Univ Record 2018

Building in their later years,
and finding it rather difficult
to cook for themselves,
having rarely had to do so, Sir
Maurice and his wife would
regularly bring them suppers.
Outside Univ, Sir Maurice
played a significant role in
University affairs. He was
Treasurer of the Oxford
Union from 1954-72, and he
served on the Hebdomadal
Council from 1969-75,
but perhaps his greatest
With Lord and Lady Redcliffe-Maud
contribution to Oxford was to
serve on the Franks Commission of Inquiry into the University from 1964-6.
Sir Maurice left Univ in 1977 on being appointed Vice-Chancellor of the University
of Leicester. However, he returned to Oxford in 1987, when he was elected Rector
of Lincoln College. He retired in 1994. He was knighted in 1988. His wife Dorothy
predeceased him in 1998, and he leaves a son and three daughters.
A fuller tribute to Sir Maurice will appear in next year’s Record.
JOHAN VAN ZYL STEYN, LORD STEYN OF SWAFIELD (Stellenbosch University)
died on 28 November 2017 aged 85. He came up to Univ as a Rhodes Scholar to read
Law, and was elected an Honorary Fellow in 1995. A shortened version is given here of
a tribute given by Lord Thomas of Cwmgiedd:
Johan Steyn was born in Stellenbosch in 1932. His father was a leading Afrikaner
legal academic and a founding member of the Faculty of Law at Stellenbosch University,
but died when Johan was an infant; his grandfather had fought against the British in the
Boer War and although captured and held a prisoner, he had made a resourceful escape.
In due course Johan read Law at Stellenbosch University and then as a Rhodes Scholar
at University College, Oxford. On his return to South Africa, he was called to the bar
and developed a highly successful legal practice in Cape Town – he was much in demand
with a very varied practice; on occasions he was instructed to act for the government.
In 1970 he was appointed a Senior Counsel – a very young appointment in South
Africa and symbolic of his meteoric legal career. He decided to emigrate to the UK – he
found the regime of apartheid repugnant – a fact that without doubt strongly influenced
his outlook when he became a judge. He was called to the bar by Lincoln’s Inn in 1973
and had to do pupillage; his reference for pupillage was from the then Chief Justice of
South Africa; it was the best reference that a pupil has ever had. It simply said that if he
had remained in South Africa he would have become Chief Justice.
He did his pupillage at 4 Essex Court and developed a commercial practice in
shipping insurance and arbitration from a tiny room overlooking a lightwell in rooms in
New Court. That practice grew at a considerable pace and he was soon leading others,
even before he took silk in 1979 – just six years after his call at Lincoln’s Inn.
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