FLOREATMAGDALENA

The Magazine for Magdalen Members

Magdalen Entrepreneurs Library Work Underway The Great War ISSUE 13 | 2014 Your Legacy Your Opportunity Help us to provide an outstanding educational Your Will is your opportunity to provide for your family, friends and those organizations experience for generations that have influenced and shaped your life. to come. For most people it is the one opportunity they will have to make a significant financial contribution to those people and causes that they care deeply for. If you believe that you benefitted from your time at Magdalen and After your family and friends, please you would like future generations to share consider remembering Magdalen College your experience, perhaps you might consider in your Will. including Magdalen in your Will. A gift in your Will is the one gift that For further information please everyone can make. It is your chance to contact Marilyn Bowler in the Magdalen add to a long tradition of generosity of previous generations for the benefit of future College Development Office on generations. In addition, a gift in your Will can +44 (0) 1865 286682 or email to: be a very tax efficient method of supporting [email protected] Magdalen, while at the same time lowering your Inheritance Tax liability. If you would like information on including Magdalen in your will, or you would like to discuss in confidence, and without obligation, how a gift in your Will can benefit Magdalen and its students please contact Marilyn Bowler in the College’s Development Office. +44 1865 286796 [email protected] FLOREAT MAGDALENA • THE MAGAZINE FOR MAGDALEN MEMBERS • ISSUE 13/ 2014

From the President

Welcome to the 2014 issue of Floreat Magdalena with news from the College and the wider alumni community. Magdalen acts as a springboard for a huge variety of careers, and this issue celebrates Magdalen entrepreneurship from alumni, Fellows and current students. With articles from serial entrepreneur CONTENTS Luke Johnson (1980), David Soskin (1972) of Cheapflights, Keith Hanna (1983) who developed Eyelock iris-recognition software, Alumni Entrepreneurship 2 – 8 and Pete Flint (1993), founder of leading US property website Trulia, our alumni are taking advantage of the internet to change the Student Entrepreneurship 9 way we do things. In addition Magdalen is proud to have co-founded Fellow Entrepreneurship 10 the Oxford Science Park (www.oxfordsp.com) as a unique business location, offering office or laboratory space, meeting rooms and New Law Fellowship 11 conference facilities to further the business of science. Telethon 11 The New Library redevelopment work has now begun, the first New Library Redevelopment 12 – 13 major building programme on the College site since the construction Women’s Network 14 of the Grove Quad in the 1990s, and Longwall Quad will be a building site until the work is completed in Spring 2016.The project College Women 15 is long overdue – little has changed since the New Library opened in The Great War 16 – 17 1932, and various plans for its improvement have been discussed since the 1970s. Once completed the building will provide a space Alumni Events 18 – 19 which befits a College of Magdalen’s reputation for academic Oliver Wrong 20 excellence. We have raised over £5m of the more than £10m cost from a small number of generous alumni, with a further £3m being Magdalen Poetry 21 provided by the College’s own funds. We need to raise a further £2 Forthcoming Events 22 million, and we look forward to telling you more about the project over the coming months, and the opportunities for becoming part of Magdalen history by supporting this significant development.

You should have started receiving our regular e-newsletters from the Development Office, keeping you updated with College and alumni news and events throughout the year. This summer we will also be launching our secure alumni web pages, which will provide a searchable online directory of members and an online event booking facility among other things, which should make it easier for you to keep in touch with us and each other.

With so many ways to stay in touch with Magdalen we hope you feel like a member for life, and we look forward to seeing you back in College or at an event where you are soon.

Floreat Magdalena!

The President Professor David Clary FRS

Design: www.harveygraphic.co.uk

1 Alumni Entrepreneurship

Cheapflights (now Momondo): flight price comparison website

David Soskin (1972) was bubble”. My friends extended the same CEO of Cheapflights and is sympathy towards me as a Non-Executive Director they would have shown to one who had caught of mySupermarket amongst bubonic plague. other companies. Anyway, I persevered. The My conversion to digital Cheapflights business model entrepreneurship began when I proved very robust and I attended a lecture given by the remained as CEO whilst the inventor of the financial spreadsheet, company grew exponentially Dan Bricklin, back in 1994, around and profitably. Stepping the time that the first commercial down as CEO in 2008, I have website launched in California. Dan remained on the board since. predicted that the worldwide web Following the company’s (or “information super highway” as takeover of Momondo, we it was then named) would transform have renamed Cheapflights the world. I was hooked. By the end of “the Momondo Group”. We that decade, I was actively seeking out now operate in countries all exciting internet businesses in which to over the world and, unusually invest. for a British internet company, we have British bank whose digital presence is built a substantial presence in the USA. core because it has no branches. In 2006, And then I came across Cheapflights, My book “Net Profit: How to succeed I co-founded an investment fund called a business based in an attic in in Digital Business” (John Wiley) is Howzat Partners which invests in early Wandsworth, South . based on my experience of running stage digital businesses on both sides of Cheapflights, founded in 1996, was Cheapflights. the Atlantic. One of our investments is the very first flight price comparison Academia.edu, the world’s largest social website. I liked it so much that I decided Since 2008, I have added a few network for academics. At the time of not only to invest in it but to run it other board positions to Momondo. writing, over ten million academics have too. My timing was a bit inauspicious These include mySupermarket, the signed up. as, the week after the Cheapflights supermarket price comparison site buy-in was completed, the technology and Cortexica, a world leader in visual What, dear reader, is a graduate of market collapsed in what has become search technology. I have also served on modern history doing in the technology known as the bursting of the “internet the board of Aldermore, the fast-growing world? Well, Oxford arts graduates don’t fare too badly in the tech sphere: both Cheapflights and Academia were founded by Oxford arts graduates, the latter whilst he was a Fellow at All Souls! The success of Oxford in general – and Magdalen in particular - lies not in its effectiveness to train technicians but in its ability to nurture the development of mental rigour.

And at the heart of this success is the tutorial system which allows for challenge and debate. Tutorials teach you independence of thought: you have to be prepared, to think carefully, to face some daunting challenges, to stand your ground and not to wilt in the face of criticism. As an entrepreneur, you will have a dream and then face plenty of people who will say, “Your dream will never become reality”. So you need to be clear and convinced in your mind that your dream can become reality and be able to persuade investors, customers and colleagues of this. The Dreaming Spires provide an ideal grounding for entrepreneurship.

