UNIVERSITY COLLEGE RECORD October 2013 October UNIVERSITY COLLEGE RECORD October 2013 Text printed on 100% recycled paper printed by the holywell press limited 01865 242098 www.holywellpress.com UUNI-16216NI-16216 RRecordecord CCoverover 22013.indd013.indd 1 117/09/20137/09/2013 114:044:04 Professor Michael Collins Fellow of University College 1970–2012 (Photograph, University College) THE RECORD Volume XVI Number 3 2013 CONTENTS The Editor’s Notes 1 The Master’s Notes 2 The Governing Body 6 Newly Elected Fellows 13 The Master and Fellows 19 Leaving Fellows and Staff 25 Obituaries: Former Fellows and JRF’s 29 Academic Results and Distinctions 42 Scholarships & Exhibitions 52 From the Chaplain 59 From the Librarian 63 From the Development Director 65 The Chalet 70 The College Ball 74 Junior & Weir Common Rooms 76 College Clubs and Societies 80 Articles: The Photograph Album of Frederick Mills 102 “Whoever thou shalt be who will have read this, pray for me”: Voices from the Past in the Medieval Liturgical Manuscripts belonging to University College, Oxford 111 Norman Dix Remembers 123 Univ. at the Finishing Line; or Scot of the Antarctic 137 The Paralympics Opening Ceremony: a Univ. View 143 Varia 150 Architectural News 162 Obituaries 163 Calendar for Degree Ceremonies 209 Univ. Telephone Numbers 210 EDITOR’S NOTES This year marks the end of an era at Univ., as Professor Michael Collins retires from the post of Dean, a year after he retired as Mathematics Fellow. Michael arrived at Univ. in 1970, and has been a major part of College life ever since. We are very grateful to Michael for all that he has done for us, and wish him a happy retirement. We also, however, have to report with regret on the deaths of three former Fellows, namely David Stout, David Vincent and Ronald Dworkin, and of one of our Honorary Fellows, Sir Patrick Nairne. This year’s articles cover a wide range of subjects: we share with readers the excitement of a newly-acquired Victorian photograph album; our Music Lecturer, Matthew Cheung Salisbury, analyses some of the College’s medieval manuscripts; we have some reminiscences from the late and fondly remembered Norman Dix; and two of our Old Members, Fergus Edwards and Terry Harris, share with us their accounts of running a marathon in the Antarctic, and a participant’s view of the opening ceremony of the Paralympic Games. Readers of the Record will know that they can now choose between reading the Record in hard copy or electronic form. This is an important new departure, and their comments on it will be much appreciated. As ever, many people have helped me in the production of the Record, in particular Verity Pavitt and Kristiana Dahl from the Academic Office, Helene Augar, the College Registrar, Jane Vicat, the Welfare Registrar, and everyone in the Development Office, but the greatest debt as ever is owed to Marion Hawtree, who helps me so much in preparing the text for publication. On more personal matters, the 2013 Record will be my last one as Editor. After nine issues, I have decided that it is time for me to step down. I have much enjoyed the privilege of editing the Record during this time, and am grateful to the many readers who have corresponded with me. I wish the new Editor every success. Robin Darwall-Smith The cover of the Record shows the entrance to Univ. for our Open Day on 27 June 2013 (Photograph: University College Oxford) 1 MASTER’S NOTES The year 2012–13 has been a reminder that Univ. embraces two student communities and that the College must plan for the distinctive needs of its graduates as well as its undergraduates. The older generations of Old Members may remember graduates as a small and exotic tribe corralled in the remote settlements of the Mitchell Building and Stavertonia. Times have changed. The worldwide expansion of higher education has generated a galloping demand for postgraduate qualifications, whether in the form of advanced and specialist knowledge or of research skills. The exponential growth in the total volume of knowledge is part of the explanation; the pursuit of competitive advantage in the labour market another. Applications for graduate places at Oxford now outstrip those for undergraduate places and flood in from across the globe. The University has placed a cap on undergraduate numbers but steadily expanded graduate numbers over the last twenty years and Univ. has marched in step, indeed half a step ahead. At Univ. graduates now make up almost 40 per cent of our student community. The majority are research students undertaking doctorates, many of them in the laboratories, but about a third are reading for advanced degrees based on course work in the humanities and social sciences. Oxford educates its graduates differently from its undergraduates. Their teaching and supervision is organised