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THE ST CROSS COLLEGE MAGAZINE 2016 AD QUATTUOR CARDINES MUNDI ST CROSS COLLEGE CONTENTS UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD 04 22 THE ST CROSS COLLEGE MAGAZINE 2016 West Quad Campaign Sports News An update as this landmark project nears completion AD QUATTUOR CARDINES MUNDI Editor Susan Berrington Managing Editor Ella Bedrock Design B&M Design & Advertising Ltd www.bm-group.co.uk Contact Details The Development & Alumni Relations Office 06 St Cross College 61 St Giles Coals to Newcastle Oxford Anna James writes about OX1 3LZ Pusey House’s building project, completed 100 years ago Tel: +44 (0)1865 278480 12 Email: [email protected] www.stx.ox.ac.uk College News A year in highlights Cover Image 08 The Blackwell Quad, Spring 2016 © David Fisher Medieval Manuscripts 14 College archivist and Fellow Emilie Savage-Smith on Members News the collections of Oriental News from our Fellows manuscripts at Oxford 18 Alumni News ‘Once a member, always a member’: St Crossers on their 12 recent successes College News 22 Sports News St Cross sporting triumphs, from fencing to ice hockey 25 Student Focus William Mills brings the Stone Age to life with new technology A FAREWELL AND AN INTRODUCTION Welcome to the 2016 issue of Crossword magazine. As I write this, I am in my last few days as Master of St 30 Cross. I am going to St Cross College Photography miss the College and Competition 2016 its people, but I look forward to returning as an Honorary Fellow in the coming years, so it is not goodbye, just au revoir. I wish to thank the Fellows, Members of Common Room, staff, students, alumni and friends for all their hard work in making St Cross one of the best graduate colleges at the University. I would also like to thank all those involved in making the 50th anniversary so special and for all the support we have received to see the West Quad ambition realised. The College is one of the most international graduate colleges, with over 70% of our alumni and students coming from overseas – a diverse and interesting community of which I have always enjoyed being a part. I look forward to hearing of the College’s continued successes as it goes from strength to 32 strength in the coming years. Sir Mark Jones St Cross Master of St Cross, 2011-16 Photography Competition 2016 Our annual College It is a great privilege and competition showcasing the pleasure to succeed Sir best St Cross photographers Mark Jones as Master of St Cross. In my first 26 few weeks here I have Collecting Street been welcomed with Music in 18th tremendous warmth and Century Oxford generosity of spirit. I am determined to do justice Hélène La Rue Scholar Alice to the legacy of previous Little on the life of John Malchair Masters and help the College continue to move forward with 28 36 confidence and ambition. College and The College Year We aim to be the College of choice for the very best Matriculation Photos A look back at a busy and graduate students. The new building is a huge step wonderful year towards achieving that aim. I hope many of you will get to see it when you next visit Oxford. 30 I look forward to meeting and getting to know many of Donor Roll 40 you in the coming weeks and months. Dates for your Diary Carole Souter CBE Master of St Cross WEST QUAD NEWS As the new academic year draws near, the West Quad site remains a hive of activity as we prepare to welcome our new students. The scaffolding is now largely removed, revealing the beautifully polished ashlar blocks of Clipsham stone that clad the exterior of the building. Now visible are the striking mullions surrounding the large windows, and the fitting out is now underway. Soon the landscaping will begin to develop the College’s second quad, which will provide space for reading and relaxing for all College members and is an integral part of the West Quad design. As the project has progressed we have enjoyed showing visiting alumni and friends of St Cross around the building. Recently we welcomed artist Alison Kinnaird MBE, whose Alison Kinnaird admiring her handiwork in situ elegant etched window on Pusey Lane provides the building with its public art. The moulded staircases during installation 4 CROSSWORD | 2016 A close-up of the Clipsham stone The building’s ‘public art’ window with College motto THANK YOU We are grateful to College members whose generous philanthropy has allowed the College to realise this ambition, and whose named rooms will provide much-needed space for our students. If you are interested in naming opportunities please contact Director of Development Susan Berrington (director. [email protected], +44 (0)1865 278446). ST CROSS COLLEGE MAGAZINE | 2016 5 Coals to Newcastle The ‘Old New’ Building at Pusey House Anna