2 FLOREAT MAGDALENA • THE MAGAZINE FOR MAGDALEN MEMBERS • ISSUE 13/ 2014

Luke Johnson: serial entrepreneur ENTREPRENEURSHIP ALUMNI

Luke Johnson (1980)’s The defining moment in my career For the last 14 years I have run a niche entrepreneurial career has came in 1993 when we took control development capital shop called Risk included the expansion of of the restaurant chain PizzaExpress Capital Partners. We have backed and floated it. I served as Chairman. firms in industries including car park Pizza Express, , Giraffe The shares went from 40p to 900p over equipment, tile retailing, bingo, online and Patisserie Valerie, as well the next six years and we grew the travel and artisan baking. Separately business to over 150 branches from just I served as chairman of Channel 4 as six years as chairman of 12 owned restaurants. Following that Television for six years until 2010, Channel 4. He now runs Risk success I also became a director and and coming full circle, now chair The Capital Partners and chairs the part-owner in a number of other firms. Institute of Cancer Research. Even this medical charity has an entrepreneurial Institute of Cancer Research. In the late 1990s I bought London fine element: it currently derives more dining restaurants The Ivy and Le annual IP income from its drug My career as an entrepreneur started Caprice and re-launched J Sheekey’s. discoveries than both Oxford and at Magdalen in 1980. I was a first-year I also co-founded the restaurant Cambridge combined. medic, and spending much of my time concept Strada and grew it to 35 throwing riotous parties. The Dean restaurants before selling it. In 1996 at the time did not approve of our I co-founded a chain of dentist I have written a weekly festivities, and threatened to send me surgeries called Integrated Dental down if I continued. So together with a Holdings, which grew to be the largest column in the Financial Times fellow medic from Merton called Hugh of its kind. I stepped down and sold entitled The Entrepreneur Osmond, we took over what was then out after ten years, but the business has for the past seven years, and called Scamps nightclub in the Westgate continued to prosper and is reputed to Shopping Centre on a Monday evening. be floating for a value of £1 billion. published a book on the subject The launch of our new one-nighter event called Start It Up in 2011. – called the Era Club – was a smash. I became chairman of the restaurant Last year I co-founded a non- From then on academic studies played company Giraffe when it had six second fiddle to our new enterprise. We branches. We grew it over nine years profit think tank called The expanded to live music and comedy to 50 restaurants, and sold it last year Centre for Entrepreneurs to nights in The Cape of Good Hope and to Tesco for £50m. Most recently, I another venue on Cornmarket. We also floated Patisserie Holdings: its principal promote the cause among the launched satellite versions at Cambridge operation is Patisserie Valerie, including public, politicians and the and Bristol universities – and even in one almost opposite Magdalen. We media. Recently it merged with Hollywood one summer. bought six branches around eight years ago: today we have almost 140. We StartUp Britain, another pro- By the time I graduated I had have great ambitions to bring patisserie entrepreneurship organisation dispensed with any notion of qualifying to every town in Britain. I chaired. My enthusiasm as a doctor. Instead I planned to work for myself. A variety of moonlight There have been some disasters as well for capitalism remains projects followed while I worked in as winners: buying the bookshop chain undiminished: I’ pleased advertising and then as a stockbroking Borders as a turn around, thinking I Magdalen now embraces it analyst. I part-owned a theatre set could stem the tide against Amazon, builder, a direct marketing firm, and a eBooks and supermarkets, was an with such keenness – it was not classic car restoration business. None expensive mistake, as was launching always the case! did very well, but they all furnished a $5m branch of mussels and frites valuable experience. restaurant in New York.

3 Alumni Entrepreneurship Eyelock: iris recognition

offset of 1 foot, with the hope that all appears as if the graphics are part of Engineering alumnus would work when set up at full height the sports arena, even as the broadcast Keith Hanna (1983) founded in an office environment. All did work, cameras move to capture different views Eyelock, which develops and the prototype evolved into a device of the scene. The same technology is used that recognizes with certainty up to to insert the first-down line and other iris-based identity 50 people per minute as they enter a graphics in televised feeds of American authentication products building, without having to juggle coffee Football, greatly improving the viewing or a laptop to retrieve an ID card. experience for the television audience. Less familiar to the public is technology that The company continues to innovate, aligns CAT scan and MRI imagery to assist including the development of software in the detection of breast cancer. that leverages the growth of other types of biometric and non-biometric Some ventures have been successful, others information, such as fingerprint and have not, but all have been challenging and geo-location. all have been learning experiences for the next one. The common thread for me in EyeLock is the latest in a series of these ventures, learned from professors at technology ventures I’ve founded or Magdalen and Oxford at the time, is to be participated in over the past 24 years. passionate about what you do, never give After leaving Magdalen with a D.Phil up and enjoy the journey. in 1991, I joined a contract research organization in the US, focusing Matching of the unique patterns in the primarily on the development of iris of the eye for convenient security algorithms and systems involving has been a fixture in data centres and real-time video, well before the movies for many years, commonplace use of video we see today. but the technology has never reached This was where I learned the balancing widespread use in our workplaces and act of delivering working systems while homes. EyeLock was founded on the at the same time performing advanced basis that ease-of-use and affordability research. were amongst the missing ingredients. Perhaps one of the more familiar A prototype was developed in the examples is a video insertion company basement of a colleague’s home, where that inserts athletes’ names or other the low ceiling meant that all the graphics virtually into the broadcast calculations and tests were done with an feed of televised sports events, so it

Littoralis: information sharing After leaving Magdalen in 1975, I behaviour at local, community level. caught the entrepreneur bug working In this sense, it’s bringing private in financial journalism. After setting enterprise into a very ‘public’ space, up a couple of conventional publishing which is radical and exciting, and it’s businesses, in the mid-90s I pitched attracting the interest of police forces, into the internet, where I’ve stayed and government, in the process. ever since. Back in the early 1970s, business Today my company Littoralis provides wasn’t Oxford’s strong suit. I’m not secure information-sharing systems sure what a formal business education for crime reduction partnerships. could have done to prepare anyone The company’s lead product, DISC for the paradigm-shift that was, and (Database and Intranet for Safer still is, the internet. Having said that, Communities), is now in use in more Politics, Philosophy and Economics than 100 towns and cities around the was as good a starting point as any. country and in 35 of the UK’s police The old skills are probably still the Charlie Newman (1972) forces, with interest growing abroad too. best in many ways - and Magdalen certainly delivered those, even runs Littoralis, which DISC provides a service which would through a skull as thick as mine. provides information- be quite impossible to deliver without sharing systems for crime the internet. It offers a completely For more information see new approach to managing and www.littoralis.com or contact reduction tackling low-level crime and anti-social [email protected]

4 FLOREAT MAGDALENA • THE MAGAZINE FOR MAGDALEN MEMBERS • ISSUE 13/2014

From Magdalen to Silicon Valley

Trulia: US property search website

Pete Flint (1993) was renting properties that was previously Today, Trulia employs over 1000 involved in the first five unavailable. And we knew that if we ‘Trulians’ and has offices in San built a popular consumer destination Francisco, Seattle, New York City, years of lastminute.com the company could serve as a valuable and Denver. Revenue for the year and is founder and CEO of marketing platform for the real estate in 2013 grew to $144M from $68M market-leading US online industry. in 2012, while revenue during the first quarter of 2014 alone grew to property search website Soon after Trulia’s launch the US $54.5 million. More than 54 million Trulia, Inc. housing market began a precipitous consumers use our service every

decline, with customers going out month. The opportunity to continue ENTREPRENEURSHIP ALUMNI of business and cutting back on to transform a large industry for While studying at Magdalen between marketing and technology. Then millions of consumers and real estate 1993 and 1997 I witnessed the the housing collapse resulted in the professionals is something I remain as dawn of the commercial internet financial crisis and the recession. It felt passionate about today as the day we and was captured by its power and like we’d been hit by an earthquake first started. its opportunity. So much so, that I and then a tsunami and in what was grappled with the nascent computing quite possibly the worst time to start As Floreat went to press it was facilities (hardly anyone had their own a real estate company. We learned a announced that Trulia was being acquired computers let alone mobile phones lot during those tough times, and ran by Zillow, Inc. for $35bn. back then) and saw my future in this the business frugally for years, but new economy. we kept our sights on building a great www.trulia.com culture and product. Shortly after graduating, I jumped at the opportunity to join lastminute. Our persistence eventually began to As I look back, I’m com when it was just a business plan. pay off. We raised money from top grateful for what I learned I had the pleasure of working very venture capitalists such as Sequoia closely with co-founder and fellow Capital and Accel Partners and about the world and Magdalen alum Martha Lane Fox eventually took the company public (1991) and spent five years there. I in 2012, just as the housing market myself while at Oxford helped build the company from the started to recover and the popularity and how it helped build ground up focusing on marketing and of Trulia on mobile devices started to business development, in what was soar. my company. a remarkable story and an incredible learning experience.

