The College Record 2024

THE QUEEN’S COLLEGE

COLLEGE

RECORD 2024

THE QUEEN’S COLLEGE

Visitor

The Archbishop of York

Provost

Craig, Claire Harvey, CBE, MA PhD Camb

Fellows

Robbins, Peter Alistair, BM BCh MA

DPhil Oxf

Nickerson, Richard Bruce, BSc Edin,

MA DPhil Oxf

Taylor, Robert Anthony, MA DPhil Oxf

Langdale, Jane Alison, CBE, BSc Bath,

MA Oxf, PhD Lond, FRS

Mellor, Elizabeth Jane Claire, BSc Manc,

MA Oxf, PhD R’dg

Owen, Nicholas James, MA DPhil Oxf

Rees, Owen Lewis, MA PhD Camb, MA Oxf,

ARCO

Bamforth, Nicholas Charles, BCL MA Oxf

O’Reilly, Keyna Anne Quenby, MA DPhil Oxf

Louth, Charles Bede, BA PhD Camb,

MA DPhil Oxf

Norbury, Christopher John, MA Oxf,

PhD Lond

Sarooshi, Dan, LLB NSW, LLM PhD Lond,

MA Oxf

Doye, Jonathan Peter Kelway, BA

PhD Camb

Buckley, Mark James, MA DPhil Oxf

Aldridge, Simon, MA DPhil Oxf

Timms, Andrew, MA Camb, MPhil PhD Brist

Meyer, Dirk, MA PhD Leiden

Papazoglou, Panagiotis, BS Crete, MA PhD

Columbia, MA Oxf, habil Paris-Sud

Lonsdale, Laura Rosemary, MA Oxf, PhD

Birm

Beasley, Rebecca Lucy, MA PhD Camb,

MA DPhil Oxf, MA Berkeley

Crowther, Charles Vollgraff, MA Camb,

MA Cincinnati, MA Oxf, PhD Lond

O’Callaghan, Christopher Anthony, BM BCh

MA DPhil DM Oxf, FRCP (Lond)

Phalippou, Ludovic Laurent André,

BA Toulouse School of Economics, MA

Southern California, PhD INSEAD

Gardner, Anthony Marshall, BA LLB

MA Melbourne, PhD NSW

Tammaro, Paolo, Laurea Genoa, PhD Bath

Guest, Jennifer Lindsay, BA Yale, MA MPhil

PhD Columbia, MA Waseda

Turnbull, Lindsay Ann, BA Camb, PhD Lond

Parkinson, Richard Bruce, BA DPhil Oxf

Hollings, Christopher David, MMath

PhD York

Kelly, Steven, BSc Dub, DPhil Oxf, ARIAM

Metcalf, Christopher Michael Simon,

MA Edin, MPhil DPhil Oxf

Whidden, Seth Adam, BA Union College,

AM PhD Brown, MA Ohio State

Prout, David, MA Oxf, PhD Lond

Smith, Michael Ambrose Crawford, BA

College of William and Mary, MA PhD

Princeton

Turner, Jonathan, BA MSt BCL MPhil DPhil

Oxf, LLB Birkbeck

Keating, Jonathan Peter, MPhys Oxf, PhD

Bristol

Abell, Catharine Emma Jenvey, BA Adelaide,

PhD Flinders

Weatherup, Robert Stewart, MEng PhD

Camb

Ariga, Rina, MBBS Imperial, DPhil Oxf

Marinkov, Viktor Vidinov, BSc Utrecht,

MSc Barcelona

Carrillo de la Plata, José Antonio, BA PhD

Grenada

O’Brien, Conor, BA Cork, MSt DPhil Oxf

Rota, Gabriele, BA Padua, MPhil PhD Camb

Leedham, Simon, BSc MBBS PhD QMUL

Ono-George, Meleisa Patarica, BA

MA Victoria, PhD Warw

Petrov, Jan, BSc Mgr PhD Masaryk,

LLM NYU

Al-Hosni, Rumaitha Nasser Ali, BSc Kent,

MSc UCL, PhD Camb

Jarrett, Sadie Claire, BA Camb, MSc Oxf

Brookes

Leeder, Karen, BA DPhil Oxf, FRSA

Egger, Dennis, BA Oxf, MSc LSE,

PhD Berkeley

Reynolds, Frances Susan, BA PhD Birm

Ghassim, Farsan, BSc LSC, MA Yale,

DPhil Oxf

Khalighinejad, Nima, MD Isfahan Univeristy

of Medical Sciences, MSc PhD UCL

Perkins, Marina Webster, BA Brown,

MPhil Camb

Slack, Emma, BA Camb, PhD London

Research Institute

Varon, Liz, BA Swarthmore, PhD Yale

Hudson, Emily, BSc LLB LLM PhD

Melbourne

Wettimuny, Shamara, BSc MSc LSE,

DPhil Oxf

Fink Shustin, Paz, BSc MSc PhD Tel-Aviv

Salomone-Sehr, Jules, MSc Paris School of

Economics, MA Sorbonne, PhD CUNY

Wright, Matthew, BEng PhD UNSW

Bowles, Alexander, BSc Port, MSc Imp,

PhD Essex

Honorary Fellows

Hoffmann, Leonard Hubert, the Rt Hon Lord

Hoffmann of Chedworth, Kt, PC, BA Cape

Town, BCL MA Oxf

Morgan, Kenneth Owen, Lord Morgan of

Aberdyfi, MA DPhil DLitt Oxf, FBA, FRHistS

McColl, Sir Colin Hugh Verel, KCMG, MA Oxf

Berners-Lee, Sir Timothy John, OM, KBE,

MA Oxf, FRS

Kelly, the Rt Hon Ruth Maria, PC, BA Oxf,

MSc Lond

Atkinson, Rowan Sebastian, BSc Newc,

MSc Oxf

Bowman, Alan Keir, MA Oxf, MA PhD

Toronto, FBA

Gillen, the Hon Sir John de Winter, BA Oxf

Lever, Sir Paul, KCMG, MA Oxf, Hon

LLD Birm

Phillips, Caryl, BA Oxf, FRSL

Stern, Nicholas Herbert, Lord Stern of

Brentford, Kt, CH, MA Camb, DPhil Oxf,

FBA, FRS

Reed, Terence James, MA Oxf, FBA

Low, Colin MacKenzie, Lord Low of Dalston,

CBE, BA Oxf

Beecroft, Paul Adrian Barlow, MA Oxf,

FInstP

Bogdanor, Vernon Bernard, CBE, MA Oxf,

FBA

Eisenberg, David Samuel, AB Harvard,

DPhil Oxf

Carwardine, Richard John, MA DPhil Oxf,

FBA, FLSW, FRHistS

Hacker, Peter Michael Stephan, MA DPhil

Oxf

Margalit, Avishai, BA MA PhD Hebrew

Laskey, Ronald Alfred, CBE, MA DPhil Oxf,

FRS, FMedSci

Barrons, Sir Richard Lawson, KCB, CBE,

MA Oxf

Abbott, Anthony John, MA Oxf

Griffith Williams, the Hon Sir John, MA Oxf

Turner, the Hon Sir Mark George, MA Oxf

Donnelly, Sir Joseph Brian, CMG, KBE,

MA Oxf

Watt, James Chi Yau, MA Oxf

Booker, Cory, BA Oxf, BA MA Stanford,

JD Yale

Garcetti, Eric, BA MA Columbia, MA Oxf,

PhD LSE

2 The Queen’s College | College Record 2024

College Record 2024 | The Queen’s College 3

James, Ioan Mackenzie, MA DPhil Oxf,

FRS

Sloboda, John Anthony, OBE, MA Oxf,

PhD Lond, FBA, FBPsS

Wills, Clair, MA DPhil Oxf

Madden, Paul Anthony, MA Oxf, DPhil Sus,

FRS, FRSE

Barber, Sir Michael, Kt, BA Oxf

Frood, Elizabeth, BA MA Auckland,

DPhil Oxf

Gordon-Reed, Annette, BA Dartmouth,

JD Harvard

Ramakrishnan, Venkatraman, Kt, PhD Ohio,

FRS

Sillem, Hayaatun, CBE, PhD UCL,

MBiochem Oxf, FIET

Taylor, Clare, MBE, BA Oxf

Khan, Asma, PhD KCL

Emeritus Fellows

Kaye, John Marsh, BCL MA Oxf

Dimsdale, Nicholas Hampden, MA Camb,

MA Oxf

Foster, Michael Antony, MA DPhil Oxf

Rutherford, John David, MA DPhil Oxf

Baines, John Robert, MA DPhil Oxf, FBA

Pearson, Roger Anthony George, MA

DPhil Oxf, FBA

Bowie, Angus Morton, MA PhD Camb, MA

DPhil Oxf

McLeod, Peter Duncan, MA PhD Camb, MA

DPhil Oxf

Salmon, Graeme Laurence, BSc Tasmania,

MA DPhil Oxf

Harries, Phillip Tudor, MA DPhil Oxf

Rowland, The Revd Christopher, MA

PhD Camb, MA DPhil Oxf

Ball, Sir John Macleod, MA Camb, MA Oxf,

DPhil Sus, FRS, FRSE

Blair, William John, MA DPhil Oxf, FBA, FSA

Davis, John Harry, MA DPhil Oxf

Robertson, Ritchie Neil Ninian, MA Edin,

MA DPhil Oxf, PhD Camb, FBA

Hyman, John, BPhil MA DPhil Oxf

Supernumerary Fellows

Maclean, Ian Walter Fitzroy, MA DPhil Oxf,

FBA, FRHistS

Constantine, David John, MA DPhil Oxf

Dobson, Peter James, OBE, BSc PhD S’ton,

MA Oxf

Irving-Bell, Linda, MA DPhil Oxf

Jacobs, Justin Baine, BA Tulsa, MPhil

PhD Camb

Ryland, Charlotte, BA Camb, MSt Oxf,

PhD UCL

Browne Research Fellow

Raoelijaona, Raivoniaina Finaritra, BA MA

Strasbourg, PhD Bordeaux

Beecroft Junior Research Fellow

(in Astrophysics)

Aurrekoetxea, Josu, BSc Bilbao, MSc Imp,

PhD KCL

Laming Junior Fellows

Nicholson, Annalisa Rose, BA MA UCL

Full-time Lecturers

Wolf, Franziska, BA MA Tubingen, PhD Birm

Chaplain

Watson, The Revd Alice, BA Oxf, MA Durh

CONTENTS

From the Provost 6

Reports and College Activities 9

Senior Tutor’s Report 9

News from the Fellowship 13

Distinguished Visitors 28

Academic Distinctions 33

From the Bursar 48

Outreach 50

A year in the Library 52

A year in the Archive 54

A year in the Chapel 56

A year in the Choir 58

The Queen’s Translation Exchange 60

Centre for Manuscript and Text Cultures 64

A year in the JCR 66

Student Clubs and Societies 68

Athletic Distinctions 76

Old Members’ Activities 77

Director of Development’s Report 77

Queen’s Women’s Network 84

Gaudies 88

650th Anniversary Trust Fund Award

Reports 89

Appointments and Distinctions 100

Publications 103

Articles 106

Astronomical anniversaries at Queen’s:

Halley and Hubble 106

Henry Laming and Living Languages 110

Treasures from the Library: Piranesi 112

Obituaries 114

Mr K Aziz 115

Dr J M Bailey 118

The Revd Dr J S A Cunningham 120

Mr J D P Cooke 121

Mr R C Dawson 122

Dr J H Edwards 124

Mr W F Gilges 126

Dr G W Hatcher 127

Mr C MacHale 128

Professor C C Michel 130

Dr C Peters 132

Mr J R A Rampton KC 133

Mr D Rutherford 140

E P Sanders 141

Mrs J H Shaw 142

Mr A J B Simon 143

Mr N E Terrell 146

Mr J R Turner 147

Mr L Veale 149

Dr J D Wilcock 150

Professor P J Willner 151

Benefactions 153

Information 165



From the Provost

Credit: David Fisher

FROM THE PROVOST

2023/4 was another year in which the College remained

academically strong and thrived as a place for

intergenerational and interdisciplinary debate, creativity,

socialising, and intense dedication to education and

research.

Undergraduate results kept the College in the top tier of

Oxford colleges, while Oxford remains one of the very

Dr Claire Craig, Provost top Universities globally. There were many individual

achievements, reflecting the hard work both of students

and tutors, and we were all particularly proud to see Becky Howitt receive both the

George Pickering Prize for top performance in her 6th-year finals and the Meakins-

McLaren medal for the most consistently excellent performance over the clinical

medical course. Among the graduate students, Hannah Scheithauer won the R.

Gapper Essay Prize for an essay Cycles of Violence and Fictions of the ‘Grey Zone’

in Jérôme Ferrari’s Où j’ai laissé mon âme (2010)’, deemed to be of outstanding merit,

“sophisticated, intellectually adventurous [and] original in its approach”. Fellows’ many

research achievements included Professor Simon Aldridge’s election as a Fellow of

the Royal Society and Professor Richard Parkinson being awarded a Leverhulme

Senior Research Fellowship, for their work in Chemistry and Egyptology respectively.

networking” event in the Upper Library, where students and Old Members enjoyed

hearing each other’s stories and the opportunity to find out more about life after

Queen’s. The first “Giving Day” had an outstanding response from Old Members

around the world and, in a lightly climate-themed year of activity, the London

Reception included an excellent inter-disciplinary and inter-sectoral panel discussion.

Old Members, Fellows, and students debated ways to tackle the environmental

sustainability transition in practice, policy, art, and science.

In Trinity Term Queen’s welcomed two artists, figurative painter Kayoon Anderson

and multi-disciplinary artist and filmmaker Di Mainstone, for the first of its Creative

Residencies. Born out of conversations about how the College can engage

imaginatively with the wider world in structured ways, the residencies are designed

to bring members of the College together to experience, and contribute to, creative

work. Kayoon explored the ways that people make new spaces, such as a student

room, into their own. Di explored the emotional and neurological evolution of the

human species through the lens of climate change. We look forward to sharing the

fruits of their work with the College community in the new academic year.

That same term the 2023/4 Non-academic Distinguished Visitor, Dr Julie Newman,

came from MIT to work with staff, students, and Fellows on the College’s approach

to sustainability in its operations. Julie’s “Listening Programme” is now informing

work across the College and sustainability was a major lens for a review of the

masterplan which outlines the timetable of work to the College fabric over the next

From the Provost

The College remains absolutely committed to admitting the best academic students

whatever their background. On numerical measures we are slightly above the

University average for admitting students from socio-economically disadvantaged

backgrounds and areas of low progression to Higher Education. The story behind

the numbers is one of intense commitment by Fellows to the quintessential Queen’s

human value of responding to each person individually, from the process of selection

through to the support provided to each student’s academic journey while at the

College. That commitment, which for undergraduates is centred on the application

of the tutorial model, was further strengthened during the year as we welcomed our

second Tutorial Fellow in Law, Prof Emily Hudson. The model, and academic freedom

that enables the College to make its own decisions on the subjects it takes, was

underwritten by many gifts during the year. Exceptionally, these included a single

donation that has fully endowed the Waverley Fellowship in Music, as well as creating

and endowing the future new post of the Waverley Director of Choral Music. This

gift reflects, and embeds, the role of music and the Choir as a major element of life

at Queen’s for so many students and staff.

Old Members contribute to College life in an increasing range of ways. The Queen’s

Women’s Network (open to all) worked with the MCR and JCR to host a “speed

An interdisciplinary panel giving insights into sustainability solutions at the 2024 London Reception at

the Arboretum.

Credit: Ben Broomfield



From the Provost

decade or so. Meanwhile, the Academic Distinguished Visitor, Dr Mary Ann Smart,

explored themes around performance and music during her stay, culminating in

a presentation entitled Singing Out of the Side of her Mouth: Diction, Irony and

Wordplay in Post-War French Song.

Turning to one of the questions I am most often asked about at Old Member events:

during the year, and after several previous years of extensive expert exploration of

all possible options, the Governing Body decided to mothball the Florey building

for the foreseeable future. Importantly, this decision allows work to begin on a new

accommodation strategy that will best suit the College’s needs for the future and

reduce our current unsatisfactory dependence on accommodation rented from the

private sector.

In July the sun shone beautifully for a day of cricket when the long-awaited match in

memory of Dr Martin Edwards took place. The Lemmings (Old Members’ XI from the

1990s) and the Martin Edwards Invitation XI (the Crocodiles of 1964-1984, reinforced

by recent generations) gathered for a match that was destined to be filled with

excitement and nostalgia. In the end, the Lemmings emerged victorious, and you

can read a full match report in the blog section of the College website. Martin’s 60

years of service to Queen’s, and particularly his lifelong support for student sports,

were recognised with the addition of a plaque bearing his name in the Pavilion.

Finally, I would like to take the opportunity personally to thank Dr Richard Nickerson

(Fellow in Physics) who retired this summer and who, amongst many other

contributions alongside his tutoring and research, from sports to carbon control,

played a key role in ensuring the smooth operations of the College during the

COVID-19 pandemic and whose Triumph Rocket will be a sight sadly missed from

the College yard. For my part, 2024/5 will be my sixth and last year as Provost; I

look forward to all the opportunities it will bring, and to working to ensure a smooth

handover to my successor. Like my predecessors, and with the help of all those

who work at the College, I aim to steward and strengthen the College for future

generations – and to enable every member of its communities, in Oxford and

around the world, to continue to contribute to and to enjoy this marvellous place

and wonderful people.


SENIOR TUTOR’S REPORT

Prof Seth Whidden

Senior Tutor

As I started to prepare this year’s instalment for the College

Record, I wondered how ChatGPT would summarise the

College’s significant academic achievements. Its response

began with remarks about three Fellows who received

particular recognition:

Simon Aldridge, Dennis Egger, and Richard Parkinson,

each adorned with laurels, their names unfurling like

banners in the wind of academic acclaim. Aldridge, the

Chemist, who unravels the secrets of molecules with the

precision of a poet dissecting verses, his experiments

a symphony of elements conducting unseen harmonies. Egger, the Economist,

navigating the tumultuous seas of markets and policies with the astuteness of a

navigator charting constellations, his theories reshaping the contours of global

finance. And Parkinson, the Egyptologist, delves into the ancient sands, deciphering

hieroglyphs like a cryptic crossword, revealing tales etched in stone by forgotten

pharaohs. Together, they embody the spirit of inquiry, their minds alight with the

sparks of curiosity that dance between the ancient texts, the chemical reactions,

and the intricate webs of economic forces.

Clearly, we still need the human touch; allow me to translate. Simon was elected a

Fellow of the Royal Society; he previously received a Humboldt Research Award for

his work, which focuses on main group compounds and tries to achieve groundbreaking

reactivity in the capture and activation of small molecules. Dennis and

his co-authors received the Frisch Medal, which is awarded for the best applied

(empirical or theoretical) paper published in Econometrica in the preceding four

years. Their study highlights the importance of understanding the economic

dynamics of cash transfer programmes and their potential to alleviate poverty

and stimulate growth in low-income regions. Richard was awarded a Leverhulme

Senior Research Fellowship by the British Academy to work on a book that aims

to offer diverse interpretations about The Life of Sinuhe (ca. 1850 BC). The College

congratulates these Fellows and celebrates the successes of all its tutors, whether

their names caught the winds of academic acclaim this year or not.

Reports and College Activities

The College looks forward to welcoming 14 colleagues who will join us in Michaelmas

Term. Two are distinguished scholars from Harvard who will be with us for the year:

Professor Christina Davis (AB, PhD (Harvard)) — the College’s first PPE Centenary

Professor in Politics – is the Edwin O. Reischauer Professor of Japanese Politics.

A specialist of the politics and foreign policy of Japan and East Asia, and the study

of international organizations with a particular focus on trade policy. Her most recent




book is Discriminatory Clubs: The Geopolitics of International Organizations, and

she is currently working on the evolving trade order and economic sanctions.

Next year’s Harmsworth Professor of American History, Professor Lisa McGirr

(MA, MPhil, PhD (Columbia)), is the Charles Warren professor of American History

at Harvard. A specialist of 20th century American history, her research bridges the

fields of social and political history and focuses in particular on collective action,

state building, reform movements, and political ideology. Her most recent book is

The War on Alcohol: Prohibition and the Rise of the American State.

We also elected two colleagues to Tutorial Fellowships. The arrival of Professor

Tamara Atkin (BA (Dublin), MSt, DPhil (Oxon)) will bring the College’s provision of

English in line with that of other colleges. Until this year, Professor Atkin has been

Professor in Medieval and Early Modern Literature and Head of English at Queen

Mary University of London. Her research and teaching interests focus on the material

conditions that shape literary production, particularly in medieval drama, religious

reform, and the pre-modern book trade. Her current project, funded by a Leverhulme

Fellowship, explores the reuse and recycling of old books in early modern England.

Applied economist Dr Lukas Leucht (BA, MS (University of Munich / LMU), MS

(Barcelona School of Economics / BSE), MS, PhD University of California, Berkeley)

has been elected to a Junior Research Fellowship in Economics. Dr Leucht’s

research interests sit at the intersection of political economy, economic history,

and organizational economics.

The College also elected two early career scholars to Laming Junior Research

Fellowships. Dr Aoife Cantrill (MPhil, DPhil (Oxon)) studies cultural and literary

histories in China and Taiwan under Japanese rule. During her Fellowship, she will

examine the cultural politics of textile production in Shanghai and Manchuria from

1930 to 1945.

The other incoming Laming Research Fellow is Dr Shaahin Pishbin (MPhil (Oxon),

PhD (Chicago)) Dr Pishbin’s research interests in Persian literature and Persianate

cultural history include the poetics of wonder and place in medieval and early

modern Persian poetry; networks of interaction between Persianate Iran and South

Asia; and ideas and ideologies related to language, belonging, speech, silence,

and theophany.


Dr Kirsty Duffy (MPhys, PhD (Oxon)) comes from just up the road, as she has most

recently been a UKRI Future Leaders Fellow in the University’s Physics Department.

One of her primary research interests is neutrino interactions: with colleagues at the

Fermi National Accelerator Library (Fermilab) near Chicago, she is part of a team

making the world’s first high-statistics measurements of neutrino interactions on

argon and looking for beyond-the-standard model behaviour of neutrinos. She also

hosts a YouTube series on neutrino physics called ‘Even Bananas’.

Our incoming Career Development Fellow in Economics is Daniel Crisóstomo

Wainstock (BA (Stanford), PhD (Brown)). A specialist in cultural economics, diversity,

inequality, and comparative development, Dr Crisóstomo Wainstock’s research

focuses on the implications of societal diversity, human capital formation in Sub-

Saharan Africa, and the roots of inequality.

Dr Alexandra Pugh (BA, MSt (Oxon), PhD (KCL)) is the incoming Hamilton Junior

Research Fellow in French. The recipient of several academic awards, Dr Pugh

comes to us from LSE, after having pursued research at the Initiative Genre

at Sorbonne Université. Her primary research interests are gender studies,

contemporary French literature and film, and queer theory.

While all the above colleagues are indeed extraordinary, the College also elects early

career colleagues to Junior Research Fellowships called ‘extraordinary’ because

they are non-stipendiary. They have secured a Fellowship elsewhere in Oxford,

and the College is delighted to offer them an association during the period of their

Fellowship. Dr Zac Goodwin (MSci, MSc, PhD (Imperial)), the Glasstone Fellow

in the Department of Materials, focuses on nanomaterials and their applications

in renewable energy and technology. Dr Junqing Xie (BM (Shandong), MSc

(Peking), DPhil (Oxon)), a postdoctoral researcher in pharmacoepidemiology and

pharmacogenetics in the Nuffield Department of Orthopaedics, Rheumatology

and Musculoskeletal Sciences (NDORMS), is interested in leveraging cutting-edge

population research techniques to investigate effects of drugs and vaccines. Dr

Dearbhla Kelly (MB BCh (NUI Cork), MSc (Edin), MSc (Danube University Krems),

MSc, DPhil, (Oxon)), an intensive care medicine Fellow in the Nuffield Department

of Clinical Neurosciences, studies the overlap between renal and neurological

diseases, and the epidemiology of stroke in patients with chronic kidney disease. Dr

Diva Gujral (BA (Delhi), MA, PhD (UCL)) is an historian and art historian specialising

in 20th-century Indian photography and visual culture who has been awarded

a Leverhulme Fellowship for her project ‘The Persistence of Modernism: Art,

Nationalism and India’s History Wars (2014–)’.

The College’s next Browne Junior Research Fellow is Dr Aura Raulo (MSc (Helsinki),

DPhil (Oxon)). Her research focuses on evolutionary ecology and reproductive

strategies, shedding particular light on species interactions (e.g. tracing the spread

of gut microbes in the social contact networks of wild mice) and biodiversity

conservation in changing environments.

The College also said farewell to some early career Fellows who are moving on to

exciting opportunities elsewhere. Dr Macs Smith (CDF, French) is now a Lecturer

in French at University College London, Dr Josu Aurrekoetxea (eJRF, Physics) will

be an Assistant Professor at MIT, and Dr Annalisa Nicholson (Laming JRF, French)

is a postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Exeter, working on an ERC project




Credit: David Olds

about 17th-century women philosophers, and Dr Rina Ariga (eJRF, Pathology) is

the medical director of Medpace: a clinical contract research organisation that

provides clinical development services to the biotechnology, pharmaceutical, and

medical device industries.

Our students’ academic successes are no less impressive, as evidenced by their

College and University prizes (see pages 46-47). While the Norrington Table is

retiring, to be replaced by internal monitoring of examination results instead of a

public league table, the College was in the top five of colleges in both the 2022

edition and when averaged over the past six years. Over the same period, fewer

than 4% of our students received a lower second-class degree, and only two out of

the College’s 536 students received a degree classification below that. We continue

to stand by our commitment to helping students attain their greatest successes,

and the results speak for themselves: we’re doing it at a rate better than most of

the other colleges, and we’re showing that world-leading research and excellent

tuition are not mutually exclusive.

As the College shows year in, year out, its academic intelligence is far from artificial:

it is as human as it is genuine. So shall it remain; the College is an exciting place

for scholarly pursuits and intellectual curiosity, and there’s every reason to believe

that we’ll continue to build on our strengths for years to come.

NEWS FROM THE FELLOWSHIP

Links to full lists of Fellows’ publications can be found on their profile pages on the

College’s website.

Josu Aurrekoetxea (Physics)

This year I have continued using numerical simulations

of Einstein’s theory of general relativity to search for

signatures of new, undiscovered physics. I am particularly

excited about two articles that have been published

in Physical Review Letters, studying the observational

signatures of dark matter around merging black holes and

cosmic strings, astrophysical relics of the early universe.

I presented these results at the ‘Gravity and Cosmology’ workshop in Kyoto, and

during seminars at Imperial College London, the University of Amsterdam, and the

Niels Bohr Institute at the University of Copenhagen. Earlier this academic year,

Professor Ghassan Yassin and I gave a public lecture as part of the University of

Oxford Meeting Minds event. We discussed the contributions of Queen’s alumni

Edmond Halley and Edwin Hubble, celebrating the 350th anniversary of Halley’s

matriculation at Queen’s and the 100th anniversary of Hubble’s discovery of Cepheid

variable stars in Andromeda. As my time as Beecroft Fellow and eJRF comes to

an end, I am excited to embark on a new research adventure at MIT, where I will

undertake a three-year Fellowship at the Center for Theoretical Physics.


