George Norton Northrop

“I wish,” writes a Centurion friend, “there were more men like George at The Century.” It is probable that men like George were rare anywhere. He was genial and gay, there was none of the austere mien or the autocratic manner that one sometimes associates with a school headmaster.

Perhaps the two most famous schools in New York and Boston were fortunate enough to have George for a head. He was at Brearley for six years; later he was headmaster of Roxbury Latin School in Boston. In an interval between these he served the Chicago Latin School in the same capacity.

George Norton Northrop was born in Platteville, Wisconsin, eighty-four years ago. He studied for two years at the University of Wisconsin and took his B.L. and M.A. degrees at the University of Minnesota in 1902. In both these universities, he served for a brief period as instructor. He did research in English literature at Magdalen College, Oxford, in 1905 and in 1908.

In the First World War, he rose from lieutenant to major in the army. He became assistant chief of staff of the intelligence section of the 88th Division, later the 3d Division, Army of Occupation, Germany.

Officially, he retired in 1947, but for fifteen years thereafter he served as a member of the Overseers Visiting Committee of Harvard University and also lectured on education at Wellesley College. He was a member of the American Historical Association, the Massachusetts Historical Society, and the Colonial Society of Boston.

At The Century, he was noted as a “crack billiard player” and was a familiar figure in the poolroom.

He was a Centurion for more than half his life.

Roger Burlingame
1965 Century Association Yearbook