Anthony Francis Eggleston OBE died peacefully on 26th December 2021 aged 93 in Bury St Edmunds – he would have been 94 last month (January). He studied Chemistry at Oxford, and during a distinguished career in educa-tion was headmaster of three schools: the English School, Nicosia, for which he was decorated; Felsted School; Campion School, Athens. He had many interesting stories and was a fascinating conversationalist, not averse to the occasional piece of gossip!
From the comments I have received about Tony it was quite obvious that he was held in high regard, everyone recalling his awesome knowledge of the cathedral’s history and how he loved its architecture, particularly that of the Gothic period, and a few people remembered that Tony was the on-site Gothic lecturer during training sessions as long ago as 1998. Some of us can say the same of later years too. It is not surprising that his entry in Who’s Who says his only recreation was ‘Looking at and talking about buildings of all pe-riods’. One colleague recalled him describing the overhead carving leading into the Choir from the Pulpitum archway as ‘flip-ogee’! It was recalled that he was always very focused when on duty and that he had a succinct knack of being able to communicate his scholarly knowledge in an amena-ble manner to visitors.
Tony finished Guiding during 2016 and eventually moved to Bury St Edmunds to be nearer to his son. As a leaving gift he very generously gave me his own copy of Fernie’s History of the Architecture of Norwich Cathedral – which I will always treasure. When I opened the book I discovered it to be full of pencil under-linings, exclamation marks and squiggles showing that he had thoroughly studied and digested the research before him.
Two colleagues, Maureen Marven and Robert Barker worked on the same shift as Tony for more than ten years. Maureen kept in touch with letters and actually visited Tony on his 90th birthday. Robert said, ‘Whenever I needed advice or information he was always the person to refer to. In particular his knowledge of the architecture and of Latin was very wide ranging and some of his insights into the building I still use in my own presentation to visi-tors. I feel privileged to have been a colleague. It was a great loss to the ca-thedral when he had to move away from Norwich.’ I’m sure we all echo this.
The cathedral was very lucky to have Tony still working as a guide well into his eighties and above everything else he was a true gentleman. May he rest in peace.