John Baines (Egyptology, Emeritus)

Governing Body, Trinity Term 2024

Over the past two years I’ve been lucky to receive

invitations to give courses in two Italian universities,

Pisa and L’Orientale in Naples. Both are distinguished

institutions, Pisa the second oldest university in Italy after

Bologna, and L’Orientale, founded in the early eighteenth

century, was the first institute in Europe to teach languages

of Asia and Africa. Working as a visitor in these different

contexts is highly stimulating, and it also helped me toward my long-term goal to

publish a synthesis on ancient Egyptian biography. Another advantage of the relative

freedom offered by emeritus status has been to be able to deepen my knowledge of

ancient China. This has led to my publishing my first joint article with a colleague at

Peking University, Cao Dazhi, comparing uses of writing and organisation of courtly

and administrative elites in early third millennium BCE Egypt with second millennium

BCE Chinese. I believe that this comparison has enhanced the understanding of both




of these early states. This research would not have been possible without Oxford’s

burgeoning links with Chinese institutions.

Rebecca Beasley (English)

I’m writing this on my way to the Humboldt University of

Berlin for the Modernism, Aestheticism, and Decadence

Studies Conference, the meeting of an association founded

by Queen’s Old Member Dr James Dowthwaite (English,

2012) and this year co-organised by another Queen’s Old

Member (and Translation Exchange ambassador) Rosa

Chrystie-Lowe (English and Modern Languages, 2014).

One of the delights of research this year has been attending the usual conferences

and symposia and getting to catch up with past Queen’s students now well embarked

on their own research careers, such as Rosa, Jim, Sean Ketteringham (English,

2018), and Alex Hartley (English and Modern Languages, 2014), all of whom were at

the British Association for Modernist Studies conference this summer.

I’m continuing to work on a number of projects: a co-edited anthology of modernist

art and literature by the so-called ‘Whitechapel Boys’ and their circle under contract

with Edinburgh University Press, a special issue of the journal Modernist Cultures on

the theatre critic Huntly Carter (arising out of the Knowledge Exchange Fellowship

with Menagerie Theatre Company, whose play on Carter was performed at Queen’s

last year), a co-edited collection, The Bloomsbury Handbook of Modernism and

Translation, and a scholarly edition of Wyndham Lewis’s Men Without Art for the

Oxford University Press edition of Lewis’s writings.

John Blair (History, Emeritus)

During 2022-4, retirement gave me the space to clear the

decks and complete some long-dormant projects, as well

as to broaden my horizons and engage with new areas of

history. On the first front, I finished and published some eight

papers, on themes ranging from late Iron Age earthworks,

through Anglo-Saxon charters and late medieval courtly

life, to the eighteenth-century Scottish salt industry. I

also completed (with Ann Cole) a small book called Purposeful Place-Names, on

‘functional-tūn’ names (like Burton, Stratton, Eaton, Charlton and Kingston) and what

they tell us about administration and economy in the age of Mercian supremacy.

My major project has been Killing the Dead, a world-wide study of beliefs in

vampires and other kinds of dangerous corpse; this is currently in the early stages

of production and should appear in late 2025. I was privileged to be awarded a

Leverhulme Emeritus Fellowship, which allowed me to travel widely in northern

Europe and to gather material for the next project to follow, a book on English

medieval building traditions and material culture in their European context.

As always, I am immensely grateful to Queen’s for its generosity towards its retired

Fellows. My continuing involvement in the College community means a great deal

to me.

Jose Carrillo (Mathematics)

My research in the 2023-2024 academic year has been

focused on advancing most of the topics of my European

Research Council (ERC) Advanced Grant in its fourth year

and my National Science Foundation - Engineering and

Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) grant with

my team of seven post-doctoral researcher assistants

(PDRAs) and eight DPhil students. We have continued

our search of novel results in nonlocal Partial Differential Equations for complex

particle dynamics. More precisely, we have worked in understanding nonlocal

approximations of aggregation-diffusion equations, interaction potential learning in

partial differential equation models for cell-cell adhesion, numerical schemes for

inhomogeneous collisional plasma physics, mean field derivation of Landau models

for Maxwellian molecules, graph limits for singular interactions, symmetry transitions

in neural column formation in drosophila brain development, and interactive particle

systems applied to inverse problems, sampling and global optimisation, among

others. The common point of these research topics is the description of the collective

motion of large ensemble of interacting particles.

This super intensive research period has led to publications of the highest quality

in my field receiving international attention. I have spent a period of six months,

January till June, as Chaire Morlet at the CIRM, Centre International de Recontres

Mathématiques, in Marseille (France). This thematic program showcased the research

done in my ERC project, organising an international conference in aggregationdiffusion

models, a workshop in plasma physics, and a summer school in theoretical

aspects and applications of aggregation-diffusion equations in mathematical biology

and sampling with applications to machine learning. This international visibility

allowed me to fulfil some of the objectives of my ERC Advanced Grant in terms of

organisation of conferences and international events.

I advanced my Royal Society project with Chile on numerical aspects of optimal

transport, organising a conference in Valparaiso. I started a new bilateral project of

the Royal Society on mathematical biology with Professor Min Tang at the Shanghai





Jiatong Technical University and organised a mathematical biology summer

school there. I also organised an international summer school on computational

neuroscience and an international conference on numerical methods in kinetic theory

in Westlake University at Hangzhou (China). I organised an international workshop

on interacting particle systems at the ICERM, the Institute for Computational and

Experimental Research in Mathematics, at Brown University.

I continued my service to the scientific community as board member of the European

Society for Mathematical and Theoretical Biology (ESMTB), and Head of the Division

of the European Academy of Sciences, Section Mathematics. I was elected as ICIAM

officer at large, International Council for Industrial and Applied Mathematics, the most

important international committee on Applied Mathematics for the next four years.

I continued my service to the society by participating as the only mathematician

at the scientific committee of the Spanish Research Agency. I also continued my

participation in a scientific project panel in Lithuania, and the research assessment

external evaluation of the Department of Mathematics of the Hong Kong Polytechnic

University. I am a regular referee of ERC and Horizon 2020 projects.

My dedication to high level teaching has been equally delivered by continuing the

course in Optimal Transportation at the Mathematical Institute. This is a popular

topic in modern mathematical research, with ramifications in mathematical analysis,

probability theory, computational mathematics, and many applications in stochastic

analysis, data science and optimisation. The fantastic group of PDRAs of my ERC

and my EPSRC projects are as follows: Rafael Bailo, Immanuel BenPorat, Antonio

Esposito, Alexandra Holzinger, Yurij Salmaniw, Jakub Skrzeczkowski, and Difan

Yuan. They delivered a superb range of applied mathematics tutorials in the College

and at other colleges, intercollegiate classes, and supervised several student

summer projects, and master theses at the Mathematical Institute.

Farsan Ghassim (Politics)

My academic year 2023-24 was very eventful and

successful on different fronts. In terms of core research

output, I published four articles in leading international

journals over the past year: a study on international public

perceptions of a global democratic deficit in Perspectives

on Politics, an analysis of member-state-based challenges

to international organisations in the Review of International

Organizations, and two papers in the International Studies Quarterly – one on

international public opinion in the face of (de)legitimation of international organisations

by political actors, and another one on international public attitudes toward the idea

of a (democratic and global-issues-focused) world government.

In Michaelmas Term, I was invited to present the latter paper at Shanghai University.

At the European Consortium for Political Research (ECPR) conference in Prague in

September 2023, I presented another paper (currently under review) in which we

use an AI-based language model to analyse millions of tweets on the legitimacy of

global governance.

Throughout the academic year, I collaborated with Iswe Foundation – a UK-based civil

society organisation who designed and implemented the first-ever Global Citizens’

Assembly on climate change in 2021. We organised a medium-sized workshop at

Queen’s in Michaelmas Term and a large conference at Jesus College in the Summer

Term with around 150 guests from academia, politics, philanthropy, business, and

civil society. I ended the academic year by preparing a major research project on

the next Global Citizens’ Assembly in collaboration with Iswe.


Dennis Egger (Economics)

This year I was awarded the Frisch Medal for the best

Applied Economics paper published in Econometrica in the

last four years for the paper: ‘General Equilibrium Effects of

Cash Transfers: Experimental Evidence from Kenya’. The

award of the Frisch Medal highlights the importance of

understanding the economic dynamics of cash transfer

programmes and their potential to alleviate poverty and

stimulate growth in low-income regions. I also received a Future Leaders Fellowship

from UK Research and Innovation (UKRI).

Chris Hollings (History of Mathematics)

The past year has seen the appearance in print of two

long-running editorial projects: Beyond the Learned

Academy: The Practice of Mathematics 1600–1850, coedited

with Philip Beeley (Linacre/History Faculty), and

Oxford’s Sedleian Professors of Natural Philosophy: The

First 400 Years, co-edited with Mark McCartney (University

of Ulster). Together with the current Sedleian Professor,

Jon Keating, I gave a short talk connected with the latter book at an Old Members’

event in London in February.

Much of my research this year has continued along two largely separate paths:

investigating the status of mathematics in nineteenth-century Oxford, and ongoing

work on the historiography of ancient Egyptian mathematics, in collaboration with




Richard Bruce Parkinson. An invitation to write a historical chapter for a mathematical

volume also caused me to revisit some old work connected with developments in

abstract algebra during the twentieth century, and it was nice to return to this material

with a fresh perspective.

During the past year, I have delivered invited lectures on a range of topics in York,

Milton Keynes, and Aveiro (Portugal), and also spoke in the Oxford HSMT (History

of Science, Medicine, and Technology) Seminar in January.

As usual, I co-organised ‘Research in Progress’, the annual postgraduate meeting

of the British Society for the History of Mathematics (BSHM), which took place in

Queen’s at the beginning of March. In addition, at the start of 2024 I began a threeyear

term as President of the BSHM.

Jon Keating (Mathematics)

In my research, I have continued to focus on developing

the theory of random matrices, and on its applications to

machine learning and number theory. I published several

papers in this area over the past year.

My teaching was focused on supervising DPhil students.

I gave lectures in several institutions, including in Hong Kong in May 2024, where I

was pleased to meet with Old Members of the College over dinner.

currently under review. Additionally, I presented at various national and international

conferences, including the Queen’s College Symposium (QCS), which I found

particularly rewarding. My contributions to the Oxford Department of Experimental

Psychology were recognised with their Good Citizenship Prize.

Lastly, I had the honour of representing Early Career Fellows on the Governing Body

of Queen’s College. This role provided me with a unique learning experience and

deepened my engagement with the academic life of the College.

Jane Langdale (Biological Sciences)

Funding for the multinational C4 Rice project (www.c4rice.

com) that I lead has been extended to May 2026 and an

‘offshoot’ project has been funded by the Bill & Melinda

Gates Foundation to test some of the lines we have

generated in the field. Research thus continues for the

foreseeable future, albeit with disruptions to be expected

next year when the Biology Department moves into the

new LaMB building. I continue to teach the evolution of plant development to thirdyears,

now in the context of a broader course (32 lectures) on the Evolution of

Developmental Mechanisms. It is fun to work with zoology colleagues to identify

and share core concepts with students. As has always been the case, the course

attracts a minority of the cohort (~30%) but those who do attend are very committed

and a pleasure to teach.


I continued to serve as Treasurer and Vice-President of the Royal Society.

Karen Leeder (German)

Nima Khalighinejad (Experimental Psychology)

Over the past academic year, I have been working on an

innovative research project focused on non-invasive drug

delivery to the brain. We have utilised a novel technology,

transcranial ultrasound, to open the blood-brain-barrier in

non-human models, allowing for the targeted administration

of pharmacological agents into specific brain regions. We

are studying the effects of these interventions on behaviour

and cognition. This approach holds significant potential due to its non-invasive

nature, making it highly translatable to human applications.

I was one of the lead senior authors on a paper published in Neuron and contributed

as a co-author to several other papers that have either been published or are

Three new translations appeared: Ulrike Almut Sandig,

Shining Sheep, Michael Krüger, In a Cabin, in the Woods,

for the poet’s 85th birthday, and a large selection of Durs

Grünbein’s poetry, Psyche Running: Selected Poems 2005-

2022. In addition, my translation of Sandig’s Monsters like

us was longlisted for the Dublin Literature prize. Work

in Berlin on the Einstein ‘AfterWords’ project has been

very lively: including academic events, readings, and a new podcast series ‘After

the Poem’.

There have been invited lectures: on resistance; Paul Celan and modern art; poetry

and activism; and Rilke’s Duino Elegies in the centenary year of its publication. In

Oxford, Kafka has been the focus and as Humanities Lead for the Oxford Reads

Kafka events in this centenary year of the writer’s death, I was kept busy. Highlights

were the distribution of free copies of Kafka’s The Metamorphosis to students,




Credit: John Cairns

libraries and schools, and a gala reading in the Sheldonian to 600 people; ‘Kafka’s

Ape’, a one-man version of Kafka’s story ‘A Report for an Academy’ by Tony Miyambo

at the Old Fire Station, which was paired with the stand-up comedy show ‘Words

and Music’ by Ed Gaughan, based on the same story. A talk event on ‘Hunger

Artistry’ and Kafka took place at the Weston Library on the day of the opening of

the Kafka exhibition ‘Kafka Making of an Icon’. These and other events are available

here: https://podcasts.ox.ac.uk/series/oxford-kafka24. I also had the chance, here

at Queen’s, to talk to colleagues and artists for a series ‘Conversations about Kafka’

which you can listen to here: https://podcasts.ox.ac.uk/series/conversations-kafka.

Charlie Louth (German)

This year I have been on sabbatical leave, though perhaps

foolishly I agreed to carry on as Tutor for Undergraduates

at the same time, which has made it a little less secluded

than it could have been. On the other hand, it has perhaps

meant greater focus during the time left over for research,

which has still been most of it. And it has been a pleasure to

work with our new Academic Administrator, Cameron Ott.

Since I last reported here, I have taken over as one of the joint honorary secretaries

of the English Goethe Society, which comes with what is really the main aspect of the

role, co-editorship of Publications of the English Goethe Society (PEGS). There are

three issues of this academic journal a year, and three editors, so we do one each.

The issue I have just finished work on is curious in that its centrepiece is an essay

on Goethe by Vladimir Vernadsky originally written in 1938 and now published in

English for the first time. Vernadsky was a Soviet scientist chiefly known for inventing/

popularising the term biosphere. He recognises in Goethe an important predecessor.

Otherwise, I have at last completed work on my translation of Friedrich Hölderlin’s

complete correspondence, which is now somewhere in America being vetted. Some

of the letters to Hölderlin, those from his lover Susette Gontard, are translated by my

predecessor at Queen’s and dear friend, David Constantine. In February 2024 I also

published a book called Crossings: Essays on Poetry and Translation from Hölderlin

to Jaccottet, which gathers together most of what I have written in non-book form

that can conceivably go under this title. I’ve written various reviews, but the main

thing I’ve been working on is what I hope will be short book on Paul Celan.

Christopher Metcalf (Classics)

I have recently completed a large-scale piece of research

on myths of kingship in early Greece and the ancient

Near East. The aim of the resulting book is to identify

several recurring story-patterns about ancient kings that

scholarship has overlooked. The first story-pattern, which

I call the ‘Myth of the Servant’, was used to explain how

an individual of non-royal lineage rose to power from

obscure origins: examples include Sargon of Akkad, David of Israel and Judah,

and Cyrus of Persia. This also formed the root of some well-known Greco-Roman

kingship myths (e.g. Oedipus). The second myth made the claim that the mortal ruler

engaged in a sexual relationship with the love-goddess. This notion is first attested

in Sumerian sources of the third millennium BC; a Greco-Roman version is Anchises

of Troy, whose union with Venus was said to have produced Aeneas and, ultimately,

Augustus, the first Roman emperor. Third, although kings are central to the ancient

literary evidence, the texts themselves were authored by others, such as poets or

priests, who (like kings) based their authority on their ability to articulate the divine

will. This set the stage for myths of conflict between kings and other intermediaries

of the gods. My research and teaching have converged in this work (Three Myths

of Kingship in Early Greece and the Ancient Near East: The Servant, the Lover, and

the Fool, Cambridge 2024), and I have had great pleasure in sharing and discussing

it with several students and colleagues here at Queen’s.

Dirk Meyer (Chinese Philosophy)

Last academic year, I served as the Head of Department

for Chinese. Alongside this faculty role, I co-organised

two international conferences on ancient manuscripts,

one interdisciplinary event at Oxford, one focusing on

the Guodian manuscripts at Beijing. I also gave three

international keynote lectures, two in Beijing and one in

Nanjing. My lecture at Beijing on Confucius in manuscript

texts was broadcast on three TV channels in China and

attracted a live audience of 450,000 viewers. I also delivered the prestigious Feng

You-lan lecture in Chinese Philosophy at Tsinghua University, Beijing. I have been

made Distinguished Visiting Professor at Tsinghua University (2024–2027). I continue

to be the Director of the Centre for Manuscript and Text Cultures.





Credit: John Cairns

Annalisa Nicholson (French)

This academic year, I have been working to complete two

major projects, my thesis-turned-monograph on French

exiles in seventeenth-century London and my bilingual

edition of Hortense Mancini’s letters. My efforts have been

buoyed by opportunities to speak about my research at

the annual Early Modern French studies conference, the

University of Gothenburg, the Huguenot Society Annual

Lecture, and the University of Dijon. Besides this work, I have written entries for the

Oxford Dictionary of National Biography on two seventeenth-century women who

played important roles in early modern Anglo-French exchange, namely Elizabeth

Harvey and Elizabeth Montagu (Countess of Sandwich), which was released in August

as part of the ODNB’s major release on noblewomen in Britain for which I will be

contributing the introduction. As some of my research activities – and my Junior

Research Fellowship – come to a close, I look forward to developing my next major

project on Huguenot women and minoritisation in early modern France at King’s

College, London, where I will take up a British Academy Postdoctoral Fellowship in

October.

Conor O’Brien (History)

One of the most enjoyable things about the past year

has been the frequency with which I have come across

Queen’s Old Members, especially History graduates, in

the course of my work. From journal copy-editors to the

audience member who asks the really tough questions at

a talk, old Queen’s historians have popped up quite a lot

this year. I now have a growing list of Old Members who

have gone on to become historians themselves, evidence, if more were needed,

of the great passion and love of History that former students maintain, something

obvious also in the many conversations I’ve been lucky to have with lawyers,

teachers, and business people who, after several decades, are still reading the

latest historical research and caring deeply about the education of current History

undergraduates. It’s a tribute to the work of previous tutors that the flame still burns

so bright in so many graduates of the College.

In terms of my research, this year has been dominated by the final work on the

manuscript of my book. The Rise of Christian Kingship will be with OUP by the time

you read this. I also had a substantial article about method and approach in the

history of religion accepted by Past & Present this year: ‘Secularizing Strategies

in the Early Middle Ages and the History of Pre-Modern Religion’ is now available

Open Access online.

Credit: John Cairns

Chris O’Callaghan (Medicine)

We continue to study the effects of oxidised low density

lipoprotein cholesterol (‘bad cholesterol’) on the human

immune cells involved in atherosclerosis, the disease

process whereby arteries become damaged and blocked.

We have combined experimental and computational

approaches to identify a new subpopulation of immune

cells which we term lipid-handling macrophages. Within

atherosclerotic arteries, normal macrophages accumulate and fill up with droplets of

fatty material, but the new subpopulation does not fill up with fatty material, even when

bathed in high levels of ‘bad cholesterol’. The disease has a genetic component and

intriguingly, we found that these cells are enriched for disease heritability, suggesting

that they play an important role in the disease. Having published our findings, we

are now exploring this role and trying to understand whether it can be manipulated

therapeutically.

On the clinical front, we have been developing and evaluating an integrated multispecialty

clinic for people with multiple long-term medical problems, such as kidney

disease, diabetes, and heart disease. This gives people the opportunity to develop

a consensus plan for their healthcare with the different specialties all present in the

same room and has proved very popular with both patients and clinicians. With

colleagues, we were awarded a further five-year grant to study the role of a key set of

immune receptors in atherosclerosis. As always, it is a privilege to teach our excellent

clinical medical students, one of whom won the top prize in the year for the final sixth

year examinations, and also the top prize for the best performance throughout the

three years of the clinical course.

Richard Bruce Parkinson (Egyptology)

This year, two supervisees have submitted doctoral

theses, on Ancient Egyptian meteorology and 13th Dynasty

kingship. Research has continued with C. D. Hollings on

the historiography of Ancient Egyptian mathematics, and

I’ve published two articles, one an overview of earlier work

on experimental performances in Égypte, Afrique et Orient,

and another on Byblos in an exhibition catalogue, Byblos: A

Legacy Unearthed. Work with the late James Whitbourn featured in a conversation

with him and Fatma Said about reconstructing Tutankhamun’s sistra and setting

of Egyptian poetry: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w82OtZksWeg. I gave an

invited lecture at a conference on the aesthetics of Biblical poetry at the Humbolt

University of Berlin (my first in-person conference since the pandemic).





The long-term project on a commentary on The Tale of Sinuhe has proceeded slowly,

but I was awarded a British Academy Leverhulme Senior Research Fellowship,

starting on 1 September 2024, which will allow me to complete the monograph.

A newly-founded fine press publisher, Consensus Press, selected my translation

of Sinuhe for its first publication, and OUP have commissioned an updated and

extended second edition of The Tale of Sinuhe and Other Ancient Egyptian Poems

(Oxford World Classics 1997).

Owen Rees (Music)

My research and research-through-performance this year

focused on aspects of early-modern musical culture in

Portugal, England, and Italy, and on some interconnections

between them. The Portuguese and English research

strands combined in work on music associated with Queen

Catherine of Braganza (wife of Charles II) and the Queen’s

Chapel at St James’s Palace in the early Restoration

period. I presented some of the findings at the conference ‘Music and Majesty:

Chapels Royal, Cathedral, and Colleges, c. 1485-1688’ at Burlington House in

July 2024.

With my ensemble Contrapunctus I released the recording Harmonies of Devotion

(on the Signum Classics Label), tracing the collecting and performance of Italian

motet repertories by English musical antiquarians in the eighteenth-century: this

recording, released in July 2024, was ‘Editor’s Choice’ in Gramophone. The Oxford

concert series presented by Contrapunctus during the academic year included a

programme concerned with the Roman Jubilee year of 1575 and a concert marking

the 400th anniversary of the death of William Byrd. I also completed a chapter –

concerned with the Portuguese sixteenth-century composer Aires Fernandez and

on what can be extrapolated musically and contextually from the highly fragmentary

surviving traces of his motet output – to a book on musical fragmentology to be

published next year.

Frances Reynolds (Assyriology)

and Ti’amat’s battle], in A. Kelly and C. Metcalf (eds) Θεοί και Θνητοί στη Μυθολογία

της Πρώιμης Ελλάδας και της Εγγύς Ανατολής [Gods and Mortals in Early Greek

and Near Eastern Mythology] (Kardamitsa: 2023).

In the Centre for Manuscript and Text Cultures, established by Queen’s, I accepted a

welcome invitation to join the Editorial and Advisory Board of the journal Manuscript

and Text Cultures.

I gave a paper on the god Qingu at a Marburg seminar and will be hosted there

during my sabbatical in 2025. New international collaborations included a visit to

Queen’s by colleagues working to protect Syria’s cultural heritage.

I am happy to record more student successes. A doctoral student is in Munich for

a year with a Leverhulme award, while a former graduate student was elected to a

Junior Research Fellowship at Christ Church in Oxford.

Ritchie Robertson (German, Emeritus)

In 2024, the centenary of Franz Kafka’s death was marked

by the Bodleian Library, where many of his papers are

held, with events including an exhibition in the Weston

Library. I edited the book accompanying the exhibition,

Kafka: Making of an Icon, and contributed two of its eight

chapters. My own monograph, German Political Tragedy:

The Machiavellian Plot and the Necessary Crime, will

appear from Legenda late in 2024. In addition, I contributed the essay ‘Happiness

and the Enlightenment’ to the volume edited by Katie Barclay, Darrin M. McMahon

and Peter N. Stearns, The Routledge History of Happiness (London and New York:

Routledge, 2024), pp. 199-216.

I was invited to contribute to an international seminar on ‘Virtues and Vices’ arranged

by the Ax:son Johnson Foundation to take place at the Engelsberg Ironworks, a

conference centre in central Sweden, on 18 April 2024, and took the opportunity

to visit the gigantic mine workings further north at Falun, made famous by E.T.A.

Hoffmann’s Romantic narrative The Mines at Falun.


In my second year at Queen’s, I continued my research

on Babylonian narrative poetry in relation to religion and

later cuneiform scholarship. I completed two articles and

saw a third translated into Greek (‘Πολιτική, λατρεία και

λόγια παραγωγή: Πτυχές της ιστορίας της παράδοσης της

μάχης του Μαρδούκ και της Τιαμάτ’ [Politics, cult, and

scholarship: aspects of the transmission history of Marduk

I was delighted to accept an Honorary Fellowship at Lincoln College, Oxford, where

I held my first academic post, the admission ceremony being scheduled for 13

November 2024.



Emma Slack (Immunology)

Shamara Wettimuny (History)


The Mucosal Immunology research group has been slowly

transitioning from the ETH Zurich, Switzerland to the Sir

William Dunn School of Pathology over the last academic

year. We are very grateful for the warm welcome we have

received from both the Division of Medicine and Queen’s

College, and we now have a fully functioning laboratory,

and exciting projects up and running in Oxford.

Our research focuses on understanding all aspects of how the immune system

interacts with the complex (and not always friendly!) microbial communities found

in the mammalian gut. We apply this knowledge to design effective vaccines

against multi-drug-resistant bacterial infections. Highlights of the past year include

publications on non-invasive monitoring of microbiome functions (DOI: 10.1016/j.

crmeth.2023.100539), modified virus-like particles for oral vaccine delivery (DOI:

10.1021/acsnano.3c10339), and on the use of laser capture microdissection and

nanoscale proteomics to study changes in intestinal tissue composition during

infection (DOI: 10.1021/acsnano.3c10339). We have also filed two patent applications

pertaining to vaccines for the elimination of pathogenic E. coli from the gut. Group

members have received significant funding to move this part of our work into

commercial development.

Robert Taylor (Physics)

The first year of my Junior Research Fellowship in History

has been a fulfilling and exciting one. I was pleased to have

a journal article published in Modern Asian Studies, and

to receive a book contract from Oxford University Press

to publish my re-worked doctoral thesis on ethno-religious

violence and identity formation in its Oxford Historical

Monographs series. Over the course of the year, I was

invited to speak at various public events, including those held at Oxford’s Centre

for South Asian Studies (CSAS) and the Centre on Migration, Policy, and Society

(COMPAS). I was also invited to present papers at the ‘Visualising Transnational

Solidarities’ workshop for Early Career Researchers at St. Andrew’s University,

and the ‘Deliberation, Participation and Democracy: Spaces, Practices and Voices’

conference at Dublin City University. A special experience for me was conducting a

history-teacher training session on ‘The Idea of Belonging’ in Kolkata, at the History

for Peace Conference organised by the Seagull Foundation for the Arts, India in

August 2024. This outreach initiative aimed to help schoolteachers think creatively

about teaching more inclusive narratives in school history curricula.

