Priest who saved souls on Titanic

Former pupils of Leamington College included a priest, Father Thomas Rousell Davids Byles (1870-1912).

Father Thomas read maths, modern history and theology at Oxford University and then trained as a Catholic priest. When his younger brother who was living in America asked him to officiate at his wedding ceremony he jumped at the chance and made arrangements to travel to New York.

He was scheduled to travel on another White Star liner, but switched at the last minute to the Titanic. He is widely reported as having held a mass prayer for passengers aboard the ship as it went down, offering solace to passengers, hearing confessions and giving absolution.

Another illustrious pupil was Giles Lytton Strachey (1880-1932), a writer and critic. Giles was born in London and studied at Leamington College. He went on to study at Liverpool University and later at Trinity College, Cambridge. He was a founding member of the Bloomsbury Group and author of ‘Eminent Victorians’. His book established a new form of biography in which psychological insight and sympathy are combined. And his 1921 biography of Queen Victoria was awarded the coveted James Tait Black Memorial Prize.

Sir Frank Whitte (1907-1996) is hailed as the inventor of the jet engine. After leaving Leamington College, he joined the RAF as an apprentice.

He devoted a great deal of time and energy to the research and development of aircraft design and eventually patented the gas-turbine. He was knighted in 1948 and in 1986 was invested by the Queen with the Order of Merit, the highest award in the gift of the sovereign.

John Dennis Enright (1920-2002) was a British academic, poet and novelist. Critics regard him as highly as the poet Philip Larkin, yet he is not well known in his home town of Leamington. He received an OBE in 1991.

Norman Painting (1924-2009) was an actor who played Phil Archer in the long- running BBC Radio 4 soap opera The Archers and was also a writer. He had one of the most distinctive voices in radio. Norman read English at Birmingham University and graduated with a first. He was a committed academic and later studied Anglo-Saxon poetry at Christ Church Oxford on scholarship. It was while at Oxford that he became interested in drama and was headhunted by the BBC.