The Brazen Nose 2013-2014 BRA-18569 The Brazen Nose 2014.indd 1 28/04/2015 07:14 The Brazen Nose The Brazen The Brazen Nose Volume 48 2013-2014 Volume 48, 2013-2014 48, Volume BRA-18569 Cover.indd 1 28/04/2015 07:40 Printed by: The Holywell Press Limited, www.holywellpress.com BRA-18569 The Brazen Nose 2014.indd 2 28/04/2015 07:14 CONTENTS Records Badminton Report ....................... 87 A Message from the Editor ............. 5 Strollers Cricket Tour .................... 88 Senior Members ............................. 9 Articles Class Lists ..................................... 18 Public Schools, Brasenose and Graduate Degrees ........................ 22 The Great War by David Walsh ....... 92 Matriculations............................... 27 College Prizes ............................... 31 Brasenose College Archives: A Brief Elections to Scholarships and History by Elizabeth Boardman ..... 102 Exhibitions 2013 ........................... 34 Life and Death on a Pilgrimage College Blues ............................... 39 by Jonathan Katz .......................... 117 A Brasenose Prayerbook Reports by David Bradbury ........................ 121 JCR Report ................................. 41 Letter to the Editor HCR Report ............................... 44 by Donald Anderton ...................... 126 Presentations to the Library........... 47 The Mystery of the Medieval Half- Chapel Report ............................. 51 Blue Blazer by Bill Roberts ........... 127 Music Report ............................... 53 Chassé-Croisé by Carole Bourne-Taylor Arts Week ..................................... 57 & Roger Massie ............................ 129 The King’s Hall Trust For The Arts .. 59 The Ashmole Society Report ........ 61 Travel Ale Verses ...................................... 63 Introduction ............................... 134 The Ellesmere Society Report ...... 65 The Yeti goes to China ................ 135 The English Reunion ................... 66 Tenerife 2014: A week in an Financial Review For 2013-2014 .. 68 evolutionary wonderland ............ 138 BNC Staff News .......................... 69 A Week in Jordan ........................ 141 Clubs University of South California .... 147 BNCBC Men’s Team Report ........ 74 BNCBC - Women’s Team Report .. 75 News & Notes ..................... 150 Football – HCR Team Report ...... 76 Brasenose Society ................ 155 Football – Women’s Team Report .. 80 Year Reps & Gaudies ........... 160 Football –Men’s Team Report ....... 80 Development & Alumni Report 164 Rugby Football Report ................ 82 Donors to Brasenose 2013-14 .. 168 Lacrosse Report ............................ 84 Obituaries ........................... 183 Ladies’ Hockey Report ................. 85 Squash Report .............................. 86 Croquet Report ............................ 86 BRA-18569 The Brazen Nose 2014.indd 3 28/04/2015 07:14 4 THE BRAZEN NOSE BRA-18569 The Brazen Nose 2014.indd 4 28/04/2015 07:14 EDITOR’S NOTES 5 EDITOR’S NOTES A couple of weeks ago I was able to visit the archaeological dig that, at the time of writing, is going on in the Old Cloisters, on one side of the Deer Park. The space beneath the main library is being transformed into another reading room, and the redesign will restore many original features. In particular, the flagstones of the cloister floor, long concealed under modern flooring, will be visible again, and although on some of them there are quite full epitaphs, on others students of the future will only see very simple inscriptions, initials and dates. I asked one of the archaeologists about these inscriptions, and she told me they corresponded to burials below the floor, left carefully untouched in their excavations. For a comparatively short period from the middle of the seventeenth century (when the chapel and adjacent cloisters were constructed) to the middle of the eighteenth, Fellows of Brasenose were buried in the cloisters, and while the grave markings might lack detail, the archaeologist assured me that records existed which allowed all these abbreviated Fellows to be identified. For me those flagstones – long hidden, acronymic, but with their explanatory keys in the College archives – captured something about colleges and commemoration. Thousands of people have passed through Brasenose College since its foundation, students, staff, Fellows, but the College never quite forgets any of them. You are at this moment reading one way it tries not to forget: “the Brazen Nose,” my predecessor as editor firmly informed me, “is above all a record.” The most significant parts of this publication are the lists of students, the obituaries (some thoughts on which by Sidney Whitaker we have included this year), and the various clubs’ and