I am grateful to The Queen’s College for supporting my fieldwork in Sri Lanka, where

I conducted several oral history interviews on memories and inherited narratives

of ethno-religious violence. One of the highlights of this year has been getting to

know my new colleagues, the Fellows and former Fellows at Queen’s, and the joy of

attending seminars and other events unrelated to my own research.


This year I have taken on the duties of Tutor for

Admissions, and it is a great pleasure to work with

aspiring undergraduates in their endeavours to gain a

place at Oxford. My research has proceeded well, with

five publications available on open access. Highlights

include a single photon source at room temperature

coupled to an external cavity published in Nano Letters

and work on splitting water efficiently to produce hydrogen for future fuel production

in collaboration with Professor Edman Tsang in Chemistry, published in Nature

Catalysis.




Credit: David Olds

ACADEMIC DISTINGUISHED VISITOR

Prof Mary Ann Smart

The College aims to appoint one academic and one nonacademic

Distinguished Visitor each year. Such visitors are

leading figures from academia and throughout the public

and private sectors. During their residency, it is expected

that they contribute actively to the intellectual life of the

College at all levels: undergraduate, postgraduate,

Fellowship, and Old Members. Visitors typically give a short

lecture or presentation to the College community, and they

write a brief piece about their time in the College for the

College Record. The period of residency marks an

important part of a lifelong connection to the College.

In the academic year 2023-2024, our Academic Distinguished Visitor was Prof Mary

Ann Smart, Gladyce Arata Terrill Endowed Chair in Music at Berkeley.

you off thinking in all directions and following up on very different ideas.

The daily routine here is also fantastic. The day is punctuated by mealtimes but it’s

not about the food but about the way it breaks up the day into these periods of time

spent alone and then coming together with others. Evensong has also been a lovely

time in the day for me. I have heard a lot of music I didn’t know before performed so

well. It means there’s something to stay in the office for until 6.30 and it’s revealed

to me a new time of intellectual aliveness after 4 pm and before 6 pm.

Can you tell us a bit about the questions you ask in your research and the

ideas you explore?

My current project is about music in France after the Second World War, up until

1968. It’s motivated by the same questions that have been present in my previous

research and they’re the things that made me want to go into this field of musicology.

Namely, what does music have to do with the rest of the world and what does music

have to do with how power is distributed in a particular society?


What attracted you about coming to Queen’s as a Distinguished Visitor?

Over the years I have taught at Berkeley, some of the best musicology applicants

have been from Oxford and some of the best students at Berkeley have gone on to

Oxford as Junior Research Fellows so there’s a sense of intellectual connection and

communication between the two places in my field. Personally speaking, I wanted a

change in my working process and some time completely away from being wrapped

up in the day-to-day of university life at Berkeley.

How have you found your time in College so far and how has it affected the

way you work?

It’s been better than expected, even though I only expected good things! The

resources at the Bodleian are incredible. From the very first moment that I had

access to the library, I realised there was practically no limit to what I could get hold

of, including digital materials. I ran into maybe two or three books that they didn’t

own, and I was able to request them, and they arrived so quickly. Everything is there

for you pretty much at a click.

I have enjoyed the rhythms of the College and the conversations and sense of

community. I very quickly started going to lunch even though it seemed difficult at

first to just show up and not know anyone. It’s been so important in getting to know

people and feeling connected which is really important to me. It has been great to

have the freedom to devote myself to a project, but I also need conversation and

ideas coming in from other people. This happens at lunch, and at dinner and in

unexpected ways. People suggest things, they make stray comments, and it can set

Previously, I’ve worked on representations of female characters in opera and female

singers in historical opera in the 19th century. What I was really interested in there

was whether there were ways in which women were able to get a voice through

musical works and performances at a moment in history when women didn’t

otherwise have very much power or voice in society.

The current project isn’t so much political as literary. Histories of music in France at

this time have mainly been about forms and structures and the idea of progress: the

idea that music is always becoming more complex, innovative, and avant garde. But if

you look at it a different way in relation to the influential things that were happening in

thought about language, meaning and philosophy, the music that was being written

at the time takes on a whole different colour. French composers were extremely

interested in the limits of what the word could express. I suggest that some of the

experimental things that composers did in sound and music in the 1940s and ‘50s

were in synch with developments in theories of language and literature.

Your first book examined the evidence suggesting close ties between musical

patterns and physical gesture in opera. Can you explain what conclusions you

reached from your work with the various textual sources?

The most surprising thing I discovered from this research was that even music

that seems really driven by ideas and abstract goals--like the music of Wagner,

for example, which is about redemption, the sublime, and myth--is very rooted in

a consciousness about how people move on stage, how they look, and how an

audience will relate to their small-scale movements. If you think of an individual

singer’s body moving on stage as one extreme on a continuum and Wagner’s idea




of the redemption of the female character through self-sacrifice as the opposite

extreme, then I argued that that single female singer moving on stage is actually

crucial to making possible that big redemptive pay-off in a Wagner opera. I was able

to show this partly by reading Wagner’s music and his notes about staging but also

by showing a progression through earlier operas that did similar things.

One of your current projects explores trends in opera production since 1970;

what has been interesting to discover as part of this work?

I have been working on a series of articles about creative or radical staging of

traditional operas. As a starting point, I’m interested in how directors reimagine these

operas. They often do it from a position of critiquing the original source, which is

controversial, but I think is generally a good thing. There are a lot of opera fans who

want to see a beautiful staging that allows them to appreciate the same thing over

and over again, but I really like creative stagings because they make things new,

they make it more relevant.

It’s also become glaringly obvious that operas from the 18th and 19th centuries are

very problematic in terms of the values that they convey. I have just finished writing a

programme note about Puccini’s last opera, Turandot and it’s a tough opera to listen

to today, dripping with misogyny. I want to explore how a director might stage this

opera in way that draws out the problems and solves them. And in this case Puccini

died before he could finish the opera, so there are even possibilities for changing the

ending without completely going against Puccini’s vision. We can also go further,

though, and think about how the change in the ways people experience opera (e.g.

through Youtube clips and livestreams) changes what’s possible in a staging and

what a staging means.

You started out as a flautist; what’s the value of being a performer and has it

informed your work?

As a performer, I got to know a lot of music and once you play a piece, you never

forget it. The main thing I got from the experience, though, is discipline and applying

yourself to something--doing it over and over again unto you get better. I see a lot

of value in this approach to working and to life in general. When people find out I’m

interested in opera, a lot of them ask me whether I’m a singer and, for me, I think

it’s important that I’m not. I think the distance I have from feeling inside the vocal

roles is a good thing.

As a specialist on vocal music who also delivers courses on popular culture,

what do you make of the current fandom, that now extends to academic study,

around Taylor Swift?

I’m pretty fascinated by Taylor Swift because my daughter is; she’s 20 and has made

sure I know nearly everything about Taylor Swift. The reason I started teaching a

course at Berkeley about writing and analysing pop songs is because I realised

there were lots of students at Berkeley interested in this, but they had no way of

learning more about how it works. I wanted to talk to them about what they loved

in a music-historical and analytical way. I think Taylor Swift is a brilliant writer and

musician. As she’s released more albums, she’s become more literary and more

adventurous, traversing a lot of genres and styles. I find her very witty and feel a lot

of her songs are like an inside joke that not everybody gets. When I teach about this,

I try to discourage my students from thinking about songs as just reflecting events

and feelings from the artist’s life, which is what they start out wanting to focus on.

This can be a meaningful, of course, but it’s not the whole story. I want to lead people

to think about what the song does on its own terms and in relation to larger things

in the world, such as other prevailing styles.

What first brought you to the study of music?

I’ve always been drawn to the challenge of figuring out notes and what you can do

with musical patterns. At age 11, music-playing was introduced as a class for the

first time at my state school and everybody chose an instrument. Without knowing

anything about it, I chose the flute. I had a very passionate music teacher for the

next two years who inspired a lot of us. He was at the start of his career; we must

have been his first or second class. Many of us went on to study music intensively

at secondary school, and some of us at university too. I don’t think I would have

pursued my musical interest academically if he hadn’t come along.

What’s the value of an interdisciplinary approach?

It’s indispensable. To me, there is no thinking without interdisciplinary thinking. When

I was spending all those hours playing the flute, I was also reading novels while

practicing my scales by propping up a novel on my music stand. I always wanted

these things to go together in some way more than they would have done had I

focused on straight musical training. This is one of the things that led me into opera

because there you have the words and the music, and you can see how they interact.


If you study music with an historical approach, then an interdisciplinary approach is

essential. Understanding how music communicates on its own terms is vital, but if

you don’t connect it to some sense of social history or other expressive cultures, then

you risk letting it just be up there as an ideal thing that’s perfect and beautiful but





not touching people’s reality. And that’s what I’ve always been after in my research

– how music did make a difference to somebody’s reality.

Do you have a favourite place at Queen’s?

I really like the Chapel. The idea you can just go there, casually show up without

a ticket, and hear an amazing performance of something you know or something

you’ve never heard before has been a revelation. I didn’t expect this to be as

important to me as it has been.

What will you be taking away with you?

For one thing, I have a new excitement about the possibilities of musical performance

as a way of fostering community. And I’m racking my brain to try to think of ways

to translate the warm, informal atmosphere of college lunches to create more

opportunities for interaction for my music department colleagues at Berkeley.

Credit: David Olds

NON-ACADEMIC DISTINGUISHED VISITOR

In the academic year 2023-2024, our Non-Academic

Distinguished Visitor was Dr Julie Newman, Director of

Sustainability at MIT.

In 2013 you became MIT’s inaugural Director of

Sustainability, entrusted with the establishment of the

MIT Office of Sustainability. What led you to this role?

Dr Julie Newman During the time I spent with the Peace Corps in Guatemala,

I first encountered the field of sustainable development.

When I returned to the US, I chose this as my area of

study as I pursued my Master’s degree. I focused on the

intersection of science and policy, and I started to ask: how was higher education

going to prepare for sustainable development and what was going to be the role of

higher education in shaping that development? Following my Master’s degree in the

late 1990s, I was asked to go to the University of New Hampshire and help launch

the first sustainability office in the country. Then in 2004, I was asked to launch the

first office of sustainability at Yale University, before being invited to MIT to do the

same thing. I have an entrepreneurial spirit, so I thrive on founding such programs.


What key changes have you seen in the past 25 years now that sustainability

offices and roles are commonplace?

I reflect on the past 25 years, but I also look forward 25 years too because of what

scientists are predicting for the changing climate and the need to decarbonize our

energy systems within that time frame. In my role as a founder, I must stay ahead of

the curve by looking around the corner. So, I have to say let’s get five years ahead of

what’s coming at us; let’s work with the data and make plans to prepare ourselves

with studies and strategies.

Looking back, a big change for me is that I am no longer playing the role of advocate.

As a systems thinker, I am able to work fluidly between academics and operations to

help leverage the expertise and bridge the commitments on both sides. I see a great

opportunity for us to take the research coming out of our universities and apply that

to create a feedback loop to the operations. I make a point of understanding both

the culture of operations and the academic framework so that when we’re creating

visions and plans to operationalise sustainability and to tie it to the educational

mission, it speaks across the aisles to both groups.

The Holm Oak in the Drawda Garden




We have gone from being a few colleagues in this area in the US, who all knew each

other in the early days, to a group of over 1,000. I have been working globally for the

past 15 years and it now feels like there’s more common ground internationally with

the issues that we are all managing. We’re all thinking about energy, transportation,

food, materials and urgently determining how to decarbonise our campuses. We

might need to develop different solutions, but we are speaking the same language.

And the thing that’s changed the most is the urgency around climate change and

decarbonisation that’s influencing many of our campuses in the US and abroad.

What I am trying to change myself is to make sure that we’re thinking about the

collective. This means recognising that all of our campuses are test beds and

demonstrations for the next generation of students. I also see it in the nested

alignment of carbon commitments made at all levels of local and global communities.

We ask ourselves how do we work within that? For example, you can see it here

in Oxford with the low impact neighbourhoods, which I have heard affects many

members of your staff, so you have to ask what can you put in place to work with

these municipal measures?

How do you respond to people who feel that changing things at an

organizational level won’t have much/enough impact on the global picture?

Higher education provides an environment where people can stop and before

saying ‘no’ to a new idea, they can pause and question what we are trying to

solve for and how research might help with that. There’s no better place than in a

higher education setting to ask these difficult questions. You also get to work across

multiple generations.

Here at Oxford, I can see that you have lanes and layers. So, everyone is in their lane

getting on with their work and you also have the hierarchy of a collegiate community.

I think working within this structure, you can also have a fabric of understanding that

weaves these elements together.

How do we strike a balance between urgency and agency in our

communications?

I think there are two levels of urgency, and it can help to separate them. There’s

a scientific urgency which is coming from institutions like MIT and we’re using this

to decarbonise in the context of understanding how we can navigate the process

at a local level and help inform other local-level strategies from around the world.

When a problem is so complex, you have to constantly think about how to minimise

disruption, reduce costs, and work within dense urban environments.


It’s very easy for someone to say ‘oh but we’re so small’ and yes, that may be true

but operationally, you are still heating and cooling your buildings, collecting data,

feeding students and academics, you still have people who are struggling with how

to get to work. The global solution per se is dependent upon the success of the

collective local solutions and advancements. Climate change is not going to be

solved ‘globally’ per se but relies upon the aggregation of national, state, municipal

and organisational (and even household level) solutions.

At Queen’s we often talk about how our greatest contribution to addressing the

climate crisis is through our research. What is the role of higher education in

advancing humanity towards a more sustainable future and is there a balance

to be struck between research and action?

The way I frame my work is through inquiry-based design. What I mean by that is

framing questions that we’re trying to answer rather than prescribing solutions. This

is one way that leverages research in a manner to inform implementation strategies.

I ask how can we activate our campuses as testbeds for climate and sustainability

analysis and solution development? This is not telling people what to do, but instead

it’s asking how might we do things differently? Students I have met at Queen’s have

said ‘we want to find ways to study this’. So, instead of saying we’re too small or

that x is operational, and y is research, we want to shift to recognising that all these

seemingly small things are common problems that lead to inquiry-based design and

potential research opportunities.

The other kind of urgency is a new kind that we’re seeing now where I work and that’s

associated with a carbon cost that will be levied on us at MIT starting in 2026. We

try to navigate between urgency and agency too and urgency is not about saying

we must figure this out tomorrow, it’s being really clear that we have to mitigate

emissions in the next 25 years. In the context of glacial cycles, that’s urgent.

How do you overcome other challenges with communication, for example

how do you ensure that initial enthusiasm about sustainability translates to

sustained engagement?

Communications has come up in each meeting I have had at Queen’s. We grapple

with the same issues at MIT where communications come amid a very busy world.

Communications is one of the most difficult challenges that we as sustainability

people face. At MIT we have just launched a new branding campaign to raise

awareness and engage more people but that’s ten years in! These things take time.

I think the best answer comes down to identity. That is, baking your ideas and

commitments on sustainability into the identity of the College. There’s a great story

to tell and the communication is tied to vision and identity. There are fun and creative

opportunities to do this with the College’s artist-in-residence programme and, of

course, with your own creative students. There’s a lot already happening below the

radar and there’s a real appetite in the community to hear more.




You have spoken before about connecting people for solutions. What tips

and approaches have you seen working best at MIT, and do they include an

interdisciplinary approach?

Yes, they absolutely include an interdisciplinary approach. Sustainability and

climate challenges require the weaving together of experts with generalists. I am

a generalist: someone who can tie disciplines together. The question for higher

education is what are the structures that we can put in place that will incentivise

and reward interdisciplinary collaborative problem-solving? Complex problems

require multi-disciplinary engagement and it’s connecting the depths of expertise

across disciplines that is key to success. There are great examples of this going on

already. In my role, I co-chair a multi-disciplinary committee of faculty to inform our

decarbonisation efforts. This framework brings single-disciplinary specialists into

addressing a multi-disciplinary challenge.

I am accustomed to working with people who have very different opinions and it’s

important to find common ground once you have allowed space to hear all the

opinions.

Can you give us a book recommendation?

Coal: A Human History by Barbara Freese. This book spans an incredible 800-year

time frame that charts the energy era and shows how things evolved. It spans areas

such as public health, gender issues, and infrastructure and I think it not only makes

things real, is shows what lessons can be learned from history as we look forward.


The College has its own Sustainability Masterplan to consider how best we

can make changes to the fabric of our buildings. How can we get the most

out of this endeavour?

I have provided a summary and synthesis of my observations after listening to many

members of the College community during my visit. Common themes are very

clearly jumping out of my pages of notes. My report provides a synthesis of the

current state of things, what’s possible based on input from the community, and

observations on some ways to manage the challenges that were articulated to me.

I hope by connecting some of the dots this can feed into the College’s Sustainability

Masterplan.

Tell us about your time at Queen’s.

First of all, I’m honoured and delighted to be here. Considering my visit is brief, I

have felt so at home. It’s important to listen; you can’t come into a place with so

much history and not listen and learn. So, I have been asking a lot of questions!

Everyone has been so gracious, and people have come along to my listening tour

with amazing ideas and enthusiasm. People are very open to sharing the work that

they’re doing now and the visions that they have for what comes next. People I speak

to also have an absolute understanding that this is a place woven with tradition and

they fully honour that, and I am learning from that too. The College is taking great

care of me, and it’ll be hard to leave.

Do you have any advice for our community?

Address sustainability and climate through what you do best: inquiry. And, provide

space to listen to one another.




PRELIMINARY EXAMINATIONS

Corrections to results printed in the 2023 College Record

Biology

Nancy Locke*

Materials Science

Emma Lee*

Music

Harriet Twigger-Ross*

Lorenz F. Olbrich (Materials)

Alkistis Stavropoulou-Deli (Surgical Sciences)

Lewis L. Wales (Inorganic Chemistry)

Kok Ting Wan (Oncology)

Ziheng Wang (Mathematics of Random Systems)

Junqing Xie (Clinical Epidemiology and Medical Statistics)

Haonan Xu (Oncology)

Zhicheng Xu (Materials)

Jieming Zhang (Materials)

BCL

Wun Yin Lester Ho

Megan L. Smith-Dobric

EMBA

Roland A.C. Marcelin-Horne*


ACADEMIC DISTINCTIONS (* denotes distinction)

MBA

Pyae Phyo Kyaw

D.Phil

Mutibah S.A. Alanazi (Condensed Matter Physics)

Asma O.O. Alamoudi (Physiology, Anatomy and Genetics)

Sarah Ashcroft-Jones (Experimental Psychology)

Hans H.S. Chan (Materials)

Andrea Clini (Mathematics of Random Systems)

Agamemnon Crumpton (Chemistry)

Håvard Damm-Johnsen (Mathematics)

Brigita D. Darminto (Materials)

Martin E. Doff-Sotta (Engineering Science)

Nicky Evans (Condensed Matter Physics)

Eliana Fausti (Partial Differential Equations)

Johannes Forkel (Mathematics)

Betina A.V. Frinault (Environmental Research)

Jeremie Gaudez (Biochemistry)

Leonie P. Glitz (Experimental Psychology)

Gayatri (Organic Chemistry)

Fabienne T.B. Hathaway (Oriental Studies)

Rebekah N. Hodgkinson (Archaeology)

Elliot C. Howard-Spink (Zoology)

Jack D. Howley (Inorganic Chemistry)

Nathalie S. Jeter (Medieval and Modern Languages (French))

Zhuoran Jiang (Engineering Science)

Tristan W. Johnston-Wood (Chemical Sciences)

MFA

Caroline A. Coolidge*

MJur

Supakorn Wilartratsami

M.Phil

Greta Z. Dohler (Economics)

Anna M.B. O’Connor (Modern Languages (German))

Kexin Shi (Japanese Studies)

Gareth J. Smith* (Greek and/or Roman History)

MPP

Olakunle O. Atanda

Prakriti Bhattarai

Erik Kucherenko

Roop K. Singh

M.Sc

Aditi G. Athreya (Pharmacology)

Kristel Betriu Diaz* (Clinical and Therapeutic Neuroscience)

Naomi Kingston* (Psychological Research)

Samriddhi Mishra (Mathematics and Foundations of Computer Science)




Leonardo P.E. Morosini (Global Governance and Diplomacy)

Rodrigo Vega Mendez (Law and Finance)

John Tang (Japanese Studies)

Clotilde M.G.C. Villatte De Peufeilhoux (Law and Finance)

Zhirui Zhang (Financial Economics)

M.St

Dorothy C.K. Brooke* (Modern Languages (German))

Long Ching Sharon Chau (Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies)

Hannah L. Findlater* (Music (Musicology))

Alexa C. Jordan (History (Intellectual History))

Audrey M. Kim (World Literatures in English)

Amelia K. Morton (English (1830-1914))

Jessica L. Orluck (English (650-1550))

Haeun Park (English (1900-present))

Jessica J. Schot* (History (US History))

Kyle Siwek (History (Modern British History 1850-present))

Jixiao Yang* (Modern Languages (Byzantine and Modern Greek))

BM

Elfreda Baker

Zuzanna Borawska

Rebecca S. Howitt*

Yedidiah Tilahun

Imogen G. Wilkinson

P.G.C.E

Tianjia Cui (Chemistry)

Hui Huang (Modern Languages)

Calum R. McDonald-Webb (Modern Languages)

Carla M. Simons (Mathematics)

Scarlett T.J. Stevens (English)

FINAL PUBLIC EXAMINATIONS

Asian and Middle Eastern Studies

First Class

Levi Fraser (Chinese)

Beau J.J Waycott (Japanese)

Second Class, Division One

Blane N. Aitchison (Egyptology)

Cicely D.M. Hunt (Chinese)

Madeleine Ridout (Japanese)

Second Class, Division Two

Philip J. Mercado (Japanese with

Chinese)

Biology

First Class

Henry A. Portwood

Martha Rigby


Daniel Bowen

Elias S. Formaggia

George A. MacKay

Emily M. Scott

Chemistry

First Class

Joshua O. Abioye

Ben R. Naylor


Anna Ashkinazi

Tihomir I. Gluharev

Edwin L. Hughes

Gionata Vernice

English and Modern Languages

First Class

Megan M. Williams (French)


Kylah M. Jacobs (French)

English Language and Literature

First Class

Miriam R. Alsop

Freddy Conway-Shaw

Iris N. Greaney

Experimental Psychology

First Class

Kylie Li

History

First Class

Ailish C. Gaughan

Cameron D. Hutchinson


Faith W.S. Leong

Ziden L. Ramage

Charles Rowan Hamilton

Louis Simms

History and English

First Class

Harry Brook

Irina-Petra Husti-Radulet


Classics and Modern Languages

First Class

Joseph J. Wald (German)



History and Politics

Mathematics and Philosophy

Music

Philosophy, Politics and Economics


First Class

Elin Isaac


Matthew Craik

Eve Scollay

Jasmine Wilkinson

Jurisprudence

First Class

Ethan J. Teo Yong Qi


Shea-Marie Aaron (with Law in Europe)

Finlay E. Butler

Bahira Malak

Charlotte H. Rumney

Wan N.N. Tay

Literae Humaniores


Amber D.M. Evans

Georgina E. Field

Philip Gentles

Materials Science

First Class

Thian D. Iskandar

Andrew C. Sturt

Merit

Jiahe Qiu


Minghui Chen

Medical Sciences

First Class

Grace Jones

Poppy M. Stafford-Dorlandt


Alicja K. Kwiecinska

Harry M.N. Orwell

Modern Languages

First Class

Ella Holliday (French and Spanish)

Eleanor Maidstone (Spanish)


Olivia G. Coombs (Italian and Spanish)

Joshua J.D. Dixon (French and

German)

Fenella Lamle (French and Spanish)

Hannah Pall (French and Italian)

Katie St. Francis (French and German)

Filip M. Szymaniak (French and

German)

Cara P. Williams (French)

First Class

Maxim J.E. Fielder

Rosanna M. Milner


Sophie Akka

Luke Mitchell

Neuroscience

First Class

Phoebe J. Homer


Shahad Arzouni

Oriental Studies


Adam P. Ali-Hassan (Egyptology and

Ancient Near Eastern Studies)

Philosophy and Modern Languages


Madeleine M.A. Hamilton (German)


Conor Boyle

Zoe I. Edwards

Matilda Evans

Corabella S.D. Hill

Isabel M.G Lee

Psychology, Philosophy and

Linguistics

First Class

Lucia Chacon-Osborne

Physics

First Class

Gian-Galeazzo S. Salvatorelli-Naraghi


Jacob Dawe

Third Class

Samuel Wood



Jacx K.Y. Chan

Mathematics

Molecular and Cellular Biochemistry

First Class

Magdalena K. Lechowska

Distinction

Hao De

Ziyang Zheng


Molly R. Bower

Merit

Daniel N. Bell

Sophie E. Rackham




FIRST PUBLIC EXAMINATIONS

First BM

Thomas O.A. Gibson

Ojas Rajkumar

Habiba Siddiqui

Freya Stevens

Louise E. van der Merwe

Honour Moderations

Literae Humaniores

Fatima Abras

Ellen L. Pepper

Samuel J.S Troy*

Preliminary Examinations

Asian and Middle Eastern Studies

Jack Leonard* (Chinese)

Finley Meadowcroft (Japanese)

Jessica A. Wilson-Grout (Japanese)

Biology

Austin Davis*

Caitlin Howe*

Grace A. Jenkins-Phillipps

Oliver Ray*

Biomedical Sciences

Olivia F. Kurali*

Lieselotte Scholpp

Chemistry

Yi Qi Muse Da

Aidan Durant*

Edward Keogh*

Matthew Lim*

Archie Powell*

Yingqi Shi

Moderations

Law

Uzair Ali

Arya Coban

Elsa Cooper

Isabelle Dickinson

Isabelle D.Y.Y Looi*

Classics and English

Ben Gilchrist

English and Modern Languages

Alice S. Foulds-Hamilton (French)

Lia Neill* (German)

Isabella Reese (German)

English Language and Literature

Georgia Campbell*

Juliette McGrath

European and

Middle Eastern Languages

Hana Sway (Spanish and Arabic)

Experimental Psychology

Marnie Rodriguez-Skellon*

Yinuo Zhang

Fine Art

Jiyong Dong*

Amelia Sleight*

History

Rhiannon Bradshaw

Heather Judge*

Lily Karia-Briggs

Rumaysaa B.Z. Mannan

Madina Puttaroo

History and Politics

Mercy Phipps*

Kit Renshaw-Hammond

Joseph Thomas*

Robert Turner*

Materials Science

Jack Harper-Hill

Syed Hassan

Isabel P.D. Lesser

Alexander Penny

Sebastian Travis

Mathematics

Kush R. Melwani

Naomi Owen

Yuezhi Wang*

Samuel C.H. Williams*

Jim Yeung*

Jingyi Zou

Modern Languages

Ellen C.M. Burton (French and Spanish)

Emily Dicker* (German and Portuguese)

Barnaby Mills (Spanish and Russian)

Ines Tennant-Holder (French and

Russian)

Modern Languages and Linguistics

Harrison Beckett* (Spanish)

Elizabeth Dallosso (German)

Molecular and Cellular Biochemistry

Honor Davies

Isabel I. Itoe

Adam Lawes

Susima Manandhar

Music

Rudyard Cook

Arthur Easey

Sebastian Evans

Sara Lee

Philosophy and Linguistics

Katung V. Pak

Philosophy, Politics and Economics

Matilda Bates

Eliza John

Fariz Khan

Jacob Perry*

Joaquin Segal

Aadam Shahzad

Aditya Sinha

Physics

Daniel J. Beck

Benjamin Tozer

Zihan Wang

Psychology and Linguistics

Tin Yan Mok*





UNIVERSITY PRIZES 2023

All Souls Prize for Public International Law: Wan N. N. Tay

Armourers and Brasiers’ Prize for Year 2 Business Plan Team Presentation

in Materials Science: Devajna K. Gopal, Emma Lee, Jing Yao Lee, Ryan Price,

Atila M. Schrieber

Best Performances in 1st Year Practical Chemistry: Archie Powell

David Gibbs Prize proxime accessit for the best performance in Modern

Languages for the best submitted work in the Dissertation Paper XIV: Olivia

G. Coombs

David Gibbs Prize proxime accessit for the best performance in Modern

Languages for the best submitted work in the Dissertation Paper XIV:

Eleanor Maidstone

Departmental Prize for Best Team Design Project in Materials Science:

Zhuojun Hou

George Pickering Prize for Best Overall Performance in the 2nd BM:

Rebecca S. Howitt

Harley Prize for Best Research Project Dissertation in the field of Grand

Green Challenges: Henry A. Portwood

HWC Davis PPrize for the Best Performance in History Joint Schools

Preliminary Exams: Joseph Thomas

John Thresher Prize for an MPhys Project in Particle and Nuclear Physics:

Samuel T.W. Wood

COLLEGE PRIZES

Blake Prize in History: Yu Hang Hui (History)

First Bolus Prize in Classics: Anna E. Jeffries-Shaw (Literae Humaniores),

Samuel J.S. Troy (Literae Humaniores)

Second Bolus Prize in Classics: Katie Mewawalla (Literae Humaniores)

Third Bolus Prize in Classics: Philip Gentles (Literae Humaniores), Yun Son

(Literae Humaniores), Joseph J. Wald (Classics and Modern Languages (German))

Gwanghoon Lee Prize in Materials Science: Isabel P.D. Lesser (Materials

Science)

Ives Prize: Madeleine Ridout (Japanese)

Jack Wooding Prize (for greatest contribution to the Boat Club by a firstyear

undergraduate): Jack Leonard (Chinese)

J.A. Scott Prize: Phoebe J. Homer (Neuroscience), Magdalena K. Lechowska

(Molecular and Cellular Biochemistry)

Many Prize in English: Bryony Fishpool (English and Modern Languages

(Spanish))

Markheim Prize in French: Ella Holliday (Modern Languages (French and

Spanish))

Philip Tudor Harries Prize in Asian and Middle Eastern Studies: Beau J.J.

