Dom Philip Jebb was a leading figure in the Benedictine order of monks, as a teacher, archivist, a perceptive counsellor to lay people and religious alike, and a respected headmaster of Downside Abbey, in Somerset.

Jebb took the helm at Downside at a fractious moment for one of Britain's longest-established Catholic public schools. It was a time of pupil disturbances, with "flash mob" events such as a mass midnight demonstration in the main courtyard to demand better school food.

Jebb re-established order by showing himself a strict but fair disciplinarian, and earned a reputation for having a near-psychic feel for where and when trouble was brewing. Even, it was said, an ability to bilocate. This personal myth, his evident self-discipline, and a fair, statesman-like approach to his pupils, combined to get the school back on an even keel.

Jebb was of average height, but had penetrating eyes and an imposing physical presence. He spoke, and preached, with a soft, cooing tenor voice. And when something delighted him he would emit an expressive, sighing "Aaaaah", on a descending chromatic scale. But when order had to be imposed, his voice could take on a withering, steely tone.

To his confrres in the monastery he seemed an indefatigable man of action. He was a keen walker, fencer and canoeist (he once paddled the length of the Grand Union Canal), and he had revelled in the country around his childhood home in Sussex, collecting fossils and Roman pottery. He later collected postcards on a grand scale and made exquisite model clipper ships in a bottle from matchsticks and paper.

The timetable of a headmaster added to...