Pembroke College Record 2006 - 2007 Contents Master's Notes 3 Feature Article: The World of James Smithson by Heather Ewing 6 Feature Article: A Pembroke Launch for Smithson 10 Master and Fellows 2006-7 11 Welcomes and Farewells in the Pembroke Community 14 New Professorships Amongst Pembroke Fellows 22 Fellows' Publications 2006-7 23 University and Other Distinctions 35 College Societies 39 JCR 39 MCR 40 Blackstone Society 42 Music Society 42 College Wine Society 44 College Choir 44 College Sports 46 Damon Wells Chapel 59 The McGowin Library 61 The Emery Gallery 62 The College Archives 64 Samuel Johnson News 67 Feature Article: Pembroke and the Oxford Portraits Project 68 Alumni News and Features 70 News 70 Damon Wells: a Profile 76 Rededication of the War Memorial 77 Minutes of the Pembroke Society AGM 78 Alumni Representatives 79 Obituaries 83 2 Master's Notes This has been another year in which a very positive atmosphere has prevailed in the College on many fronts. We have been able to appoint two excellent new Fellows in place of those retiring: Dr Linda Flores (Japanese) and Dr Gabriel Uzquiano Cruz (Philosophy). After an 18 month gap, a new Strategic Development Director has been appointed in Andrew Seton, formerly an investment banker. Andrew is a Fellow and member of the Governing Body. Our most substantial current benefactor, Dr Damon Wells (an Honorary Fellow) was admitted to the Chancellor of the University’s Court of Benefactors and had his name inscribed on the Clarendon Arch to recognise the extent of his generosity, thereby joining a most distinguished list of benefactors to the University over several centuries. One of our alumni, Sir Robert Crawford, the Director-General of the Imperial War Museum, was knighted in the New Year’s Honours List and we extend our congratulations. We succeeded in a major fundraising feat, securing the permanent endowment of a new Fellowship in Chinese Studies, one of the central priorities in our Strategic Plan, together with funds towards a Research Fellowship in the subject. Dr Stanley Ho, the benefactor, becomes a Foundation Fellow of the College. We elected three new Honorary Fellows: Professor Simon Blackburn, Professor of Philosophy at Cambridge University (and formerly Tutorial Fellow in Philosophy at Pembroke), Professor Nicholas Mann, Dean of the School of Advanced Study and Pro-Vice-Chancellor, University of London (and formerly Tutorial Fellow in French at Pembroke) and Sir Peter Ricketts, the Permanent Under Secretary at the Foreign & Commonwealth Office (and alumnus of the College). The new Honorary Fellows were feted by us at the revived Wightwick Dinner in May at which our distinguished Visitor (and the Chancellor of the University), Chris Patten, was present. Undoubtedly one of the highlights of the year was the performance in Finals of 3 Master's Notes (continued) Pembroke students. In the Norrington Table, which ranks the comparative success of each College in Finals, we achieved 10th position with 31 Firsts and 75 2:1s. This is by far the highest ranking in the Norrington Table achieved by Pembroke in recent memory. Two of our students obtained the top Firsts across the University in their subjects, Rob Avis in English and Ed Mitchard in Biology. No one should think that these academic successes by students are achieved at the cost of extra-curricular activities. For example, this year the President of the JCR achieved a First in her Finals (being the third JCR President in succession to do so); and Ed Mitchard referred to above has been an outstanding Organ Scholar in his time at the College, being responsible for a massive leap in the range and quality of music in the College and in particular for transforming the Choir into a high calibre group of performers. Indeed, music is now increasingly at the heart of Pembroke activity. The Choir has thrilled with many of its performances this year and has recently been on tour in Esto- nia. It returned to take up an invitation from the University to perform at the ceremony for the induction of new members to the Chancellor’s Court of Benefactors, which it did in stunning fashion. Our two singing Scholarships, provided by an alumna, Nicola Harrison, are greatly appreciated. The informal recitals in the Master’s Lodgings con- tinue twice a term to attract a range of musicians performing either on their own or in duets or quartets. We have had two excellent concerts and an enterprising performance of ‘All That Jazz’ in the Hall (with contributors drawn in, as in previous recent years, from many other Colleges). A small a cappella group entertained the guests in College at the new Ossulston Lunch for major donors. The way in which music flourishes in the