Staff Member 1981-2004 & Hon. OW
Word has reached us of the sad news that Bill Henley passed away peacefully at home on the morning of 19th June 2026. Our thoughts and best wishes go to those who knew him well.
A service will be held at All Saints Church, Selsley, GL5 5LE on Tuesday 21st July at 14:30, followed by refreshments in Selsley Scout Hut, a short walk down the road.
The family hope that members of the Wycliffe community who knew Bill well, will join them to celebrate his life.
Please be advised there is parking down the road from the church, but not at the church itself.
The following obituary has been provided by Bill’s son, Iain:
William Edward Henley 1942 – 2026
William Henley 83, of Middleyard, Kings Stanley, passed away peacefully on 19th June 2026. Bill was born on 11 November 1942 in Southall London. He was a devoted husband to Sarah Henley, father to Tom, Iain and Anna and grandfather to Zoe, Ash, Joe, Ewan, Lois, James, Samuel and Lily.
Bill touched many people’s lives with his willingness to help, outgoing personality and quirky sense of humour influenced by Monty Python. Like Douglas Adams he loved the coming together of art and technology and couldn’t help but be inspired by Apple computers. He was a passionate photographer loyal to the Cannon brand. He built his own dark room at home shortly before switching to full digital photography and printing. As a teacher he had an unstuffy and informal manner but still commanded a classroom with authority. Having grown up during and after the second world war he was deeply interested in history and in particular his place in it. He travelled as a teacher to eastern Europe before the fall of the Berlin wall and would often talk of his experiences on those trips. He traced his family tree many generations back and took the trouble to contact distant relatives and uncover forgotten stories. He spent lots of time with family and friends, even visiting them in Africa and the USA. He always had a joke or something silly to say, often banana or lobster related.
He was loved and will be missed.
If you would like to have your memories of Bill posted on this webpage, please feel free to email them to TWS@wycliffe.co.uk
At Wycliffe:
Head of Computing & IT (1981-2003)
Part-time post in ICT (2003-2004)
Memories of Bill:
When I arrived to teach at Wycliffe in 1986, my only previous experience of computers had been the BBC models, which relied on programs being loaded in from cassette tape, or commands typed in line by confusing line. I had not been impressed!
Bill showed me the Apple II computers in his lab, and the integrated software AppleWorks, which blew my mind and was incredibly helpful in departmental administration. He was very happy to let me find my own way, but was always generous with help or advice. He started up a small Gloucestershire schools user group when the first Mac Plus models arrived, and those of the staff who used the computers all got accustomed to carrying boxes of 3.5 inch floppy disks for saving work.
Times went on, with ever more powerful Mac models, and Bill was behind the first Wycliffe network, cabled with the help of Len Foster, one of the science technicians. Later Mac models had more capacity, and new possibilities for teaching and administration were opened up with an increasing range of software. Bill built the first school pupil database, in Omnis 7, which became an invaluable tool for the secretarial staff and the Admissions team, and revolutionised the production of house, form and other lists.
Bill was also an indefatigable and accomplished photographer, and was closely involved with The Royal Photographic Society and their digital imaging group. At school he and his camera were a constant presence at special occasions: many photos from drama productions were displayed in houses, and he would capture prize-winners being handed their prizes on Speech Days.
– Chris Tetley (Staff Member 1986-2007 & Hon. OW)
When I arrived at Wycliffe in September1988 as ‘Technology Co-ordinator’ prior to becoming Head of D&T, Bill had already made a conscious decision to switch from teaching Physics in order to develop IT at the school and had already established an IT suite of Apple 11 computers and was in the process of setting up a suite of Mac Plus, putting Wycliffe way ahead of the majority of schools in the country. He soon added laser printing that enabled us to produce professional looking documents, again way in advance of most schools who were still using BBC computers and dot matrix printers.
We were very much in the pioneering days of IT in schools and with Bill’s generous support I was able to get first one, then a second and soon a small suite of Apple computers in D&T. We found ourselves working closely and that led to us jointly setting up a GCSE D&T Control Technology course that ran for several years.
As well as putting Wycliffe at the forefront in the early days of IT in schools, another of Bill’s legacy’s is Wycliffe ICT day for year 9, set up as a field day initially in the Mendips and then closer to home at Miserden. This has been a great event enjoyed by numerous year 9 over many years that I was lucky enough to be able to work on closely with Bill, and then continue it as ‘Miserden Day’ after his retirement, and it continues as a major school event to this day at its new location in Cranham.
– Graham Wheeler (Staff Member 1988-2023 & Hon. OW)
