University College Oxford Record 2020

OBITUARIES
EMERITUS FELLOWS
Brian Crayford Loughman
died on 9 October 2019 aged 94.
Brian was Hammerson Fellow in
Plant Science from 1970-92 and
thereafter an Emeritus Fellow.
He was a very successful and
popular Dean of Graduates
from 1973 to 1988, and also
Dean of Degrees from 1999 until
2011. He was also Garden Master
in 1974 and 1980-1, Senior Treasurer
in 1990-1, Admissions Officer for 1990-2,
and Dean of Old Members for 1995-8. Brian
was a stalwart supporter of the Univ Music
Society, and of many College sports teams. He
was a much-loved Fellow in the College who will
be remembered by generations of Univ students
with respect and affection.
In normal times we would have hoped here to
include addresses from Brian’s memorial service,
but that event has had to be postponed due to
the lockdown. We hope that this will have taken
place in time for something to appear in the 2021
Record. In the meantime, however, we are pleased
to reprint here the tribute given in a recent issue
of The Martlet by Dr David Bell, who served as
Dean for much of the time when Brian was Dean
of Graduates:
Others will speak with more authority than I
have about Brian’s scientific achievements some
of which I do know were considerable. I will say a
little about our friendship.
I came to know Brian Loughman some years
before either of us had much to do with Univ.
Starting in 1965 at the request of Kenneth
Sandford who was Reader in Geology but not
a Fellow of Univ, I began tutoring some of the
College’s geologists. Brian was, I think, doing the
same for any botanists. We met occasionally,
walking along Parks Road and
once when he came into my
Department, possibly for a Sub-
Faculty meeting. In those days
Geology and Mineralogy (as the
Department was then called)
was in the Faculty of Biological
Sciences which included Zoology,
Botany, Forestry, Soil Science and
Plant Science. Lawrence Wager,
Professorial Fellow at Univ, preferred
it that way, shrewdly judging that such a
home ensured Geology remained a moderately
sized fish in a sizeable pool and not a minnow
among the much larger Physical Sciences.
Brian came to Oxford and I came back in
1961: he from Cambridge and I from service
in the Solomon Islands. He was a University
Demonstrator (later University Lecturer) and I
was a Departmental Demonstrator, an inferior
form of scientific life at the beck and call of the
Head of Department. I drew level with Brian when
I too became University Lecturer in Petrology in
1967. In those days one could have this fairly
senior University post (appointed to retirement
at 67) but not be a Fellow of a college. In fact,
Oxford had no Tutorial Fellow in Geology until
Ron (now Lord) Oxburgh was elected to such a
Fellowship by St Edmund Hall in, I think, 1965. The
Franks Report changed all that by establishing an
“Entitlement List” of such people as Brian and me.
Most colleges opted to elect two Fellows from
the list to clear up the backlog and Univ selected
the two of us. The significant point was that we
were both to be non-stipendiary but for some
reason I was also to be Supernumerary. Such is
the way of Oxford colleges.
Thereby hangs a tale. I think that Brian had
something of Odysseus, a man of many wiles,
56 University College Record | October 2020