OV Legal appointments, an archives find and OV inspires King's pupils

OV Legal appointments, an
archives find and OV
inspires King’s pupils
OV The Rt Hon Sir Julian Flaux appointed as
Chancellor of the High Court
We were absolutely thrilled to hear that OV Sir Julian Flaux
(Cl 63-72) has been appointed as the Chancellor of the High
Court, with the official swearing in ceremony taking place
this week, on Thursday 4th February.

The appointment of the Chancellor of the High Court is
made by Her Majesty the Queen on the advice of the Prime
Minister and the Lord Chancellor following the
recommendation of an independent selection
panel. Chancellor of the High Court is one of the most
senior judges in England and Wales and holds day-to-day
responsibility for the operation of the Business & Property
Courts in London and its seven city centres across the
country, in consultation with the President of the Queen’s
Bench Division.

Sir Julian was called to the Bar in 1978 and took Silk in
1994. He started his judicial career as a Recorder in
2000. He was appointed a Deputy High Court Judge in
2002 and a High Court Judge (Queen’s Bench Division) in
2007. He was the Judge in Charge of the Commercial Court
between 2014 and 2015 and a Presiding Judge on the
Midland Circuit between 2010 and 2013. In 2016, Sir Julian
was appointed President of the Special Immigration Appeals Commission and he was elevated to the Court
of Appeal in 2016. Since 2020, he has been Supervising Lord Justice of the Commercial Court.

Sir Julian is a previous Barnabas speaker here at King’s and visited the School to talk to the pupils in College
Hall in March 2010. More recently, he was particularly interested to hear how King’s has adapted to the
pressure of teaching and learning in the current climate and said to us, “I am so glad to hear the school is
doing well at carrying on with remote learning. I know it can’t be easy, but there is so much negative press
and media coverage on the education issue at the moment, it is good to hear something positive”.

Congratulation to Sir Julian on this remarkable achievement, we look forward to hearing more his exciting
and important appointment.

OV appointed to Disciplinary Panel for Six Nations Rugby
                                              Despite the current restrictions on live Sports, it is great news
                                              that the Six Nations Rugby tournament will be going ahead,
                                              starting this Saturday (especially given the disruption to the
                                              tournament in 2020). England are the reigning champions and
                                              they play against Scotland on Saturday at Twickenham. We
                                              were delighted to learn that, once again, OV Dan White (W 92-
                                              99) has been appointed to the Six Nations Disciplinary
                                              panel. This means that he is one of the English panel of
                                              disciplinary tribunal chairs or panel members who could sit on
                                              cases should they arise during the tournament. He will not be
                                              permitted to sit on cases where England is involved in the
                                              game.

                                             This season Dan was also appointed on the tribunal panel for
                                             the European Professional Club Rugby (EPCR) competition for
European rugby and he has sat on cases for the RFU themselves. Given the difficulties of holding live courts,
all hearings are now conducted via video conference facility, with the player and their representatives
dialling in from their home country and represented by their lawyers and coaches via video-links.

Whilst at King’s, Dan threw himself into every activity he could! He was a member of the 1st XV rugby, a
member of the Boat Club, the Himalayan Club, Swimming Club as well as the CCF and was involve with Drama
Productions as well. After King’s, Dan took his LLB at Birmingham University, following this he took his Bar
Vocational Course at the Inns of Court School of Law.

Dan fits his RFU disciplinary panel duties around his day jobs: he is a barrister with Citadel Chambers, where
he specialises in prosecuting organised crime on a national and international level and he is Head of their
Sports Law division, and Dan has also co-founded a business, Synalogik, which uses data analytics to
investigate crime and ensure Regulatory compliance.

We wish Dan all the very best with all his roles and we look forward to following the Six Nations rugby over
the coming weeks.

OV inspires King’s pupils, talking of his career in Journalism
Recently we were lucky to have OV Cameron Walker (Os 08-
15) interviewed by Helen Airdrie, Head of Careers, where he
spoke for a virtual Assembly to our current Fourth Form pupils
about his career journey in Journalism.

Cameron left King’s just over five years ago. He was interested in
drama, music and was part of the School Choir during his years
at King’s. Cameron was also a monitor and took part in the
memorable 2012 School production of Les Misérables.

Cameron kindly answered a variety of questions, talking about
his personal experiences during his years at King’s to what he is
doing now. Cameron is now an Output Researcher for ITV’s ‘Good Morning Britain’. He told pupils about his
journey to get to this point, initially inspired by a trip to London when he visited BBC Broadcasting House
and then going on to study Broadcast Journalism at Nottingham Trent University, after which he landed a
job working for ITV in London.

Pupils were told about a typical day in the broadcasting industry and the different work Cameron does, for
example: writing scripts, reacting to breaking news stories, commissioning graphics and even some on-
screen presenter training- which he hopes to do more of in years to come. The pupils learnt of the wide
variety of skills required in this industry as well as the positive and negatives of this career.

Cameron’s advice to pupils was to get involved with as many extra-curricular activities as possible, allowing
themselves to gain a variety of transferable skills and build up their experience from a young age which can
be used in university and job applications when the time comes.

Many thanks to Cameron, who gave our youngest pupils at King’s some excellent advice and inspiration.

OV discovers King’s special edition of Cowper’s Poems
Book, dating back to pre-WW1
                                  King’s School Archivist, Harriet Patrick and the Development & Alumni
                                  Relations team are always enthralled to receive snippets from King’s School
                                  history and OV Clive O’Donnell (Cl 70-77) has very kindly shared with us
                                  some interesting articles and photos in the past. This week Clive sent us an
                                  intriguing email: he had come across a book owned by his late uncle
                                  entitled, ‘Poetical Works of William Cowper’. The reason, he believed his
                                  uncle (who had not attended King’s School himself) was drawn to the book,
                                  was because of an embossed King’s School crest on the front cover,
                                  indicating this was a specially printed edition of Cowper’s poems for King’s.
                                  Inside the front cover, Clive discovered a wonderful book plate showing that
                                  it had been awarded to FN Andrews for ‘holiday reading’ by then
                                  Headmaster WH Chappel, in October 1911.

                                   Interested in finding out more about the recipient, Clive researched the
                                   name in ‘All the King’s Men’, a book created in the lead up to Remembrance
Day 2018, in commemoration of 100 years since the end of World War One and written by King’s School
Archivist Harriet Patrick alongside local author and historian, Mark Rogers. This well-researched and
beautifully presented book records every OV who fought and lost their lives in World War One, World War
Two and the Boer War. Clive was saddened to find that Francis Andrews, a vicar’s son from Trysull,
Wolverhampton, had enlisted with the Royal Irish Rifles and died on 11th October 1915 in France, aged 20.
Clive says, “This is a book to be treasured and one that I will pass on to Harriet for the School Archive.”

Harriet is always very grateful for any articles or artefacts that relate to King’s School history, so if you have
anything to share, or indeed, give to the School, she can be contacted on archives@ksw.org.uk (Harriet is
currently on furlough).

Thank you to Clive for sharing this deeply intriguing but sad discovery about one of our former OVs.