Mr Hugh Catchpole was born on 26 May, 1907, at Ipswich, a small town of Suffolk in England. He did his Masters in History from Oxford University. Before starting his career as a teacher he did some flying in the civil and played cricket for the Suffolk County Eleven. His enviable career in education spanned seven decades in the Subcontinent.
He joined Prince of Wales’ Royal Indian Military College, Dehra Dun (now Rashtriya Indian Military College) in 1928 as an Assistant Master and went on to become the Principal on October 1, 1948. He stayed back at RIMC even after independence till his contract expired in 1954.
The first Pakistani Air Chief, Air Marshal Asghar Khan, and his successor Air Marshal Nur Khan were his students at RIMC. They requested him to come to Pakistan and become the founder principal of Cadet College Hasan Abdal. He was still at Hasan Abdal when Air Marshal Asghar Khan handpicked him to join PAF Public School Sargodha as principal, in 1958. He stayed there till 1967 and then joined Abbottabad Public School as Head of the English Department, a post he held till his very last. He died at the age of 90, on February 1, 1997, at Combined Military Hospital, Rawalpindi.
Mr Catchpole was buried with such honours as would be the envy of many. Besides being an extraordinary educationist, he was a humanist and philanthropist, who remained a bachelor throughout his life and financed many students’ education with his scholarship funds in England, India and Pakistan. In his will he wished to donate all balances of his account to the institutions he had been associated with. Hugh Catchpole was honoured twice by Queen Elizabeth. In 1971, he was awarded the Order of the British Empire (OBE). In 1980, the queen awarded him Commander’s Badge of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) also called the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire. In 1979, the president of Pakistan, General Zia-ul-Haq, conferred upon Mr Catchpole the award of “Sitara-i-Imtiaz” for his meritorious services in the field of education. On 15 June, 2007, then President General Pervez Musharraf conferred upon Mr Catchpole the highest civil award of Pakistan “Hilal-i-Imtiaz” posthumous for his incomparable, selfless and single-minded dedication to the cause of quality education in Pakistan.
Mr Catchpole breathed his last on 1st February 1997, and in accordance with his will, he was buried in the soil of Cadet College Hasan Abdal.