James, Pusey House Librarian hen Edward Bouverie Pusey private library. An architect finally benefitted had to step in as intermediary when the organ died in 1882, he had been Regius from a generous bequest from Yorkshire installer was too intimidated by the architect to W Professor of Hebrew and a stalwart solicitor J.W. Cudworth, and the sumptuously speak to him directly. of University administration for more than half named Temple Lushington Moore designed a a century. Far more importantly, his work and new purpose-built monument. Of course, it all turned out well in the end. support had reshaped the Church of England The chapel was ready for use by 1915, with in his lifetime, and continued to do so after his The architectural drawings are still preserved in other parts of the complex following on in death, bringing more ceremony and tradition to Pusey House, although most are currently very succession. The finishing touches were not public worship, and reassessing the theological fragile and will require extensive conservation to be added until the mid-1930s, and the underpinnings of Anglican practices. It was and stabilisation before they can be consulted bookcases and desks in the library continued generally agreed by his admirers that he deserved on a regular basis. The drawings contain not only to be bought one at a time for many years, a memorial, but the traditional Oxbridge the floor plans and elevations, but also abound which is not a fit-out methodology I would approbation – a college – had already been ‘done’ with angels, as charming details of carvings and commend to the new library at St Cross. We for Pusey’s friend John Keble a decade earlier. decorations have also been retained. at Pusey House hope that you settle well into your new wing, and wish you every happiness After a number of formal and informal meetings, The original building project was not without in your new (section of) home. it was decided to create a ‘House of Sacred its trials and tribulations. Neighbours on Learning’: the library and chaplaincy which Alfred Street (now Pusey Lane) protested that The drawing and finished product (page 6) continue today. Henry Parry Liddon, a moving their views and sunlight would be blocked: in Pusey House TM/2/100 force behind the memorial, kept newspaper response, rather than compromise his vision clippings of reports of progress, including by lowering the chapel roof, the chapel floor negative ones. One acid-penned reporter wrote: was lowered instead (which is why there are so “Considering how many libraries already exist within a mile of the Bodleian, the proposal to erect a free one in honour of Dr. Pusey appears uncommonly like carrying coals to Newcastle.” However, the idea seems to have generally many non-DDA*-compliant steps outside the been received positively, and two houses were chapel). The First World War caused price rises bought, in which were installed three ‘priest- and labour shortages. And towards the end of librarians’, and the books from Dr. Pusey’s the project the then Principal, Darwell Stone, PH/DSt/C4/2/106 Draft of ground floor Pusey House TM2/162 Images printed with the permission of the Governors of Pusey House. *DDA = Disability Discrimination Act ST CROSS COLLEGE MAGAZINE | 2016 7 MEDIEVAL MANUSCRIPTS THE COLLECTIONS AT OXFORD PROFESSOR EMILIE SAVAGE-SMITH Professor of the History of Islamic Science Archivist and Fellow Fig 4 xford is famous for having some a number of languages, four other specialists early as the ninth century and as recently as of the world’s finest collections of (Samira Sheikh, Peter E. Pormann, Tim Stanley, the seventeenth century, and in localities as O medieval manuscripts preserved and Edward Ullendorff) joined me in preparing far apart as Spain and Central Asia. This was today. While the largest collections are part of the catalogue that was published in 2005 (see published in 2011 as A New Catalogue of Arabic the Bodleian Library, many of Oxford’s colleges Fig. 3). The catalogue was greatly enhanced by Manuscripts in the Bodleian Library, University also have important collections. For example, in of Oxford. Volume I: Medicine. Fig. 4 shows a addition to many Latin or Greek manuscripts, Fig 3 ‘portrait’ of Dioscorides, a Greek authority on St John’s College has 26 oriental manuscripts, medicinal substances, as illustrated in an Arabic encompassing Arabic, Persian, Syriac, Hebrew, translation of his treatise, now in the Bodleian Turkish, Ethiopic and Gujarati items. Most of Library, copied in Baghdad in 1240. these were acquired by St John’s through the donation of Archbishop William Laud (d. 1645), This catalogue of Arabic medical manuscripts founder of the Laudian Chair of Arabic here in is only the third Bodleian catalogue of Arabic Oxford.