Jean C Preuveneers
Notes and Memories
Mr Preuveneers was known to one and all as "Butch" Preveuneers. Many people thought his first name was "John" but it was actually "Jean" Preuveneers. He taught chemistry and was housemaster for Parthians. He was also active in the CCF.
See memories of Mr Preuveneers by
Dudley Brown,
Colin Hicks,
Chris O'Hanlon,
and Derrick Pope.
Norman Wells (1961 joining year; Friends Reunited):
Bluff and genial. Used to pour concentrated sulphuric acid into his hand to show that it wasn’t really that dangerous as long as you washed it off fairly quickly without panic. Also demonstrated the production of nitrous oxide by gently heating ammonium nitrate using the long yellow flame from a bunsen burner. People say this is rather dangerous he said, and likely to explode. But it never has in all the years I’ve been ....BANG!
Norman Wells (1961 joining year; Friends Reunited):
Later in life, he was to be quite influential in my choice of career, though he didn’t know it. Suffering under the burdens of a poor teacher’s pay, he used to say "If you want to get into something lucrative, get into patents. My brother’s a patent agent, and he’s just had an all expenses paid trip to Austria". So, I became one too.
Michael Laslett (1962 joining year; Friends Reunited):
....I can add 2 more of his stories: one was told several times of how at an earlier school he spilt acid on the bench in front of a female class. He did not notice this fact until he looked down to discover his trousers had dissolved and his underpants were on display. The other was how he prepared a crystal substance which exploded when walked on. He used this to detect thefts from the bicycle sheds. I remember these stories to this day but have never learnt why everything I heated in a test tube turned to a brown sludge!!
Geoff Savage (1967 joining year; Friends Reunited):
I will have nothing said against this man. A genuine teacher, knew his subject inside out and knew how to make a class fun. A superb sense of humour.
Footnotes
Jean Cecil Preuveneers was born on 11 September 1917. He studied for a BSc at the University of London and served as a Captain in the Royal Signal Regiment from 1941 to 1946. According to the records of the CCF (Combined Cadet Force - Officer Training Corp) he was signals officer to Field Marshall Bernard Montgomery. He is the person in the following records:
- old BT Phone Books (Ancestry): J C Preuveneers, 15 Sandy Way, Shirley, Croydon from 1953-1984
- GRO Death Index: Jean Cecil Preuveneers 1999 June Croydon D83B 199 (born 11 September 1917)
- GRO Birth Index: Jean C Preuveneers (mother: Cox) 1917 Q4 Camberwell 1d 953
|
