2016 TRINITY COLLEGE cambridge trinity college cambridge annual record annual record 2016 Trinity College Cambridge Annual Record 2015–2016 Trinity College Cambridge CB2 1TQ Telephone: 01223 338400 e-mail: [email protected] website: www.trin.cam.ac.uk Contents 5 Editorial 11 Commemoration 12 Chapel Address 15 The Health of the College 18 The Master’s Response on Behalf of the College 25 Alumni Relations & Development 26 Alumni Relations and Associations 37 Dining Privileges 38 Annual Gatherings 39 Alumni Achievements CONTENTS 44 Donations to the College Library 47 College Activities 48 First & Third Trinity Boat Club 53 Field Clubs 71 Students’ Union and Societies 80 College Choir 83 Features 84 Hermes 86 Inside a Pirate’s Cookbook 93 “… Through a Glass Darkly…” 102 Robert Smith, John Harrison, and a College Clock 109 ‘We need to talk about Erskine’ 117 My time as advisor to the BBC’s War and Peace TRINITY ANNUAL RECORD 2016 | 3 123 Fellows, Staff, and Students 124 The Master and Fellows 139 Appointments and Distinctions 141 In Memoriam 155 A Ninetieth Birthday Speech 158 An Eightieth Birthday Speech 167 College Notes 181 The Register 182 In Memoriam 186 Addresses wanted CONTENTS TRINITY ANNUAL RECORD 2016 | 4 Editorial It is with some trepidation that I step into Boyd Hilton’s shoes and take on the editorship of this journal. He managed the transition to ‘glossy’ with flair and panache. As historian of the College and sometime holder of many of its working offices, he also brought a knowledge of its past and an understanding of its mysteries that I am unable to match. However, I can promise that your new editor will not want for enthusiasm and will do his best to offer you something which, in defiance of Monty Python, is not completely different. Unfortunately, his first task this year is to convey sad tidings. Last year, the College lost Sir John Bradfield who played such a large part in raising its fortunes across the second half of the twentieth century. Several memorials to Sir John have now EDITORIAL been established. At Darwin College, of which he was a founding patron, ground has been broken to build John Bradfield Court. At the Cambridge Science Park, which he helped to create, there will be a Sir John Bradfield Innovation Centre. In addition, there is a Sir John Bradfield Bursary Fund. However, this year, we have lost no fewer than three of Sir John’s close colleagues during his long years of service. Richard Glauert, first elected in 1951, was Junior Bursar for thirty-six years between 1957 and 1993: running the College’s domestic operation and responsible for new buildings from Blue Boar Court to Burrell’s Field. Ian Cassels was Trinity’s senior Fellow, having been first elected in 1949, and a pillar of its outstanding maths establishment. Gareth Jones (1961) held every major office from steward to Vice-Master and was Acting Master for three months during the interregnum between Sir Michael Atiyah and Amartya Sen. In aggregate, the three of them held Trinity fellowships for 184 years. Their contribution to the College was immense and it is beyond cliché to say that their passing marks the end of an era. Whether the present era will enjoy similar prosperity and distinction remains to be seen, but the signs are promising. Trinity finished top of the Tompkins Table TRINITY ANNUAL RECORD 2016 | 5 in 2016 (yet again) with the best Tripos results in the University. Over 45% of our undergraduates gained first-class degrees. I have to say, however, that this is the last time when I shall be able to re-tell this familiar story. From next year, the University will cease to publish degree classification lists, making inter-collegiate comparisons well-nigh impossible. The official reason given is the need to protect privacy and to ease the anxiety that students feel at having evaluations of them broadcast to the world. However, cynics will suspect that the other colleges voted in favour of the change out of pique at being outclassed on so regular a basis. It has been a good year, too, for awards and honours recognising the achievements of our Fellows. At the top of the list must sit Nobel Laureate Venki Ramakrishnan as President of the Royal Society. Our mathematicians have continued to be showered with medals and prizes from learned societies around the world: some now have more ‘gongs’ than Lord Kitchener. Our scientists and humanists have earned honorary degrees and won external fellowships and large funding resources. Amidst so much collective distinction, it is hard to pick out particular individuals. However, one award will be widely seen as especially gratifying. Physics Professor Val Gibson has received the Athena Prize of the Royal Society for her contribution to diversity. She has given priority