Waycott (Japanese)

Pippa Koller Prize for Sporting Endeavours: Faith W.S. Leong (History)


Law Faculty Prize in Advanced Property and Trusts: Wun Yin Lester Ho

Meakins-McClaren Medal for the final year Clinical Medicine student who

has had the most consistently excellent performance over the course:

Rebecca S. Howitt

SJZ Ali Prize in History: Ailish C. Gaughan (History), Charles Rowan Hamilton

(History)

Temple Prize in Mathematics: Lila Spencer (Mathematics)

Part IB Organic Chemistry Prize: Frederick W. Simpson

Runners Up Part IA Chemistry Prize: Bowen Guo

Stephen Parkinson Prize for the best performance in Portuguese Prelims

language papers: Emily Dicker

T. F. Earle Prize for the best performance in Portuguese Prelims content

papers: Emily Dicker




Credit: John Cairns

FROM THE BURSAR

From a financial perspective the past year was very positive.

The endowment performed well, with a total return of

around 11%. In addition to decent growth in the equity

portfolio, the College completed the sale of around 63

acres of agricultural land for residential development at

Keresley on the outskirts of Coventry, which generated a

net receipt of almost £25 million. The sale was achieved in

the aftermath of considerable disruption to the market for

Dr Andrew Timms residential development, a consequence of the previous

government’s unwise mini-budgetary experiments, and we

were fortunate to be able to complete it at all. As some Old Members will know, this

land had been in the College’s ownership since around 1520 and is part of a wider

landholding at Keresley, much of which falls within an area earmarked for suburban

development by the local authority. At least two further disposals of land for separate

residential schemes are expected in the next few years at this location; the nearby

ancient woodland, however, will remain in the College’s ownership for the time being

and will not of course be developed. Boosted partly by this transaction, for the first

time in its history the College’s closing net assets for the year exceeded £500 million;

landmarks such as these are not particularly meaningful, but that is not to say that

they should not be recognised.

In terms of its operational finances the College also performed well. Tuition income

was high (the current size and home/overseas mix of the undergraduate student

body helps this) and our commercial summer trading had a good year. Donations

totalled £9.3 million, which is an excellent result, driven by the exceptional generosity

of the Old Membership. Expenditure was reasonably well controlled. A further bonus

was the elimination of deficit provisions relating to the two defined benefit pension

schemes offered by the College; this was a notably positive consequence of a rise

in interest rates of some 400 basis points, releasing £2.6 million previously tied

up on our balance sheet. It is to be hoped that we might avoid such provisions

arising again in the future, but the legislation and regulation in this area is essentially

broken, as is amply demonstrated by the past decade of arguments about the

Universities Superannuation Scheme valuation. For the time being, however, we can

stop worrying about pensions from the perspective of the College as an employer. I

regularly suggest to employees, though, to worry about them a lot from an early age!


at Queen’s for over 18 years now and it is impossible not to notice that the past

few years have been a very difficult time for employers in general—and for higher

education, as a sector, in particular. The pandemic played a role in this, of course,

but other societal cross-currents are probably having a bigger impact on the College.

There has been a noticeable drift towards a focus on the self and its identity, which

has affected the way in which both employees and students position themselves

in relation to the College. Meanwhile, the College itself is increasingly being recast

as a fully public body that should be devoted to the pursuit of general goodness

and equity in society, and dispensing various kinds of justice to those in its orbit.

This sits very uneasily against the older (and I believe more correct) view of colleges

as fundamentally private charities with very specific educational objectives and

essentially elitist in all of the right ways. Where all of this bites, of course, is in the

tussle for the College’s resources. I mentioned last year that an obvious tension had

opened up in discussions about how much we should spend on ‘sustainability’; the

last 12 months have added new and interesting questions, such as whether porters’

lodges should undertake to provide 24/7 responses to students, including those from

other colleges, who are in distress and nearby (but outside of our premises). From

a Bursarial perspective, at least, the prospect of becoming a private emergency

service is not an attractive one. I do not know what 2024–25 will bring, but if I were

allowed a ‘wish’, I would hope that in time we may return to an era in which, as JFK

might have said, fewer people ask what their College can do for them.


I began with the words ‘from a financial perspective’, and indeed from that viewpoint

last year was unproblematic. However, the Bursar has to deal with people as well

as money, and from certain other perspectives the last 12 months have been very

challenging (sometimes one feels that AI can’t come soon enough). I have worked




Credit: David Olds

OUTREACH

Molly Lockwood,

Schools Liaison,

Outreach, and

Recruitment Officer

In my first year at Queen’s, we have worked hard to reach

as many students as possible whilst also maintaining

impactful, engaging outreach activity. We are thrilled to

have worked with a total of over 3,500 students from 89

state schools across our link regions in the North West,

London, and beyond.

The bread and butter of our widening participation work

involves inviting state schools for day visits to Queen’s

for an insight into life and learning here. For prospective

students, experiencing the physical environment of the

College really is the best way to understand what life is

like here; I always love hearing the gasps of awe as school

groups enter the Upper Library!

We are always trying to listen and respond to the needs of our link schools and

students; for our furthest link schools, a day visit is simply impossible and the

physical distance from Oxford reinforces the attitude that studying here feels out

of reach for many academically able students. As a result, we were pleased to be

able to offer overnight accommodation over the Easter break, welcoming six nonselective

state schools from as far away as Carlisle. We were also pleased to offer a

partial coach travel reimbursement for schools where the costs were otherwise too

high to allow a visit. I also conducted three tours of Lancashire and Cumbria this

year, working with teachers to deliver in-class talks and workshops to hundreds of

students across the region.

Our annual North West Science Residential was a particular highlight; 26 budding

scientists from Lancashire, Blackpool, Blackburn with Darwen, and Cumbria joined

us for a week-long taster of life as a science undergraduate student. For many

attendees, the tutorial with a Queen’s Fellow or lecturer was the highlight of the

week, providing a first-hand understanding of the teaching and learning experience at

Oxford. There were also admissions workshops as part of the programme, ensuring

that attendees feel confident in making a competitive university application in the

coming year.

“The medicine tutorial gave me an exciting

insight into what the style of teaching would

be like.”

– 2024 North West Science Residential attendee

To add to our portfolio of subject-specific outreach

support, we have this year collaborated with our

colleagues at Corpus Christi College to set up the

Ancient Worlds Network for Year 12 students in

the North West with an interest in Classics-related

disciplines. Our residential pilot in March welcomed

14 students to both Colleges for a programme

of academic taster sessions, time to explore the

Ashmolean Museum, and even a trip to the North

Leigh Roman Villa. We look forward to building

on this momentum and to inspiring more budding

classicists to consider the subject at degree level.

“It’s eased a lot of my

worries – being able

to actually experience

the colleges without

being worried about

how to finance it was

honestly incredible!”

– 2024 North West

Science Residential

attendee

In the second year of our partnership with The Access Project, we were pleased to

welcome students on the programme to Queen’s. Year 12 students from Workington

and Whitehaven were able to visit and stay overnight, gaining insights into student life

by staying in undergraduate accommodation and attending application workshops.

A group of Year 10 students from Darwen Vale High School were able to experience

university-style learning for themselves, through academic taster sessions with

Professor Lindsay Turnbull and Dr Jules Salamone-Sehr. It was also powerful for

our visitors to meet current Queen’s students from the North West!

On that note, our wonderful student ambassadors are an integral part of our outreach

work, making Oxford feel welcoming and accessible to prospective students. In the

2023/24 academic year, around a third of our undergraduate student body were

trained student ambassadors, which is testament to the commitment of the whole

Queen’s community – Fellows, staff, students, and Old Members alike – to our role

in widening participation in higher education.

We are proud that, through our work, we are able to support prospective students

throughout their whole journey, from first considering higher education in secondary

school to joining us as undergraduates at Queen’s. In March, we held our first inperson

Offer Holder Event. This allowed incoming students to gain a realistic sense

of life at Queen’s, now that interviews are conducted online, and to meet their

soon-to-be peers; we cannot wait for them to become part of the College when

they begin their studies.

Looking ahead to the 2024/25 academic year, our commitment to working with

pupils in the North West goes from strength to strength. As well as continuing our

programme of inbound and outbound visits, we will work closely with the Queen’s

College Translation Exchange to bring their successful Think Like a Linguist model

to schools in Blackpool, aiming to encourage the study of languages at GCSE,

university, and beyond. It promises to be another busy and rewarding year for

outreach at Queen’s!





Credit: John Cairsns

A YEAR IN THE LIBRARY

Dr Matthew Shaw

College Librarian

In a year when the UK’s national library was hobbled by a

cyberattack, it has been good to remember the advantages

of an analogue library, while also being reminded of the

boons afforded by the digital.

In the physical realm, thanks to the generosity of Old

Members, the Library has been able to acquire several

important items for the College’s special collections that

will be used for teaching, research, and exhibitions. These

include Ted Hughes’ Three River Poems (Morrigu Press,

1981), hand set and printed by the poet’s son, Nicholas

(Zoology, 1981), when he was reading Zoology at the College (appropriately, given

the subject of the poems, he later specialised in marine zoology); and the poet and

critic Edmund Blunden’s heavily-annotated copy of his edited edition of John Clare’s

Poems; and a full run of the six issues of the Modernist ‘little magazine’, Coterie

(1919-1921), edited by Old Member Russell Green (English, 1912).

In 1930, Grace Hadow, the Principal of what became St Anne’s College, declared

in response to a proposed donation of early printed books, that ‘I will not refuse

fifteenth century printing. It is very good for our young to feel they own such

things’. 1 Members of Queen’s are particularly fortunate in this regard, as we hold nearly

300 examples of ‘incunabula’ – as books printed during the period of the birth of

moveable type printing in the West are traditionally called. This collection is one of

the largest in Oxford, but perhaps not as well known or understood as it should be.

To understand the collection better, check on its condition, and correct or augment

catalogue entries, I have been looking at one volume a day, posting a short account

on social media. As well as numerous additions to catalogue descriptions, the

community of librarians and academics online has also identified one work decorated

by the ‘incunable limner’, an artist who appeared to work for William Caxton and which

helps to reveal how Caxton operated as a bookseller for Continental works as well

as the first English printer. More discoveries will appear in next year’s report, I hope.

In the meantime, several choice volumes have been shared with students attending

the popular ‘show and tells’ organised throughout the year in the Upper Library. That

space – often dubbed the ‘most beautiful room in Oxford’ – has also benefited from

expert cleaning by conservators from the Bodleian during the Long Vacation. Each

book has been carefully cleaned, and the statue of Queen Philippa has been treated

to specialist conservation. You should be able to see the difference on your next visit.

Such physical treasures, spaces, and collections continue to be augmented by the

digital (Philippa also exists as a 3D scan on the web). The College is fortunate to have

1

Paul Morgan, Oxford Libraries Outside the Bodleian (Oxford, 1980), p. 116.

excellent access to electronic library resources, and the reading rooms are usually

full of students making use of online books, databases, or journal articles. We have

also increased our contribution to the shared colleges and Bodleian ebooks fund to

help provide the range of texts required by students and academics, wherever they

are in the world (including the reading rooms). The Library has also experimented with

recent developments in artificial intelligence and made use of Anthropic’s Claude AI

‘large language model’ to parse, classify, reformat, and unify a disparate collection

of older catalogues of the Library manuscript series.

Amongst our recent acquisitions are notes and doodles made by Jeremy Bentham

during his time at Queen’s. The notes, it has been suggested by colleagues at UCL,

reveal the ongoing importance of his study of the classics for his future philosophical

thought, and are complemented by caricatures of what must have been his tutors.

These have been swiftly digitised and can now be inspected on the College’s section

of the Digital Bodleian. Several of the College’s other treasures have been added

to this free online resource this year. These include David Garrick’s copy of William

Shakespeare’s ‘first folio’ (1623), and a fifteenth-century Provençal Legendary (MS

305), which until recently was thought to be the only surviving copy of an original

fourteenth-century text containing unique versions of the lives of Saints Placidus,

Nicaise, Francis, Genevieve, Margaret, Bathilde, and Bertille (a second copy has

been identified in the British Library at Add. MS 41179).

The materiality of the collections was even audibly brought to life in a workshop in

January. Students reading History and English Literature were introduced to the

manufacturing of oak gall ink – smashing oak galls, mixing with iron and vitriol,

and heating on a hot plate in the Multi-Purpose Room, concluding with goosequill

calligraphy. The ink was then used in a display on natural inks in the New

Library, with items ranging from seaweed printed book to modern algae-based

dyes. The provenance of some of the Library’s collections was also explored in an

exhibition in the Upper Library in Hilary and Trinity Terms on Joseph Williamson

and the establishment of the Transatlantic trade in enslaved African people. New

research has emphasised Williamson’s role not just as a Fellow and benefactor of

the College, but as an important figure in the Royal African Company. His role was

further explored in March with a lecture and discussion led by the historian, Professor

William Pettegrew (Lancaster University). The Library also organised another event

in the Shulman Auditorium in Michaelmas: as a means of opening up the collections

to a wider audience, Professor Emma Smith (Hertford College) talked about the

College’s copy of Shakespeare’s first folio to a capacity crowd in its 400th year.

More visibility of the Library’s collections has also been made possible thanks to the

generosity of a number of Old Members, who funded the acquisition of a bespoke

exhibition case for the Shulman Auditorium Foyer. The case has already hosted a

student-curated exhibition on the history of ballooning in Oxford. Readers might be

interested to visit some of these exhibitions, which are now available digitally on the

College’s website.





A YEAR IN THE ARCHIVE

Michael Riordan

College Archivist

Over the course of the year we have continued working on

several long-term projects, including the re-cataloguing of

the Archive. But we have reached a significant milestone

in one major project: the conservation and preservation of

the College’s medieval deeds.

In 1930 the College deposited its collection of around 2,500

medieval deeds in the Bodleian. At that time the deeds

were placed into envelopes, made from an odd mix of

cardboard and textiles, inside large heavy board boxes (the

green boxes with the yellow stickers in the photograph).

These have become substantially less state-of-the-art over the intervening century,

and when the collection was returned to the College in 2018 it was decided to

replace the boxes and envelopes with modern materials (the grey boxes in the

photograph). This year we finally achieved this for all the deeds which are now

housed in acid-free paper envelopes within acid-free cardboard boxes. One last part

of the project remains: about 350 medieval rolls (mostly accounts and rentals) for the

College’s ancient Hampshire estates, which we hope to complete in the coming year.

A highlight of the year, as ever, was the Archive

‘pop-up’ exhibition in Hilary Term, in which a small

exhibition is set up in the New Library’s Multi-

Purpose Room for College members to peruse.

This year’s exhibition, curated by Amy Ebrey, the

Assistant Archivist, was on the theme ‘Queen’s

at Leisure’ in deliberate contrast to last year’s

exhibition on ‘The Troublous Times’. The exhibition

highlighted the various recreational spaces within

the College, including the Bowling Green that was

a prominent part of the gardens throughout the

sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth centuries,

as well as more modern clubs and societies. Pride

of place was given to a photograph of the Servants

Cricket Team in 1951, celebrating one of many

times when it won the Inter-Collegiate Cup.

A box of medieval deeds in their new

acid-free envelopes

One of the Archive’s core activities is making the collections available not just

internally, but to other scholars and the public more widely. Over the course of the

year 29 people visited the Archive to carry out research, and a further 166 wrote

asking for information provided by the Archivist and Assistant Archivist. Enquiries

included questions about the College Brewhouse (and the infamous Chancellor’s

Ale!), the bells at God’s House Chapel in Southampton, and Pink Floyd playing at

the 1969 Ball!


The old green boxes are steadily being replaced by the new grey boxes

The victorious Servants

Cricket team of 1951, with

the cup




A YEAR IN THE CHAPEL

Revd Alice Watson

Chaplain

As my second year as Chaplain of what is undoubtedly the

most wonderful Chapel in Oxford draws to a close, I am

struck by the speed at which it has flown by: I had just

been beginning to feel well settled-in at the start of

Michaelmas, and here we are beginning to plan for another

Michaelmas term, with a busy year behind us. Time really

does fly when you are having fun and are swept along by

the rhythm of Oxford life.

Michaelmas Term got off to a strong start, with the choir

in excellent voice, even just a few services into the year.

Remembrance Sunday was well attended, as were prayers and silence by the war

memorial. As we were faced with a world again marked by conflict, close to home for

many students and College members, the place of silence and prayer has seemed

even more important.

Term ended on a high with a packed Carol service and the joy of a Christmas tree in

chapel. A couple of weeks before this a group gathered in Chapel on a Saturday to

learn to linocut and make Christmas cards, in a workshop led by artist Iona Morphet.

Hilary Term’s sermons focused on the theme of “the body”, exploring themes of

incarnation, the body of Christ, and the role of scientific endeavour in the Church

today. Welfare walks were successful, and in the spirit of balance, Friday afternoons

were dedicated to ‘craft and cookies’ in my office, where floor space was maximised,

and the teapot put through a workout. In February, evensong was broadcast live on

Radio 3, always the most nerve-wracking day of the year, but excellently sung by

the choir, with lessons read very well by the Chapel Clerks.

Trinity Term began with a trip to one of our College parishes, All Saints Headley,

where the choir sung evensong to a packed church, and we enjoyed the countryside

views (rather less so on a back-lane coach trip on the way home!) and a fine afternoon

tea. The University Sermon was preached on Trinity Sunday by the Revd Dr Carys

Walsh. The term ended with an emotional leavers’ service, and Chapel and choir

garden games on the Provost’s Lawn.

This year we had two sermons preached by current students, Conor Boyle and Kyle

Siwek, and I hope that this can continue in the coming years. We were joined in

Chapel this year by a placement ordinand in training; Frances Caroe, who is an Old

Member of Queen’s, and we wish him all the best for his future ministry.

A particular highlight of this year for me has been the forging of stronger links between

the College Christian Union and Chapel. Queen’s is blessed with a strong Christian

Union, with students of many denominations, and this year saw the start of regular

‘prayer and praise’ services. Twice a term we gathered in Chapel on a Monday night

to sing some more contemporary worship music, to pray together, and to hear a

reflection. Students led the services, the Chapel was lit with various coloured lights,

and we all gather in my office for pizza and more cups of tea afterwards.

As any priest or church-attender knows, worship is not a numbers game. That

being said, choral evensong must be having a moment, as this year numbers

continued to grow, especially midweek, and it was a delight to have a regularly full

Chapel, with a mix of students, tourists, and Oxford regulars. This is testimony to

the professionalism and dedication of the choir.

This year saw four weddings in Chapel: Marco Galvani (Music, 2013) and Madison

Reamsbottom, Hugh Handy (Materials Science, 2011) and Anna Comfort (Biological

Sciences, 2011), Tom Nichols (Music, 2011) and Rebekah Warke, and Bryn Davies

(Mathematics, 2014) and Eleanor Bray (Music, 2014). My thanks go to the both the

Conference Office and the Steward’s team for all their help in making sure these

special days go without a hitch.

I’ve been very ably assisted this year by a team of sacristans and readers, led by

Chapel Clerks Conor Boyle, Rhiannon Petteford, and Madeleine Ridout (stepping

in for Trinity Term). Klara Zhao has once again served magnificently as Captain of

the Bells. My thanks go to all of them, as well as to the choir, organ scholars, and

Director of Music.

In the middle of a busy term, I’m often more aware of the importance of Chapel as

a space of stillness and peace in the rush of College life. As I’ve grown accustomed

to saying at the start of evensong, it is a space for all; whatever we bring with us,

or whatever a particular day has

held, my prayer is that it is a place

to lay down burdens and to find

rest and restoration. This is said in

the knowledge that our Chapel has

been, for many centuries, a place

that is steeped in prayer, and so

my thanks also go to anyone who

has held us in prayer this past year.

Please do continue to do so.

Visit to All Saints Headley

With every blessing,

Revd Alice Watson, Chaplain





A YEAR IN THE CHAPEL CHOIR

Professor O L Rees

Organist

Officers: Organist Prof. Owen Rees; Organ Scholars Luke

Mitchell, Rudyard Cook; Maurice Pearton Choral Scholar

and recipient of the Hilde Pearton Vocal Training Rosanna

Milner; Hildburg Williams Lieder Scholar Sophie Akka;

Librarians Felicity Howard, Jemima Price; Choir Administrator

Jemima Kinley

This has been a year of looking both backwards and

forwards. As I noted in a previous edition of the College

Record, the choir began this academic year by exploring

and highlighting a remarkable part of the College’s musical

history from the early 1950s. In late 1950, the composer Kenneth Leighton – then

in his final year as a student at Queen’s – composed a cantata, Veris gratia (setting

medieval and classical Latin texts), for the Eglesfield Musical Society, and the

work received its first performance in Hall in June the next year, directed by the

then College Organist, Bernard Rose. A year later, the EMS gave the première in

its June concert (again under Rose’s direction) of Vaughan Williams’s An Oxford

Elegy, setting poetry by Matthew Arnold, principally from The Scholar Gypsy, which

evoked powerfully the landscapes around Oxford. In September 2023 we recorded

both of these pieces, for release on Signum Classics in October 2024: this is the

first recording of Leighton’s piece. The choir was joined on the recordings by the

wonderful Britten Sinfonia, and we were delighted and excited that Rowan Atkinson

(Honorary Fellow; Engineering, 1975) took the part of the narrator in An Oxford Elegy.

Music. The AAM likewise played for our performance of Bach’s B minor Mass in

Trinity Term, a concert which was video recorded for subsequent release. The major

concert during Hilary Term featured dramatic twentieth-century choral works on the

themes of fire and flame, including Morten Lauridsen’s Madrigali – Six ‘Fire Songs”,

setting sixteenth-century madrigal texts on the theme of ardent love. Trinity Term

saw the release of our recording of music by Giovanni Bononcini, Handel’s great rival

in the London musical scene, for which we again collaborated with the Academy

of Ancient Music.

Among Hilary Term’s choral services was a live broadcast of Choral Evensong by

BBC Radio 3, in which we marked the anniversary of the death of Pelham Humfrey in

1674, and also presented music by the seventeenth-century Italian composer Ercole

Bernabei. All choral services at Queen’s can now be viewed on YouTube.

Soon after the end of Trinity Term the choir travelled to Sweden for five days to

present concerts in Stockholm (Gustav Vasa Church and Maria Magdalena Church),

Uppsala Cathedral, and Gothenburg (the Cathedral and St Andrew’s, the English

church), and to sing for a service in Gothenburg Cathedral. The success of the tour

was testament to months of hard work by the Choir Administrator, Jemima Kinley.

The Queen’s Choir Association enjoyed two highly successful events, following what

will now be the regular annual pattern: the Choir Association lunch and Evensong at

Queen’s (this year at the start of Trinity Term) and the service at Westminster Abbey

on or close to the anniversary of Queen Philippa’s death in August. In both cases,

these provided rewarding opportunities for choir alumni and current members of the

choir to meet and sing together, and to catch up with the news of alumni.


Looking forwards, the headline news concerning the choir this academic year was

an extraordinarily generous landmark gift of £6.3 million, supporting the future of the

choir and its current work and plans, and also supporting the teaching of music at

Queen’s through endowment of the Fellowship as the Waverley Fellowship in Music.

The gift will lead – upon my retirement in some nine years’ time – to the creation of

a dedicated full-time post of Waverley Director of Choral Music, and it also provides

funding for the choir’s work over the coming years, greatly expanding its ability to

undertake a range of ambitious and exciting musical projects in this country and

abroad.

Warmest thanks are due to the organ scholars, choir administrator, librarians, and

social media officers for their tireless work, to the senior choral scholars for their

leadership, and to the Chaplain for her unstinting and warm-hearted support.

Engagements in Michaelmas Term included two performances in the Oxford

International Song Festival (formerly the Oxford Lieder Festival), one exploring the

Goostly psalmes and spirituall songes of Miles Coverdale (1488-1568), of which

our library has the only surviving complete copy, and the other an evocation of

the tableaux vivants popular in 19th-century Germany, a concert conceived by

Professor Laura Tunbridge (Music, 1993). We ended the term, as is now traditional,

with Handel’s Messiah in the Sheldonian Theatre, with the Academy of Ancient

Concert in Gustav Vasa Church, Stockholm




Credit: John Cairns

THE QUEEN’S

TRANSLATION EXCHANGE

Dr Charlotte Ryland

Director of The Queen’s

Translation Exchange

“I applied to Queen’s because of the

Translation Exchange, and now I’m here it’s even better

than I expected – it’s the place where everything happens!”

These were the words of a new Queen’s undergraduate last

Michaelmas, as we chatted following one of the Translation

Exchange’s events in the Shulman Auditorium. When we

founded the Exchange (QTE) in 2018, I could have scripted

that conversation as an example of what we were aiming

to create. It’s fitting that we have reached this point in the

very year that QTE has been fully embedded in the College.

