2017 Magdalen College Record
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Magdalen College Record Magdalen College Record 2017 2017 Conference Facilities at Magdalen¢ We are delighted that many members come back to Magdalen for their wedding (exclusive to members), celebration dinner or to hold a conference. We play host to associations and organizations as well as commercial conferences, whilst also accommodating summer schools. The Grove Auditorium seats 160 and has full (HD) projection fa- cilities, and events are supported by our audio-visual technician. We also cater for a similar number in Hall for meals and special banquets. The New Room is available throughout the year for private dining for The cover photograph a minimum of 20, and maximum of 44. was taken by Marcin Sliwa Catherine Hughes or Penny Johnson would be pleased to discuss your requirements, available dates and charges. Please contact the Conference and Accommodation Office at [email protected] Further information is also available at www.magd.ox.ac.uk/conferences For general enquiries on Alumni Events, please contact the Devel- opment Office at [email protected] Magdalen College Record 2017 he Magdalen College Record is published annually, and is circu- Tlated to all members of the College, past and present. If your contact details have changed, please let us know either by writ- ing to the Development Office, Magdalen College, Oxford, OX1 4AU, or by emailing [email protected] General correspondence concerning the Record should be sent to the Editor, Magdalen College Record, Magdalen College, Ox- ford, OX1 4AU, or, preferably, by email to [email protected]. The editor would like to thank the many who worked on the Record this year, particularly the authors who contributed previ- ously unpublished pieces, as well as all those who submitted re- ports, notices, and obituaries. Thanks are also due to Oxuniprint for printing and binding this edition, and entrants to the annual photography competition for supplying many of the illustrations. This volume is designed and prepared for production with enormous efficiency and flair by our new managing editor, Rachel Mehtar, with helpful advice from our previous managing editor, Carolyn Tucker. The editor is deeply indebted to both, and also to our eagle-eyed copy-editor, Polly Dyne Steel. An online version of the Record is available from the College web- site (last year’s issue is at http://www.magd.ox.ac.uk/alumni-friends/ publications/ We ask any reader who would be content with an on- line version, and thus not require a printed copy, to let us know by emailing [email protected] ii Contents¢ 1 The Year in Review 3 From the President 8 The Chapel 16 The Choir 21 Libraries, Archives, and Conservation 41 Home Bursar’s Report 43 Chattels Report 48 Development and Alumni Relations Report 52 The Junior Common Room 57 The Middle Common Room 61 College Views 62 The Perrot Oration by Edward McBarnet 66 The Selig Poetry Prize: Vox by Alexander Norman 75 Magdalen in the Post-War Years 1945–57 by Peter Fullerton 87 How English Became English by Simon Horobin 92 Dink Horsfall by Jane Anthony 100 Letters from the Fronts: President Warren’s War Correspondence by Ben Taylor 108 The Court of Arbitration for Sport by Michael Beloff QC iii 114 The Wolsey Manuscripts by Daryl Green 119 Senior Common Room by Robert Langley Colour Section 123 College Notes 124 College Officers 125 Fellowship Elections 128 Visiting Fellows 130 News of the Fellows 144 News of the College Staff 148 Academic Record 149 Examination Results 154 Degrees by Thesis 157 College Prizes and Demyships 162 University and College Prizes and Scholarships 166 Sports and Societies 167 College Sports 177 Blues 179 College Societies 183 Members’ News 227 Obituaries 228 In Memoriam 233 Brian Bellhouse 236 (Patrick) Angus Campbell iv 237 Rupert Cornwell 239 John McColl Forrester 241 Anthony Eric Goodman 242 Jerome Hafter 243 Robert Hardy 247 Roger Highfield 248 Richard Lines 249 Alexander John McMurrough Cavenagh 251 Wendy Jayne Millington 253 Molly Rose 254 John Stoye 256 Adam Turnbull 259 Benefactors 31 July 2016−30 June 2017 280 Forthcoming Events 281 Photography Credits v The Year in Review From the President ver recent years financial arrangements for students have become an increasingly urgent and anxious issue. O As they try to decide whether – and where – to go to university today’s prospective students are confronted by serious and worrying concerns. As members of Magdalen will know, the days when tuition fees were paid by County Hall and many students even received a grant for living expenses are long gone. Things these days are different indeed. The undergraduate tuition fee of £1,000 first introduced in the UK in 1998 was increased in England to £3,000 in 2006, and then after much debate, rose to £9,000 in 2012. A system of student loans was