to overcoming the notorious ‘gender gap’ in the sciences both in her own department and in the College. She has helped to set up a summer school in the STEM subjects EDITORIAL for women at the College, which will now become an annual feature. Trinity’s emphasis on science and mathematics has been responsible in the past for a significant gender imbalance in relation to most other colleges. In the fullness of time, this too should pass into history. It is now forty years since the College first admitted women Fellows and thirty-eight since female students followed them. Progress has been slow – unconscionably so in the opinion of many – but the last year has brought a notable breakthrough. Professor Catherine Barnard has become Trinity’s first woman Senior Tutor and Professor Sachiko Kusukawa its first woman (lay) Dean. Finally, the College may be approaching the condition known elsewhere as civilization. Next year, we shall make the celebration of our female members the core theme of our new edition. This year, however, they have already made an impact on our sense of collegiate image. As visitors to Hall last Michaelmas will have noticed, the celebrated TRINITY ANNUAL RECORD 2016 | 6 Holbein portrait of Henry VIII hanging over the dais was missing: in fact, moved to the Fitzwilliam Museum for an exhibition (and protection from builders then working in the rafters). It was replaced pro tem. by the portrait of Elizabeth I taken from the Master’s Lodge. However, the shift gave rise to a debate about whether we wished the usual picture most prominently displayed in our most public space to project an image of the College quite so masculine, not to say masculist. By repute, Henry persuaded the painter to ‘sex up’ the original portrait, turning him full-face (and other things) on to the viewer to convey an impression of testosterone-driven power. Would it not be more fitting in our present age to keep ‘Gloriana’ on site and consign Henry back to the darker recesses of the Master’s Lodge ? The question raised great passions among the Fellowship. In the end, it was decided that, whatever the gender issue, Elizabeth could not stay in place of our founding patron for the most important of reasons: she had never given the College a brass farthing. If a female Tudor were to replace Henry, it would have to be his other daughter Mary Tudor, a small portrait of whom also hangs in the Hall. Her generosity to Trinity was considerable. However and of course, Mary Tudor is better known as ‘Bloody Mary’ who lit the fires under English Protestantism in a rather literal way. Would the College wish to be identified EDITORIAL with someone commonly seen as a psychopath (as opposed to her father who may have been a psychopath but on whom history’s judgement has been more complex)? Her elevation to the role of College icon would certainly give a novel twist to Trinity’s celebrations of Bonfire Night. But, eventually, sleeping dogs were left to lie and Henry returned to his place above the dais. However, the episode served a valuable lesson in pointing to the significance of image – and how Trinity’s image may not be very welcoming for large sections of its membership today. In response, it has been decided to commission more portraits and/or drawings of leading women and ‘minority’ Fellows and alumnae and spread them around the College, if not in Hall, to replace those of heavily-bearded Victorian worthies whose achievements have now faded from memory. In time, the ethos of the College may become a little less like that of an old-fashioned gentleman’s club. The question of image, too, was raised in another way during the year. In his last editorial, my esteemed predecessor pondered: “Trinity’s almost complete non-participation in the outpouring of satire, showbiz, and footlightery that TRINITY ANNUAL RECORD 2016 | 7 emblematized Cambridge undergraduates in the national mind during the second half of the twentieth century”. He contrasted this with Trinity’s very active participation in politics over this period including eight members who went on to serve in Mrs Thatcher’s cabinets. His point, however, brought reproof from Jack Thompson who remembered the time in the 1950s, at the start of that half-century, when the Trinity Revue had been a highlight of the undergraduate calendar and Trinity members had participated in the Cambridge Footlights as well as shows staged elsewhere, including the Edinburgh Festival. Several of those shows were recorded on vinyl and particularly prominent thespians, besides Jack himself, were the brothers Julian and Adrian Slade: the former distinguished for writing the long-running musical Salad Days; and the latter for introducing Peter Cook to the Footlights, of which he was president at the time.