In 2003 I moved to Silicon Valley, the ‘mecca’ of internet companies and digital innovation, to pursue an MBA at Stanford Graduate School of Business. While at Stanford, I began to look for off-campus housing. Up to that point, I’d used the internet to help with most of my relocation from buying a car and purchasing travel, to buying local groceries. But astoundingly, there was no good online service to find real estate. I started Trulia to solve this problem and wrote the business plan in 2004 while still at the School. We launched Trulia shortly after graduating with a small team in a cheap office in Silicon Valley with a vision to revolutionize the real estate industry.

Our idea was to build a destination to help consumers with one of the biggest financial decisions of their lives, by providing access to information about buying, selling, and

5 Alumni Entrepreneurship

Poetry apps

Rachel Kelly (1984) read But the excitement of being an Modern History at Magdalen. entrepreneur and creating a second She created the first poetry app app exerted a strong pull. This time, the order has been reversed: in April, for children, iF Poems, in 2011 Hodder & Stoughton published my memoir about how poetry has helped me recover from depression, entitled Black Rainbow, followed by an app of the same name, again released on Apple.

While the book tells my story and I am still working at my kitchen table, includes the 40 poems that consoled but nearly every other aspect of my me, the app is more practical and working life is new. will deliver help at the push of a button for those struggling with The iF Poems app and Black Rainbow app the Black Dog. You can listen to are available to download for the iPhone recordings of poems that bring and iPad. iF: A Treasury of Poems for Almost solace and beauty, this time read by Every Possibility, edited by Allie Esiri and Isla Blair and Julian Glover, both Rachel Kelly, is published by Canongate, It all began four years ago with distinguished Shakespearean actors and Black Rainbow: How words healed who bring huge depth and resonance me - my journey through depression by a conversation between me and to their readings of George Herbert, Rachel Kelly is published by Yellow Kite, another mother round a kitchen Gerard Manley Hopkins and Emily a subsidiary of Hodder & Stoughton. All table. What had happened to the Dickinson after a lifetime of theatre. author proceeds to the charities SANE and United Response. art of learning poems by heart? Meanwhile Martyn Lewis CBE reads a selection of uplifting and inspiring The skill of searing poems to our prose, including excerpts from children’s brains so they would be Elizabeth Gaskell, Henry James and armed with beauty and food for the Max Ehrmann. soul? The answer was the first poetry app for children: iF Poems launched A second section of the app is aimed in November 2011 on Apple iPhone at helping a hurting body rather and iPad and became a surprise than a hurting mind. There is expert hit: downloads now run to tens of nutritional advice from The Food thousands in more than 25 countries. Doctor nutrition consultancy, and guided audio meditations to help For those who are wondering what you relax and sleep: it is what would an ‘app’ is, the answer is a software have helped me when I was unwell application that can be bought and and what I hope will help others. I downloaded onto a smart phone. am giving all proceeds of both the Our app allows its young users to book and app to charities close to my read, listen to, record and share their heart which help those with mental favourite poems. It contains 230 health problems: SANE and United poems from Lear’s ‘The Owl and the Response. Pussycat’ to Yeats’s ‘An Irish Airman Foresees His Death’ read by Bill Nighy While it is a privilege to work and Helena Bonham Carter. In short, with the editors at publishers it is a poetry anthology reinvented for as distinguished as Canongate the multimedia age. and Hodder, there is something exhilarating about creating a Flushed by iF Poems success, I then new digital product where all co-edited a book version of the app decisions are your own: what for Canongate, returning to old to include, how an app should technology and the traditional world be illustrated and edited, of paper and print I knew as a former which buttons go where, Times journalist. iF: A Treasury of Poems not to mention maintaining, for Almost Every Possibility is now in its distributing, and marketing fourth edition. the app in our digital world.

6 FLOREAT MAGDALENA • THE MAGAZINE FOR MAGDALEN MEMBERS • ISSUE 13/2014 Tackling firesetting

It is estimated that one in every ten cases and conducting management and fires in London is set by a child, whilst policy reviews. My training ranges of the reported incidents of arson in from foundation training for new staff, England and Wales – estimated to cost to learning lessons from child fire society an average £40million a week – deaths for those experienced in this approximately 50% involve a juvenile. I work. In addition to working with fire have become fascinated by the individual services, over the last twelve months I and family variables that can characterise have also trained staff from the fields juvenile firesetters, along with the range of forensic psychology, play therapy, of psychological factors implicated youth offending and adult mental in firesetting. Whilst at the Brigade, I health, and spoken at conferences in worked with hundreds of London’s most Scandinavia and the US. at-risk and vulnerable children to directly address their firesetting behaviour, and Running my own company is completed a post-graduate certificate in exhilarating, exhausting and exciting, Joanna Foster (1993) set up child, adolescent and family mental health and I would recommend it to anyone ALUMNI ENTREPRENEURSHIP ALUMNI her own company to address in order to better understand my clients’ who has a passion for their work firesetting behaviour after needs. together with the confidence that they can offer a service that is either unique ten years with the London In March 2013 I left the Brigade to widen or excellent, or preferably both. Fire Brigade. the scope of my work and set up fabtic, a company specialising in firesetting To find out more about Joanna’s work, After graduating from Magdalen in behaviour. please visit www.fabtic.co.uk or email 1996, I spent sixteen years working in [email protected] the not-for-profit and public sectors, Based in central London, I am now including ten years working for the working with 21 Fire and Rescue Services London Fire Brigade managing their from across the UK providing training Juvenile Firesetters Intervention Scheme. to their firesetter teams, supervising

