Derbyshire headteacher tragically fell to his death, inquest hears

Terry Butterworth, of Marsh Lane, lost his life on Beinn Eighe mountain in the Scottish Highlands on July 3 last year.

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The 74-year-old physicist’s inquest took place at Chesterfield Coroner’s Court on Tuesday.

Peter Nieto, area coroner, told the court: “Mr Butterworth died a result of unsurvivable injuries sustained from a fall of approximately 200 feet from a ridge.

“On the evidence the fall was an accident and occurred while Mr Butterworth was on a walking trip to the Highlands.

“Mr Butterworth was an experienced hill walker.”

According to our sister title The Yorkshire Post, Mr Butterworth began his teaching career in Bolton in the 1960s before moving to Chorley and then Derbyshire.

He was a deputy headteacher at Netherthorpe School in Staveley.

He arrived in Doncaster in 1988, taking charge of Campsmount School.

Mr Butterworth spent 10 years as head there before being appointed to take charge of Doncaster’s failing Adwick School after it was put in special measures.

He took a radical and no-nonsense approach to turn the school around, reportedly once expelling eighteen unruly children in one afternoon, as well as giving 36 their final warning in a purge to boost standards.

Speaking of the task at Adwick when he took over, Mr Butterworth said: “I had to do something for the sake of the education of the majority.”

Following his stint at Adwick, he became and educational consultant and was part of a team advising secondary schools across Derbyshire and Yorkshire.

Mr Butterworth regularly took part in a challenge known as the Fellsman, a gruelling 60-mile walking and running challenge across some of the country’s toughest terrain and held annually in Yorkshire.

Posting on the Fellsman Facebook page after he died, Shona Brunskill offered her condolences to his loved ones and said he would be ‘greatly missed and long remembered’.

His son, Adam, also paid tribute to his father on Facebook, saying: “The small amount of solace we take was he was doing something he loved with the best of his friends.”

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