Part III: Antarctica and Academe - Scott Polar Research Institute

whether the Master had any authority to authorise the expenditure on meals and
entertainment (which I referred to earlier). They much regretted the necessity of
invoking his jurisdiction as Visitor, but all attempts to mediate a settlement within
the College (including one made by two members of the Law Faculty) have been
unsuccessful. (The two lawyers were of course Glazebrook and Napier and the latter
had advised me that I was entirely in the right and should not "backtrack"; this
statement was a cycnical lie by the petitioners).
Next Brading wrote to me on 27 November saying that he had received legal advice
that I was not entitled to exclude him from the meeting of 14 November. I should
acknowledge that a mistake had been made and assure him in writing that I now
accepted that my ruling on 14 November was made in error and that I would make
appropriate acknowledgement and apology at the outset of the meeting , which
would then be recorded in the minutes. It was his intention to attend the adjourned
AGM.
In fact I later learnt that Glazebrook had written to ask the Registrary (the senior
officer of the University administration, responsible for the application of ther
Statutes and Ordinances) if he had recently advised a Head of an Approved
Foundation - (me that is!) - that a Fellow of that Foundation, who was a University
Oficer with leave of absence under Statute D.ll.4, would be in breach of his
undertaking to the General Board (Ord.p.730, Reg.2) if he were to attend the annual
General Meeting of the Company of which he, by virtue of being a Fellow of the
Foundation, is a Director. He made an analogy between the Association of an
Approved Foundation and the Directors of Limited Companies (which the
Association is). The Registrary replied (24 November) that he had so advised me -
that the practice followed by the General Board regarding consent for attendance at
College meetings by officers who were on leave of absence, was to give permission
for attendance at College meetings concerned with the election of a new Head of
House and at College meetings to vote on changes in College statutes, but that they
did not normally give permission for attendance at other meetings. He had checked
again and confirmed. "The practice of the [General] Board is to regard attendance at
College Governing Body meetings as falling within the requirement to give up
administrative duties for Colleges. The same would apply by analogy to meetings of
the Company which governs an Approved Foundation .....All this depends on the
extensive case-law developed by the General Board over the years."
Glazebrook was wrong again and Brading had again attempted to "wrong-foot" me,
knowing that he had no defensible case; so much for his integrity and appeal to
principle.
The fellowship was saddened and fed-up with all the intrigue and the lack of
Christian values being shown. One by letter exhorted the Fellows to settle the
dispute which had become vindictive and distasteful; let us have an end to the power
struggle, the dispute has gonbe too far, it is time for every one to step back, to find an
amicable, workable solution before the fellowship was detroyed; it could not be good
that the Visitor had been asked to step in because the Fellows were incapable of
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