2017 TRINITY COLLEGE cambridge trinity college cambridge annual record annual record 2017 Trinity College Cambridge Annual Record 2016–2017 Trinity College Cambridge CB2 1TQ Telephone: 01223 338400 e-mail: [email protected] website: www.trin.cam.ac.uk Front cover: The Master’s Lodge at night. Contents 5 Editorial 11 Commemoration 12 Chapel Address 17 The Health of the College 20 The Master’s Response on Behalf of the College 25 The Founding of the King’s Hall 31 Alumni Relations & Development 32 Alumni Relations and Associations 44 Dining Privileges 45 Annual Gatherings CONTENTS 46 Alumni Achievements 50 Donations to the College Library 53 College Activities 54 First & Third Trinity Boat Club 62 Field Clubs 75 Students’ Union and Societies 88 College Choir 91 Features 92 A Life in Science 102 The ‘76ers’ 113 How Women Came to Trinity 126 The King’s Scholars 131 Louis Harold Gray 137 Ronald Shaw TRINITY ANNUAL RECORD 2017 | 3 147 Fellows, Staff, and Students 148 The Master and Fellows 160 Academic Honours 162 In Memoriam 167 An Eightieth Birthday Speech 184 College Notes 195 The Register 196 In Memoriam 200 Addresses Wanted CONTENTS TRINITY ANNUAL RECORD 2017 | 4 Editorial The year has been notable for its several anniversaries, which we have celebrated with due pomp and no little circumstance. It is 700 years since the foundation of King’s Hall out of which Trinity was eventually to rise in 1546. We publish the speech given by the Master at a Feast held on 25 May 2017 to mark the occasion, which provides a vivid history of King’s Hall itself. We also publish a feature by John Marenbon on the universities in the fourteenth century. Readers may be surprised (and some, no doubt, disappointed) to discover the purpose behind the foundation of King’s Hall: it was endowed specifically to supply the King with civil servants and the country with men-of-affairs. The advancement of ‘learning’ was very much a side issue. John invokes the spirit EDITORIAL of Cardinal Newman to praise Trinity’s subsequent drift towards “uselessness” and the cultivation of knowledge “for its own sake”. In these austerity-driven times, we can only hope that our present rulers and masters heed his plea and keep his faith. We also celebrated the fortieth anniversary of the admission of women to Trinity: first, as graduate students (1976); then as Fellows (1977); then as undergraduates (1978). We publish a memoir from the ‘76-ers’, members of that brave cohort who woke up one morning to find themselves miraculously transported into the middle of a Victorian boys’ public school. Fortunately, the boys (and a few of the masters) proved to be gracious and at least semi-civilized – so the experience turned out to be positive on all sides. Both individually and collectively, the ’76-ers’ came to advance that transformation in the public relations of gender, which has been so marked a feature of the last two generations; and the College progressively withdrew whatever reservations it had about persons of the female persuasion. Yet it is possible to wonder if the generosity of spirit shown in these recollections does not owe something to the passage of time. Can the ’76-ers’ really have been so unconcerned at the quality of the food and the condition of the plumbing in the 1970s when they arrived? TRINITY ANNUAL RECORD 2017 | 5 Like all ‘revolutions’, the admission of women to Trinity has a long prologue and a still-to-be concluded epilogue – both of which raise questions about how ‘revolutionary’ it really was. Boyd Hilton, the College historian, digs into the archives to examine how the Fellowship’s fateful decision in 1974 came to be made. In fact, at the time, there was very little dissent and the motion passed with broad support. However, in earlier days, it was not always so. In 1969 – between the sixth-century Synod of Mâcon, which (allegedly) debated whether women had souls, and the 1974 vote – the College had deliberated on whether women should be allowed to dine as guests at High Table. It was then that much sturm, and even some drang, became manifest. Fundamental principles were cited and irreducible positions taken up. Tempers frayed and words were used which it would be too ‘incorrect’ for this column to repeat in our own more enlightened times. A particular concern was what status should be accorded to Fellows’ wives and what restrictions placed on the number of times that they might dine – and whether such status and restrictions should also apply to Fellows’ mistresses. Nonetheless and eventually, the walls of Trinity’s male exclusivity were breached and, following that, it was only a matter of time before women were offered full membership of the College. After all, if they were allowed within the inner