introduced to cover the tuition fees and also help with maintenance costs. This means that a typical student studying at Oxford or elsewhere can now graduate owing well over £50,000. The loan gathers interest and has to be paid back after the individual starts earning over a specified threshold. A daunting prospect for a person in the early stages of a career for which they have already worked very hard. The financial situation for graduate students has also become more challenging. The number of fully-funded grants for research degrees has been diminishing, especially in the humanities, and financial support for Masters courses has become rare. In addition, many of the DPhil courses in the University of Oxford now involve an initial year of lectures, and can extend to a total of four years. Such courses are taken by outstanding students who are likely already to have accrued substantial debt as undergraduates. For all these reasons student finance is of major concern to the College. A significant way to help those of our students need- ing financial support is through the Student Support Fund. This substantial endowment has been built up through the remarkable generosity of the members of the College. The Fund is now worth over £14.5m and has increased by more than half its value in the last three years alone. It is thought to be one of the largest such funds in the colleges of Oxford and Cambridge. 3 Magdalen College Record Magdalen has a detailed process for deciding which students should be awarded grants from the Student Support Fund. Our Senior and Junior Deans of Arts interview the undergraduates who apply, while our Tutor for Graduates interviews the graduates. These College Officers make recommendations on which students would benefit most from financial support and at what level. On the basis of their reports our Student Support Fund Committee then decides on the grants to make. I chair this Committee, which meets once a term and includes two alumni as members. Close to 100 of our students have been receiving support from the Fund each year with a typical grant being around £1000. Students re- ceiving support write their thanks to the donors, and many mem- bers have told me that they very much appreciate receiving these letters. We have also been putting considerable effort in recent years into raising funds for scholarships for graduate students. In several cases we now have endowments that fully cover the costs of a graduate degree. These include the Iris and Leon Beghian Graduate Scholarships, the Hong Kong Scholarship, the Calleva Centre Graduate Scholarships and the Oxford Bellhouse Graduate Scholarship in Biomedical Engineering. All these scholarships have come from very generous donations or legacies received by the College in the last few years. In relation to the Bellhouse Scholarship, I would like to say here how very sorry we were to hear the news that our former Tutorial Fellow in Engineering Brian Bellhouse has passed away after 60 years’ unbroken association with the College, first as a student and then as a Fellow: there is of course a full obituary further on in this Record. Our determined aim is to build up our endowment for stu- dent support so that no prospective undergraduate or graduate student offered a place at Magdalen feels obliged to turn down the opportunity for financial reasons. There is also the widely-held impression, which is incorrect, that Oxford University is particu- larly expensive compared to other universities and this can put off promising students from applying to Magdalen. Accordingly, we are also working hard, particularly through our Outreach 4 From the President Officer and Access Fellow, to advertise our ability and willingness to provide significant financial support, especially to students from schools and colleges who rarely send students to Oxford. For those graduate students whose research has gone particularly well and who wish to pursue an academic career the next step is often a Junior Research Fellowship (JRF). Thanks to a very generous donation we have recently managed to double the number of JRFs we offer each year from two to four. These three- year research posts are highly prestigious and competitive. We receive close to 500 applications a year for these four places, in almost any field of research. The selection process is scrupulous, involving almost the whole Governing Body Fellowship. The large number of applications is reduced by designated subject tutors to a long-list of about 40 whose research writings are sent to two international experts for detailed reports. On the basis of these reports about eight applicants are shortlisted for interview by the members of our Fellowship Committee who question candidates on their current and future research. That Committee then makes a recommendation of four Fellows for election by the Governing Body.