FLOREAT DOMUS NEWS AND FEATURES FROM THE BALLIOL COMMUNITY | MAY 2020 Celebrating Balliol women 9 Shark conservation 20 Carvings on Balliol’s buildings 24 Remembering Jasper Griffin 4 Museum performances 32 Alumni working in healthcare 37 Policing in India 40 FLOREAT DOMUS 28 CONTENTS From the Master 1 NEWS HIGHLIGHTS 2 Awards 2 Remembering Jasper Griffin 4 35 Makeover for the Lodge 6 New Finance Bursar 6 Master’s Field: Phase One completed 7 Kitchen news 8 9 Bertrand Faucheux 4 BALLIOL WOMEN: 40 YEARS ON 9 The Next 40 Years 12 Nada A-Nashif re mark able women 14 Shirin Homann Dervorguilla & Daughters 15 Lauren Dolman 20 Portraits of Balliol women 16 BOOKS AND RESEARCH 18 Unlocking the mystery of interlocking shells 18 Derek Moulton The human faces of shark fisheries 20 13 Hollie Booth Bookshelf 22 24 PAST AND PRESENT 24 Carvings on the College buildings 24 John Jones Gandhi at Balliol 26 37 32 Sebastian Raj Pender Oxford’s first DPhil student 27 Barbora Sojkova Balliol College, Oxford OX1 3BJ www.balliol.ox.ac.uk ALUMNI STORIES 28 Copyright © Balliol College, Oxford, 2020 Pick up a camera and go 28 Editor: Anne Askwith (Publications and Web Officer) Isabel Ion and Jasmine Dellal Editorial Adviser: Nicola Trott (Senior Tutor) Design and printing: Ciconi Ltd Law enforcement in the world’s largest democracy 30 Harssh A Poddar We are enormously grateful to everyone who has contributed If it’s Thursday I must be Brunel … 32 to this magazine by writing an article, agreeing to be Andrew Ashmore interviewed, providing photographs or information, or Data as art 35 otherwise assisting the Editor. We are always pleased to Josh Harlan receive feedback, and suggestions for articles: please send The literary life 36 these to the Editor by email to [email protected] Peter Buckman or at the address above. 37 Working in healthcare Front cover photo: Balliol alumnae at the ‘Balliol Women: Special feature by alumni 40 Years On’ celebration weekend (see page 9). Photograph by Carol Higgins. DEVELOPMENT NEWS 44 FROM THE MASTER FROM From the Master Dame Helen Ghosh DCB As I write this in April, I have of instructions about speaking in Latin, course no idea what the situation will attending chapel and praying for the be with the Covid-19 pandemic by immortal souls of the founders (which the time you read it. Let us hope that HigginsCarol we still do from time to time), she laid you and your families are all fit and down rules about equality and respect well, that the NHS and public services for difference within the community. have emerged with their reputations She ‘desired that the richer members of burnished and futures secured, and that the community live temperately so that the economy is showing a few of those the poorer are not burdened by heavy fabled ‘green shoots’. But whatever expenses’, and she set up a generous the outcome, there is no doubt that system of grants for hardship that these past months have been intensely we still honour today, thanks to the challenging for all of us. generosity of generations of alumni. In a college such as ours, it is Most strikingly, she provides that if any reassuring to take the long view. John of the richer scholars ‘taunt the poorer Jones, the College historian, reminds us scholars by word or sign, the [Fellows] that the College has faced pandemics shall expel any such person or persons before. The Balliol Statutes of 1507 had forthwith, without hope of return’. provision for corporate migration not Others who set the Balliol tone more than 12 miles from Oxford in in more recent times include Jowett, times of plague. One of the College’s Urquhart, Toynbee, Lindsay, and farms near Woodstock was the usual The Master speaking at ‘Balliol Christopher Hill (I omit the living!). destination, a clause in the farmer’s Women: 40 Years On’ (see page 9) Another was Jasper Griffin, whose lease requiring him to accommodate funeral we held in the College Chapel the College (Master, Fellows and in December. As you can see from Scholars, of whom there were probably have been unable to leave. Fellows the tributes on pages 4–5, Jasper’s about 20) at such times. At least one and students have had to rise to the scholarship, wit, brio and total devotion College Meeting was held at Woodstock technological and cultural challenge of to the College made him an icon for in 1564. In 1604, when there was plague preparing to move to virtual tutorials, many alumni and colleagues. As Oswyn in both London and Oxford, and lectures and examinations. This has Murray writes, ‘Jasper was the spirit James I had retreated to his Woodstock inevitably created uncertainty and of Balliol.’ And I like to think that his Manor, College members in Woodstock anxiety, particularly for Finalists, influence lives on in our respect for were confined to their house in case to whom we are providing all the scholarship, and what I might describe they carried infection to the Court. support we can. And of course all sorts as our lightness of heart. Social distancing, 17th-century style. of virtual communities sprang up to But while the Balliol ethos is a In March, the Fellows and I did help. Those of us more technologically longstanding one, any institution, any not decamp to Woodstock, but we did challenged have had to catch up fast. living organism, only survives if it can mark a first in our history by holding For all of us, these last six months adapt. We have seen that with the NHS; a meeting of Governing Body via have inevitably sent a powerful we see it in Derek Moulton’s account of teleconference. I checked first in the message about the importance of studying the way molluscs build their College Statutes (a revised set, recently community. And we’ve been reminded shells (page 18). And we see it in the approved by HM The Queen) that that a community is created by more history of our College. The admission there was no stipulation for a physical than just physical proximity – by a of female students to Balliol is but one gathering. That was a relief, given that common ethos, a sense of standing for of many examples – an adaptation that all our meetings in Trinity Term will something in particular. we celebrated last September when the have to be held in the same way. Many people in Balliol’s history Daughters of Dervorguilla came back The great joy of life in College, for created our ethos in their time. to mark the 40th anniversary of the which there is no substitute, is having Reading the statutes Dervorguilla admission of female undergraduates our talented, inventive, energetic gave the College in 1282 (to which (pages 9–13). students with us. Our sites have the recently revised version is the It has been an extraordinary year, seemed very empty since the end successor), one sees that she was but I believe that it is one from which of Hilary Term, having in residence already setting the tone for the we can learn and grow and that, in only a small number of students who College we were to become. Among doing so, we will continue to flourish. FLOREAT DOMUS MAY 2020 1 Awards NEWS HIGHLIGHTS Other honours Resignation Honours 2019 Sudhir Hazareesingh (1981, Fellow Cressida Dick CBE QPM (1979 and Honorary Fellow), Commissioner of the and Tutor in Politics) was appointed Metropolitan Police Service: Dame of the British Empire (DBE) for public service. a Grand Commander of the Order of the Star and Key of the Indian Ocean (GCSK) on the occasion of the National Day Celebrations 2020 in Mauritius. New Year Honours 2020 Robyn Williams (Visiting Fellow Keith Thomas FBA (1952 and Tamara Isaacs 1995–1996) was appointed an Officer Honorary Fellow): Member of (Finkelstein) of the Order of Australia (AO) in the the Order of the Companions of (1986), lately Australia Day honours. Honour (CH), for services to the Director General, HigginsCarol study of history. Department for Environment, Senior Members Food and Rural Affairs: Companion of the Order of the Bath (CB), for public service. Carol HigginsCarol Simon Stevens (1984 and Honorary Fellow), Chief Executive of the National Health Service: Knight Bachelor, for services to health and the NHS in England. Lindy Cameron (1991), lately Director Lord Reed (1978 and Visitor) took up Peter Freeman General, Country Programmes, his position as President of the (1974), co-founder Department for International Supreme Court of the United Kingdom of development Development: Companion of the in January 2020, having served as company Argent: Order of the Bath (CB), for services Deputy President since June 2019. The Commander of to international development. Queen also conferred on him a peerage the Order of the of the United Kingdom for Life, in British Empire Clara Swinson (1993), Director recognition of the contribution that he (CBE), for services General, Global and Public Health, has made to law and justice reform. to housing and Department of Health and Social communities. Care: Companion of the Order James Belich (Beit Professor of of the Bath (CB), for services to Commonwealth and Imperial Charles Tannock healthcare policy. History, and Professorial Fellow) was (1976), lately awarded an honorary degree by Te Member of the Clive Richards Herenga Waka–Victoria University of European (friend of Balliol), Wellington, New Zealand. ‘Professor Parliament for philanthropist: Belich is an outstanding scholar London: Member Commander of Artistkarl.com of history,’ said the university’s of the Order of the Order of the Chancellor.