sanctum represented by High Table and the Parlour, what mysteries did male members of the College have left to preserve? EDITORIAL Yet, as ‘minorities’ have found worldwide, gaining a foot in the door does not always guarantee an open reception. It is a sobering thought that, forty years on, only one-sixth of Trinity’s Fellows should be female and one-third of its junior members. The imbalance partly reflects the strong orientation of the College towards science and maths, which generations of prejudice at home and school have decreed not to be subjects for ‘girls’. But it does not have to be so and, with the support of committed individuals, it is beginning not to be so. We feature an account of her life scientifique by Val Gibson, Professor of Physics and Head of the High Energy Physics Group at the Cavendish Laboratory. Last year, Val also received the Athena Prize of the Royal Society for her contribution to diversity reflected, not least, in the summer school that she holds every year in Trinity on the STEMM subjects. Val and other Fellows have formed a committee partly to celebrate ‘the Fortieth’ but, also, to advance the longer-term expansion of opportunity that the admission of women was meant to achieve. We report TRINITY ANNUAL RECORD 2017 | 6 on its activities as also those of the Trinity Women’s Network formed among alumnae for the same purpose. That our female members, while short in number, may be exceptional in talent is further attested by the Chapel Address prior to the Commemoration Feast given this year by Maudie Fraser. Maudie recounts her experiences working with, and providing reportage on, the refugees tragically thrown onto the world by the political crisis in the Middle East. Her example is inspiring and draws attention to a third purpose that Trinity may have besides providing the king with counsellors and pursuing ‘useless’ knowledge: namely, serving the needs of society. Maudie graduated as recently as 2015 and her voice speaks for the younger generation sustaining the College and carrying forward its future. Once more, that younger generation has done us proud. Last year, I indicated that I might not be able to celebrate with you Trinity’s annual triumph at the head of the Tripos table since the University was threatening to take the table away or, at least, to conceal what might be on it. However, I am pleased to report that better judgement finally prevailed – not least under pressure from the undergraduates themselves who did not wish their own considerable (and expensive) achievements to remain hidden – and Tripos results were published EDITORIAL again, allowing Baxter and Tompkins Tables to be constructed. The result, you may not be surprised to hear, was that…Trinity came top. The percentage of Firsts (41.6) was slightly down on last year but the statistics reveal one especially gratifying feature. We have become habituated to Trinity leading in maths and science, which it has done since time immemorial. But, this year, Trinity led the way in Arts and Humanities too. Yet whether we shall be able to stay there in future years is a question seriously raised by this year’s report on admissions. The impact of ‘Brexit’ is becoming clear with declining interest from Europe and a record number of students refusing our ‘offers’ to go elsewhere. Taken together with Gove-induced confusion in the A-level results, May-induced confusion over student visas and Johnson/ Hammond/Corbyn-induced confusion over tuition fees and loans, the entire future of higher education in this country is beginning to look parlous – which not even Trinity’s best efforts may be able to turn. Nonetheless, the College will continue to do what it can. We are steadily increasing provision of our own bursaries and scholarships to both undergraduates and TRINITY ANNUAL RECORD 2017 | 7 postgraduates. This year, inter alia, we have welcomed a new Postdoctoral Society consisting of members of the latest generation of researchers, holding postdoctoral awards across the University but unattached to colleges, and offered them a home and use of our facilities. Responses have been very enthusiastic and we reprise the first report of the Society’s activities. Elsewhere, the scheme for the College to fund a range of new ‘post-docs’ in the University’s departments has also continued to progress. In welcoming mood, we also note the appointment of Professor Stephen Toope as University Vice-Chancellor. He is a past student at Trinity and will now be an Honorary Fellow. Unfortunately, however, the corollary to welcoming in the new is to say farewell to the past. This year we lost one of our Fellows whose distinction reached far beyond the walls of academe and was etched also in the halls of public affairs.