College, in so many different ways, is a source of great delight to me. The Emery Art Gallery, located in the upper reaches of the Alms building and housing some of the key works belonging to the marvellous JCR Art Collection, has been much visited and admired by students, alumni and others. An outstanding website showing off the Collection has now been created and is part of the ‘new look’ College website. The very recent launch of the redesigned College website was a significant highlight, 4 Master's Recitals continue twice a term A College Colours ceremony with Pembroke sports players as it demonstrates the importance being placed on communicating effectively with prospective students, alumni and conference clients alike. The new design aims to make information more accessible and appealing to prospective students and conference clients, and the new on-line community for alumni is intended to improve connections between all members of the Pembroke community. It is now possible to use the website to re-establish contact with contemporaries, to provide careers guidance to current students, to book places at alumni events, and to make donations to the College. The students in the College continue their now customary widespread participation and success in sport. Women have been particularly successful in netball and rugby and the performance of their First VIII in Summer Eights in rowing over all four days in a very competitive First Division, with five novices in the crew, was a splendid achievement. The mens’ First VIII was the fastest crew on the river in Summer Eights, and very nearly managed to bump Magdalen to go Head. We were once again the College with the largest number of crews on the river. We continue to work hard to find solutions for our serious graduate and undergraduate accommodation shortfall, mention of which I made in these Notes last year. It would be wonderful to have some favourable news to report on this in the near future. All in all, I am confident that you will find reflected in this issue of the Record the stimulating and successful year which the College has experienced. Giles Henderson Master of Pembroke 5 The World of James Smithson: Eighteenth Century Pembroke and the Foundation of the Smithsonian Institution Just inside Pembroke College, on a courtyard wall by the Porters’ Lodge, is a plaque commemorating one of Pembroke’s more illustrious alumni, James Smithson. Smithson’s story is an extraordinary one, and yet it is one that is scarcely known. James Smithson matriculated in 1782 as James Louis Macie (his mother’s name, which he retained until he was 35 years old). He was the illegitimate son of the first Duke of Northumberland (formerly known as Hugh Smithson), born in secret in Paris, and his mother was a cousin of the Duchess of Northumberland and a wealthy widow in her own right. Smithson dedicated his life to chemistry and mineralogy, living a restless, peripatetic life amidst the capitals of Europe. He never married and had no children. At the end of his life he left his fortune in a contingency clause of his will to the United States to found in Washington, D.C., under the name of the Smithsonian Institution, “an establishment for the increase and diffusion of knowledge among men.” The Smithsonian Institution, of course, went on to become the largest museum and research complex in the world. Today it spans some nineteen museums of art and history and science, and the National Zoo, as well as scientific research stations in many countries. It is most famous as the home of America’s iconic cultural heritage: the Star-Spangled Banner, Abraham Lincoln’s top hat, Charles Lindbergh’s Spirit of St. Louis, and Dorothy’s ruby slippers from the Wizard of Oz. But not many people know that this most American of places was the creation of a Pembrokian: one who never even set foot in the United States. I came to Oxford in 2000 at the start of my research, in the hopes of finding evidence of Smithson’s life here. The Smithsonian lost virtually all of Smithson’s papers and belongings in a fire early in the institution’s history, and little was known about their founder; I hoped through the papers and diaries of others to be able to gain a new window into this lost life. In Pembroke’s Archives I pored through the battel or buttery books, which recorded the students’ daily expenditures. They gave me clues as to when he was in residence, and they also showed how much he was spending in relation to his classmates (Smithson was often the biggest spender, or close to the top of the list). Oxford in Smithson’s day was a famously decadent place. Some professors had not taught a course in years, and many of the wealthier students scarcely attended lectures.