CLARE ASSOCIATION ANNUAL 2011-12 ANNUAL CLARE ASSOCIATION CLARE ASSOCIATION ANNUAL 2011 - 12 THE CLARE ASSOCIATION ANNUAL 2011 - 2012 CONTENTS Page EDITORIAL 3 Mr DON HOLISTER A tribute by K.F.Riley 6 Lord WEDDERBURN of CHARLTON Obituary 11 COLLEGE NEWS 14 MASTER & FELLOWS A formal listing 29 BENEFACTIONS & GIFTS 35 RODNEY SHIRLEY AT CLARE (1948-1951) A reminiscence 48 A STUDENTSHIP IN CHINA by Jonathan Foxwell (2009) 52 THE PORTRAITS IN THE COMBINATION ROOM by Peter Knewstubb (1950) 54 THE MASTER’S MESSAGE 68 THE CLARE ASSOCIATION Report from the Alumni Council 70 The Lady Clare Fund 71 “OLD CLARE” NEWS 73 OBITUARIES 86 NOTICES 108 Send contributions for the next Annual to [email protected] or to The Editor of the Annual, Clare College, Cambridge, CB2 1TL 1 ILLUSTRATIONS Page Illus 1 The new silver ewer and basin 4 Illus 2 Mr F.D. (Don) Holister 5 Illus 3 Lord Wedderburn of Charlton, QC, FBA 12 Illus 4a At Dr Gordon Wright’s wedding; signing the register 4b ditto ; progressing to the reception 13 Illus 5a Dr Maciej Dunajski receives an honour in Poland 5b Michael Nunn, pictured about 1992 16 Illus 6 Images of the Combination Room Portraits William Butler, Isaac Bargrave, Nicholas Ferrar, John Moore 43 Illus 7 more Combination Room Portraits William Whiston, young and older Martin Folkes, Thomas Woodroofe 44 Illus 8a Combination Room Portrait: William Loudon Mollison 8b Rodney Shirley in his study at home 45 Illus 9a The Great Wall at Mutianyu 9b City walls at Pingyao 46 Illus 10a View from the South Peak of Hua Shan 10b Tsinghua University campus 47 Acknowledgements: Illus 1 by Peter Allinson Illus 5a source unknown Illus 6,7,8a by Mr Douglas Atfield, copyright to Clare College Illus 8b by Rodney Shirley Illus 9,10 by Jonathan Foxwell Other illustrations by the Editor, including the outside cover. 2 EDITORIAL I assemble this, my 17th issue of the Clare Association Annual, with the hope that this year we can avoid the arrangement of a subscription payment for a printed copy. I am told the funding for such purposes is in better shape than two years ago, and the printed version may, besides being free, also have some coloured illustrations again. During the year, one Fellow, Don Holister, has died and is remembered in a memorial tribute. In College News there is information on seven new Fellows, so the total number has risen again. Something similar is true of the Honorary Fellows, where we have lost one by the death of Lord Wedderburn, and we note the election of four new Honorary Fellows. There is updated information in the Benefactions and Gifts section. A very interesting reminiscence is contributed by Rodney Shirley (1948), which will strike chords with alumni of that era, who are still quite numerous. A contrast is offered by the very recent memories of Jonathan Foxwell (2009), on a ‘working visit’ to China. You may marvel at some of his pictures, and probably you will wish we had room for more. Alumni and students have occasional chances to visit the Fellows’ Combination Room on H staircase. I offer biographical details about each of the eight alumni portrayed. They are an interesting group, each with a different character. I find Nicholas Ferrar the most interesting, with a story which could be the basis of a historical novel, or even a stage play or opera! Perhaps this arises from the extreme diligence with which Mansfield Forbes wrote about him. In my extract, his text is severely compressed. It seems to be an unavoidable trend that the major contribution of alumni news is in death notices: I express my thanks for families and friends who offer draft obituaries. But I am still available, and 3 most pleased, to get other news of alumni progress and successes, or just ‘how things are now’ (can be more than 140 characters!). I think it is true to say that there have been no prominent changes in the Fellows’ garden or in the layout of the College. Careful maintenance is constant, but often inconspicuous. There has been work at the Colony site, completing major landscaping of the space in front of Castlebrae. The plans for this were drawn up by the Chelsea Show gold medallist, Robert Myers. A feature of this is the banning of car parking in front of the original mansion, giving space for ornamental planting which is expected to offer greater amenity, once it is established. Alumni attending reunion dinners are likely to see a new piece of silver, a ewer and basin (see below), which is generally admired for its style and