Turl Street Kitchen

Josh Rhodes (2007) so I found myself snatching hours at was part of the team who lunchtime to work on a business plan with the team from the Oxford Hub. launched Oxford’s Turl The Oxford Hub was a new(ish – Street Kitchen in 2011 founded 2007) charity broadly aiming precisely no money at all, and lost a to get students involved in their local fair amount. Somehow we managed I had an unlikely slide into communities, rather than just vomiting to delay paying the builders to meet entrepreneurship. Naturally, I’m risk on them in the evening. The charity had payroll and eventually turned it around. averse and lazy; by all accounts I successfully spread out of Oxford (and am not the archetypal entrepreneur. Student Hubs, as it’s now called, is now I am now moving away from Hub However, as the haze of my finals lifted in nine universities) and was taking a Ventures full time, but as we continue in summer 2010, I was faced – for more building on Turl Street as a permanent, to grow the business – we now have a or less the first time in my life – with city-centre home. The business plan was guest house (highly recommended...) the genuine prospect of having to for a restaurant and events business and more venues in the works – I’m make some decisions. School led quite (Hub Ventures) that would pay the rent. maintaining an active involvement. naturally to university and I applied for Starting a business has taught me to PPE because, as much as anything else, In July 2011 I took six months off from commit, but I still like to hedge. three subject areas represented less of a investment banking to go and work on commitment than just one. Hub Ventures full time for the launch www.turlstreetkitchen.co.uk of the restaurant, Turl Street Kitchen. www.oxfordhub.org At the start of 2011 I had fallen into Two and half years later and I was still an internship and then job offer at an there. Contrary to my expectations, investment bank. It had seemed the entrepreneurship was suiting me. There most obvious step to take and the work- were pros and cons; our core team all-night culture had a comforting whiff bonded very quickly, working around of college life about it. 20 hours a day, 7 days a week well into the start of 2012; but it could still be However, three years of switching lonely, bearing the consequences for between subjects had left me incapable every decision. It could also be stressful. of concentrating on just one thing, and After the first few months we’d made

7 Alumni Entrepreneurship GalleriesNow.net

world - something that we would find Turning the idea into a business is the useful ourselves and knew that many of entrepreneurial part. There is a lot of the people we know in the art world or phoning friends and contacts, asking who have an interest in art would find advice and educating yourself about useful too. areas that you do not know enough about. It is sometimes daunting, but After leaving Magdalen, I studied at the is also enjoyable and immensely Royal College of Art and later joined rewarding. We have successfully the design business that my parents found investors, have some extremely had started, Fetherstonhaugh Design. exciting partnerships in the pipeline Over the years my brother Patrick and and the reaction from galleries has been I have worked on a number of art- overwhelmingly positive. Tristram Fetherstonhaugh related projects including the Coutts (1983) read Engineering Contemporary Art Foundation that we Mainly though, during the year we Science at Magdalen. His were instrumental in setting up and have been working on the project I have running. We had also designed, built been most impressed by the quantity business, GalleriesNow.net, and run many websites for clients so and quality of fantastic art that is being lets users see what is being had the skills and understanding to shown and is out there for everyone to embark on a web-based arts project. enjoy. There is nothing as rewarding shown in contemporary art as bringing it all together in one place. galleries across the world Knowledge of the subject and an Visit GalleriesNow.net and explore! understanding of what is involved to Contemporary art is flourishing - make it happen are essential for turning www.GalleriesNow.net galleries like White Cube, Gagosian and a vision into reality. They are also what David Zwirner, with spaces around the makes working on the project enjoyable, globe, are putting on public exhibitions natural and fun. In our design of a quality, depth and newness that business we were often rival the best public museums. involved in realising other people’s ideas, experience Our project, GalleriesNow.net is a that gave us confidence that unique new online showcase of the our project could work and world’s leading contemporary art that we had what was needed galleries, public and commercial. It to make it happen. A successful evolved out of the realisation that there web business is always in was no really good resource to see what a state of development and was being shown by galleries in our needs constant attention, so it is home city of London or around the important to believe deeply in it.

Other entrepreneurs among the Magdalen community include:

Martha Lane Fox (1990) co-founder of Lastminute.com; Computer Science Fellow Oege de Moor who set up software metrics company Semmle to bridge the gap between engineering and business; Paul Hedley (1997) who runs executive education consultancy Exart Performances (www.exart.org) which has developed specialised concepts for executive education and leadership research based on workshops with classical music; Tanya Heasman (1983), Managing Director of System Concepts Ltd (www.system-concepts.com), a consultancy which helps its blue chip clients increase profitability, increase sales and reduce costs through its user-centred services; Thomas Kelley (2012) who has set up healthy business Gazelle, a for-profit social enterprise that provides evidence-based, healthy, tasty, affordable fast food, through thoughtfully-designed outlets, to communities across the UK, starting by introducing Gazelle outlets to hospitals; and Beite Liang (2011), a recent graduate from China who is developing commercial applications for the Oxford Chinese community under a Graduate Entrepreneur Visa which enables students to remain in the UK for a year to develop an entrepreneurial business idea.

8 FLOREAT MAGDALENA • THE MAGAZINE FOR MAGDALEN MEMBERS •ISSUE 13/2014 Student Entrepreneurship

Bundshop Chinese design

While a PPE finalist at Magdalen, Over the past ten years there has been and Design in London. All product Lilly Bussmann (2011) co-founded a burst of creativity in China, with 400 listings include an in-depth profile that Bundshop.com – a Chinese design design schools with 10,000 students delves into its concept and production, enterprise - and worked for the graduating each year. as well as its creator’s background. United Nations in Beijing and Part of the business model includes “A lot of what we do is storytelling Shanghai. a corporate gifting service, and narrative so Bundshop is much serendipitously discovered when more a gallery than an e-commerce companies approached them before site,” says Lilly. “It’s important for us The phrase “made in China” is often Chinese New Year in search of more that our consumers are not just taking synonymous with “cheap knockoff” interesting gifts than the standard logo home a product, but also a story.” in Western countries, but Bundshop’s mug or pen. Bundshop’s clients have ENTREPRENEURSHIP mission is to change that perception. included Swiss luxury watchmaker Based in Shanghai and named Jaeger-LeCoultre, BMW, Hilton and after the city’s famous waterfront Christie’s. commercial district, Bundshop is not only an e-commerce site, but also an Bundshop prides itself on items that agency that currently represents 50 put an innovative twist on techniques, emerging designers and artists. shapes or materials borrowed from traditional Chinese arts and crafts, Bundshop markets to consumers, for example using a very traditional mostly women, who are willing to material like bamboo to make more pay a premium for aesthetics, but modern silhouettes. are more interested in supporting independent brands than luxury For designers represented by its conglomerates. Most of Bundshop’s agency, Bundshop does everything products cost between US$50 and from product photography and sales US$600, with a median price of about distribution to marketing and public US$135. In order to compete with relations. It holds exclusive online other e-commerce retailers, Bundshop international distribution rights for At the time of going to press created a logistics network that ships 85 percent of its brands and sells to Bundshop is in the process of to 92 countries and allows most a network of 500 boutiques around being sold so Lilly is no longer products to reach their destination the world. Bundshop’s designers are operationally involved with the within seven to ten days for the same scouted from schools such as Beijing’s company prices as domestic shipping. Central Academy of Fine Arts and Central Saint Martins College of Art www.Bundshop.com

on combatting arsenic poisoning, and Student-led consulting with the Red Cross on increasing levels of blood donations. We help organisations to called 180 Degrees Consulting, which run the most effective programs possible, is the world’s largest university-based to measure their social impact, and to be consultancy. I established 180 Degrees financially sustainable. during my undergraduate studies in Australia as a way to help non- Importantly, this process is mutually profits and social enterprises to receive beneficial. Student consultants get hands- high-quality consulting services that on work experience, the opportunity they would not otherwise be able to to make a difference, and professional afford. Over the past few years we’ve training and mentoring. Socially focussed expanded, and now have branches organisations get access to innovative, in 19 countries and over 2000 student practical and sustainable solutions to consultants worldwide. whatever challenges they’re facing. Nathaniel Ware (2011) is a current graduate student doing a DPhil in Each year we help over 300 non-profits To date we’ve provided over £45M worth and social enterprises to overcome of volunteer consulting services. International Development. He runs challenges they’re facing and to increase 180 Degrees Consulting. their social impact. For example, we’ve For more information on how you can worked with A21 in Ukraine to provide get involved (as a financial supporter, a Throughout my time at Magdalen I’ve employment to women subjected to sex consultant, or as a client), please visit our been running a non-profit organisation slavery, with Viola Vitolis in Bangladesh website at www.180dc.org.

