ABSTRACT
We now tum to a less-flamboyant teacher, the Revd John Stalker. Like Langley he was a master at MC, having arrived at the school in 1880. He was an Oxford graduate and keen rugby player, turning out for the MC First xv. In 1894 he nearly lost his job because the academic results of MC were so poor. Sir Henry Bale, MC old boy, advocate, member of the Legislative Council for Pietermaritzburg and shortly to be attorneygeneral and minister of education, came to his rescue. From this point on, Stalker did not look back. He became active in rugby administration and retired from the school in 1902. In 1903 he was treasurer of the NRU, and the following year secretary. His career is notable for at least two features. As has been indicated, he associated with the political representatives of the Natal gentry and included among his friends the Hime brothers, particularly Arthur Horace Hime, Old Hiltonian and rugby player of renown.73 He was also a publicist for a number of settler causes. He favoured white land settlement in Natal and was fiercely jingoistic. In a pamphlet that his brother had privately printed in Scotland, Stalker wrote in 1902: 'For years, with growing impatience, they (Natalians) watched the increasing arrogance and tyranny of the Transvaal oligarchy in the expectation, rising at length to a certainty, that the time would come when the cup of Boer iniquity would be full and the Home Government be forced to reverse the Gladstonian policy. '74
