Peter Teed, headmaster, and Shirley Teed, artist

His death came 10 days after that of his wife, Shirley Teed, at 84, a respected artist who exhibited widely across the UK during a career that spanned seven decades.

From the beginning he adopted an inclusive approach, opening the sixth form to pupils from Goole’s Secondary Modern school and steering it through the transition to a comprehensive unit.

Keen to foster a thriving arts department, he supported colleagues in mounting ambitious drama productions, and directed many plays himself.

He was also the author of two textbooks on 20th century history, and after retiring in 1985, spent several years working for Oxford University Press, working on the Oxford Illustrated Encyclopaedia and the Oxford Children’s Encyclopaedia, before writing A Dictionary of Twentieth Century History.

Mrs Teed was also a significant figure in Goole’s academic community, as a governor at the Old First School, a costume designer for countless Grammar School productions, and mentor to many students and staff.

Born in Bristol in 1933, she was educated at Badminton School, where she was taught by the young Bernard Dunstan, and at the Royal West of England College of Art, where she studied under George Sweet and Paul Feiler and exhibited with the Young Contemporaries.

She married Peter in 1955, and settled in Goole nine years later.

During her time there, whilst bringing up four children, she continued to develop her artistic practice, which was defined by ambitious, figural oil paintings and watercolour landscapes. She gained prominence as an artist through solo exhibitions in York, Leeds and further afield. One of her final works in Goole was a five panel painting, Riverside, depicting figures set against the industrial, dockland landscape of the town in the early 1980s. It was displayed for many years at the Courtyard community centre on Boothferry Road.

She eventually moved with Peter to Cornwall. A retrospective exhibition of her work opens today at the School House Gallery, York.