupil remembers his visiting the classroom in 1986 as akin to a royal visit given his great age and substantive aura that surrounded him.
The cricketer
At Cambridge, Meyer made an immediate impact in cricket, taking nine wickets in the Freshmen's Match at the start of the summer term in 1924. He took four wickets in the first first-class innings he bowled in and retained his place in the university side for the whole season, winning his Blue. After the university term was over, he played Minor Counties cricket for Hertfordshire, scoring a lot of runs and taking 51 wickets at low cost. He was picked for the Minor Counties representative side which was accorded a first-class match against the South African touring team and his six wickets for 60 runs in the South Africans' first innings put the Minor Counties on the way to a surprise victory by 25 runs. He was then called up for the Gentlemen v Players match at Blackpool and responded by taking eight Players' wickets for 38 runs in the first innings, a feat that did not prevent the Players from winning rather easily in a match that Wisden deemed "by no means worthy of its high-sounding title".