{"id":267738,"date":"2025-11-17T12:01:09","date_gmt":"2025-11-17T12:01:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/267738\/"},"modified":"2025-11-17T12:01:09","modified_gmt":"2025-11-17T12:01:09","slug":"marlborough-college-teacher-takes-own-life-after-sacking-over-school-trip","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/267738\/","title":{"rendered":"Marlborough College teacher takes own life after sacking over school trip"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"responsive__Paragraph-sc-1pktst5-0 gaEeqC\">A teacher at a public school attended by the Princess of Wales took his own life after being sacked for inappropriate behaviour. <\/p>\n<p class=\"responsive__Paragraph-sc-1pktst5-0 gaEeqC\">John Wright, who taught physics at Marlborough College for a decade, was found dead by his wife at their family home on November 3. <\/p>\n<p class=\"responsive__Paragraph-sc-1pktst5-0 gaEeqC\">An inquest into his death at Wiltshire coroner\u2019s court opened last week. It gave his cause of death as injuries consistent with hanging.<\/p>\n<p class=\"responsive__Paragraph-sc-1pktst5-0 gaEeqC\">The Daily Mail reported that Wright, 54, was sacked by the college after a 17-day exchange trip to Marlborough\u2019s sister school in Malaysia during the spring half-term holiday. <\/p>\n<p class=\"responsive__Paragraph-sc-1pktst5-0 gaEeqC\">After an internal investigation into what had happened on the trip, which was attended by 29 pupils, several allegations over his conduct were deemed to be proven. He was dismissed in the summer and an appeal by Wright into the outcome of the investigation was unsuccessful. <\/p>\n<p class=\"responsive__Paragraph-sc-1pktst5-0 gaEeqC\">A source close to Wright\u2019s family told the newspaper: \u201cThe way John was treated was outrageous. It\u2019s not quite clear to us what John was sacked for, but it hit him really hard. We\u2019ve heard it was for inappropriate comments, but I\u2019ve been told that most of these were innocuous.<\/p>\n<p class=\"responsive__Paragraph-sc-1pktst5-0 gaEeqC\">\u201cThis is all part of a stricter safeguarding regime at Marlborough and staff are genuinely concerned about their careers and there is a sense of mistrust and fear among them. They are horrified at what\u2019s happened because John was an outstanding physics teacher.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The Wiltshire public school, founded in 1843, is for pupils aged between 13 and 18 and for boarders costs more than \u00a360,000 a year. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.thetimes.com\/culture\/tv-radio\/article\/emerald-fennell-and-the-marlborough-mafia-l8f5t7bt2\" class=\"link__RespLink-sc-1ocvixa-0 csWvlP\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Its alumni<\/a> includes the comedian Jack Whitehall and the Princess of Wales, who attended between 1996 and 2000. <\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Kate Middleton with other students at Marlborough College.\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/\/b31e65f5-dac4-4fbb-9f02-c9ee0ddd9d32.jpg\" class=\"responsive-sc-1nnon4d-0 bAbKns\"\/><\/p>\n<p>The Princess of Wales attended the school<\/p>\n<p>COLLECT<\/p>\n<p class=\"responsive__Paragraph-sc-1pktst5-0 gaEeqC\">The school is also one being considered by the Prince or Princess of Wales for Prince George, 12, who is in his final year at <a href=\"https:\/\/www.thetimes.com\/uk\/education\/article\/prince-george-louis-princess-charlotte-new-school-lambrook-school-named-r0pr2jz3s\" class=\"link__RespLink-sc-1ocvixa-0 csWvlP\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Lambrook School in Berkshire<\/a>. <\/p>\n<p class=\"responsive__Paragraph-sc-1pktst5-0 gaEeqC\">There are said to be concerns among school leaders about the impact of Wright\u2019s death. The source said: \u201cThe speculation is that Prince George is coming to Marlborough and the college hierarchy are concerned about the damage John\u2019s death could have on its reputation.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"responsive__Paragraph-sc-1pktst5-0 gaEeqC\">Wright, who previously lived and worked in New Zealand before moving back to the UK, lived with his wife and two children a ten-minute walk away from the college. His wife is also believed to work as a teacher. <\/p>\n<p class=\"responsive__Paragraph-sc-1pktst5-0 gaEeqC\">Wiltshire police described the incident as \u201ca sudden death\u201d with no suspicious circumstances. Marlborough College was contacted for comment. <\/p>\n<p id=\"last-paragraph\" class=\"responsive__Paragraph-sc-1pktst5-0 gaEeqC\">If you or someone you know has been affected by suicide or needs to talk to someone, please get in contact with the <a href=\"https:\/\/link.thetimes.co.uk\/click\/31283708.151583\/aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuc2FtYXJpdGFucy5vcmcv\/62e2a8a33ca298c5c50e7f66B11184630\" class=\"link__RespLink-sc-1ocvixa-0 csWvlP\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Samaritans online<\/a> or call for free on their 24-hour helpline 116 123.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A teacher at a public school attended by the Princess of Wales took his own life after being&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":267739,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[49,50,51,47,52,48],"class_list":{"0":"post-267738","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-headlines","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-top-news","11":"tag-top-stories","12":"tag-topnews","13":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/267738","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=267738"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/267738\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/267739"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=267738"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=267738"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=267738"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}