Originally seed-funded by Queen’s and subsequently supported by a small group

of generous Old Members, along with grants from embassies and cultural and

educational organisations, in 2024 the Laming Fund secured the role of QTE

Director and enabled us to create a new full-time role of Coordinator. This has been

transformative for our work, enabling us to plan for the long-term and to meet the

increasing need from schools across the UK.

This year also saw our first major event for alumni, with over 100 Queen’s Medieval

and Modern Languages (MML) graduates of all generations attending a College

reunion dinner in March. QTE and Creative Translation were woven throughout the

day, with a talk about our work and a poetry translation workshop in the Shulman

Auditorium in the afternoon. During the workshop, trepidation swiftly gave way

to delight as the multi-generational group joined together to translate a poem by

Mexican writer Octavio Paz. This workshop was conceived and delivered by three of

our Queen’s ‘Creative Translation Ambassadors’, undergraduate linguists trained by

QTE to design and deliver translation workshops in schools. Bryony, Éilis, and Teddy

then compiled these creative, collaborative translations into two strikingly different

English versions of the poem, which they recited after dinner in Hall to rapturous

and much-deserved applause.

“I felt that the depth of the College’s commitment to Modern Languages over

the ages and its long-standing strength in them came across powerfully, while

the novel methods of QTE were very well highlighted by our group exercise. Your

three ambassadors were so impressive. As you mentioned, the whole process

is giving them invaluable skills for when they move on into the wider world.”

– Dick Richmond (Modern Languages, 1973)


Credit: Tom Weller

Creative Translation Ambassadors

Student ambassadors are our greatest asset at QTE. Every year we train a cohort

of around 25 students from right across the University, who deliver at least one

workshop in one of our partner schools. These students then remain part of the QTE

community and contribute to our other programmes: delivering workshops in schools

across the UK as part of our Translation Days, designing teaching resources for and

judging our Anthea Bell Prize, and supporting our public events at Queen’s. This year

alone our ambassadors delivered workshops to over 600 pupils from 20 schools.

“As a Modern Foreign Language teacher in a primary setting, I thoroughly

enjoyed the workshop and seeing the impact of the session on my pupils.

They left feeling invigorated and confident in their abilities to access new

languages.”

Poetry Translation Workshop in the Shulman Auditorium

The Linguist’s Voice

The alumni gathering also gave us the opportunity to record some footage for

schools. We hear time and again from teachers that bringing the voices of linguists

into the classroom greatly helps them to advocate for the value of languages,

and to encourage further study. With 55% of pupils in England currently dropping

languages as soon as they can, at age 14, this need is more urgent than ever before.

While these linguists’ voices ideally arrive in person, such as when our student




Bringing the voices of professional linguists into classrooms drives our ‘Think Like

a Linguist’ programme, which we ran this year in Rochdale for a second time,

in collaboration with the Oxford and Cambridge MML faculties and the Widening

Participation department at Cambridge University. The project helps young people

aged 12-13 to make informed decisions about GCSE choices, by showing them the

breadth and richness of experience that studying languages brings. We’re delighted

to be working with the Queen’s Access & Outreach department to bring Think Like

a Linguist to six more schools in Blackpool next year, where uptake of languages

is very low.


“I learnt that there is more to languages than speaking and listening. It is also about

thinking in your own way.” – Think Like a Linguist participant, aged 13, Rochdale

Translation group working together in the Magrath Room

ambassadors visit schools, we have found that videos are an effective and more

sustainable alternative. All 1,900+ teachers registered for our Anthea Bell Prize

for schools therefore now have access to a short film featuring Queen’s linguists

across several decades, and everyone can see the longer version of this film on

the Queen’s YouTube channel.

Our Anthea Bell Prize for Young Translators remains our flagship programme and

continues to grow, with over 16,000 participants aged 11-18 this year.

“We are pleased that we have had the opportunity to take part in the

Anthea Bell Prize, and we hope to continue doing so in the future, while

also promoting the importance of languages in the modern world. We would

encourage any school to take part too!”

– Evie Cann (Y10) and Lois Tromans (Y13), Kings Norton Girls’ School,

Birmingham, in a blog on the QTE webpages

The Prize is growing in scope as well as reach. We were delighted this year that

through a generous gift from Old Member John Stansfield (History and Russian, 1987)

we were able to launch a brand-new Russian strand, accessible to everyone from

beginners to experienced Russianists, and featuring literature from several countries.

Policy Engagement

As the Translation Exchange has grown, so has the breadth of our engagement.

This year, alongside our core work in youth and public engagement, we began to

work with the policy community. Our experience across all our programmes has

convinced us that the extremely low uptake of languages at secondary schools, and

the attendant impact on numbers of applicants to university languages courses, can

only be addressed if we re-focus nationally on the creative and cultural elements

of languages education – from primary schools onwards. To this end, we are

working with like-minded researchers and education practitioners, and with the

Department for Education, to explore ways for schools to integrate creative and

cultural approaches into the curriculum.

As part of this policy work, I was granted an OPEN Leaders award by Oxford Policy

Engagement Network, to support the MML Faculty to develop capacity and strategy

for policy engagement. This project focused in particular on early career researchers,

both at Oxford and nationally, supporting the next generation to realise the public

relevance of their research and to contribute to much-needed advocacy efforts.

The College’s commitment to addressing the crisis facing languages education,

and to supporting the development of an outward-looking, truly international

society, is now so palpable in the Translation Exchange, and in my recent election

to the Fellowship as a Supernumerary Fellow. QTE thrives through the support and

engagement of current and Old Members, and we look forward to developing these

connections and conversations as we grow. If you would like to find out more about

how you can get involved with and support our work at the Translation Exchange,

we would love to hear from you.

www.queens.ox.ac.uk/translation-exchange




CENTRE FOR MANUSCRIPT

AND TEXT CULTURES

Dirk Meyer

Professor of Chinese

Philosophy and Fellow

of The Queen’s College

Director of the Centre

for Manuscript and

Text Cultures

Now in its sixth year, the Centre for Manuscript and Text

Cultures (CMTC) has become a widely recognised

international platform for interdisciplinary Manuscript

Studies. Thanks to proactive fundraising, we have secured

a long-term future for the Centre beyond the eight years of

seed corn funding from the College, but ongoing

fundraising remains a priority.

The Centre enjoyed another productive year with its now

established annual offering that includes an international

conference, regular work-in-progress seminars, and a

termly distinguished lecture where issues of manuscript

cultures are presented and discussed from different

disciplinary perspectives. 2023–24 also saw the

introduction of a lecture series entitled ‘Provenance:

Unknown’ through which the Centre seeks to respond

to hotly contested debates within Manuscript Studies on the ethics of publishing

unprovenanced manuscripts. Our series aims to find new ways of approaching the

topic through interdisciplinary perspectives, going beyond polarised binary models

to explore the challenges posed by these texts in nuanced ways.

Cultural Assets) in Germany. It brings together technical analysis

of parchment and ink with a palaeographical examination of

penmanship to explore the evolution of document production

between AD c.500–c.800. At its centre is the systematic

exploitation of a huge but almost entirely neglected corpus of

tiny relic labels.

2023–24 further marked a series of high-profile collaborations

between the Centre and research institutes across China.

November 2023 saw a major international workshop at Tsinghua

University, Beijing. This two-day Chinese-language event was

co-convened with Tsinghua colleagues with participants from

all over Asia. It was conceived around the 30th anniversary

of the discovery of manuscripts in Guodian, Hubei Province,

dating from the fourth century BC, the most significant corpus

of philosophical texts ever found in China. CMTC has also

now entered a six-year Memorandum of Understanding with

the Research and Conservation Center for Unearthed Texts

at Tsinghua University, Beijing, on an interdisciplinary project

entitled ‘The Life Cycle of a Manuscript’. Furthermore, the

director of CMTC—Dirk Meyer—has been invited to build a

Centre for Manuscript and Text Cultures at Nanjing University;

we look forward to reporting on further developments in the

next Record.


The Centre’s most recent international conference was held at Queen’s from 26–28

September 2023 on ‘Articulations of Silence and Gender’. The conference gathered a

diverse group of speakers with the goal of fostering a lively debate on the articulation

of silence in text and manuscript cultures across different premodern traditions,

including Greece, Medieval Europe, China, Japan, Korea, India, ancient Egypt and

the Middle East, to interrogate questions of gender and globally discernible patterns.

Our working definition of ‘silence’ considered acts of non-articulation in texts and

manuscripts of different genres and written on different material carriers. Topics

included: textual strategies and questions of gender; forms of silencing feminine and

other voices; the materiality of voicing gendered silence; the material contexts of

gendered silence; reception strategies of dealing with queer voices in manuscripts.

The conference was a great success, and its contributions will form the basis of a

special journal issue in Manuscript and Text Cultures that is due to appear in 2026.

As detailed in our mission statement, it is the Open Access

journal Manuscript and Text Cultures (MTC) that remains at the

centre of CMTC’s project to offer a genuinely interdisciplinary

platform for international Manuscript Studies. Thanks to a major

gift from the JJC Foundation and our collaboration with the Digital Clay Sanskrit

Library (eCSL), this double-blind peer-reviewed journal has gone from strength to

strength and has recently been accepted for inclusion in the Directory of Open Access

Journals (DOAJ). This major milestone means that the Platinum standard journal now

satisfies the strict requirements of Open Access and editorial management system

as set out by DOAJ. Open Access is a requirement for academic publication in the

UK and we consistently sought to position ourselves at the forefront of this sectorwide

development. We are confident that MTC will become a primary choice for

interdisciplinary academic output because unlike our competitors, to publish with

us is free of charge and universities and libraries will not have to pay fees for access.

CMTC has established itself as the preeminent interdisciplinary forum for Manuscript

Studies at Oxford. In spring 2024, the Centre was pleased to host the launch of

the major AHRC-funded project ‘Crafting Documents’. This pioneering project

sees Oxford medievalists collaborating with scientists from the Bundesanstalt für

Materialforschung und-prüfung (Federal Institute for the Analysis of Artefacts and

MTC now appears twice-yearly, with issue two usually covering a specific topic.

Special issues in the making include Gendered silence, Music in manuscript cultures,

Global heritage: the most important text finds of the past 200 years, Diagrams, and

Female scribes.




A YEAR IN THE JCR

President:

Gionata Vernice;

Vice President:

Eilis Brito

If I had to summarise this year in the JCR in a few words,

I would say “positive improvements to students’ lives”. The

JCR Committee worked hard to implement these changes,

which ranged from the revival of the online booking form

for Music Practice Rooms to securing the first awards from

the Arts Fund. After four amazing years at Queen’s, I now

feel our community has fully recovered from the COVID-19

pandemic and is as social as ever.

The start of the Michaelmas Term was marked by a

warm and lively Freshers’ Week. This period was crucial

in introducing new students to the College’s community

and culture. The JCR Committee focused on creating

a welcoming atmosphere, ensuring that Freshers felt immediately integrated into

College life. We were all grateful for the liveliness the newcomers brought to Queen’s,

despite some minor mishaps at the very beginning of Michaelmas term. We are

fortunate to have experienced and patient staff who have been working with students

for a long time and are well-versed in our antics.

Hilary Term saw the reintroduction of the online booking form for Music Practice

Rooms. Queen’s has a strong musical community, and music practice rooms are

a key facility used by many in the community. This online system made booking

these rooms much swifter and more convenient for students. These changes have

been met with positive feedback from the student body, indicating a successful

implementation of these initiatives.


more students to gather around the island at 4 pm everyday… JCRT is very much

still alive! This renovation transformed the JCR kitchen into another key sociable

space in College and it wouldn’t have been possible without the help of Róisín and

the College.

In summary, this year has been characterised by a series of positive improvements

to student life at Queen’s. From the reintroduction of essential services, to the

enhancement of facilities and the bolstering of community engagement, the efforts

of the JCR Committee have made a tangible difference. Our relationship with the

MCR and the broader College administration has never been stronger, paving the

way for future collaborations and initiatives. It truly has been a year of change for

the JCR, and I’d like to thank the JCR Committee for their incredible hard work, with

a few special mentions: Yu Hang Hui (ex-VP), Eilis Brito (VP), William Davis (Chair),

Harvey Turner (Treasurer), and the whole Welfare team. As we look forward to the

next academic year, I am confident that the foundations we have laid will continue

to benefit the JCR and the College community as a whole. I wish my successor,

Freddie Simpson, a wonderful time and I am confident that he will be up for the job!


During Trinity Term, the JCR Committee focused on further enriching student life by

securing donations from Old Members for the Arts Fund. This initiative was part of a

broader effort to support artistic endeavours within the College, providing resources

for events, productions, and exhibitions. We are so grateful for the contributions

received, which have enabled the Arts Fund Committee to fund EMS’ musical,

Into the Woods, and other productions with a high proportion of Queen’s students

involved in the production, such as Patsy Byrne is Dead! directed by Harry Brook.

Additionally, I was proud to participate in the Queen’s Giving Day, which not only

raised significant funds but also strengthened our relationship with Old Members

and other College supporters.

Lastly, the most significant change Queen’s witnessed this year was the complete

renovation of the JCR kitchen after last year’s successful redecoration of the JCR,

carried out by last year’s JCR President Róisín Quinn. The new open layout, with a

gorgeous island in the middle, allows more students to use the kitchen at once and

The new JCR kitchen




STUDENT CLUBS AND SOCIETIES

1341 SOCIETY

Sandhya Das Thuraisingham, President

The Committee of the 1341 Society, pictured

at the Hilary Luncheon: Sandhya Das

Thuraisingham (President), Megan Swann

(Communications), Nicholas Woodford

(Treasurer), Isabel Lee (Vice-President).

This academic year was particularly

successful for the 1341 Society. We were

pleased to welcome over 100 guests –

students and their families – to our sell-out

Christmas Luncheon, kickstarting an

extraordinary year of fundraising in

support of college life. This Michaelmas

also saw the launch of our first

independent grant, The 1341 Grant,

awarded termly to support a select

number of exceptional student projects

and societies.

In celebration of a great year of fundraising at Queen’s, our annual Summer Garden

Party took place on the final Saturday of Trinity Term, where guests enjoyed an

afternoon of champagne, canapés, and croquet in the College gardens. As ever, the

event proved a lovely occasion to commemorate the end of academic year, albeit a

bittersweet one for many of the soon-to-be-leavers and their families in attendance.

The Committee of the 1341 Society would like to extend our deepest gratitude to

everyone who has joined us at our events this year. We hope to see many of you –

old faces and new! – in the coming year.

The team behind Into the Woods

rep Isabel Lesser). Our a capella group was led by Ischia and sang in our Michaelmas

concert. We also had the return of Off-Key, our jamming group, which was led by

webmaster Finlay Webb and performed at the first of three Fifth Week Blues open

mic nights. These nights were once again a hit with students, allowing a whole range

of talent to be on display in the Beer Cellar.

In Hilary, EMS joined forces with the newly formed Deitatis consort, led by Senior

Organ Scholar Luke Mitchell, to put on three concerts of vocal music from a range

of composers including Cornysh, Pärt, Bach, and Couperin. The term ended with

a concert and our annual dinner, a great event for our members to celebrate the

year’s achievements.


EGLESFIELD MUSICAL SOCIETY

Hattie Twigger-Ross, President

The Eglesfield Musical Society experienced another successful year, providing a

range of musical activities within the College. We continued our successful Saturday

recital series, welcoming a range of talent from across the University and beyond. It

was particularly great to showcase many musicians from Queen’s itself, including a

joint piano-vocal recital by our very own Recitals Manager Ischia Gooda and Publicity

Officer Ben Gilchrist in Trinity. My thanks go to Ischia for her hard work in making

sure these recitals continued to such a high standard throughout the year.

In addition to weekly recitals, EMS once again ran College-based ensembles, our

orchestra playing Schubert and Beethoven in Michaelmas (led by myself and Vice

President Jemima Price) and Bizet in Hilary (led by MCR rep Kyle Siwek and first-year

The highlight of the EMS year for me personally has to be our Trinity production of

Stephen Sondheim’s Into the Woods. We gathered a stellar cast from across the

University, and I had the privilege of musical directing the production alongside Kyle

Siwek, working with Queen’s third-year I-Cenay Trim as director and Ben Gilchrist as

producer. This production was on a larger scale than previous years, which definitely

posed some challenges, but ultimately resulted in a fantastic production. I would like

to thank all the College staff who worked alongside us to make this happen – it is

truly one of the unique things about Queen’s that we are able to put on such great

productions every year.

Overall, being President of EMS this past academic year has been a huge privilege,

allowing me to grow as a person and contribute to College music-making alongside

a fabulous team. I wish the best of luck to incoming president, Matilda Bates, and

her committee – I’m sure they will do an amazing job!




THE LOOKER-UPPERS

Klara Zhou, President

The Looker-Uppers have continued in very

much the same way in the academic year

2023-24 as in previous years, revolving

largely around existence as a space for the

sharing of interests of all those who keep

their heads in the clouds. The principles of

the society have remained the same since

its inception in 2020, and this year saw a

consistent engagement in the communal

appreciation of pictorial reports from the travels of fellow members, resulting in the

sharing of photographs from across the world. The most popular subjects remained

consistent: cloud formations in the northern and southern hemispheres, across the

UK, wildlife and bird-spotting, stargazing, and drone-spotting.

The first big event in the history of the society, which took place at the very end of

the academic year, was the reception of a princely sum from College in contribution

to the next academic year’s events on the academic theme of Perception. This has

proved transformative to our currently zero-cost existence. We are looking forward

to the events of the coming year, which are currently expected to revolve around

symposiums and exhibitions on the academic theme, focussing on the spiritual,

phenomenological origins of science and of one’s experience of the world. These

will culminate in a hot air balloon ride to take place with a lucky Looker-Upper in the

next Easter vacation.

QCBAC (QUEEN’S COLLEGE BADMINTON CLUB)

Karthik Saravanan, Captain

Continuing on from our dominant performance across the University Badminton

league (where we came 1st place in division 1 for both the Men’s and Mixed leagues),

we had high hopes at QCBaC to continue our successful run. After teaming up with

Univ to form a joint Cuppers team this year, we kept our streak going, finishing the

year as Men’s Cuppers champions once again after defeating Wadham.

Otherwise at QCBaC, we were really lucky to have received coaching from the

OUBaC captain (and Blues Squad member), James Lin, during our weekly training

sessions throughout Michaelmas and Hilary terms. Aside from our competitive

success, we also hope to remain an active and encouraging club that is welcoming

for everyone to join, regardless of prior experience level. As we venture on into the

next academic year, we hope to continue growing as a club during our weekly

training sessions, so that we can keep up our League/Cuppers success that we’ve

brandished over the last three years under my Captaincy. As I continue as Captain

next year, I look forward to welcoming new members to our club. Whether you want

to play casually or competitively with us, everyone will always be welcome!

QUEEN’S COLLEGE BOAT CLUB

Charlotte Wheatley, President

This year has been an interesting year for rowing. Following recent successes on

both the men’s and women’s sides, QCBC began the year training hard, with a large

number of returning seniors and over 50 novice rowers enjoying the taster sessions

in Michaelmas. Unfortunately, the weather was against us this year; after just one

week of ‘green flag’ conditions, heavy rainfall stopped all novice and senior water

sessions for most of Michaelmas. All of the novice regattas were cancelled, but the

seniors still managed to get in a few successful races: in the Isis Winter League A,

the two women’s 4+ placed 1st and 3rd in their category, with a men’s single also

performing well.

The lack of water training continued into Hilary term, when a new wave of flooding hit

QCBC (and the rest of Oxford) even harder: our training camp, planned in Abingdon,

had to be called off, with most of the Thames Valley and its boathouses under water.

We made the best of a bad situation, though, relocating to Magdalen College gym

for our ergs and doing makeshift circuit training in University Parks.

Thankfully, QCBC was lucky enough to move the first VIIIs to Abingdon for most of

Hilary once the floods subsided, giving us the opportunity for a few longer training

sessions in calmer river conditions. Endless ergs continued for all: the novices in

particular should be commended for their dedication, bringing a positive attitude and

an even better playlist to sessions and erg competitions. The final blow to this wet

winter came in February when Torpids was officially cancelled. Pembroke hosted a

tug-of-war instead, exchanging rowing blisters for rope ones. We still ended the term

with a Torpids Boat Club dinner, which was a great get together and distraction from

any lingering disappointment caused by the lack of racing.

The last day of Summer Eights boasted a boat naming of two singles purchased

using a generous legacy from Sir Richard Tucker, and a women’s 4+ bought as part

of the ‘This Girl Can’ campaign, as well as QCBC’s famous BBQ, with much of the

College and its alumni coming to the boathouse to support their friends and enjoy

the racing. The glorious sunshine provided the perfect end to a challenging year,

with everyone having a fabulous time and demonstrating that QCBC is a club built

on more than just rowing.





Women’s side

Bryony Fishpool and Felicity Howard, Captains

Building on the momentum from last

year’s record double blades, the QCBC

women have had a brilliant year. Our

team was made up of around 25

returning rowers and complete novices,

who stayed dedicated to training

throughout the year, despite the flooding

and dark mornings. This involved plenty

of improvised sessions, from circuits in

the gym to muddy interval running

sessions, but it was great to see everyone still engaged and keeping their fitness up

for when rowing finally returned in Trinity. Bolstered by a new group of novices, we

enjoyed training for Summer Eights, swapping from ergs to sunny water sessions.

For Bumps, we successfully entered two women’s VIIIs, and a Queen’s-Regent’s

Park composite; the latter unfortunately did not qualify. Even so, it was a real

achievement to have so many rowers ready to compete, when some colleges

managed just one boat. There was a wonderful atmosphere for the four days of

Summer Eights, with members of W1 and W2 all supporting each other, and then

handing out the Pimm’s on the Saturday! Overall, W1 bumped up three places––all

of these bumps secured quickly, well before the Gut (the key corner on the Isis

course, where the river funnels briefly before expanding out on the exit). W2 fought

fiercely every day, having to row twice on Wednesday in the rain, and ultimately

dropped one place. We could not be more proud of the women’s side this year, with

its can-do attitude and sense of teamwork; many people were plunged straight into

racing after only a few water sessions, but responded brilliantly.

Men’s side

Ryan Price, Captain

This year started off strong, with many

men returning and lots of new faces

taking advantage of the sunshine.

Everyone spent a lot of time training: the

seniors helped novices learn to row, as

well as improving their own rowing, and

current coxes trained up new ones.

During the five-month spell of bad

weather, everyone kept strong thanks to

the sessions on rowing machines or in

the gym, and we even managed to get in some rowing in Abingdon whilst the Isis

was still too dangerous to row on. Like the beginning of Michaelmas, Trinity was full

of sunshine, and everyone was able to spend the long-awaited time back on the

water training for Summer Eights, including lots of early mornings! This year the men

managed to qualify two boats for Summer Eights where everyone put in plenty of

effort; they also had a great time racing and enjoying the weather and the free food

and drink on the Saturday. We are all looking forward to getting back on the water

next year!

We would like to say a huge thank you to everyone in College who has helped QCBC

thrive, particularly Dr Richard Nickerson and Professor Seth Whidden. They have

ensured that rowing remains free and accessible to all members; Queen’s is one of

the few Oxford clubs without subscription fees. Thank you also to the 1837 Society,

without whom it would be impossible to fund the club’s activities and its wonderful

coaches. A final thank you to the Captains and QCBC Committee for working so

hard to keep the club going through a difficult year.

THE QUEEN’S COLLEGE MEDICAL SOCIETY

Grace Jones, President

The Queen’s College Medical Society is

an inclusive community of medics,

biomedics, graduate students, and

tutors that provides space for academic

discussion, collaboration, and team

building. As ever, the QCMS calendar

commenced with the annual Michaelmas

dinner, at which we were joined by

Professor Robert MacLaren as our

keynote speaker. Professor MacLaren

shared insights from his hugely

successful career in ophthalmology and gene technologies, leading to a truly inspiring

and enjoyable evening of festivities. Another highlight of Michaelmas Term was

watching the Tingewick production of “Ritatouille”, produced by the 5th-year medical

students, that starred many of our 4th-year clinical students at Queen’s, showcasing

the diverse talents of members of our society.

This year saw the return of the QCMS karaoke and sports day for the second year

running. Both preclinical and clinical students battled it out in a variety of classic sports

day events, such as a three-legged race, an egg and spoon race, and a new addition

of basketball. A highlight of the karaoke evening was a duet of ‘Ave Maria’ between

co-President Harry Orwell and pre-clinical tutor Professor Paolo Tammaro - certainly

a very memorable and entertaining moment.





Harry and I have thoroughly enjoyed being co-presidents of QCMS this year and have

been incredibly grateful for the help of our wonderful committee: Alicja Kwiecinska (Vice

President), Ahmed Hussain (Treasurer), Ellen Laker and Harry Pratt (Social Secretaries).

We are excited to pass the baton onto Daniel McAlea as the new President, and are

certain that, alongside Harry Pratt (Vice President), Neil Beaton (Treasurer), and Tom

Gibson (Social Secretary), QCMS will be in safe hands for yet another prosperous year.

I feel very lucky to have been President of QCMS this year, alongside such a brilliant

group of individuals. I am especially grateful for the support of my fellow Committee

members, Grace Jones and Harry Orwell (Vice-presidents), Oliver Meek (Treasurer),

and Ciaran Sandhu and Karthik Saravanan (Social Secretaries). I am pleased to say

that Grace Jones and Harry Orwell will be continuing as Co-Presidents next year,

alongside Alicja Kwiecinska (Vice-President), Ahmed Hussain (Treasurer), and Ellen

Laker and Harry Pratt (Social Secretaries). I have no doubt that this Committee will

produce a glorious year for QCMS and look forward to seeing them continue to bring

together all those with a passion for the Medical and Biomedical Sciences at Queen’s.

THE QUEEN’S COLLEGE RUGBY CLUB

Daniel Kelly and William Davis, Captains

depleted but fearsome core of returning players, bolstered by an exciting crop of

Freshers, we were looking forward to the season ahead. Still, despite moments of

promise and steady improvement across Michaelmas Term, the team struggled to

settle into a rhythm early in the year. Back-to-back defeats to Jesus (38-10), LMH/

Hugh’s (21-10) and Pembroke/Wadham (7-13) left the team staring down the prospect

of a win-less first term.

But one hope remained: a begrudgingly-organised, eighth-week Sunday mud-fest

in the depths of Marsden against Magdalen/Hilda’s. Despite being the combined

forces of four reasonably sized colleges, few more than 20 players took to the field

that day. Little did the opposition expect, 10-a-side is a format with which Queen’s

has become all too familiar over recent years. That is to say, we were confident and

bolstered by the absence of key St Hilda’s players. Imperfect preparation notwithstanding,

the resulting 50-or-so minutes of rugby was a sincere showcase of heart

from both sides. With any shadow of a playbook developed over the preceding

matches quickly cast aside on account of conditions, numbers, and general endof-term

dispositions, the match was scrappy and disordered. However, when the

final whistle sung, the team had finally secured a victory (29-41) to carry into the

rest of the year.

Skipping quickly over a flooded Hilary Term, the team played just one fixture against

the combined forces of St Catz, Merton, Mansfield, Somerville, and Corpus Christi

colleges. Unsurprisingly, this was an uphill battle, resulting in a somewhat convincing

defeat (7-55) for the team and an equally convincing first place for the opposition in

the intercollege league.