9 Fellow Entrepreneurship

OrganOx: organ preservation

A spin-out company co-founded by Constantin Coussios, Professorial Fellow of Biomedical Engineering, aims to increase the number of livers available for transplantation.

Every year, some 13,000 liver transplants are undertaken in Europe and the USA. However, with a combined waiting list of 30,000, demand greatly outstrips organ availability, and up to 25 per cent of patients die whilst awaiting transplantation. In spite of the organ shortage, more than 5,000 livers are discarded annually, either because they suffer excessive oxygen deprivation during retrieval or because they do not survive conventional cold preservation by virtue of excessive intracellular fat.

OrganOx Ltd, a spin-out from the preservation: rather than cooling the 12 hours to 24 hours and possibly University of Oxford, is developing organ down to ice temperature in order longer, but also makes it possible to technology aimed at improving to slow down its metabolism, a new assess how well an organ is working utilization of organs and increasing device, the metra (pictured), preserves before committing a patient to the the number of livers available for the organ by flowing oxygenated blood operation. As obesity and ageing transplantation within current through it. population trends are forcing the donation practices. utilization of increasingly marginal Professor Coussios commented: donor organs, the OrganOx technology Co-founded in 2008 by Magdalen thus has the potential to enhance the biomedical engineer Professor “We have had to create an artificial preservation and to quality-assure Constantin Coussios and by transplant environment that mimics most of organs which would otherwise be surgeon Professor Peter Friend the key functions performed by discarded, without increasing the risks. (husband of Magdalen Fellow Professor the human body, such as pumping Laurie Maguire), OrganOx has In February 2013, OrganOx initiated championed a new approach in liver of blood by the heart, ventilation by the lungs, and provision of a Phase I clinical trial in collaboration with King’s College Hospital in nutrition to the organ, yet is readily London and Queen Elizabeth’s transportable. Most importantly, Hospital in Birmingham, successfully advanced automated control transplanting 20 patients by December algorithms had to be developed to 2013. In late 2013, the metra also make the machine easy to use by received three out of a possible 15 transplant teams around the world. 2013 innovation awards by the Insitute of Engineering and Technology, for The device operates at the press of “best healthcare technology”, “best a single button, and automatically intelligent system” and “best emerging creates physiological pressures technology design”. Now, following around the liver whilst enabling successful closing of a Series D funding the organ to choose its own blood round and the award of a £2.1m grant supply on the basis of its own by the Technology Strategy Board, vascular resistance.” the metra is going international, with randomized clinical trials starting By creating an environment similar to both in Europe and North America. that experienced by the organ within The long-term aim is simple: make the body, the OrganOx metra enables sure that every possible organ is the liver to remain functional during successfully utilized to improve the preservation, for example making quality of life and the long-term bile. This not only extends the current survival of transplant patients around maximum preservation time from some the world.

10 FLOREAT MAGDALENA • THE MAGAZINE FOR MAGDALEN MEMBERS • ISSUE 13/2014 New Law OrganOx: organ preservation Fellowship Roger Smith, Fellow in Law, writes about the appointment of Jeremias Prassl (2009) to the newly created Law Fellowship post

At last year’s alumni Law Dinner at the House of Commons, we were delighted to be able to announce that we had successfully raised the funds to cover the costs of a new and additional

law tutor. We are grateful for the remarkable generosity of old NEWS COLLEGE members which enabled this.

After interviewing five candidates in January, we selected Jeremias Prassl as our preferred candidate; he has been formally elected by the College to a Tutorial Fellowship. Following success in the International Baccalaureate in Canada, Jeremias studied law at Corpus Christi College. He then spent a year in Harvard before returning to Oxford to undertake doctoral studies under the supervision of Professor Mark Freedland. Since 2011 he had been a Supernumerary Teaching Fellow at St John’s College, where he was a remarkably successful law tutor. Both Jeremias and the Magdalen law tutors are delighted that he is now returning to us on a permanent basis.

As the post is additional to the three held by Roderick Bagshaw, Katharine Grevling and Roger Smith, we wished the person appointed to teach two of the mainstream subjects that we do not ourselves teach – enhancing the proportion of teaching from Magdalen tutors that our students can look forward to. Jeremias’s doctoral research was Labour Law-based, which is being published by OUP as a book (The Notion of the Employer) this year. He will, naturally, be teaching students in Labour Law. He has also undertaken significant research in European Union Law and will teach this to our second year students. Another important subject he will take over is Constitutionalwww.Bundshop.com Law: we are pleased to ensure that two of the three subjects for Law Moderations in the first year will henceforward be taught by Magdalen tutors.

Telethon thank you Christy Rush (2010) was one of our alumni and was pleased to inform everyone of student callers in the 2014 Telethon, and the current success Magdalen is enjoying. It is now works in the Development Office inspiring to discover the paths that people have taken since leaving the College, and how their The Easter Vacation brings not only fear of experiences at Magdalen have helped to shape impending examinations, but another event now their future careers. firmly fixed in the College’s annual calendar: the Telethon campaign. This year, 16 student callers, 357 alumni gave as part of the campaign, including myself, took over the Old Law Library, which raised over £273,000 for the College’s donned our headsets and set about getting in Annual Fund. This amazing generosity is touch with our alumni. Over a period of two tremendously appreciated by the College: weeks every year, we contact our Old Members as a student I have seen how every gift can not only as part of our Annual Fund campaign, but make a difference, whether by enabling a less- also to keep alumni up-to-date with College news privileged student to attend the College, or and find out about career options available to us continuing the maintenance of our beautiful once we enter the “real world”. buildings and grounds. On behalf of the student body as well as the Development It was a pleasure speaking to a wide range of Office, I would like to thank every donor for Old Members on this year’s campaign. As did all your continued support, especially in these the student callers, I learned a great deal from economically challenging times.

11 This summer work has begun on the major renovation and extension of the New Library in Longwall Quad. This project has been several years in the planning and much of the preparatory work has been undertaken, including extensive archaeology and the underpinning of Longwall. Work has now finally begun on this new addition to the Magdalen landscape with completion expected in Hilary 2016. New Library Building Work Begins significance of the present structure, When the building is completed in while sensitively making the changes early 2016 we will finally have a necessary to bring the Library up library that befits Magdalen’s standing to date and to allow it to function as a centre of world-class learning effectively for students and staff. and scholarship. It will provide over twice as many places to study (up to Further to the enhancement of the 120 reader spaces), a building which existing Library, a new extension will provides disabled access, for the first be built; this will take the form of time, into and throughout the library, an L-shaped wing, including a new and a variety of spacious work places – reading room, offices, and exhibition at individual desks, in seminar rooms, space, that sits in relation to a sunken at tables, in study carrels and in more landscape garden. In addition, casual communal areas. Longwall Quad will be remodelled and will be integrated with the Library and surrounding buildings. The New Library at Magdalen has long been a source of complaint amongst our students, with traffic noise and pollution from the High Street permeating the building, a leaking roof, a heating system which could not be regulated and the worst seating-to- student ratio of any Oxbridge college. Despite the fact that Magdalen has been looking for solutions to the problem of its library space since the 1970s, it is only in recent years that that the College has been able to make it its top priority.

