TRIBUTES have been paid to the influential former head teacher of a Blackburn college.

Father Philip Graystone , who has died at the age of 93, was instrumental in the development of St Mary’s College during the 1950s.

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Fr Graystone, who was head from 1953 to 1961, died in Norfolk, where he worked for the latter part of his life, last week.

Father Keith Tulloch, who worked with Fr Graystone, said he was a talented author, archivist and religious advisor to Anglia Television.

Fr Tulloch said: “He was always an active and exemplary member of his religious community, and served voluntarily in the Parish of Walsingham until his health declined in the last two years of his life.”

Fr Graystone, originally from Hull, wrote a number of books about England’s Roman roads, including one about the Ribble Valley.

The college named its new £2.5million science centre after Fr Graystone in August 2007 and an annual prize handed out for excellence in mathematics also bears his name.

Frank Dixon, St Mary’s current principal, said this week’s Mass at the Shear Brow college was dedicated in memory of Father Graystone’s commitment to the community.

He added: “He will be remembered with affection by all who knew him.”

Fr Graystone, whose brother Father Henry Graystone still lives in Ramsgreave, died on September 15 in his adopted home village of Wells-next-the-Sea, Norfolk.

He was appointed Superior of the Marist Community in Blackburn in 1953 and also served as a member of the Provincial Council from 1957 to 1961.

Educated in Hull, Dublin and Devon, he left Blackburn to teach in Surrey, Devon and Kent before moving to Norfolk in 1981, where he co-founded the Catholic Grandparents’ Association.

His funeral will take place at the Church of the Reconciliation, in Houghton St Giles, on September 30.