Coming into Trinity, the team was looking to bring something of the progress made

across Michaelmas into the spring season. In spite of losing both of our qualifying

fixtures, we had somehow stumbled our way into the semi-final of the Cuppers Shield

competition and were not complaining. We were once again facing the prospect of

silverware and now the opportunity to right the wrongs of last season, with Christ

Church as our semi-final opposition. Reinforced by the post-Varsity cavalry of no

fewer than three men’s Blues players, this year was different, and Christ Church were

unceremoniously dispatched (14-5).

The 2023-24 season was a dramatic one for the Queen’s College rugby club. The

unfortunate trend of dwindling playership across university rugby had created a strain

on personnel in recent seasons and resulted in a number of college team mergers.

In such a spirit, this season commenced with a new partnership, forged in the embers

of historic rivalry. Once a shared ground became a united club, as Queen’s and

Brasenose colleges pooled together for the coming season.

The team were nevertheless looking to build on the successes of the previous year,

the bitter taste of a Cuppers Bowl final defeat to Christ Church still fresh. With a

Returning to Iffley Road for the second year in a row, the team was determined not

to relive last year’s feelings of “what could have been”. Aspirations were high, but

Worcester/Lincoln presented a daunting challenge off the back of a semi-final win

against Keble. As the match commenced however, the team took an immediate

hold. Not entirely unsurprisingly, Brasenose’s Tom Mewes hot-stepped over the line,

as well as around a number of opposition defenders, in the opening minutes of the

game. After such early excitement, the game settled into a more regulated rhythm

with stalwart defensive efforts from both packs.




Taking the stagnating game into his own hands, Queen’s Levi Fraser manufactured

a particularly audacious try off of an early lineout on the opposition’s 22-yard line.

Amidst the bewildered scramble of the opposition defence, the ball glided across the

attacking back line to be carried over for a try by Brasenose’s Otis Walker.

The second half took a less auspicious start as Worcester/Lincoln decided to blatantly

copy us and score a try. Such a gross act of provocation could not go unanswered,

and answered it was with a pair of tries expertly orchestrated by Queen’s fly half, Tony

Cowen. In the first instance, sending through a delicate cross field kick to be touched

down over the line. Then subsequently deciding that Brasenose surely couldn’t score

all of the tries, and so crossing the white paint himself. By now, the winds had clearly

taken the team’s sails and tries continued to fall through the remainder of the second

half. In the dying embers of the game, the opposition managed to capitalise on a

sustained period of attacking play to pick and go over the Queen’s/Brasenose line.

Though, as is often the way, the effort was too little, too late.

And so, the 2023-24 season concluded with a titanic 45-12 victory for the newly

formed Queen’s/Brasenose partnership on the hallowed Iffley turf. We look forward

to next season in the hopes of continuing our attendance at Cuppers finals day and

continuing to decorate the College trophy cabinet for another year.

Credit: John Cairns

DEVELOPMENT AND OLD MEMBER

RELATIONS REPORT

Dr Justin B. Jacobs

Director of

Development &

Supernumerary Fellow

There was much for Queen’s to celebrate in its Old Member

relations and fundraising activities in 2023-24. In addition

to a full and varied schedule of events in the UK and

abroad, this was a record-breaking year for the College’s

ongoing Access All Areas fundraising programme.

Old Members’ Events

The year’s events began in September with the Old

Members’ Dinner, a tradition since 1928. This annual

gathering marked the College’s first formal effort to

reconnect with former students and has continued to see

Old Members from various generations and subjects come

back to Oxford. The dinner consistently starts the academic year on a high note, and

it was a pleasure to see a full Hall with attendees traveling from numerous countries

to attend.

Old Members’ Activities

ATHLETIC DISTINCTIONS

BLUES

David E. Craven (Gymnastics)

Candela Ferrer-Diez (Water Polo)

Naomi Kingston (Cross Country)

Katie Mewawalla (Water Polo)

Shyam A. Popat (Powerlifting)

Harry Pratt (Rugby Union)

HALF BLUES

Alejandro Fernández Jiménez (Korfball)

Kathryn H.M. Smith (Modern Pentathlon)

Following the Old Members’ Dinner, the Old Members’ Office transitioned into the

College’s annual reunion cycle. Events included the Jubilee Gaudy Lunch in October

(for those who matriculated in 1953, 1963, and 1973), the Boar’s Head Gaudy in

December (for those from 1998 and 1999), and the Needle and Thread Gaudy in

January 2024 (for the 2006 and 2007 cohorts). These events are all highlights in the

College calendar, offering special opportunities for Old Members to visit the College,

often after many years, and reconnect and reminisce about their time here.

This year also saw the College continue to meet Old Members outside of the UK,

both at the end of Michaelmas Term and again during Trinity Term.

At the beginning of December, the College returned to North America to meet

Old Members in one new city while returning to two others. This year the Provost,

Director of Development, and Deputy Director of Development visited the Miami area

and were treated to some stunning views over drinks and dinner on Fisher Island,

thanks to the gracious hosting of Andrew (Modern History, 1963) and Carol Parsons.

From the sunny climes of Miami, the College party travelled onwards to Los Angeles

for our first dinner there since 2019, before turning around and flying to a surprisingly

temperate Toronto to meet with Old Members and their guests at the University

Club. It was a pleasure to be able to visit both cities again and meet Old Members

and their guests, especially those who have been unable to make it back to Oxford

in recent years.




At the end of May, Sedleian Professor of Natural Philosophy and Fellow, Professor

Jon Keating, met Old Members for dinner at the Hong Kong Club thanks to a kind

offer to host from Terence Keyes (Mathematics, 1977). Terence also very kindly

hosted the College on its last visit to Hong Kong in 2017 and we hope to visit more

often in the years ahead.

In addition to these official visits, the Director of Development was also graciously

hosted by Old Members while visiting San Francisco, Palo Alto, Bethesda, and in

the leafy suburbs of Philadelphia during the spring.

In the same month, the College hosted its annual London Reception and this year

over 150 Old Members gathered at the Arboretum. This setting was ideal for a

pre-drinks panel discussion on the topic of sustainability and the ways in which the

College is approaching it, both through the work of its graduates and its current

researchers. The Provost was joined on stage by Fellow in Biology, Professor Steven

Kelly, Old Members Sara Habib (Mathematics and Philosophy, 1997) and Matthew

Bilson (MSc Energy Systems, 2020) and current PhD student Xinyue Liu (DPhil Fine

Art, 2022). Afterwards Old Members from across the generations were able to meet

and catch-up in the Arboretum’s unique space over drinks and canapés.


Members of the Taberdars’ Society, for those who have left a gift to the College

in their will, were invited to two events this year: one in London at the Oxford and

Cambridge Club in October and the traditional lunch at Queen’s in February. At

each event members were treated to different aspects of College life: in London,

Honorary Fellow Professor Sir Vernon Bogdanor (PPE, 1961) gave a talk entitled ‘The

Strange Survival of Liberal Britain’. Back at Queen’s, a performance in the Shulman

Auditorium by the students who sing in the Oxford Gargoyles was just the thing after

a fully booked lunch.

In February, the College held a special event at the London Mathematical Society to

celebrate the publication of Oxford’s Sedleian Professors of Natural Philosophy: The

First 400 Years by Dr Christopher Hollings, Senior Research Fellow in the History

of Mathematics. Dr Hollings was joined by Professor Jon Keating, the current

Sedleian Professor, and Professor Sir John Ball, Emeritus Fellow at Queen’s and

former Sedleian Professor. Queen’s mathematicians also received an update on

fundraising efforts for endowing a Fellowship in Mathematics, honouring former

Fellow in Mathematics Dr Peter Neumann (Mathematics, 1959).

To this already buzzing calendar of Old Member events, we welcomed back our

Modern Languages Old Members in May for their subject reunion dinner. This was

a lively and well-attended event which introduced many to the amazing work of the

Queen’s Translation Exchange (QTE). Under Director and Supernumerary Fellow Dr

Charlotte Ryland, QTE has been steadily building on the College’s historical strengths

to create new generations of students eager to learn foreign languages and working

to start reshaping the UK’s modern language curriculum.

As part of the event, a collaborative translation of La Rama by Octavio Paz was

produced by Old Members in the Shulman Auditorium and read out at the dinner by

current Modern Languages students at Queen’s. The College also took the event as

an opportunity to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the death of Old Member

Henry Laming (Modern History, 1869), whose legacy gift to Queen’s established

the endowments that have propelled Queen’s to the very top of modern language

teaching and research.

As the end of Trinity Term approached, we turned, as is tradition, to recognising and

thanking our Eglesfield and Philippa Benefactors. It was wonderful to have over 75 of

them and their guests back in College for this special event, and this year they were

treated to a special concert by the Choir in recognition of the landmark Waverley

gift received earlier in the year. You can read more below about this tremendous gift

and its enduring impact on the College Choir and music at Queen’s.

The end of the academic year was also a time for reflection and remembering as we

hosted a cricket match at the College Sports Ground in memory of former Fellow in

Mathematics and long-serving Dean, Dr Martin Edwards (Mathematics, 1960). This

memorial event had been planned for a couple of years, but the disruption of the

pandemic and last summer’s Ashes schedule delayed us until this summer. But the

wait proved to be worth it.

Under gloriously sunny skies and much-welcomed summer heat, Old Members

from over five decades came together for 40 overs and a BBQ to honour a former

tutor and friend. We were delighted to be joined by members of Martin’s family and

at the interval the Provost, former Provost and Honorary Fellow Paul Madden, and

Honorary Fellow Claire Taylor (Mathematics, 1994) spoke of Martin’s many years at

Queen’s. A plaque to commemorate Martin was dedicated and now hangs at the

entrance to the Pavilion. Further details of the day and the match report from Jervis

Smith (Jurisprudence, 1978) can be found at: https://www.queens.ox.ac.uk/blog/

dr-martin-edwards-memorial-cricket-match-report-29-june-2024/.

The year ended, perhaps fittingly, with the Old Members’ Office joining in the

College’s graduation ceremonies with Leavers and their families. As they celebrated

the end of their time at Queen’s with photos in the Fellows’ Garden and drinks and

lunch in Hall, we officially welcomed them as our newest group of Old Members.

We look forward to seeing them back for their first event in September – the Old

Members’ Dinner which will start the cycle all over again.




Fundraising and Access All Areas

In addition to delivering a full Old Members’ events calendar, 2023-24 was also a

record-breaking year for fundraising at Queen’s. We are grateful to each and every

one of the 932 Old Members and Friends who made a gift. For the fourth year in a

row the College’s number of donors increased, and for the first time in six years this

total surpassed 900 donors. A rising tide lifts all boats and the cumulative impact of

these increasing levels of support will be felt by the Queen’s community for centuries

to come.

Every gift we received this year enhanced the ongoing success of the College’s

Access All Areas fundraising programme. Launched in 2016 after the successful

completion of the New Library appeal, Access All Areas is focused on supporting

the people at Queen’s: our tremendous community of undergraduate and graduate

students; those students who will benefit from our increasing access and outreach

work, especially in northwest England; and our world-class tutors and researchers

who are working across the academic disciplines. Now in its second phase, Access

All Areas has raised over £36 million for these key areas.

This year the College raised £8.9 million in new funds raised and over £9 million in

funds received. This is the first time the College has ever reached this level in either

category. To see this level of support is not only heartening but reiterates the depth

of feeling our donors continue to have about their time at Queen’s and the impact

it has had on their lives.

This historic level of support will ensure that the College continues to have the

resources required to remain one of the top colleges in the world’s top-ranked

university. Queen’s is proud of what it can offer to those who come through its front

doors, and it is only because of our donors that these life-changing opportunities

can be offered to our students and academics year-in and year-out.

In 2023-24, Queen’s held its first Giving Day, a 24-hour event inviting Old Members

worldwide to support areas of the College that mattered most to them. On 29-30

May, 400 Old Members and friends from various backgrounds united for Queen’s

Gives, raising over £300,000 for the Access All Areas initiative—surpassing all

expectations and marking one of Oxford’s most successful giving days. This

achievement was made possible in part by donors who offered matched funding

early on, inspiring others to contribute.

Three key areas benefitted from the broad support of Old Members and Friends

this year: the Queen’s Translation Exchange, the Peter Neumann Fellowship in

Mathematics, and the John Prestwich Fellowship in History. The Neumann

Fellowship has now surpassed £650,000 of its £2 million target, while the Prestwich

Fellowship is £200,000 from completion. A matched gift from an anonymous

Eglesfield Benefactor, alongside those raised around the Modern Language subject

dinner in May, will further support the work of the Queen’s Translation Exchange.

Legacy giving also increased significantly in 2023-24 thanks in large part to

a particularly generous gift from the estate of Taberdars’ Society member

Barry Craythorn (Modern Languages, 1956) to grow the College’s unrestricted

endowment. Legacies are often some of the most heartfelt and enduring gifts the

College receives; many have their own stories, and each represent, in their own

poignant way, an Old Member’s personal experience at Queen’s. Through their

legacies the College can keep these memories alive for future generations.

Sharing the Queen’s experience with future generations is also at the heart of the

transformational Waverley endowments to support Music and the College Choir

the College received this year.

Thanks to the Waverley Fund, three new endowments will ensure the teaching and

research of music at Queen’s in perpetuity. Starting in 2024-25, one endowment

will support music tutorial teaching, currently under the direction of Professor Owen

Rees. The second will fund a new and standalone Director of Choral Music to carry

the College’s choral tradition forward after Professor Rees retires. The third will

ensure the Choir has the resources and technology necessary to share their talents

with audiences around the world. For more information please see: https://www.

queens.ox.ac.uk/news/a-landmark-gift-to-support-the-teaching-of-music-and-thequeens-college-choir/.

The success of this year has meant we now count even more Old Members’ and

Friends as members of the Queen’s and Taberdars’ Societies. Governing Body has

also elected a further nine individuals to either Philippa or Eglesfield Benefactorships

in recognition of their lifetime giving. It is always a tremendous moment to be able

to recognise our donors who have reached these giving levels, some of whom have

done so after years of making a monthly or annual gift to support Queen’s.

Sadly, I end this year’s report with a mention of the unexpected death of longtime

Development Committee member and Philippa Benefactor, John Turner (PPE,

1984), in early May. John was one of the first Old Members I met when I joined

Queen’s in 2019, and his love for the College shone through in every conversation.

His involvement, counsel, and enthusiasm will be greatly missed. For more about

John’s life, see the obituary on page 147.





Credit: Matt Shaw

Credit: Edmund Blok

Credit: Matt Shaw


The Martin Edwards

Memorial Cricket Match

The statue of Queen

Philippa being conserved

Oxford United celebrate promotion to the Championship with High Street bus parade



Credit: Matt Shaw Credit: David Fisher

New exhibition case in the Shulman Auditorium

Sunset on High Street

Credit: David Fisher Credit: Colin Qi (Materials Science, 2024)

The new gates for the

accessible High Street

entrance to the new

Porters’ Lodge

Deckchairs and snowman

in the garden

Credit: Edmund Blok

Into the Upper Library

Outreach session with medical student Bethan Storey

Student Ambassadors

on the Open Day




QUEEN’S WOMEN’S NETWORK

Queen’s Women’s Network

The Queen’s Women’s Network (QWN) enjoyed another successful year, extending

our reach and impact across our community of Old Members and current students.

Credit: Edmund Blok


Events

Our primary focus in 2023-24 was the very enjoyable collaboration with the JCR and

MCR Women’s Officers, to develop and host the landmark Finding our Voices: 45

Years of Co-Education in Queen’s event in March to celebrate International Women’s

Day.

This event was in response to requests from the student body for greater connection

with the QWN and to hold events that can help with professional development, as

well as to foster connection between the common rooms and to create a stronger,

College-wide sense of community. We were grateful for the willingness of the Provost

and wider College community to support this first-of-its-kind, truly intergenerational

event for Queen’s and for pulling out all the stops to make it a huge success.

We were particularly grateful to Old Members who travelled to Oxford to participate

in the event and for sharing their stories. Feedback from students present reflected

on the spirit of generosity and sharing and on how much they had enjoyed and

valued having the chance to meet Old Members. The event had been ‘inspiring,

empowering and motivating’ and had given them a real sense of being part of a

bigger community of women at Queen’s.

Finding our Voices: 45 Years of Co-Education at Queen’s event

For our part, we were delighted to meet current undergraduates and postgraduates

(as well as to chat with Fellows and old friends) and to learn what matters to them,

share experiences of Queen’s, and to pass on a few life lessons picked up on

the journey since graduation. Old Members found the ‘fabulous integration of Old

Members and students’ to be ‘very enjoyable and meaningful’.

Special thanks to Kate Jones (Modern Languages, 1988) for an uplifting, reassuring,

and very entertaining speech after dinner.

As Melody Yi, MCR Women’s Officer, reflected:

“The event began in the Upper Library where QWN members shared their stories and

vulnerabilities, resonating with students’ own experiences of gendered perspectives

along with general difficulties of overcoming challenges. For the students it felt cosy,

intimate, and supportive: we could simply talk and ask whatever came to mind. The

QWN members were as eager to meet us as we were to meet them.

At the formal dinner afterwards, we shared in the joy of Old Members being back

and continued frank and honest conversations about the ups and downs of studying

at Queen’s – both past and present. It felt like a big family dinner.”

We ask ourselves

Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous?

Actually, who are you not to be?

Marianne Williamson, Our Deepest Fear

Kate’s five “provisional conclusions” about the great questions of life and work,

gleaned from her experience as a social worker in Romania, a Change Management

Consultant, and now as a professional coach at her consultancy, Neon, were

insightful, funny and encouraging – perfect for anyone finding their voice and indeed,

for us all.

(Further reflections and images from the evening are available on the event webpage:

www.queens.ox.ac.uk/blog/camaraderie-kindness-and-a-keen-faith-in-life)

Along with the Truth about Planning (it’s overrated) and the reassurance that Life

after Finals is ‘a breeze, period’, Kate shared her wisdom about how to go about

Defining Success:




“[Success is] Not how your family, friends, university peers, or community define it.

Not how society defines it. But how you define it.

Or perhaps to put it differently – figuring out how you define fulfilment, or what is

enough or what it means to you to live or work well.”

Kate recognised that self-doubt, anxiety, and the inner critic can be one of the most

pernicious destroyers of wellbeing in life and work. And one of the greatest derailers

of people forging their own path. Women remain under-represented in the world and

we need more of them in positions of authority, leadership, and influence in order to

make the world a better place.

Signing off

After seven years on the Committee, founder members Janet Dyson, Alison Sanders,

and Wendy Burt are stepping down this summer. We extend our gratitude for their

contribution to the growth and value of the QWN.

We would also like to record our thanks to the Provost as she prepares to hand over

the reins at the end of her term of office. Claire went up to Cambridge in 1979 at the

same time as the first women undergraduates entered Queen’s, and her appointment

as the first female Provost in 2019 coincided with the 40th anniversary celebrations

and establishment of the Queen’s Women’s Network so we feel a special connection.


She concluded that one of the greatest investments of time and energy we can make

is in the development of our capacity for self-compassion and self-belief.

Looking forwards

This is food for thought as we look forward to building momentum through our

programme of activities in 2024-25, looking ahead to the 50th anniversary of Co-

Education at Queen’s in 2029.

We were delighted to host our ‘Conversation with the Provost’ event in March 2020

and to have the chance to hear Claire articulate the value and role of women’s

networks as spaces to make connections between generations for refreshment,

regeneration, and creation, as she put it. We are indebted to her for her generous,

thoughtful, and patient support of the QWN in the past five years and for helping to

cement its place in College life.

Over the past few years, a range of events has been trialled including formal, informal,

in-person and online, in London and in Oxford. The QWN is supported by the College

to host an annual in-person event and we continue to explore different ways to bring

people together, as well as to cement ties with the Common Rooms, by collaborating

on events of interest to current students.

Credit: Edmund Blok

For example, this year, the QWN hosted informal drinks on the Strand, London, in

November 2023.

We are keen to hear what types of activity Old Members would like to participate in

and welcome input from across the decades of Queen’s from anyone with ideas and

energy to shape and deliver future QWN initiatives. Please contact our new Chair,

Elizabeth Pilkington, at qwnetworkcontact@gmail.com, with any thoughts, and/or if

you are interested in hearing more.

Our LinkedIn group continues to grow and is a great way to exchange advice and

encouragement with Old Members who have experience across a diverse range of

disciplines and career paths. We now have 250 members, and we look forward to

continuing the conversations started with students this year and to welcoming a new

year of graduates to the Network.

Sharing stories in the Upper Library




GAUDIES – FUTURE INVITATIONS

Due to cancellations caused by COVID-19, invitations for the Boar’s Head Gaudy

and the Needle and Thread Gaudy have been rescheduled as follows:

Boar’s Head

Year

Matric Years

2025 2000 & 2001

2026 1990 & 1991

650TH ANNIVERSARY

TRUST FUND AWARD REPORTS

650th Award-winners

Harry Brook

£500 towards the costs of taking a play to the Edinburgh Fringe Festival.

Olivia Coombs

£500 towards the costs of extra training sessions for Oxford University Cheerleading

Squad at Coventry Dynamite gym, which has a special full sprung-floor for training.


2027 2002 & 2003

2028 1992 & 1993

Matthew Craik

£210 towards the costs to visit the Musée de l’Armée and Lille for research on

Charles de Gaulle.

Needle and Thread

Year

Matric Years

2025 1978 & 1979

David Craven

£500 towards the costs of entering the 2024 Men’s Gymnastics London Open.

Candela Ferrer Diez

£471 towards the cost of surfing lessons in Portugal.

2026 2008 & 2009

2027 1980 & 1981

2028 2010 & 2011

Jubilee Matriculation Gaudy Lunch

Year

Matric Years

2025 1975/1965/1955

2026 1976/1966/1956

2027 1977/1967/1957

2028 1978/1968/1958

Old Members’ Dinner

Saturday 20 September 2025 All Old Members welcome

Keira Gill

£500 towards the cost of a full ice hockey kit.

Ryan Jacobson

£319.94 towards the cost of the annual running of a website, domain, and email

account focused on making Tibetan literature available via English translations.

Mikolaj Marszalkowski

£500 towards the costs of travelling to Northern Spain to produce a catalogue of

hand-painted watercolour studies of flowers and other plants.

Mads Proitz

£500 towards the costs of a DSLR camera to document and create an accessiblefor-all

album or book showcasing the very rich and varied heraldry/coats of arms

connected with the University of Oxford.

Atila Schrieber

£400 towards the cost of attending Easter Bisley, a Target and Match Rifle shooting

training camp organised by Oxford University Rifle Club, at the National Shooting Centre.

Harriet Twigger-Ross

£500 towards the cost of taking the Oxford Alternotives, the University mixed-a

capella group, to the 2024 Edinburgh Fringe Festival.

The Pippa Koller Prize was awarded to Faith Leong towards the costs of representing

the University at the upcoming Intervarsity Dancesport Competition in Blackpool.

The full amount of £300 was awarded.




Selected reports

Atila Schrieber

Attending Easter Bisley, a Target and Match Rifle shooting training camp

Thanks to the 650th Anniversary Trust Fund, I had the opportunity to participate

in the Oxford University Rifle Club’s annual Easter Bisley camp this March at the

National Shooting Centre in Bisley, Surrey. This week-long event did wonders for

my shooting skills and showed what a great community our University’s shooting

team is.

Easter Bisley serves as an introduction to fullbore target rifle shooting, and

attendance is required for anyone who wants to represent the University in fullbore

competitions. Fullbore shooting involves precision marksmanship at long-range

targets using “fullbore” calibre rifles: .308”, as opposed to the .22” we can shoot at

the 25-yard range in Oxford. As my prior precision rifle experience was limited to this

short range, it was exhilarating to learn to be precise at distances up to 1,000 yards.

considered a more extreme and experimental version of TR, allowing for telescopic

sights, a rest, no restrictions on position, and generally laxer rules, which starts at

1,000 yards and goes out to 1,200.

Even on the first day, it became extremely clear why rain gear was so highlighted

in the packing lists - heavy rain flooded the ranges, filling the metre-deep drainage

ditches so fast, it would have been easier to navigate the range by canoe than by

foot! Nevertheless, we persisted in getting our first taste of fullbore, and quickly got

the hang of the wet weather drills designed to keep the ammunition and the inside of

the rifles dry, as water negatively affects accuracy. As per competition rules, shooters

were not given such comforts. Nevertheless, the hectic baptism by fire (and water)

really highlighted the team spirit of the club, as everyone was helping setting up dry

areas and shelters against the rain.

As the week progressed, we moved from 300 to 500 to 600 yards and did a small

“President’s vs Secretary’s vs Treasurer’s” team match, to have a fun introduction to

team drills in a competition setting. We also helped out in the Butts - the area under

the targets - where we marked and recorded where shots landed and learnt more

about the nuances of scoring. I was happy to see my scores steadily rising, thanks

not only to the practise, but also the technical training our alumni members gave

in the evenings. We learnt plotting - recording where our shots landed to figure out

what the perfect setting would have been, and building a pattern to improve our aim

-, reading the wind from the numerous wind flags in the range. This is a crucial skill,

as even a small amount of wind had great effects on accuracy once we went out to

900 yards. While wind-reading is often the job of a wind coach in competitions, we

also learnt self-coaching, which quickly enhanced our awareness of the conditions

and the state of our rifles.


At the camp, we were introduced to two forms of fullbore shooting: Target Rifle

(TR) and Match Rifle (MR). In both disciplines, shooters use single shot rifles and

rely on their knowledge of their rifle and equipment to be as consistent as possible,

while still adjusting to challenges such as changing winds or weather. TR involves

shooting prone from 300 to 1,000 yards using iron sights - it is one of the most

popular precision sports in the UK, and certainly has the longest history. MR can be

I was most fascinated by MR, as it felt like a great change of pace thanks to all

the experimentation it offers. A standout moment was the opportunity to shoot a

back gun owned by Adam Leech, a member of the Great Britain MR team. The

back gun requires a different - supine - position which was initially awkward, but I

was pleasantly surprised by my scores at 1,000 yards. Unfortunately, due to booking

issues, we weren’t able to move out to 1,100 and 1,200 yards during the week, but my

experiences inspired me to shoot at the English Eight’s Spring Meeting, where I had my

first opportunity to shoot at these longer ranges, scoring 384.30/450.90, and placing

57th/82 - not bad for one weekend of MR experience. I look forward to improving

even further and representing the University and the College in more competitions.

The social experience of the camp was also very positive. We had common dinners

every night, including a dinner hosted by the London and Middlesex Rifle Association,

which provided a great opportunity to talk to experienced shooters. The highlight was

our final club dinner, where we all contributed to preparing the dishes and enjoyed

reminiscing about the camp.




By the end of the camp, thanks to the great coaching by our more senior and

alumni members, I had developed some advanced skills and gained significant

confidence. I was very pleased with my improvement throughout the week - hitting

a target reliably at 1,000 yards seemed almost impossible before Easter Bisley.

The camp taught me invaluable lessons in resilience, adaptability, consistency, and

preparation - lessons I’ve carried on to all areas of life. I am deeply grateful to the

650th Anniversary Trust Fund.

Candela Ferrer Diez

Surfing lessons in Portugal

First and foremost, I would like to express my

deep gratitude for the generous support

provided by the 650th Anniversary Trust Fund.

