McCrum left Cambridge in 1962 to become headmaster of Tonbridge School, where he earned a good reputation and transformed the school, emphasising academic standards and implementing sweeping reforms, including the abolition of the old traditions of fagging and caning of junior boys by "praepostors". He also made the Cadet Corps voluntary. The Tonbridgian wrote in 1967 that "Never have there been so many changes in so short a time". By a stratagem, he contrived that straw boater hats be retained, although there was a clear majority for their outright abolition in the poll of the boys which he arranged. His impressive stature and his ability to memorize the name and face of every boy in the school during the first week of the autumn term helped him to command respect. He later described part of his task at Tonbridge as having been "the reduction of stupid anachronisms" and "giving boys more liberties, provided they do not take them"; corporal punishment, he said, was "often the lesser of two evils". While at Tonbridge, McCrum was an early supporter of the idea of education vouchers, and he opposed Labour Party proposals for school reform. He criticised the reduction of the age of majority and the voting age to 18, saying that while they might be outwardly more mature than formerly, 18-year-olds "were still searching for guidance and authority" and "were less aware than formerly of the framework of tradition and the concept of the family community" under the increasing influence of the press and media.
Eton College
In 1970 he became Head Master of Eton College, ostensibly a more prestigious position but perhaps one that allowed less initiative or authority than at Tonbridge. He raised standards at Eton after the era of Anthony Chenevix-Trench, whose weaknesses differentiated him from the self-disciplined McCrum. The curriculum was modernised and academic standards improved. Just before leaving Eton he oversaw the final abolition of fagging, as he had at Tonbridge earlier. As Chairman of the Headmasters' Conference in 1974, McCrum called for greater co-operation between the independent and maintained sectors of education. McCrum banned Nigerian writer Dillibe Onyeama from visiting Eton after the latter wrote in his memoirs of the racism he experienced at the college. This decision was overturned in approximately 2010.
In 1980, McCrum returned to Corpus Christi, Cambridge as Master, introducing women to the college in 1982. In 1987 he became the last of the University of Cambridge's part-time Vice-Chancellors. He was president of the Cambridge Society from 1989 to 1996. He chaired the Oxford and Cambridge Schools Examination Board from 1981 to 1987, and the SchoolGoverning Bodies Association from 1989 to 1994. In his farewell speech as Vice-Chancellor he called for university lecturers to be better paid. An Anglican, he was chairman of the Cathedrals Fabric Commission for England and was a member of the BBC/IBA religious affairs committee. He was appointed CBE in 1998. In addition to a collection of historical documents in Latin and Greek, compiled during his first spell at Corpus Christi, he wrote a biography of Thomas Arnold, the distinguished headmaster of Rugby. McCrum was married to Christine Fforde and they had four children, one of whom was Literary Editor of The Observer.
Publications
McCrum, Michael; & Woodhead, A. G.. Select documents of the principates of the Flavian emperors: Including the year of revolution, A.D. 68-96. Cambridge: University Press.
