Brian Howes obituary

My husband, Brian Howes, who has died aged 88, was a foreign language teacher who went on to become a chief education inspector. He was also a champion fencer.

After teaching German and French at Uppingham school, Rutland (1958-60), Brian became the bursar at Saint Martin’s school for girls in Solihull (1960-63). He then joined his old school, Dulwich college, in south-east London, to teach German and French (1963-68). At Uppingham and at Dulwich he was also in charge of fencing.

In 1968, Brian was appointed headteacher of the International school in Hamburg, and, three years later, head of St George’s English school in Rome. He returned to the UK in 1975 to serve as an inspector of schools specialising in modern languages, becoming chief education inspector for Croydon local education authority (1989-95). In 1975 he also took on the job of organising the Public Schools’ Fencing Championships and did so for the next 34 years.

When Brian retired at the age of 60, he became a consultant for the European Council of International Schools, and for the next 15 years travelled in Europe, Asia, Africa, Australia and South America, setting up and accrediting schools.

He was born in Croydon, Surrey (now a greater London borough), to Doris (nee Loynes) and Bill Howes, who served in the Metropolitan police. Brian was educated at Dulwich college as part of the Dulwich Gilkes experiment, which brought in many pupils on scholarships, and went on to study German and French at St Edmund Hall, Oxford University.

He and I met at a party on his last evening at Oxford; I was at Lady Margaret Hall studying French and Russian, and had another year to go. We married in 1959. At the time of our marriage I was teaching at Saint Martin’s and it was when the headteacher became ill that Brian left Uppingham to take on the role of bursar there, helping the school gain charitable status.

Brian had started fencing at Dulwich when he was 11 – he medalled in all three weapons in the Public Schools’ Fencing Championships, winning the senior sabre two years running, and was a fencing blue at Oxford. He fenced in the world championships in Paris in 1957 and I was there to watch him.

Although Brian was selected for the Tokyo Olympics in 1964 – and given a huge jar of Horlicks to help him train – in the end, for reasons that were difficult to fathom, he was not taken.

In 2020, Brian became ill. We moved from Dulwich to a retirement flat in Streatham, south London, in 2022, and three months later Brian went into a care home nearby.

He is survived by me, our son Peter, grandsons, Anton and Nicholas, and his brother, Alan. Another son, Justin, died in 2005.