We have come up with a design with leading architects Wright & Wright which delivers an imaginative renovation of and extension to the New Library, providing flexible and well-equipped working space while remaining sympathetic to the original Victorian building and the architecture of the College.

The renovation of the existing building involves the removal of the top floor and the insertion of a new freestanding structure which will be set into the void of the hall; the re-use of this Library space is a deliberately sustainable approach, and pays heed to the historic

12 FLOREAT MAGDALENA • THE MAGAZINE FOR MAGDALEN MEMBERS • ISSUE 13/ 2014

New Library Building Work Begins NEW LIBRARY BUILDING The total cost of the project is £10.5m We are now inviting the wider Alternatively, if you prefer, we and Magdalen has allocated £3m Magdalen alumni community to lend would be more than happy to send from its own resources, primarily by their support to this landmark project, information in the post or visit or delaying other building restoration the first new building on the College’s show you first-hand, here in College, projects across the College and by site since the Grove Quad in the 1990s. the work that is being undertaken. In finding savings elsewhere. That leaves any event, we look forward to keeping £7.5m to raise through philanthropy, The College has created a new section you updated on both the building and and thanks to the generosity of a small of its website to showcase the Library fundraising progress and to inviting number of major donors, we have and you can learn more about the you to the grand opening of the ‘new’ secured £5.5m to date, leaving an project and how you can support it New Library in 2016. outstanding £2m to find by the time by going to www.magd.ox.ac.uk/ building work has finished in 2016. newlibrary

For further information please contact Sean Rainey in the Development Office – [email protected] Tel. 01865 286796

13 Magdalen Women’s Network The Magdalen Women’s Network has been set up to provide career advice and mentoring for Magdalen women students and to provide a networking opportunity and career support for women alumnae.

Women’s Network Women’s Network London Reception New York Reception

In February a Magdalen Women’s Network Reception took On the weekend of the Oxford North American place in the London offices of international communications Reunion, we held a reception to launch the Magdalen group Bell Pottinger. Women’s Network in the United States. This initiative followed the recent success of the Women’s Network Events in London. We met for cocktails in the Library Room (of course) in The Williams Hotel, a new boutique hotel located in mid-town Manhattan. We were a small group in numbers but abundant in our good cheer and enthusiasm. Alumni ranged from matriculation year 1981 (just after women were admitted to the college) to a recent graduate and everything in between. Marilyn Bowler from the Development Office attended the event and explained that the network had been set up to provide career advice and mentoring for Magdalen As one of the Magdalen Women’s Network’s first events, offering women students and to provide a networking students and alumnae the opportunity to help shape the future of opportunity and career support for women alumni. the network, the evening found an enthusiastic response. Despite a Some serious bonding took place and plans were strike affecting the London Underground, over 50 Magdalen women hatched for an event on the West Coast. past and present took the chance to meet and talk over wine and canapés, including Catriona Luke (1979), who was in the first group Sarah Beshar (1982) of women to matriculate at Magdalen.

Susan Holliday (1985), Head of Reinsurance Strategy at Swiss Re, spoke a few words of introduction alongside the President and Bell Pottinger host Elly Williamson (2000).

For current students, the evening was an opportunity to learn about the world of work from their Magdalen predecessors while working attendees from academia, diplomacy, business, media and the arts and sciences enjoyed the opportunity to re-connect and discuss their professional lives and development.

Those who attended were a fantastic mix by career choice but were united on the evening by an appreciation of the potential the network could hold. Elly Williamson (2000)

Women’s Network Dinner

In June 70 alumnae and students met for the inaugural Women’s Network Dinner at the elegant University Women’s Club in London’s Mayfair, hosted by Club member Susan Holliday (1985). Guest speakers were Christine Ferdinand, Fellow Librarian and Women’s Adviser, who was the third female Fellow to be appointed by the College in 1992, and Michele le Roux (1979) on her experience of being in the first year of women to be admitted to Magdalen. Matriculation years ranged from 1979 to current students, with every age group in between being well-represented. With its own LinkedIn group (Magdalen College Women’s Network) for keeping in touch, look out for more Magdalen Women’s Network events coming up.

14 FLOREAT MAGDALENA • THE MAGAZINE FOR MAGDALEN MEMBERS • ISSUE 13/ 2014 Magdalen’s First Female Organ Scholar

Anna Lapwood (2013) reflects on her first year as organ scholar

When I was awarded the organ scholarship to Magdalen, I must admit that I was unaware of all the challenges that it would present. Turning up on the first day, I was embarrassingly keen, if slightly nervous, about the hard work that lay ahead. I was aware that organists were rumoured to be social recluses, but it was only when I was presented with my timetable that I realised why.

The schedule consists of chorister rehearsals at 7:50 every WOMEN MAGDALEN morning (with morning wake ups not being my strongest point) then a full rehearsal in the afternoon, followed by Evensong. It certainly took a while for me to adapt to the new regime, and I must admit that there are still occasions where getting up in the morning has been fairly last minute (although I’m secretly proud of my personal best of three minutes from bed to song school). However, now that I am approaching the end of my first year as organ scholar, I can’t help but notice how the organ scholarship has completely changed me, for the better I hasten to add.

I can now get the anarchic young choristers to listen to me every other day, I have refined my conducting, and the improvements in my playing were recognisable within the first couple of weeks. When you play for eight services a week, you really have no choice but to improve; when thrown in at the deep end, you have to learn to swim rather quickly!

Evidently, being an organ scholar isn’t easy, and I had the added challenge of being the first female organist entering an all male environment. However, it has been one of the most rewarding and beneficial things I have ever done, as well as a huge amount of fun, and I am so very glad that I am part of such an amazing tradition.

Women Fellows

“Conversation piece” was the name given in the eighteenth century to an informal group portrait. Magdalen possesses several fine examples with Fellows as subjects.

The most recent was a portrait commissioned in 2013 from the photographer Chloe Dewe Mathews. Earlier conversation pieces did not show any of the women members and the photograph was commissioned to rectify this. It shows Laurie Maguire, Susan Iversen, Alison Etheridge, Christine Ferdinand, Lizzie Fricker, Clare Harris, and Shearer West, in the Colonnade of the New Buildings.

