Robert Kirkpatrick on the scandalous schoolmaster who inspired Evelyn Waugh’s monstrous antihero
In his 1928 novel, Decline and Fall, Evelyn Waugh created one of his most famous comic characters, Captain Grimes. A short, alcoholic, one-legged schoolmaster with a history of pederasty, he teaches at Llanabba Castle, a prep school in North Wales. The school was based on Arnold House, where Waugh taught between January and July 1925. Grimes reveals that he was removed from his public school shortly after his 16th birthday, although he was helped on his way with a letter of recommendation from his housemaster: ‘That’s the public-school system all over. They may kick you out, but they never let you down.’ He also confesses that he was moved on from several teaching positions in the past. ‘Funny thing, I can always get on all right for about six weeks, and then I land in the soup.’ Captain Grimes was based on a schoolmaster, Richard Young, who joined Arnold House...
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