Univ Record 2020
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University College Record October 2020 Photograph John Cairns by BARONESS AMOS, SIR IVOR AND LADY CREWE JULY 2020 CONTENTS Editor’s Notes 3 From the Librarian 44 Master’s Notes 4 From the Director of Music 47 The Governing Body 7 From the Development Director 50 Fellows and Staff 7 The Chalet 53 Honorary Fellows 13 Junior Common Room 54 Foundation Fellows 14 Weir Common Room 55 Newly Elected Fellows 15 Obituaries 56 The Senior Common Room 2019-2020 16 Emeritus Fellows 56 Fellows’ News 18 Former Lecturers 59 A tribute to Sir Ivor and Lady Crewe 26 Old Members 59 Leaving Fellows and Staff 28 Univ Lost List 90 Welcome to Baroness Amos 28 Univ Benefactors 2019-2020 99 Academic Results, Awards The 1249 Society 99 and Achievements 29 Major Benefactors 101 Academic Results and Distinctions 29 Principal Benefactors 103 University Prizes and Other Awards 33 The William of Durham Club 103 Scholarships and Exhibitions 36 Roll of Donors 106 Travel Scholarships 38 College Information 115 2019-2020 in Review 39 Degree Ceremonies 115 From the Finance Bursar 39 College Contact Details 116 From the Domestic Bursar 41 From the Chaplain 43 2 University College Record | October 2020 EDITOR’S NOTES Inside this issue of the University College Record, you will find a factual account of the year – Fellows’ news, academic results, College reports and news of departing Fellows and staff. Obituaries for members of the Univ community who we have sadly lost in the last twelve months are also included in this edition. I would like to thank the families and friends of those mentioned for kindly supplying obituaries and photographs. I would also like to thank my colleague Dr Robin Darwall-Smith, College Archivist, for his usual assiduousness in compiling the obituaries, and for his support. Where news did not reach us in time for this year’s edition, we will ensure that those people are included in the 2021 Record. If you know of anyone who should be included – or would like to contribute an obituary or short tribute – please do not hesitate to contact Dr Darwall-Smith or myself. I am grateful to all those who contributed to this issue, in particular: Dr Ian Boutle, Sally Stubbs, Joanna Cooper and Louise Watson, for their assistance in compiling the lists of Governing Body and Fellows, academic results and travel scholarships; Rob Moss, for compiling the Lost List and List of Benefactors; and Justin Bowyer, Ariane Laurent-Smith and Carys Dally for their proofreading prowess. If you have any comments about this issue, please do not hesitate to contact me. SARA DEWSBERY Communications Officer [email protected] University College Record | October 2020 3 MASTER’S NOTES In March of this year a virus, alien Welfare Fellow, and Domestic and invisible, originating 6,000 Bursar) led the transition to a miles away, succeeded in closing fully functioning online college. the College down for the first time Tutorials, revision classes, Master’s in its 770-year history. The medieval collections – all continued. Governing plagues, civil war and two world wars Body and the College committees met, ravaged the lives of the college community deliberated and conducted College business. incomparably more, but did not force Univ to The University swiftly and rightly decided to lock its doors. The epidemic’s scale and danger organise online, un-invigilated “open-book” Finals stole upon us with frightening speed; within a examinations. It offered students the choice of fortnight the College moved from assuming taking Finals or accepting an unclassified “Degree that, with a few sensible precautions, life would Deserving of Honours” (equivalent to aegrotat); continue more or less as normal, to entering into the overwhelming majority chose the former. full lockdown. Steadily and unnervingly, the lights Despite the dispersal of us all to home went permanently out in the Hall, the kitchens, confinement, we did our best to sustain the the library, the Chapel and the student rooms. College as a community, to keep in touch and The few students who could not return home look after each other, albeit remotely. Fellows were re-housed on Merton Street or up in kept in frequent and regular touch with their “Stavs”, living as Oxford residents rather than tutees; the Chapel Choir continued to rehearse; Univ students. Only a couple of porters were left Choral Evensong was broadcast on the website in place alongside the Master and his wife who every Sunday evening; and the JCR and WCR presided over a ghost college from the comfort of played their part. their spacious Lodgings, and the Master’s Garden In turn Univ made what contribution it as their exercise yard during home detention. could to alleviate the national crisis in its many The prohibition on returning to College for forms. The College website’s “Univ and the