15 The Great War 100 Years On David Lindsay (1891), later Lord Crawford, was the first peer to enlist as a private soldier rather than an officer when he joined the RAMC in 1915. He survived the war and kept diaries of his experiences. Richard Sheppard, Emeritus Fellow in German, reviews their publication

David Alexander Lindsay (1871-1940), of the growing food shortages. He most British officers, Lindsay spoke from 1913 the 27th Earl of Crawford, then held other senior governmental French, liked France, understood studied History at Magdalen from posts and remained politically active French irritation with their British 1891 to 1894 and got a third. While at until 1922, but left politics in 1924 and Allies, and approved of their superior Oxford, he was prominent in the Union became prominent in the world of Fine political determination. Finally, his and Secretary of the Canning Club Art and Literature. worm’s-eye perspective also enabled (then called the Argentine Club). In him to see that “this vile war” was 1895, after working in the University While in France, “Private Lord forcing the Army to learn important Settlement at Bethnal Green, he became Crawford”, a habitual diarist from new lessons about medical provision, Conservative MP for Chorley at the 1892 to 1940, left graphic accounts of prophylactic sanitation and surgical age of 23 and held the seat until 1913. his day-to-day experiences and blunt techniques, and his appreciation of After the débâcle at Neuve Chapelle statements about what, in his view, the tenacity and professionalism of his in March 1915, when the British and was going wrong. He was particularly colleagues increased visibly. Lindsay’s Indian armies suffered 11,200 casualties, critical of foolish and badly trained acute observations, lack of jingoistic Lindsay, by then 43, felt duty-bound to young “swankers”, i.e. the “new type sentiment, and trenchant style make join the RAMC and so became the first of newly joined officers” who were this unusual and provocative book a peer to enlist as a private soldier and, “utterly incompetent to lead men, very compelling read, but its editor a year later, probably the only medical to inspire confidence or respect, to has made it all the more compelling orderly to be mooted as the Viceroy of enforce discipline, to behave even as by providing a wealth of informative India. He landed in France with No. gentlemen”, superfluous and rigidly footnotes and a very rich selection of 12 Casualty Clearing Station on 13 May policed “bull”, bossy and interfering unusual illustrations. 1915, and served with it in Hazebrouck, nurses, institutionalized waste mainly in the operating theatre. In late and negligence, and the “horrible June 1916 he accepted a commission conditions prevailing in the field”. Private Lord Crawford’s Great War Diaries: in the Intelligence Corps, but after five But he was also very scathing about From Medical Orderly to Cabinet Minister, weeks he agreed to join Asquith’s first the indecision, political cravenness, edited by Christopher Arnander coalition government as President of and deep-seated “confidence that (Barnsley: Pen & Sword Books, 2013). the Board of Agriculture and Fisheries, we shall muddle through” that Pp. xxxiv and 206; 57 photographs and a particularly important post because prevailed in Britain. Moreover, unlike 18 other illustrations. £19.99; US$39.95. Magdalen in 1914

This photo was taken in June 1914 and captures the last few weeks of peace before the Great War started in August. The Prince of Wales (circled), later the abdicating Edward VIII, who was a member of the College, is pictured. If you know anything about this photo or any of the other people in it please let us know.

16 FLOREAT MAGDALENA • THE MAGAZINE FOR MAGDALEN MEMBERS • ISSUE 13/ 2014

College Archivist Robin Darwall-Smith reflects on how the First World War affected Magdalen, as The Great War seen through the College archives 100 Years On THE GREAT WAR THE GREAT

Magdalen’s Archives and the First World War With the centenary of the start of the These were “official” records of the Sir Fred Warner (1937) presented his First World War falling this year, readers College. But other members of the papers to the archives. Most of them will be pleased to know that Magdalen’s College also kept their own private relate to Sir Fred’s own career, but they archives contain a great deal of archives relating to the war, especially include almost 100 letters written by fascinating and poignant material from President Warren. He was a tireless his cousin Sir Christopher Warner (who this period. correspondent with Magdalen men came up to Magdalen as a Demy in on the front, and, when a Magdalen 1919) to his parents from the trenches. Of course official record-keeping within man was killed, he always wrote a It is only a shame that Christopher’s the College continued uninterrupted: letter of condolence to his widow or handwriting is execrable, and that the the Governing Body met, and minutes family. Warren kept all his wartime letters are almost all written in pencil. were taken of its meetings. Meanwhile correspondence - almost 1250 documents President Herbert Warren maintained in all - and it is in the archives. As a Other gifts reflect on life within his “notebooks”, his journals of College glimpse into the lives and feelings of Magdalen during the war: in 2007 life. However, whereas in the past a whole group of people caught up in one of our Old Members spotted in Warren had pasted in cuttings about Old the war, this is a remarkable collection. a Sheffield junk shop a photograph Members’ achievements, now he had to In particular, it is moving to encounter of a group of officer cadets stationed paste in cuttings reporting their deaths. Magdalen men taking the time, even at Magdalen in 1918, and promptly when in the trenches, to write to their bought it for us, and just a few The archives also contain a special old President. Warren was not the only weeks ago we were presented with a tribute to our war dead. Once the war member of Magdalen to maintain and programme, signed by those present, was over, the President and Fellows preserve his wartime correspondence: for a concert given at Magdalen in 1917 circulated to the relatives of our war the scientist Robert Gunther also kept by some cadets. dead forms on which to record their letters sent to him from former pupils on military careers, and encouraged active service. These records can be disturbing - one them to send us photographs too. The can only read so much of Warren’s war families responded generously: as These records have lived in our archives correspondence in one sitting, and one well as completing the forms, many of for many years, but more recently we wonders how many people who signed them did indeed provide photographs, have received some fascinating deposits that concert programme would soon be and sometimes even sent copies of the of personal papers which reflect on dead - but they are also precious. No official letters from superior officers, the war. For example, we have some one who served in the First World War describing (at least in theory) how their of the letters of Edward VIII (1912) to is now alive, but through the letters, relative died. When all the forms had his Magdalen friends, several of which photographs, and other ephemera been gathered in, they were bound up were written after 1914. which survive in an archive like ours, into three splendid volumes, which the men and women of that period can now live in the archives. Some collections contain real surprises. still share their experiences of those In 2003 the family of the diplomat terrible years with us.

17 It has been a busy year for alumni events, both at home and abroad, bringing you a wide range of ways to re-engage with the College wherever you are. Many of these events were hosted or sponsored by old members, with some events held in their own homes. We are very grateful to members who help to bring other members together in this way, and look forward to continuing to celebrate the Magdalen network with our future events programme. If you are able to help in any way please contact Anna Norman in the Development Office at [email protected]. Alumni Events

Benefactors’ Gaudy Ú On a balmy June evening over Robert Fox (1964) with 100 guests attended a dinner Ben Macintyre in Hall held to thank major Benefactors for their support of the College.

Classics Event at British Museum Ü In February Classics alumni were invited to a private members’ talk at the British Museum in London by Professor Oliver Taplin, Emeritus Fellow and former tutor in Classics at Magdalen, on ‘Elusive Medeas’, followed by a drinks reception in the Members’ Room, as part of the Classics Fellowship campaign. Alumni enjoyed reliving the intellectual stimulation of their Magdalen days, and seeing what paths their Classics peers had taken after Magdalen. Many thanks to Katherine Hudson (2002) for facilitating the event at the Museum.

Ben Macintyre on Philby Û The President, Mary-Christy Fisher and In March Magdalen Historians were invited to a talk at Harold Koh (1975) at the New York Dinner the Oxford & Cambridge Club in London by best-selling author, historian, and columnist, Ben Macintyre, who delivered an exclusive sneak preview of his book “Philby: A True Story of Cold War Espionage and Betrayal”. Ben is the son of late Fellow in History Angus Macintyre, after whom the new Fellowship in Modern History will be named. The event proved so popular that it had a waiting list of over 60 History alumni, and we were lucky that Ben was able to repeat the talk at a later date to allow as many old members as possible to attend. Thanks to Trevor Pitman (1977) for facilitating the booking of the Club.