by the University departments, not the colleges, in classes, seminars and lab groups, not tutorials, although doctoral students are supervised on a one-to-one basis. All graduates also belong to a college, where they live, dine and mix with other graduates in other disciplines, and for most of them it is the college that is the more nurturing home. Only Oxford and Cambridge among the world’s leading universities provide this combination of college home and departmental hub. The needs of our graduates parallel those of undergraduates: personal academic support, academic facilities that befit a world class university, affordable accommodation, financial cover. This year the College, after many months’ deliberation led by the Dean of Graduates, Professor Peter Jezzard, finalised its plans for graduate education at Univ. over the next decade. The overall aim is to make Univ. the Oxford college of preference for the ablest of graduate applicants by 2020. To that end, the College took three critical decisions. The first was to concentrate on quality, not quantity, by keeping the number of graduate places constant and therefore maintaining the current 60:40 balance of undergraduates and graduates. It will admit a critical mass of graduates in a selective set of disciplines where the College is strong rather than spread itself thinly across the full spectrum of disciplines. The second was to build, as funds become available, a graduate campus on an expanded Stavertonia site, if the adjoining Fairfield plot of land is acquired, as now seems probable. And the third was to build up a substantial endowment for the award of full graduate scholarships, sufficient in number to 2 ensure that by the 2020s every Univ. graduate student is fully funded and no applicant offered a place turns us down for lack of money. Our plans received a huge boost in December by the anonymous benefaction from a group of Old Members of £10 million for full graduate scholarships. It was an extraordinary act of generosity, the single largest gift to be bestowed upon the College since John Radcliffe’s bequest for the eponymous Quad almost exactly three hundred years ago, and its equal in farsighted vision. The first four Oxford Radcliffe Scholars, as they are to be called, arrive this October and their number will increase year on year until at least 2018. In addition to the Radcliffe benefaction, the College was delighted to receive endowments from the Swire Family Foundation for graduate scholarships in history and from Mr Paul Chellgren for a graduate scholarship in economics. All of these gifts will secure additional permanent income for scholarships from the University under a ‘matched funding’ scheme established last year. The year was remarkable for demonstrating the depth and scale of Old Members’ support for the College. Only two years ago the College appealed to Old Members who read law, or who entered the legal profession, to help endow a Fellowship in Law, named after Lord Hoffmann, the distinguished Law Lord who was a tutorial fellow at Univ. from 1961 to 1973. Lord Hoffmann submitted to a demanding programme of lectures and meetings with Univ. lawyers in the House of Lords and in Toronto and New York, including a memorable disquisition on public liability arising from the risks of public bathing in Hampstead Ponds. Univ. lawyers from the US and Canada as well as the UK responded with spirit and liberality and the College reached its target of £1.2 million (which secured an additional £800,000 from the University) in August. The first Hoffmann Fellow is Mr Angus Johnston, our senior Fellow in Law, whose special interests are the fields of European, competition and energy law. The College’s campaign for the Hoffmann Fellowship and incipient campaign for graduate scholarships did not deter another record-setting year for the Annual Fund. Both the numbers contributing (fully 35 per cent our OMs) and the total amount donated exceeded all previous years. Alas, we can no longer boast to have the highest participation rate of all Oxbridge colleges, because Exeter nudged ahead of us by one percentage point (although it raised less), and we shall have to be satisfied at least for a year that it was Univ. that inspired Exeter to its herculean efforts. A poignant reminder of the importance of the College to its alumni was revealed by the tragic deaths of Theresa Schlagheck, a graduate student of pharmacology, and two young former students, Acer Nethercott, the Oxford cox and Olympic rower, and James Townley, who was serving in Afghanistan. The Record carries tributes to three exceptionally fine young people cut down before their prime. Large numbers of Univ. contemporaries were present at the moving memorial events held in Oxford, eloquent testimony to the enduring bonds forged in College.