the Trinity Term was particularly disappointing Coronavirus” vividly describes the role played by for our Finalists. For them the last term is very our medics. In recent years Univ has significantly special, a time when they share with their close expanded its supernumerary fellowship of senior Univ friends the frisson of Finals, the celebrations researchers in the biomedical sciences and in and good-byes. The College could only promise tandem its intake of doctoral students in the to give them a terrific party when they returned same fields, in line with the University’s huge in 2021 to collect their degrees at graduation. expansion in medicine and allied subjects. The Lockdown did not mean close down. The College could not hide its pride at the thought physical stillness and quiet of the College belied of so many Univ Fellows and graduates working frenetic efforts over the Easter vacation to in the labs and hospitals on the multi-dimensional ensure that the College could operate its “core challenge of understanding the COVID-19 virus business” in Trinity Term. A crisis team of Andrew and of containing its impact. But they represent a Bell, Andrew Gregory and Angela Unsworth small proportion of our Old Members, whether (respectively the Senior Tutor, Chaplain and clinicians, hospital managers or researchers, who 4 University College Record | October 2020 across the world worked tirelessly throughout juggle their more demanding tutorial duties with the early months of the pandemic to bring it home schooling or care of elderly parents; by under control, and to whom I wrote in support the end of term, everyone was tired, and the and gratitude on behalf of the College. prospect of examination marking was only The College also helped in a modest way to marginally relieved by the cancellation of prelims alleviate some of the resulting local emergencies. and the knowledge that Finals scripts would be Our student clinicians suspended their studies to delivered for the first time in digital form, not volunteer in the John Radcliffe Hospital, supporting indecipherable scrawl. Most Fellows, other than hard-pressed staff. We handed over one of the those working in the small number of labs kept vacated buildings on our newly acquired north open for COVID-related work, had to reconcile Oxford site to the local council to accommodate themselves to the suspension of their research, the homeless and we opened the kitchen for the experiments and writing for much of the long College Chef and his team to prepare takeaway vacation, partly because facilities were closed meals for local charities to deliver to the elderly and partly because of the longer time needed and vulnerable. for student welfare and for preparation of The epidemic and shutdown have wreaked teaching in the new academic year. financial damage everywhere, and Univ was not The pandemic disrupted College life but immune. We lost about 15 per cent of our annual without damage to its long-term plans, which income through unpaid rent by our commercial progressed a little more slowly but without tenants, the cancellation of the American summer stalling or changing direction. This was noticeably schools, and the waiving of student rents in Trinity the case for the most ambitious of Univ’s projects, Term. There will probably be a similar dent in next the development of Univ North. My hope at the year’s takings. Fortunately, the College was in a start of the year was to bequeath to Valerie Amos, position to guarantee the jobs of all our support my successor as Master, planning permission staff on full pay, even though some were confined for the development to proceed and sufficient to home without College work to do during external funding for construction to start in 2021. the lockdown. Our hardship funds too were Planning consent came through in July, a major sufficient to help students who found themselves achievement for such a large development in in difficulty as a result of the pandemic. College the midst of a conservation area closely guarded finances are robust; we have been bruised, but by well-organised and articulate residents. not scarred for life. The credit goes to Andrew Grant, our Finance The Univ community was resilient too. Bursar, and his team of professional advisers, Fellows and students alike adapted well to online who paid meticulous attention to the manifold tutorials, and the online examinations produced requirements of a successful planning application. surprisingly few hiccups or complaints. But it As for capital, the year set a new College took longer for tutors to prepare for teaching record for fund-raising. We came close to reaching on a video platform than in their College study, what was always a stretching target, and believe and a full day spent in front of a laptop screen that the autumn campaign will plug the remaining was enervating for most.