Thanks to this grant, I was able to experience

a truly memorable trip to Portugal with the

Oxford University Surf Club. This experience

afforded me the opportunity to engage in a

new sport, explore a new country, and connect

with a wonderful group of individuals, all of

which I will take with me going forward.

As someone who loves the sea, surfing has

always intrigued me; however, since I have

always lived far from good surfing spots, I

never had the opportunity to try it until now.

Our trip took us to Ericeira, a radiant surfing town located just north of Lisbon, known

for its beautiful beaches and excellent surf conditions. We stayed in a cozy surf

hostel overlooking the sea, fully equipped with everything needed for a great surfing

experience. The hostel was run by surfing professionals who offered lessons at

beginner, intermediate, and advanced levels, helping us build confidence and improve

our skills, regardless of our prior experience. They also provided a comprehensive

rental service, allowing us to practice beyond the lesson times.

After taking a few beginner sessions and gaining some confidence, I rented a foam

board for the remainder of the trip, giving me the freedom to surf outside of lesson

times and to apply the skills I had practiced during the lessons. Additionally, one of

the days, the hostel organised transportation to nearby beaches with better surfing

conditions, giving us the chance to explore different spots in the area.

In addition to the surfing services, the hostel provided meals that were essential

for keeping us energised. Each morning, we were treated to a delightful breakfast

buffet, including fresh fruit and fresh bread, a variety of cold meats and cheeses, a

range of different flavoured yoghurts and cereals, and an endless supply of coffee

and tea—perfect fuel to venture in the freezing cold Atlantic waters and spending the

day being tossed around by the waves. In the evenings, we had the option to enjoy

meals prepared by hostel staff, giving us the chance to savour homemade traditional

Portuguese dishes.

On other days, we prepared our meals together in the shared kitchen, which not only

allowed us to create and enjoy meals collectively but also helped us bond. Each of us

contributed to the cooking process, and this shared experience gave us the chance

to get to know one another better. Some evenings, we also arranged entertaining

activities after dinner, exploring the local town and its nightlife, and enjoying group

outings that added to the overall enjoyment of the trip. Indeed, I believe it was the

people that I met throughout the trip that made it such a great experience. Although I

travelled with some of my friends, I had the pleasure of meeting many new individuals

who shared a common passion for the ocean, the outdoors, and environmental

conservation. We formed a close-knit community, during the trip, and many of the

friendships have lasted beyond the trip. The connections I made during this time will

undoubtedly stay with me even long after my studies at Oxford.

In addition to surfing, I had the chance to explore the cultural richness of Portugal.

We took day trips to two nearby towns, Sintra and Lisbon, both of which – although

incredibly different in character – captivated me with their beauty and unique charm.

Having never visited Portugal before, I was deeply impressed by its vibrant culture,

stunning architecture, and beautiful landscapes. I can confidently say that it is a place

I would love to return to and explore further.

Overall, looking back on this journey, I realise it has been more than just a surfing trip.

It has helped me develop skills and confidence in a sport I had never tried before,

allowed me to meet new people and build meaningful connections, and given me

the opportunity to explore a beautiful country that was new to me. I am truly grateful

for the support of the 650th Anniversary Trust Fund, which made this rewarding

experience possible.

Faith Leong

Representing the University at the upcoming Intervarsity Dancesport Competition

in Blackpool

Dance at Oxford University Dancesport Club (OUDC) has truly been a wonderful

experience for me; constantly pushing me to challenge my limits, improve on myself,

and to keep learning and growing.

A typical week in my life includes at least 10 hours of dancing: three two-hour practice

sessions at the gym space in Iffley Sports Centre, two hours of technique classes,





and two hours of paid coaching. I, with my partner Kiran (from Mansfield College)

dance three Ballroom Standard dances (Slow Waltz, Quickstep, and Viennese Waltz)

and four Latin Ballroom dances (Cha-cha, Jive, Rumba, and Samba). This all requires

a great deal of time and financial commitment: classes and private coaching are held

at a studio in Headington and are accessible by the OUDC’s termly subscription fee

and additional payment to the coaches. The costs incurred add up: what seems

like a sport that only requires two pair of dance shoes includes frequent bus travel

to and from the studio, the termly subscription fee, private class fees, competition

entry, competition travel, and of course, lots of blister bandages and sports tape.

night before the competition. The next morning, we all got up early to do hair and

makeup (Ballroom hair is notoriously tricky), had breakfast, and walked to the famous

Winter Gardens at 8am for warmup and dress changes before the competition

start at 9am. Having grown up watching BBC’s Strictly Come Dancing, it’s always

been surreal to see the Winter Gardens in person, and even dance on the ballroom

floor. Kiran and I did our best, and came in the top 41 of 183 couples for combined

Waltz and Quickstep, and the top 53 of 190 for combined Cha Cha and Jive. Some

highlights include the last waltz at midnight, and the OUDC tradition of Viennese

Waltzing down the Blackpool pier after breakfast at Wetherspoons.


Dancesport is a partner-dependent commitment, and I’m deeply thankful to the

Trust not only for the help it’s given for me to participate, but to pull my weight in this

partnership so that we’ve been able to work and excel together.

Keira Gill

Full ice hockey kit

The funding from the 650th Anniversary Trust Fund has been a great help on the road

to the competition in Blackpool. In the leadup to the annual and much-anticipated

Inter-Varsity Dance Competition (IVDC), my partner and I competed in the Leicester

and Birmingham friendlies, and were really pushed in these competitions to reexamine

our routines, stamina, and dance styles. Whilst the main goal was always

to do well at IVDC, these events really helped to familiarise ourselves with the

competition format and take inspiration from other competitors. Hilary Term was a

challenge in terms of time management for me: as a Finalist reading History, I was

working on my dissertation whilst training and getting ready for IVDC, but in many

ways, this helped me to stay disciplined and focus on the tasks at hand.

The weekend at Blackpool was pretty magical. I had competed last year, in the

Beginner category, and this year, with a better sense of the competing world and

more confidence, it was an entirely different and truly rewarding experience. We took

the coach from Oxford to Blackpool, a five-hour journey, and arrived in Blackpool the

Since receiving this grant, I’ve been

able to successfully join OUIHC, the

University’s ice hockey club, on the

Vikings C team. Through hard work

and dedication, I have managed to

train and achieve a level of skill

allowing me to play in games on the

level of my teammates. I am now

helping with the running of the team I

play for, and new players ask me for help with joining the team, obtaining kit, and

even with drills at try-outs. I make resources to help new players, run my team’s

social media, and I’d like to think I do my part for the club.

My top highlight so far has been a friendly game I attended last Trinity. It was my

first ever game, and going in I was clueless about game strategy and nervous about

facing unfamiliar players who were bigger, stronger, and more experienced than

me. On the drive over, my lovely teammates taught me how to play forward, giving

me useful tips and supporting me through my nerves. I had a wonderful time, and

bonded with my teammates, even assisting a goal and thereby earning my first ever

point. The opposition players were funny, friendly, and understanding. They were

infinitely more experienced than I was, but were so lovely, especially considering

that I did not properly know how to play, and they even very kindly named me the

player of the match. My teammates gave me the puck from this match, and I keep it

in my bedroom to remind me of that match, and how I overcame my nerves about

joining the club.




Ice hockey, I’ve found, benefits my social, physical, and mental lives, all positively.

My head is clearer after playing hockey, my body feels stronger, and after exercising,

I feel at peace. It is one of the few things that can take my brain fully away from

the stresses of work and term time. Playing ice hockey has helped me develop my

communication skills and hone my perseverance. The friends I have made through

ice hockey are invaluable, and hockey more generally, has got me through some

very difficult times. Now that I am an official member of the club, I aim to help newer

teammates find some of the same joy from hockey that I have by being a friendly

face, and by helping with my team’s organisation.

My hockey kit cost me almost all of my £500 grant. The remainder of the grant was

used to pay for game fees and practice costs. I am ever grateful to my College for

this opportunity.

Matthew Craik

A visit to the Musée de l’Armée and Lille for research on Charles de Gaulle

Whether it was getting my train at Charles

de Gaulle airport or walking down one of

the many ‘Rue Charles de Gaulle’ or

‘Place Charles de Gaulle’ that littered

Paris, Lille and indeed much of France, it

was fairly impossible to ignore the General

when spending any time in France- and

that would have been true even if my trip

had not been centred around visits to Le

Musée de l’Armée and Le Maison Natale

Charles de Gaulle. As it was, however, I

found myself quickly steeped in the

history of a General who is an even more

pervasive figure in French culture than,

say, Winston Churchill is in British.

Thoughts on the man himself, however, differed wildly. The exhibitions on WWII and

on the presidency of Charles de Gaulle in Le Musée de l’Armée could hardly have

been more glowing. Perhaps more used to the balanced recounting of history after

having recently completed a degree in History and Politics, I was amazed at the

depiction of de Gaulle as an almost saint-like figure, with decolonisation in Algeria

turning out messy chiefly because of the Algerian nationalists, if the exhibition is to be

believed, and allied victory in WWII only coming about because of the strength of de

Gaulle and the French Resistance, rather than the more complex truth. Perhaps as

the founder of modern France, the father of the Fifth Republic, de Gaulle has become

this semi-fictional figure - like Washington in the United States or even someone as

grand as Alfred the Great in England. On the ground, however, reviews of the General

were less universally glowing. A French woman of Algerian descent that I met in my

hostel in Paris was scathing, reeling off stories handed down by her grandmother of

the crimes of the ‘pieds-noirs’ at the command of de Gaulle. Whilst a screenwriter

and filmmaker with whom I shared a room in Lille assured me that, while respect for

de Gaulle remained high amongst the elderly of France, it had plummeted amongst

the youth who, whilst respecting his role in the French Resistance, tended to focus

on what they perceive as the crimes of his presidency.

I will leave France tomorrow morning, knowing a bit more about Charles de Gaulle,

about whom I already knew a little, but knowing an awful lot more about his legacy

and how he is remembered and thought of in modern France. This trip has been a

fantastic experience for me, having never before travelled anywhere outside of the

UK on my own, and I have thoroughly enjoyed meeting and talking to new people

whilst conducting research.

Mikolaj Marszalkowski

Travelling to Northern Spain to produce a catalogue

of hand-painted watercolour studies of flowers and

other plants

With my grant from the 650th Anniversary Trust

Fund, I set out to explore the wildflowers in the pre-

Pyrenees region of northern Spain and to create a

series of watercolour botanical paintings. I would

like to begin my report by expressing my thanks

to the Fund Committee for awarding me the grant

for which I applied. It enabled me to experience

something truly unique, and my trip to Spain will be

one which I will remember for a lifetime.

I started my trip by flying from Birmingham airport

to Barcelona on the 25th August. There, I was

able to spend a brief amount of time exploring

the city and visiting the Museum of Contemporary

Art of Barcelona. I travelled by bus to the town of

Bagà, and then hiked further into the Cadí-Moixeró

National Park until I reached my accommodation,

the Refugi Vents del Cadí. Here, I spent four days

exploring the nearby routes and trails of the national park. I hiked up the nearest peak

of Cap de la Boixassa, where I was lucky enough to spot a pair of Eurasian griffon

vultures circling the peak. A further highlight was the series of waterfalls and natural

mountain springs which I found as I hiked through the Els Empedrats gorge. Whilst





in the national park, I made preliminary sketches of plants which I had continuously

noticed as being typical of the area. I also used limited internet access to start trying

to identify the plants themselves. The time spent in this national park was certainly

a highlight of the trip.

Then, I travelled by bus to the nearby town of Manresa. Here, I was able to stay with

a friend whilst I worked on further sketches and preliminary paintings of the plants

I had seen, based off photographs and sketches I had already made in the field. I

was also able to become more confident of species identification using both online

resources and botanical guides. I then flew back to Birmingham from Barcelona on

the 2nd September. Once home, I further worked on the paintings I had started in

Spain. From the many plants I had observed in Spain, I chose six which were most

prevalent and noticeable at that time of year.

I would like to thank the 650th Anniversary Trust Fund Committee for awarding me

the grant, without which the trip would have been impossible.

Olivia Coombs

Extra training sessions for Oxford University Cheerleading Squad at Coventry

Dynamite gym

In my final year at Queen’s, I was the President of the Oxford University Cheerleading

Squad, known as the Oxford Sirens. With a grant of £500 from The Queen’s College

650th Anniversary Trust Fund, I was able to take the Sirens to train at the Coventry

Dynamite gym, which has a special full sprung floor. In 5th Week of Hilary term,

our 1st team won the Varsity competition against Cambridge at the Future Cheer

University Nationals in Manchester.

The Sirens had a difficult start to the season, and all three of our teams encountered

various obstacles on the run up to our two national competitions and our annual

Showcase, all of which take place within the short space of a few weeks. Midway

through Michaelmas, one of the halls in Iffley suffered severe damage and every

club had to change their training schedules. Our training time was cut in half. We

recouped lost time by spending many mornings practising our stunts and learning

the routine huddled up in a squash court. This was particularly difficult as our 1st

team is a tumbling team, and our athletes could not safely practise their tumble

passes in such a small space.

to the larger space, and added

in extra choreography. We then

rehearsed the routine repetitively;

this was the only opportunity for

our athletes to practise the routine

on a floor that is similar to the

one that we compete on, and get

accustomed to performing full-out,

with all the tumbles. There were

also extra cheerleading coaches

from Coventry Dynamite present

to watch our routine and offer

constructive criticism, allowing

our coach to make necessary

improvements. These sessions

took place in addition to our regular

training schedule, on Saturday

afternoons. All our athletes had

to make sacrifices to attend these

sessions and showed serious

dedication – particularly those that

drove their teammates to Coventry to save spending money on a minibus – and I am

incredibly proud of everyone for showing such commitment to their team.

After these sessions, both teams felt considerably more confident going to our

competitions and felt secure in their stunts and tumbles. All our hard work paid off

when, in 5th Week of Hilary term 2024, our 1st team beat Cambridge’s 1st team, and

we took home the Varsity trophy. This may not have been possible without these

extra sessions, so I am extremely grateful for the 650th Anniversary Trust Fund and

the generosity shown by the committee.


The grant from the 650th Anniversary Trust Fund was fundamental in allowing us to

safely train and perfect our routine. With the £500, we were able to cover the costs

for two training sessions for our 1st and 2nd teams at Coventry Dynamite – one

of the country’s best cheerleading gyms – to practise our routine on a full-sized

sprung floor. In each of our two-hour sessions, we tidied up our formations, adjusting




NEWS FROM OLD MEMBERS, INCLUDING

APPOINTMENTS AND AWARDS

1955

Henry Kenneth Fisher

Dr Fisher’s biography was included in Marquis Who’s Who in recognition of his

significant contributions and achievements.

1968

Tim Connell

Convenor for the Lord Mayor’s Lecture series during the mayoralty of Alderman

Professor Michael Mainelli in the City of London.

1991

Victoria Saward

Became Deputy CEO of the NLP (National Physics Laboratory) in October 2023.

One of the most extensive government laboratories in the United Kingdom, it is

the national measurement standards laboratory of the United Kingdom. It sets and

maintains physical standards for British industry.

1993

Rosalind Blakesley

Elected as the next Master of Pembroke College, Cambridge.

Rosalind’s latest book, Women Artists in the Reign of Catherine the Great, was

shortlisted for the Apollo Book of the Year Award in 2023.


1969

Alan Sherwell

Elected as mayor of Aylesbury on 9 May 2024.

1993

Matt Keen

Appointed as an Organisational Development Consultant at Warburtons. Also

appointed as a Freeman of the Company of HR Professionals and a Freeman of the

City of the London.

1972

Richard Geldard

Elected as the next Master of the Worshipful Company of Tax Advisers, the 107th

Livery Company of the City of London.

1993

Andrew Merrills

Promoted to Professor of Ancient History at the University of Leicester in 2023.

1979

Catherine Rees

Awarded the Translational Microbiology Prize 2024.

1993

Andrew Morrison

Appointed to the MacDowell Chair of Greek at the University of Glasgow in 2023.

1982

Clare Pollock

Appointed as Vice Chancellor of Edith Cowan University.

1986

Andrew Mitchell

Appointed His Majesty’s Ambassador to Germany, from September 2024.

2000

Rachel Thorn

A runner-up in the British Comedy Guide Pro Talent Awards for Writing 2022.

Designed to identify up-and-coming comedy writing talent, the 2022 entrants wrote

two audio sketches on two themes: “a brush with authority” and the “old age”. Her

troupe, with co-collaborator Alex Keen, “Mates: The Improvised 90s Sitcom” was

awarded best improv show at the Edinburgh Fringe 2022 by Theatre Weekly and

has been performed across the UK in 2023. Her sketch comedy has been heard on

BBC Radio and she’s collaborated with impressionists Alistair McGowan, Charlie

Hopkinson, and Darren Altman.




2002

Anthony Ruschpler

Appointed Finance Governor for British School Manila.

2004

Mary Erskine

Released her third studio album ‘Microclimate’ in June 2023, under her creative

alias Me for Queen.

A ‘soul-folk’ singer, her previous album, ‘Loose End’, was a Record of Note on Roddy

Hart’s BBC Radio Scotland show and the single, and titular track, ‘Loose End’, was

Single of the Week on the radio station’s Janice Forsyth show. The song, ‘Jessica’

was included on Spotify UK’s playlist, “The Most Beautiful Songs in the World” and

has had over 100,000 plays.

PUBLICATIONS

Balcers, Ojārs (1992) ‘Study of Ergocalciferol and Cholecalciferol (Vitamin

D): Modeled Optical Properties and Optical Detection using Absorption and

Raman Spectroscopy’. Spectrochimica Acta Part A Molecular and Biomolecular

Spectroscopy, 2021 December

Blakesley, Rosalind (1993) Women Artists in the Reign of Catherine the Great (Lund

Humphries Publishers Ltd, 2023)

Chisholm, James Ian (1957) with Morton, A.C and Frei, D. “Provenance response to

evolving palaeogeography recorded by Carboniferous sandstones in the northern

Pennine Basin, UK” (2024 Sedimentary Geology, 470.)


2004

Robert Lepenies

Appointed as President of Karlshochschule in 2022, making him one of the youngest

university leaders in Germany. Karlshochschule International University is one of the

few universities in Germany whose programs are entirely in English, and which now

welcomes students from more than 60 countries.

Coghlan, Nicholas (1973) Sailing to the Heart of Japan (Seaworthy Publications,

2024)

Davies-Deacon, Merryn (2011) Breton in contemporary media: Speakers, language,

community (De Gruyter Mouton, 2024)

Fisher, H. Kenneth, M.D. (1955) Sleep: A User’s Guide (Torchflame Books, 2024)

2007

Alfred Enoch

One of three nominees for ‘Best Actor’ in the 2023 BBC Audio Drama Awards, for

his role as Lord Byron in Darkness, which aired on BBC Radio 4 in January 2022.

2012

Sunny Jain

Honoured with the prestigious King’s Award for Enterprise. Sunny attended a royal

reception hosted by King Charles III at Windsor Castle in July 2024.

2013

Bhose Rabindranath

Exhibited at the 2023 Edinburgh Art Festival, with a new commission ‘Dance in the

Sacred Domain’.

Hardi, Choman (1996) Whispering Walls (Afsana Press, 2023)

Hoffbrand, Victor (1953) The Folate Story: A vitamin under the microscope

(Troubador Publishing, 2023)

Hoffbrand, Victor (1953) Hoffbrand’s Essential Haematology, 9th edition (Wiley-

Blackwell, 2024)

Hollands, Gina (1999) The Fall and Rise of Ronni Fairweather (Ruby Fiction, 2022)

Jones, Samuel Paul (1992) “Machine Learning for Monitoring Vocal Health and

Performance of Professional Singers” with S.K. Reni and I. Kale, 2024 IEEE

International Symposium on Circuits and Systems (Institute of Electrical and

Electronics Engineers, 2024)

Liedvogel, Miriam (2001) ‘Lost: on what level should we aim to understand animal

navigation?’ with Wynn, J. Journal of Experimental Biology vol 226, issue 10, May

2023

Meggitt, Gary (1987) ‘A British Bundesrat? The Brown Commission and the Future

of the House of Lords’ (2023) Amicus Curiae, Series 2, Vol 4, No 3, 523-541;




‘Pandemics and Insurance’ in The Global Insurance Market and Change: Emerging

Technologies, Risks and Legal Challenges ed. Anthony A. Tarr (Informa Law from

Routledge, Routledge, 2023); ‘Marine insurance fraud and emerging technology’

in Özlem Gürses (ed) Research Handbook on Marine Insurance Law (Edward

Elgar, 2024)

Merrills, Andrew (1993) Rebellion and Epic in Byzantine North Africa: A Historical

Study of Corippus’ Iohannis (Cambridge University Press, 2023)

Credit: Matt Shaw


Palfreyman, David (1972) Bampton and its Railway, 1873-1962 (Bampton Archive,

2023)

Sagar, David (1965) A Strange Fire: Spirituality for the 21st Century (EmOhBooks,

2017); Reflections on an Empty Grave: Songs of Heart and Soul (Lulu.com, 2020)

Sampson, Geoffrey (1969) Voices from Early China: The Odes Demystified

(Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2020)

Samuel, Adam (1979) Jurisdictional Problems in International Commercial

Arbitration - A Study of Belgian, Dutch, English, French, Swedish, Swiss, US

and West German Law (Zürich, Switzerland: Publication de l’Institut Suisse de

Droit Comparé, 1989); Consumer Complaints and Compensation: A Guide for

the Financial Services Market (City and Financial Publishing, 2005); Consumer

Financial Services Complaints and Compensation (Thomson Reuters, 2017);

Compliance: A Short Book (Intellectual Perspective Press, 2024)

Williamson, David (1960) Bath between the Wars (Hobnob Press, 2024)

Zamoyski, Adam (1967) Izabela the Valiant: The Story of an Indomitable Polish

Princess (William Collins, 2024)

Painter and Decorator Simon Millard painting the cloister ceilings



Articles

Credit: John Cairns

ARTICLES

Astronomical anniversaries at Queen’s:

Halley and Hubble

Christopher D. Hollings

In 1924, Edwin Hubble, who had matriculated at Queen’s

in 1910, made the discovery that many of the nebulae in

the night sky are in fact galaxies outside our own, opening

the way for a revised understanding of the nature – and

indeed the scale – of the universe. This 100th anniversary provides an excuse to

think about Hubble in connection with the College’s other famous astronomical Old

Member, Edmond Halley, who was a student here 350 years ago.

Halley was born in Middlesex in 1656 into an

exciting age for astronomy. New instruments,

not least the telescope, had transformed the

discipline over the course of the seventeenth

century, lending it a precision that it had never

known before. In particular, astronomers could

now more confidently challenge the traditional

geocentric cosmologies. Halley’s interest in the

subject started from an early age, encouraged

perhaps by his father, a wealthy salter and soapmaker.

When Halley was admitted to Queen’s in

June 1673 at the age of 17, he brought with him

a private collection of astronomical instruments.

Once in Oxford, Halley almost certainly attended

the lectures of the two Savilian Professors,

Engraving of Edmond Halley.

Edward Bernard (Astronomy) and John Wallis

(Geometry). During this period, he also made the acquaintance of John Flamsteed,

the recently appointed first Astronomer Royal, and Halley was soon travelling to

London to aid Flamsteed in his observations. Contacts with other figures such as

the natural philosopher Robert Hooke soon followed as Halley began to make a

name for himself in England’s nascent scientific circles. During his final year as an

undergraduate, Halley published three papers in the Royal Society’s Philosophical

Transactions, reporting on observations made from Oxford, and outlining detailed

geometrical methods for determining the orbit of a planet from observations.

In 1676, Halley left Oxford without a degree – not unusual at that time, and probably

prompted in Halley’s case by a desire to engage in astronomical observations fulltime.

One of Flamsteed’s main duties at the newly founded Royal Observatory at

Greenwich was to produce an accurate map of the heavens. Naturally, Flamsteed

was only able to cover the skies of the northern hemisphere, so Halley proposed an

expedition to St Helena in the south Atlantic to do the same for the southern heavens.

Winning the support of King Charles II, the 20-year-old Halley set sail in late 1676

and remained a year on St Helena, where he mapped the southern heavens with a

new precision. The catalogue of the southern stars that Halley published upon his

return to England in 1678 secured him Fellowship of the Royal Society and, by order

of the King, his Oxford MA.

The College’s Admissions Book showing the entry

for Halley

Upon Bernard’s resignation as Oxford’s

Savilian Professor of Astronomy in 1691,

Halley applied for the post, but his

chances were sabotaged by enemies

who thought him too much the religious

freethinker, and also by Flamsteed,

whose relations with Halley had severely

deteriorated over the years: Flamsteed

was jealous of Halley’s success, and

disapproved of the latter’s joviality as

unbefitting a serious natural philosopher.

By the time of Wallis’s death in 1703,

however, Halley’s standing had grown to

such a level that even Flamsteed could

not prevent him from succeeding Wallis as Professor of Geometry. He would retain

the post until his death in 1742. Thus, although Halley is remembered today first and

foremost as an astronomer (he succeeded Flamsteed as Astronomer Royal in 1720),

he nevertheless taught mathematics in Oxford for many years.

Alongside a lifetime of observational astronomy, Halley was also interested in the

variability of the Earth’s magnetic field and is credited with the invention of contour

(‘isogonic’) lines in mapping this. He was an early communicator of science to a wider

reading public: in 1715, for instance, he published a pamphlet reassuring the English

population that a total solar eclipse of 22nd April that year was a natural event. One

of Halley’s other significant contributions to Early Modern natural philosophy was his

funding and shepherding of Isaac Newton’s 1687 Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia

Mathematica through the printing press. Moreover, Halley’s successful prediction

that a bright comet of 1680, now known as Halley’s Comet, would return in 1758

served as a vindication of the law of gravitation laid down by Newton.

Halley also took an interest in nebulae. Prior to the age of the telescope, nebulae

and star clusters had been all but indistinguishable from individual stars, but the

astronomers of the seventeenth century had come to recognise that these were

something different. Halley’s interest in such objects had been piqued during his

time in St Helena, where he had first identified the star cluster Omega Centauri. In

Articles



Articles

the following decades, Halley speculated as to the nature of nebulae, suggesting in

particular that they might be vastly more expansive and considerably further away

than had previously been supposed. In 1720, he also addressed the size of the

universe, arguing from observation that it must be infinite, since each successive

improvement in telescopic power had revealed the existence of still fainter stars.

The nature of nebulae and the size of the universe are interests that link Halley and

Hubble.

Edwin Powell Hubble was born in Marshfield,

Missouri in 1889. He began his academic

career by studying mathematics and

astronomy at the University of Chicago, before

moving to Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar in

1910. Attracted initially to mathematical study,

Hubble ultimately switched, under parental

pressure, to jurisprudence, obtaining his BA

in 1912. While in Oxford, however, Hubble

retained his interest in astronomy, enjoying

lengthy discussions upon the subject with

Herbert Hall Turner, an astronomer whose

major interest was in celestial photography. In

1913, Hubble returned to the USA to embark

upon a legal career, but he soon abandoned

this for doctoral studies at the University of

Chicago’s Yerkes Observatory. He obtained

Studio Portrait of Edwin Powell Hubble.