18 FLOREAT MAGDALENA • THE MAGAZINE FOR MAGDALEN MEMBERS • ISSUE 13/ 2014 MEMBER NEWS ALUMNI EVENTS ALUMNI

Canary Wharf Drinks Ú In June Trevor Pitman (1977) hosted a drinks reception at Fitch Ratings Ltd for alumni who work in Canary Wharf. Fastolf Lunch Û May saw our annual Fastolf Lunch for those leaving bequests to the College. Business Breakfast Ù A talk by Fellow Librarian Christine Ferdinand was followed by a stroll We launched a new series of Business down to the river to cheer Magdalen Breakfasts with an impressive inaugural on in the Summer Eights races. event at 11 Downing Street hosted by the Rt Hon George Osborne MP, Chancellor of the Exchequer (1990). Look out for future breakfasts which will involve talks and discussions by eminent Magdalen members International Events ß of the business community. These included a dinner in Hong Kong in March with guest speaker Magdalen Supernumerary Fellow Xin Lu as part of the University’s Reunion in Asia; a dinner for over 60 guests at the National Arts Club in New York as part of the University’s North American Reunion, The President, Mary-Christy Fisher and with guest speakers Harold Koh (1975), Harold Koh (1975) at the New York Dinner Sterling Professor of International Law at Yale and recent Legal Adviser of the US Department of State, and Paul Dodyk (1959), recently retired chair of Americans for Oxford; a New York Barbecue for 40 guests kindly hosted by Michael Drexler (1992) at his home; a drinks reception in Singapore kindly held at the home of Jesse Bhattal (1979), and a dinner at the University Club of Toronto kindly sponsored by Neil Guthrie (1985) and Robert Sharpe (1981).

19 Wellcome Trust Archive Oliver Wrong (1942), son of a Magdalen Don, was born in College in 1925. His daughter Michela writes about his lifelong connection with Magdalen and the medical archive he left to the Wellcome Trust on his death in 2012.

The Wellcome Trust, one of the Archivists at the Wellcome Library on the Euston Road world’s leading independent took delivery of the collection last June, making it funders of medical scientific available to future researchers. research, is setting up an archive which will contain It spans the six decades of Wrong’s career. Wrong, the correspondence, research who died in February 2012, developed a simple papers and original notes of protocol to test the kidney’s ability to excrete acid, a nephrologist Professor Oliver critical diagnostic tool. He became a world expert on Wrong, whose ground-breaking acquired and hereditary forms of renal tubular acidosis, work helped establish the study a condition in which the kidneys calcify and bones of the kidney as a medical become brittle, and identified and described a new specialism in its own right. hereditary kidney disease which he named “Dent’s Oliver Wrong Disease”, which many believe should now be more accurately termed “Dent-Wrong Disease”.

Few alumni could boast closer links with Magdalen College. Wrong’s family was an integral part of Oxford’s academic intelligentsia.

He was born in Holywell Ford, the old mill house on the north side of Addison’s Walk, which College authorities traditionally reserved for the don with the biggest family. His father Murray Wrong, a Canadian who had married the daughter of A.L. Smith, Master of Balliol, was a history don and College Vice-President, and is today remembered in a Edward Murray Wrong brass plaque in the chapel, alongside his contemporary C.S. Lewis.

When Murray died of heart failure at 38, Wrong was sent to Canada to be raised by his historian grandfather. He returned and later studied medicine in Magdalen in 1942, when World War Two was raging. As a firewatcher, one of his tasks was to patrol Oxford’s rooftops during Luftwaffe raids, raising the alarm in case of successful hits. The association left him with a lifelong affection for Magdalen. “I remember pausing in front of New Buildings and saying to myself that I would never again live surrounded by such beauty, and so it has turned out”, he wrote in his memoirs. His first hands-on medical experience was at the Radcliffe Hospital, treating wounded soldiers returning from the Netherlands with the just-introduced penicillin.

Wrong often attended alumni events. He died, aged 87, of pulmonary fibrosis in London’s University College Hospital, where for two decades he directed the Department of Medicine. With the College’s permission, his ashes were scattered in the Meadows, not far from the house where he was born. http://tinyurl.com/Wrong-archive

20 FLOREAT MAGDALENA • THE MAGAZINE FOR MAGDALEN MEMBERS • ISSUE 13/2014 POETRY

Anglo-Welsh poet Andrew Wynn Owen (2011) graduates in English this year. Raspberries for the Magdalen Ferry is his debut pamphlet

The book has a close connection to Magdalen College: it includes several poems originally written for meetings of The Florio Society and Poetry is dedicated to Emeritus Fellow John Fuller. A former secretary of both The Florio Society and the Oxford University Poetry Society, Andrew Raspberries has won the Foyle Young Poets of the Year Award, the Ledbury Poetry Competition, Stephen Spender Prize for poetry translation, the Richard Selig Prize and most recently the celebrated Sir Roger Newdigate Available, but not for long, Prize 2014 (once won by Oscar Wilde). They look like lesser fruits of Eden. So sweet they force you into song The pamphlet is designed and And fill your head with dreams of hedon- published by The Emma Press and is on sale at £6.50/$12. Istic gymnasts born in Sweden. theemmapress.com These luscious buds should be illegal, Edward Murray Wrong Reserved for emperor and eagle.

Yes, don’t they make you salivate? That danglingness, their regal nods Something Mortal, a To passers-by as if to state posthumous collection of poems by A bloodline running back to gods. the late Nick Montgomery (1978) is You’d like them to arrive in squads now available from Laurel Books And drag you screaming to a cell (www.laurelbooks.co.uk). The book features an introduction by Nick’s tutor, With sticky fists on each lapel. Magdalen Emeritus Fellow John Fuller. These friendly triffids catch your eye Across a busy motorway And beckon you to have a try. New Magdalen Choir CD Their trimming is décolleté Buxtehude: Membra Jesu With underbrush for négligée Nostri, the new recording from Magdalen College Choir And crimpled leaves that make you think with its new label Opus Arte, Of Cleopatra draped in mink. is a ‘sublimely tender’ 1680 meditation on the crucified The provenance this clustered fruit Christ. Given 5 stars by it is available Can claim is unlike any berry: to buy from the Oxford Venusian origins impute University Shop at Its power to party and make merry. www.oushop.com or on When Charon chauffeurs in the ferry +44 (0)1865 247414 The only bribes to turn his head Are juicy, globular, and red.

21 Events Calendar

2014 Saturday 20th September Garden Party SOLD OUT Tuesday 28th October London Drinks Reception Wednesday 12th November QCs’ Dinner Saturday 6th December Singapore Dinner Saturday 6th December & Sunday 7th December Carols by Candlelight

2015 Saturday 28th March Year Gaudy for Matriculation Years 1978-1981 Saturday 30th May Fastolf Lunch for Legators Saturday 19th September Alumni Dinner Saturday 26th September Year Gaudy for Matriculation Years 1969-1973