originality. The funding for this was through a trading-in of heavy Victorian silver, purchased in the 19th century by the College, but which was no longer in use or needed. P.F.K. e-mail address [email protected] 4 Illus 2 Mr F.D. (Don) Holister 5 FREDERICK DARNTON HOLISTER A Tribute for Don Holister at his Memorial Service, 12th November 2012 I think that I can fairly claim to have known Don Holister for all of the time that he was a Fellow at Clare, as I was just one place above him in the College’s Order of Seniority – a ranking that seems to have no particular purpose. Well, that isn’t strictly true. It is a measure of how dangerously close one is to being appointed as an Oley Trustee; and having to decide whether or not the Vicar of Gransden should have a winter fuel allowance. ******************* We were both admitted as Fellows just over fifty years ago and during most of that time, Don Holister was, in practice, Clare’s Architect in Residence. He was also the College’s first Domestic Bursar, a role in which he served for much of the same period. Under both Brian Cooper and Brian Smale-Adams, he kept the College ‘estate’ in good order. He also left his mark, if not his signature, on so much of the fabric of the College; in the architectural designs he drew up and then saw through to fruition; and, on those occasions on which the College did employ an outside architect, in the input he supplied to make sure that the end product was one that suited Clare’s needs. Let me select one or two examples from the many available. (1) When Clare decided to go mixed, with the first admission of female junior members in 1972, many Fellows used to say, rather flippantly, that, in terms of infrastructure, all the Domestic Bursar had to do was to install a few long mirrors. Of course, this was done to try to emphasise just how easily a progressive College like Clare could take such a major step in its stride. The reality wasn’t quite so simple. In order to avoid cutting the number of male freshers too drastically, the decision was also made to increase the 6 overall annual intake; with the additional thirty or so rooms that would be needed being fashioned in the roof spaces of some staircases in Memorial Court. The conversions that Don and the outside architects together devised proved so attractive and popular, that, when it came to the second- and third-year rooms ballot, after the Old Court rooms had gone these were the next to be taken. (2) Much the same can be said about the time when Clare and the other Cambridge Colleges were forced to go seriously into the conference trade by a Treasury that assumed that we already had, and reduced the University’s block grant accordingly. In order to get that trade, most of Clare’s Memorial Court rooms had to be made en-suite, and, although some of us didn’t care much for the vertical radiators, the successful conversion owed much to Don’s eye for detail and his devotion to the task. (3) As a further example of Don’s permanent contribution to the structure of the College, I should mention Clare Bridge. Well, No, he didn’t either design or build it – he was older than many people imagined, but not quite that old! I like to think that, as my one and only contribution to the College’s more permanent fabric, I persuaded the Finance Committee to pave and cobble the Bridge. Those who have been here for more than about twenty five years will recall that the stretch from the end of the Scholars’ Garden to the Warren Gates used to become a sea of mud, following even the most modest of showers. Well, once it was approved, Don and Dave Parfey, the Clerk of Works, made sure that the paving scheme was properly thought out, and equally properly executed. Probably without realising it, thousands of people each year have reason to be grateful to the pair of them – as cleaning one’s shoes once or twice a day is hardly something to be enjoyed. I might also add that, as was only to be expected from a man with such loyalty to the College, when it became Clare’s turn to nominate a University Proctor, Don answered the call. And Dave Parfey was one of his Bulldogs. 7 Don’s architectural contributions were not limited to Clare’s buildings. When, in the mid-sixties the College decided to found Clare Hall, and so re-establish the name abandoned in 1856, Don was very much in the forefront when it came to drawing up the building specification, and then in proposing Ralph Erskine as the architect to carry it through.