march 2009 - Fitzwilliam College - University of Cambridge

march 2009 76
PROFESSOR RONALD HARRY OTTEWILL,
OBE (1952)
Ronald Ottewill was born on 8 February 1927 in
Southall and was educated at Southall Grammar
School and Queen Mary College, University of London.
He came up to Fitzwilliam in 1952 on a Nuffield
Scholarship to do a Ph.D. in Physical Chemistry. After
taking his Ph.D. in 1956 he was appointed a Senior
Assistant in Research and later an Assistant Director
of Research in the Department of Colloid Chemistry.
He left Cambridge in 1964 to become a Lecturer in
Physical Chemistry at the University of Bristol, and was
subsequently promoted to Reader in and then Professor
of Colloid Science, before becoming Leverhulme
Professor of Physical Chemistry from 1982 to 1992. He
remained active in his retirement as a Senior Research
Fellow until 2006. Ottewill became a Fellow of the
Royal Society of Chemistry and was elected to the Royal
Society in 1982, as well as winning various prizes and
medals in Britain, France and Germany. He was
awarded an OBE in 1989. He died on 4 June 2008.
PROFESSOR MONICA ALICE PARTRIDGE
Monica McMain was born on 25 May 1915 in
Northampton, and educated at Northampton School
for Girls and the University College, Nottingham,
graduating on 1936 in French with Latin. She married
Bill Partridge in 1937, who was later Jesse Boot
Professor of Pharmaceutical Chemistry at Nottingham.
She studied Russian at the School of Slavonic and East
European Studies, London from 1940 to 1943 and then
taught at Boyanus’s School of Russian in London while
doing postgraduate study in phonetics at University
College, London, winning the Laura Soames Prize in
1947. In the same year she was appointed as a Tutorial
Assistant in Nottingham’s Department of Slavonic
Languages, where she began her research on the
Russian political writer, Alexander Herzen, for which
she gained a Ph.D. in 1953. She had been appointed to
a Lectureship at Nottingham in 1949, and in the 1950s
developed extensive contacts both with the Soviet
Union and with Yugoslavia. In 1967 she was appointed
to a Professorship at Nottingham and began to develop
the University as a centre for Slovene and Serbo-Croat
studies; in particular she developed links with the
Universities of Zagreb and Ljubljana, and was awarded
the Order of the Yugoslav Flag with a Gold Star in 1980.
That was also the year in which she retired, but her
scholarly activity continued and in 1982 she received
an honorary doctorate from the University of Kiev.
As a result of her friendship with Professor Holt at
Nottingham she responded to the 1985 Fitzwilliam
Appeal by endowing a Visiting Fellowship in 1986 to
make it possible for scholars from Yugoslavia to visit
Cambridge. The subsequent dissolution of Yugoslavia
made this an increasingly delicate scheme to organise
but it has continued to provide regular opportunities
for visitors. In 1993 she was elected to an Honorary
Fellowship. She died on 18 March 2008.
PETER SPEAK (1946)
Peter Speak was born on 26 August 1925 at
Mytholmroyd, near Halifax, and was educated at
Hebden Bridge Grammar School. After two years’ war
service underground at the South Kirkby Colliery, he
came up to Fitzwilliam in 1946 to read Geography,
graduating in 1948 but completing the Tripos in 1949.
While at Fitzwilliam he was Secretary of the Music
Society, organising several concerts for a Wind
Ensemble he gathered together. In 1950 he joined the
staff of the Cambridgeshire Technical College and
School of Art, where he remained for the rest of his
career, retiring as Head of Geography of Anglia
Polytechnic University in 1990. Meanwhile he had
taken an M.Phil. in 1983, and spent the initial years of
his retirement working as a Research Associate at the
Scott Polar Institute, running the M.Phil. programme
there. Sadly he developed a brain tumour in the early
summer of 2008 and died at the beginning of July.
SAMUEL EDWARD GLENWOOD TOY, OBE (1946)
Sam Toy was born on 21 August 1923 in Mabe,
Cornwall and was educated at Falmouth Grammar
School. He initially came up to Selwyn College on
an RAF Scholarship to read Geography, but had to
leave for pilot training and war service with the RAF.
As an Instructor for the Cambridge University Air
Squadron at the end of the war he was able to resume
his course at Fitzwilliam, graduating in 1946. He joined
Ford Motors as a trainee in 1948, and the rest of his
career was spent with the company, becoming director
of sales in 1969 and then chairman and managing
director in 1980. Toy’s time at Ford was an increasingly
troubled one for the British motor industry, but
throughout he argued that Britain had to be able to
compete effectively with other countries. He retired
in 1986, and in retrospect it is clear that his warnings
about the need for greater efficiency were entirely
justified. On retirement he became chairman of the
Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders, and was
also active in other industry-related charities and
activities. As well as his retirement home in Hampshire
he had a cottage on Loch Ness, where he could enjoy
salmon and trout fishing; but he was also chairman
of UK 2000 Scotland from 1988 to 1996, developing
conservation programmes throughout Scotland. For
this he was awarded the OBE in 1994. Even before his
retirement he had been put on the Committee for the
1985 Fitzwilliam Appeal, and was active in seeking out
funds for the College in that period and subsequently.
He was elected to an Honorary Fellowship in 1984.
He died on 24 March 2008.
MAJOR JEREMY JOHN VENTHAM (1962)
Jeremy Ventham was born on 2 May 1942 in
Portsmouth at the height of the blitz, and was educated
at Portsmouth Grammar School, and commissioned
from Sandhurst into the Royal Signals in August 1962.
He came up to Fitzwilliam College in 1962 to read
Mechanical Sciences, graduating in 1966. However,
during these years the Trinity Foot Beagles and various