John Lewis

Who is John Lewis?

John Elliot Lewis was the head master of Eton College from 1994 to 2002.

Born in New Zealand in 1942, Lewis attended King's College, Auckland. He gained a double first in Classics from Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, and taught at Eton between 1971 and 1980. He was a distinguished rugby player and cricketer. From 1980 to 1994, Lewis was the Headmaster of Geelong Grammar School in Australia, which had been attended by The Prince of Wales and Rupert Murdoch. Under the leadership of Lewis the school set about renovating the boarding and day houses to try to bring them up to somewhere near acceptable modern standards, and a focus on improving academic results, for while the school had offered a generally rounded education, its focus had historically not been purely on academic performance, due to many of its students leaving school to pursue careers as pastorolists.

Lewis took up the Headship of Eton College in 1994. Sir Eric Anderson, the previous head master, had led Eton College to second place in the league table of independent schools. Under Lewis, it dropped to 29th place. Under his Headship, Eton introduced a zero-tolerance policy on illegal drugs, backed up by random testing. He expelled several pupils for drug use. He supervised the education of Princes William and Harry.