departments’ accounts of the year: this year, I am very glad to say, once more with reports from the staff. That’s one year, one year out of more than five hundred, that won’t entirely be forgotten. The Brazen Nose is just one way we preserve our memories, of course, but I’d like to believe it’s not the least important. The greatest pleasure of being editor, without question, is reading the letters I receive after every issue has been posted out, sometimes supplementing accounts, something correcting details, but most often simply sharing thoughts that the Brazen Nose had stimulated. Without fail these letters open with a polite but entirely unnecessary apology for wasting my time: you are not, I promise you, wasting my time! I love the way such things gravitate BRA-18569 The Brazen Nose 2014.indd 5 28/04/2015 07:14 6 THE BRAZEN NOSE towards me, for instance the photo that we reproduce of the simple epitaph that marks the grave of Peter Fraser, the great scholar of the Hellenistic world, on the Greek island of Cephalonia. Another letter this year introduced me to David Walsh, author with Anthony Seldon of Public Schools and the Great War, who has been kind enough to write for us about the Brasenose dead of World War I. Reading David’s article set me off on a search for a predecessor I hadn’t until that time been aware of, a Classics don by the name of Bob Brandt who died at Ypres in July 1915. Eventually I found myself, thanks also to an interest taken in my research by The Times, chatting to members of Bob Brandt’s family, for whom his death a hundred years ago, I discovered, still resonated. The wealth of memorabilia his great-niece was able to show me of this clever young man, tipped for great things, contrasted starkly with the anonymity of the official histories of the war: there were far too many casualties to dwell on any individual. With luck I’ll be able to commemorate Brandt properly in these pages next year. It is one thing to contemplate events that occurred a century ago. But sometimes a College experiences much more immediate tragedies. Kieran Keel was an outgoing and popular second-year undergraduate who died in an accident in February last year. Kieran’s funeral service in the University Church was deeply moving, his friends taking the lead in celebrating the life of a man with a talent for enjoying life, especially when American Football was involved. The College as a whole did what it does best, and came together to commemorate: the warmth and intimacy of this community has never been clearer to me. A bursary has been established in honour of Kieran which will support History and Spanish students, American Football and sport at Brasenose. In addition two trophies will be purchased, one for the American Football Club, and one for Brasenose sports clubs: the “Kieran Keel cup for exceptional contribution to Brasenose sporting life” will be awarded at Sports Dinner every year. The academic year 2013-14 brought an unusually large number of new faces to the Fellowship, Professor Konstantin Ardakov (Tutor in Pure Mathematics), Professor Rob Fender (Tutor in Physics), Dr Rodrigo Momberg Uribe (Supernumerary Fellow in Law), Dr Edmond Walsh (Supernumerary Fellow in Engineering), Dr Thomas Douglas and Dr Christopher Parsons (Junior Golding Fellows), and Dr Christian Johansson (Junior Kurti Fellow). We said a fond farewell to Revd BRA-18569 The Brazen Nose 2014.indd 6 28/04/2015 07:14 EDITOR’S NOTES 7 Graeme Richardson, who after nearly eight years serving the College moved with Helen and Matilda to a parish in Birmingham, where we wish them every joy. Into the breach smoothly stepped Revd Reynaud de la Bat Smit who (in the words of the JCR President Henry Zeffman) “seems to have every British rock icon of the 60s and 70s on speed dial.” Earlier in the year, on the topic of icons, Michael Palin entertained the JCR with a rendition of “The Lumberjack Song” in German, and we might also mention here a Brasenose team’s failure to impress Jeremy Paxman on University Challenge. It was our second year in a row to qualify, after a decade’s absence, in fairness, but we only just failed to achieve the lowest score on record. Some things it’s best not to remember. Contemplate instead the glorious escapades of our world- beating HCR football team, surely the sporting highlight of the year, and thrillingly recounted later in this publication. Has having our first Prime Minister in two hundred years inspired a generation of Brasenose politicians? Whatever the explanation, a remarkable Oxford University Student Union election saw no less than three Brasenose students (Louis Trup, Ruth Meredith and James Blythe) elected to sabbatical positions for 2014-15. Another reasonably significant election saw John Bowers QC appointed