Photographer: Johan Hagemeyer,

Camera Portraits Carmel. Photograph

signed by photographer, dated 1931,

mssHUB 1032 (1), The Huntington Library,

San Marino, California.

his PhD in 1917 with a dissertation entitled ‘Photographic Investigations of Faint

Nebulae’, which proposed a classification of nebulae into different types, with

conclusions as to the distances of each. Following military service during the First

World War, Hubble took up a post at the Mount Wilson Observatory, near Pasadena,

California. He would remain at the Observatory for the rest of his life.

Using Mount Wilson’s newly completed 100-inch Hooker Telescope, Hubble turned

his attention to Cepheid variables: stars that vary in brightness according to a law

linking their luminosity with their period of pulsation. As such, Cepheid variables

may be used as ‘standard candles’ for determining cosmic distances. By identifying

Cepheid variables in a number of nebulae, Hubble determined that these were in

fact too far away to be nebulae within our own Milky Way Galaxy, and must in fact

be separate galaxies in their own right. Some astronomers had already suggested

that this might be the case, but the idea had remained controversial and unproved.

The first public announcement of Hubble’s findings was made at a meeting of the

American Astronomical Society in December 1924. Although Hubble’s conclusions

met with some opposition at the time, they gradually gained acceptance over the

following decades as further evidence accrued.

Credit: R. Williams (STScI), the Hubble Deep Field Team and NASA/ESA

Hubble’s other major contribution to cosmology concerns what is now known as

Hubble’s Law. Having estimated the distances of several galaxies, Hubble turned

his attention to the velocities with which they are apparently moving away from our

solar system. By looking at their redshifts (the increases in wavelength of light from

receding objects), Hubble observed that the velocity with which a galaxy moves away

from the Earth is proportional to its distance. This relationship came to be known as

Hubble’s Law. Extended to a rule covering the relative motions of any two galaxies,

it provided the first observational evidence for the expansion of the universe.

The presentation of these ideas to a general audience occasioned one of Hubble’s

return visits to Oxford. In 1910, the engineer Henry Wilde had established the Halley

Lecture in Oxford as a way of marking the return of Halley’s Comet that year. Initially

intended as a public lecture on astronomy or terrestrial magnetism, the scope was

later expanded to encompass astrophysics and geophysics more generally. In May

1934, the Halley Lecture was delivered by Hubble on the subject of ‘Red-shifts in

the Spectra of Nebulae’.

Hubble appears to have maintained links with Oxford, and with Queen’s in particular.

Two years after delivering the Halley Lecture, he returned to give the Rhodes

Memorial Lectures on ‘The Observational Approach to Cosmology’. In 1948, he

was elected an Honorary Fellow of Queen’s, and seems to have visited the College

several times thereafter. Upon Hubble’s death in 1953, the then Provost of Queen’s

J. W. Jones noted that the College had lost one its ‘most distinguished members.

[…] It is sad that he has gone from us when we were just beginning to know him well.’

One peek into a small part of

the sky, one giant leap back in

time. NASA’s Hubble Space

Telescope provided one of

the deepest, most detailed

visible views of the universe.

Representing a narrow

“keyhole” view stretching

to the visible horizon of the

universe, the Hubble Deep

Field image covers a speck of

the sky only about the width

of a 5 pence piece 75 feet

away. The field is a very small

sample of the heavens but it

is considered representative

of the typical distribution of

galaxies in space. In this small

field, Hubble uncovered a

bewildering assortment of at

least 1,500 galaxies at various

stages of evolution.

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Articles

Henry Laming and Living Languages

Dr Amy Ebrey, Assistant Archivist

This year is the centenary of the death of Old Member

and benefactor Henry Laming, whose Trust has continued

to ‘promote the study of living foreign languages and of

modern subjects connected therewith’ for more than 100

years. The College’s portrait of Laming took pride of place

at the Modern Languages subject dinner in March, yet its depiction of a rather mildlooking

old gentleman somewhat belies the considerable ‘heat’ with which Laming is

reported to have defended his decidedly practical

conception of foreign languages.

Born in Rotterdam in 1849, Laming was the son

of a British merchant. As a pupil at Cheltenham

School he showed little interest in scholarship,

but came up to Queen’s in 1869 at the insistence

of his mother, who hoped he would become a

clergyman. He graduated with a degree in Modern

History in 1872, having devoted much of his time

to rowing and playing sports, and distinguishing

himself most conspicuously by winning a silver

cup for long-distance walking which is now kept

in the Buttery. After graduation Laming embarked

on a career in shipping, which was the catalyst

for his interest in foreign languages. Over the

course of his increasingly prosperous career he

learned several languages, including Spanish and

Russian, but he felt most British merchants had

A photo of the newly restored portrait of

Henry Laming by Beatrice Ethel Lithiby

RBA (b. 1889).

such a poor grasp of languages that they could not conduct business effectively,

to the detriment of British business interests abroad. After Laming’s retirement in

1914, he and his wife Dora devoted themselves to improving the knowledge of ‘living

languages’ of the next generation of British diplomats and businessmen.

In support of this goal Laming made two major benefactions to Queen’s, the first

of which was the Laming Scholarship in Modern Languages, endowed in 1916.

Laming stipulated that preference should be given to candidates from Cheltenham

School who intended to read Russian or Spanish, although like most other closed

scholarships the Laming Scholarships were opened to a wider pool of applicants

during the 1960s. The second and more substantial of Laming’s benefactions to

Queen’s was the Fellowship scheme, endowed in 1924, just a few weeks before his

death. This provided for up to three Travelling Fellows to spend eighteen months

abroad improving their knowledge of another language, and it also paid the salary

Photo credit: Tom Weller

of a Resident Fellow who oversaw the activities of the Travelling Fellows on behalf

of Governing Body. At Laming’s insistence, the Fellowship regulations stipulated

that prospective businessmen or candidates for the diplomatic or consular services

were to be preferred; and, while he grudgingly permitted the election of Fellows

who intended to embark on a career teaching languages themselves, he strongly

resisted the election of candidates who applied out of an interest in philology or –

even worse! – classical or medieval languages.

Although Laming died before the first Travelling Fellows were elected, his wishes

were scrupulously carried out by the first Resident Fellow, H. W. House. During

House’s tenure, which lasted until 1939, most of the Travelling Fellowships were

awarded to prospective diplomats — indeed, so many diplomats passed through the

Laming scheme that Queen’s helped the Foreign Office to set up a similar training

programme after the Second World War. However, subsequent Resident Fellows

were less inclined than House to prioritise Laming’s preference for businessmen and

diplomats, perhaps because they had not personally known Laming and so did not

realise the strength of his conviction. By the mid-1950s nearly all Travelling Fellows

went on to pursue academic careers, although the College never totally abandoned

the crucial emphasis on living languages which underpinned Laming’s original vision.

Indeed, the College was wary of departing too far from Laming’s strictures, once

going so far as to seek a legal opinion on whether a Travelling Fellowship could be

awarded to a scholar of medieval French history (the answer was a firm no!).

In its current iteration the Laming Trust continues to support the study of languages

by students and Fellows of Queen’s, albeit the College tends to place greater

emphasis on the Trust’s mission to promote living languages. In place of Travelling

Fellowships the College now elects Laming Junior Fellows, who have in recent years

undertaken research into a wide range of living languages and cultures including

French, Italian, Persian, and Chinese. Meanwhile the Laming Scholarships have

given way to the Laming Fund, to which students of Queen’s can apply to support

a short period of travel abroad to improve their knowledge of a foreign language.

In 2024, the Laming Trust secured the role of Queen’s Translation Exchange (QTE)

Director and enabled the College to create a new full-time role of Coordinator,

which has been transformative for

the work of QTE. It is impossible to

know how Laming himself would have

felt about the increased application

of the Trust’s funds towards these

decidedly scholarly aims; but at least

his enthusiasm for living languages,

and his commitment to providing

opportunities for linguistic immersion,

continue to be a defining characteristic

of the Trust.

Old Members and current students being interviewed

about what learning languages means to them today

Credit: Tom Weller

Articles



Articles

Treasures from the Library: Piranesi

Matthew Shaw, Librarian

Among the many treasures held by the College Library,

the 16 large volumes of prints made by Giovanni Battista

Piranesi (1720–1778) must rank as one the most compelling.

Much sought after by collectors in the eighteenth century

keen to acquire his etchings of classical Roman antiquities,

Piranesi’s fame also rests on 16 etched and engraved plates known as the Carceri

d’invenzione, which dramatically depict a series of giant imagined prisons, complete

with tortured prisoners, haunting staircases, and inky shadows. These scenes, which

Piranesi began in his youth and then reworked over time, have inspired generations of

writers, artists, and musicians, providing materials for the gothic and romantic artistic

movements, giving visual form to a series of psychological nightmares or dreams.

Piranesi, who came from a family of Venetian stonemasons, had broad ambitions.

He aspired to be an architect, and his works are a testament to this desire, along

with his antiquarian obsessions and fantastical visions of ancient restorations. As

a pamphleteer, he weighed heavily into the heated debate on the supremacy or

origins of Roman architecture, arguing for its native, Etruscan origins, rather than

Greek antecedents.

the work had begun. The etchings in the Lettere demonstrate the initial patronage

of Charlemont, and how his lack of support caused his name to be removed from

the dedication page. As well as a bibliographic treasure, suppressed soon after

publication, it is a powerful record of the changing relationship between artist and

patron in the eighteenth century. For Piranesi, the nobility of creation is what stands

the test of time, not the largesse of the patron.

Piranesi presented copies of his polemic to his supporters. As such, the College’s

copy originally belonged to Thomas Hollis (1720–1774), an English political philosopher

and republican, who donated a vast number of books to English and American

libraries (notably Harvard) and nominated Piranesi to be a Fellow of the London

Society of Antiquaries. This book is not bound by Bozérian, but by one of the London

binders who worked for Hollis and attempted to keep up with his bookbinding

– most likely Richard Montagu, who used similar tools for his commissions for

David Garrick. Soon after this volume was bound, Hollis commissioned a range of

bespoke bookbinder’s tools using classical Roman symbols. While the College’s

copy of the Lettre lacks these decorations, it does contain an illustrated inscription

by Piranesi to Hollis, depicting the burin he used for his enduring creations, and the

exceptionally rare four-page letter of retraction by Piranesi to Charlemont, dated

Rome, 15 March 1758.

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Complete sets of his works are

relatively rare, especially ones in as

good condition as the College’s,

which are also finely bound by Jean-

Claude Bozérian, the noted French

neo-classical bookbinder (who bound

books for Napoleon). The College

acquired it the 1840s, thanks to the

bequest by Old Member Revd Robert

Mason, and the set is augmented by

a particularly rare pamphlet, Piranesi’s

Lettere di giustificazione scrittea

milord Charlemont e à di LVI. agenti di

Roma (1757). This attacked Piranesi’s

former artistic patron, James Caulfield,

1st Earl of Charlemont, a noted Irish

patron of the arts, who spent eight

years on his Grand Tour, and who

failed to finance the publication of

Piranesi’s Le Antichità romane (1756)

despite a promise of a subvention after

Piranesi’s Le Antichità Romane (1756) which can be

consulted in the Feinberg Special Collections room

Piranesi’s inscription for Thomas Hollis

in his Lettere di giustificazione scritte a

milord Charlemont e à di LVI. agenti di

Roma (1757) [n.b. ‘scritte a’ seems to

have become, incorrectly, ‘scrittea’ in

the text of the piece]



OBITUARIES

Former Academics

Dr D A Edwards (Junior Research Fellow, 1955-1959)

Obituaries

We record with regret the deaths of the following people:

Old Members

1940 Mr J D Birkbeck

1944 Mr L Veale

1945 Mr M E Absalom

Dr G W Hatcher

Dr M F Hoare

1948 Mr R W Rentoul

Mr R M Woodhouse

1949 Mr G L Bousfield

Mr J K Graham

Mr G R Prentice

1950 Mr A B Blair

Mr D R Howison

Professor F W Watt

1951 Mr J M W Davidson

1953 Dr W S Affleck

Mr T F Wheatley

1956 Mr G H C Cook

Mr J D P Cooke

Professor R K Faulkner

Mr W F Gilges

Professor C C Michel

Mr D J Williams

1957 Dr J M Bailey

Professor R S Downie

Mr D G James

1962 Mr J C Keith (an obituary appears

in the 2023 College Record)

Mr D Rutherford

1963 Professor Philip Mullock

Mr A J B Simon

1964 J A Prescott Esq

1965 Mr E V Saliba

1966 Mr C MacHale

Professor P J Willner

1967 Ambassador L N Agius

Mr K Aziz

Dr J H Edwards

R W A Messenger Esq

1968 Mr J R E Shaw

1969 Mr B A Rattray

1970 Mr M D Jackson

1971 Dr M R O’Donovan

1973 Mr T H Joss

1976 Mr R C Dawson

Mr B T Stubley

1977 Mr R B Edyvean

1984 Mr J R Turner

1987 Dr J F Timms

Dr C Peters (Stipendiary Lecturer in Early Modern History, 1994-2020)

The news of the deaths of Old Members comes to the notice of the College

through a variety of channels. The College is unable to verify all these reports and

there may be some omissions and occasional inaccuracies.

KHALID AZIZ

Khalid Aziz was born to a renowned industrialist, Abdul

Aziz, whose factory, M. Hayat & Bros (Pvt) Ltd, had been

the cornerstone of Pakistani furniture craftsmanship.

Yet, despite the lure of a dynasty’s reins, the elder Aziz

harboured a different vision for his precocious son. The

family’s legacy of wood and varnish was to be Khalid’s

inheritance, but not his destiny, for his father saw in him

the makings of a CSP (Civil Services of Pakistan) officer—a position of high prestige

in Pakistan.

To forge the mettle of a leader, Khalid was sent away to the storied grounds of

Lawrence College Ghora Gali, nestled in the Himalayan foothills. An institution

steeped in history, Lawrence College had, since its inception in 1860 by the venerable

Sir Henry Montgomery Lawrence, been the crucible for the nation’s finest. It was

here, among the sons of empire and legacy, that Khalid’s character was honed:

leadership, an unyielding work ethic, courage, and a compassionate hand extended

to those less fortunate.

By 1962, he rose to be the head boy, his name inscribed in the college’s lore. Yet it

was the cricket pitches that bore witness to his other remarkable talent. As a batsman,

he was formidable, nearly legendary, his crowning achievement a magnificent 49 runs

against the English at Peshawar Services Ground in the fervour of 1966.

Obituaries

1958 Mr N E Terrell

Dr J D Wilcock

Mr D Britton

1959 Mr D S Allen

Mr D M Beaton

The Revd Dr J S A Cunningham

Mr D Dawson

Mr J R A Rampton KC

Mr D B Taylor

1988 Mr M P Sherratt

1991 Mrs J H Shaw

2003 Mr M C K White

Khalid’s laurels were many—a full blazer, the captain’s band for the cricket team,

a beacon of Lawrence College’s storied tradition. His story was more than one of

individual triumph; it was a testament to the enduring spirit of a family who sought

not just to create wealth but to forge a legacy of service and excellence.

Khalid Aziz’s academic and professional trajectory is a narrative of distinguished

achievement. A Gold Medalist in M.A. Political Science from the University of

Peshawar, Aziz’s scholarly aptitude was evident early on. His intellectual journey

took him to The Queen’s College, Oxford, an institution steeped in tradition, where



Obituaries

he delved into the integrated disciplines of Philosophy, Politics, and Economics. This

rigorous triad honed his strategic insight, a foundation that would inform his later

contributions to both academia and the broader professional sphere.

During his tenure at Oxford, Khalid Aziz embraced the quintessentially British pastime

of cricket, playing for the University’s esteemed team. In parallel with his athletic

endeavours, Aziz navigated the challenging waters of the Pakistan civil service

examinations in London. Displaying his characteristic dedication and intellectual

agility, he passed with distinction on his first attempt—a remarkable feat that

highlighted his readiness for public service and marked the beginning of a promising

career in the government sector.

The year 1969 marked Khalid’s entry into the civil service of Pakistan, as he was

inducted into the District Management Group, the zenith of bureaucratic echelons.

But Khalid, a man of insatiable intellect, sought further enlightenment, securing an

MPhil in Development Studies from the prestigious Wolfson College, Cambridge.

His academic journey placed him among a rarefied cohort of civil servants whose

education spanned the revered institutions of both Oxford and Cambridge.

Throughout his illustrious tenure, Khalid navigated the complexities of governance

with the deftness of a seasoned statesman. His career was a constellation of

pivotal roles: Political Agent in the tribal frontiers of Khyber, Orakzai, and Waziristan;

Commissioner of Peshawar, Dera Ismail Khan, and Kohat; ascending to the echelons

of Additional Chief Secretary and, ultimately, the Chief Secretary of the North-West

Frontier Province. In each post, Khalid’s leadership was marked not just by the

authority he wielded but by the lives he touched and the landscapes he transformed.

His narrative is not merely one of achievement but a saga of service, etched into the

very fabric of the nation he so dutifully served.

In the storied career of Khalid Aziz, the most formidable challenge he faced was

not in the labyrinth of bureaucratic manoeuvring or the cutthroat world of political

machinations—it was a test of his very integrity. The tempest began in the tumultuous

wake of General Pervez Musharraf’s coup in 1999. At the vortex of this storm, Khalid

stood as the Director General of the Ehtesab Bureau, the eye of integrity in a nation

prone to corruption.

When the military junta, hungry for legitimacy, demanded that he bear false witness

against Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, Khalid chose honour over expedience. His

refusal was a tectonic defiance that shook the powers that be, and in retribution,

they wielded the draconian National Accountability Bureau Ordinance of 1999 like

a sledgehammer to crush him.

Khalid’s principled stance exacted a heavy toll. He was cast into the grim confines

of Peshawar Central Jail, only to be subsequently transferred to the foreboding

embrace of Attock Fort. This ancient bastion, erected by Emperor Akbar in the 16th

century, loomed over the banks of the Attock River—a silent sentinel to Khalid’s

unfolding ordeal. Within its stone-cold heart, he was confined to a tiny cell, a dungeon

designed to break the human spirit.

But Khalid’s resolve was forged of sterner stuff. On a night shrouded with the chilling

whispers of mortality, he was led to the abyssal depths of the fort’s dungeons. There,

under the cold gaze of a firing squad, they sought to shatter his will. Yet even in the

face of death’s stark tableau, Khalid’s courage did not falter.

For 11 long years, he navigated the labyrinth of legal battles, his stoicism unwavering

amidst the tempest of false accusations. And then, in a moment as cleansing as the

first light of dawn, justice prevailed. In 2010, the Supreme Court of Pakistan, guardian

of the law’s sanctity, proclaimed his innocence, and Khalid Aziz emerged from the

crucible, honour intact, acquitted, a testament to the tenacity of an unbreakable will.

In the twilight of a career that had spanned the heights of bureaucratic power, Khalid

Aziz settled into a quieter existence, one that belied the influence he continued to

wield. The establishment of RIPORT, his brainchild and a policy think tank, was a

testament to his undiminished zeal for shaping the narrative on geopolitical affairs.

With the precision of a seasoned strategist, Aziz delved into the complexities of the

War on Terror, a storm that brewed with relentless ferocity over the rugged terrains

of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.

A prolific voice on Pak-Afghan relations, his writings cut through the din of political

discourse, offering clarity to a subject mired in obscurity.

But it was the historic merger of the Federally Administered Tribal Areas with Khyber

Pakhtunkhwa that crowned his later years. In this delicate dance of diplomacy and

governance, Aziz, alongside the venerable Mr Sartaj Aziz, orchestrated a union

that promised a new dawn for the denizens of these lands. It was a final, pivotal

movement in the symphony of his professional life.

In 2018, Khalid Aziz, a man whose life had been defined by his unwavering service

to his country, was blindsided by an insidious stroke. It was an ailment that served

as a chilling prelude to a more dire diagnosis revealed on the operating table: a brain

tumour, malignant and stealthy in its encroachment on his vitality.

For the subsequent six years, Khalid embarked on a courageous battle against the

cancer that had claimed his body as its battlefield. His resolve never wavered, even

as he navigated the tumultuous and often uncertain terrain of treatment and recovery.

Throughout this arduous journey, his wife was an ever-present pillar of support, her

dedication emblematic of a lifetime of shared love and mutual resilience.

Obituaries



Obituaries

In 2024, Khalid’s fierce battle came to its end. His passing left a void that reverberated

beyond the confines of his immediate circle, extending to the countless lives he had

touched through his public service. For more than three decades, he had poured

his heart into the betterment of his nation, and in his absence, a collective grief

enveloped those who had come to admire and respect him.

Khalid’s legacy, one of unwavering commitment to the greater good, now serves as

a beacon for all who aspire to impact the world positively. It is with solemn reflection

that we pay tribute to a life so rich in purpose and dedication—a life that, even in its

closing chapter, inspires a path of integrity and service.

Graduating with a DPhil in 1960, John was awarded a postdoctoral position at the

University of Yale (1960-4) before being recruited to join the team at CERN (1964-

72). The Conseil Européen pour la Recherche Nucléaire had started operations just

ten years previously to re-establish a collaborative centre of scientific excellence

after WWII: for a young physicist, it was an infinitely exciting place to be. John

further developed his expertise in sub-atomic particles, becoming a leading expert

in muon storage rings. A muon, from the Greek letter mu (μ) used to represent it, is

an elementary particle similar to an electron but many times heavier. Researchers

are still working to understand the nature of these fundamental building blocks

of matter.

Obituaries

Shumayl Aziz, Former Additional Advocate General KP

JOHN MAXWELL BAILEY

John Maxwell Bailey (1935-2024) was a particle physicist

and pioneering world expert in muon storage rings. He was

born and raised in Australia, the eldest child of Victor Albert

Bailey (Queen’s Exhibitioner, 1913-15 / 1919-20), Professor

of Physics at the University of Sydney, and Joyce Hewitt, a

professional concert pianist from New Zealand. His middle

name predestined him for a career in science.

During WWII the family moved to the countryside due to the threat of invasion.

When they returned to the city, John found himself transported from a one-room

schoolhouse to the prestigious Sydney Boys High School where he flourished. John

became an accomplished chess player, including winning Junior Champion at national

level. He was also a talented musician, playing and singing in school productions of

Gilbert & Sullivan comic operas. He famously accompanied soprano Joan Sutherland

on his flute, preluding a lifelong love of poetry and music.

After completing his first degree in Mathematics at the University of Sydney and doing

National Service in the Australian Navy, John won a Rhodes Scholarship to study

Theoretical Physics at the University of Oxford. He travelled to England on a cargo

boat and during the six-week voyage coped with cabin fever by becoming a proficient

bridge player. Arriving at Queen’s in autumn 1957 he threw himself into student life,

coxing the College Rugby VIII*, providing technical support to OUDS productions, and

captaining the University Chess Team. He also met his future wife Elizabeth Rippon

(St Hilda’s, 1955-58) although the college curfew meant their romance necessitated

some climbing of drainpipes. John’s time at Oxford was thus a gateway to both future

family life and his career as a particle physicist.

High energy physicists in person are exactly what the name implies. For months John

and his colleagues would explore ideas together, talking animatedly and filling vast

blackboards with equations scribbled in coloured chalk. Then came experimental

runs, when protons were accelerated to incredible speeds, whilst round-the-clock

shifts of scientists watched for them to smash on impact into new, hypothesized but

never-before-observed constituent parts. This cutting-edge research was based on

extensive international cooperation. (Another Queensman working at CERN twenty

years later developed the world wide web.) Archive video ‘In the heart of CERN 1967’

(https://videos.cern.ch/record/43113/embed) captures perfectly the spirit of this time.

Such comprehensive teamwork necessitated truly global communications. John was

a talented linguist, reading racy detective novels to hone his colloquial skills so he

could chat with colleagues from around the world. His subsequent work took him

to many other leading edge particle accelerators including Daresbury, Brookhaven,

DESY, NIKHEF and TRIUMF. During this international career John became fluent in

French, German and Dutch, as well as conversant in Italian, Turkish and Russian. He

was also an epicure of world food, particularly enjoying a well-ripened Camembert

cheese.

During the 1980s John lectured at the University of Liverpool and contributed to

experiments at Rutherford Laboratory. After his retirement, he used his professional

expertise to establish Chester Technology and install speaking software for the blind

on home computers. He found time to volunteer for a range of community projects,

including giving computing lessons for disadvantaged teenagers and delivering

meals-on-wheels to elderly folks (who were generally younger than himself). He also

devoted himself to caring for his beloved wife. John was a polymath, an inveterate

reader on every subject from arts and politics to ecology: the walls of his home were

literally lined with shelves housing tens of thousands of books. His life exemplified his

belief that you have to enact the changes you want to see in this world.

John and Elizabeth had five daughters, two of whom followed their father to Queen’s

College, Oxford. The first, Jane Francesca Bailey (1979-82), matriculated amongst

the ‘first 15’ female undergraduates and writes books on myth and archetype as



Obituaries

Jane Bailey Bain. The fourth, Lucy Bailey (1987-90), is Dean of Bahrain Teachers

College. The family expanded to include 15 grandchildren and John lived to see six

great-grandchildren including one born on his 88th birthday.

*Rugby and football teams regularly used to put together a rowing eight in the summer

term

Jane Bailey Bain (Experimental Psychology,1979) and Lucy Bailey (Philosophy,

Politics and Economics, 1987).

Berlin, Salamanca, and even the Vatican. Later he took parties of students to Italy

and Greece in January to explore the many ancient sites.

He moved back to Scotland in 1989, to do what he had set out to do, be a Parish

Minister. This became more important as in 1986, on a trip home, he had met again

Elma Fulton whom he had known 27 years earlier when he was assistant at St.

Stephen’s. They were married in the University of Glasgow Memorial Chapel in 1988.

He was inducted to Barlanark-Greyfriars Church, Glasgow, in 1992, where he spent

eight and a half exceptionally happy years.

Obituaries

JAMES STEELE ALLISON CUNNINGHAM

James was born at Calderbank in 1935, the middle of three

boys. Educated at Calderbank Primary School and Airdrie

Academy focusing on Greek and Latin and becoming Vice

Captain. At aged 17, he went to the University of Glasgow,

gaining an MA(Hons).

In 1956 he began studying for the ministry, at Trinity College, Glasgow, which was

then the College of Theology. He excelled in many subjects and received his BD

(Bachelor of Divinity).

Three years later he was Assistant Minister at St. Stephen’s Buccleuch Church in

Glasgow City Centre (now Renfield St. Stephen’s), under the late Rev. Dr. John R.

Gray. At the end of his assistantship, he was licensed for the Ministry by Hamilton

Presbytery at Hamilton Old Parish Church.

In the same year, he started his postgraduate degree at The Queen’s College,

Oxford, as a student of Theology. His dissertation was on The New Testament and

The Early Church for which he was given a B.Litt.

Being persuaded by his professor, Dr Kilpatrick, to go to America for one year, he

taught New Testament at Princeton Seminary in New Jersey beginning in 1962. He

had many notable students there including Peter Marshall Jr., son of “A Man Called

Peter”. He had the opportunity to study for his PhD at Princeton University, while still

teaching at the Seminary. This involved staying a further three years.

In 1965 he moved to Hamilton, Ontario, in Canada where he changed to teaching

Classics (Latin and Greek) at McMaster University.

He returned to the USA in 1968 and was appointed the Edward North Professor of

Classics at Hamilton College, upstate New York where he remained for 21 years.

While there, he made many trips to Europe, to do research at various libraries in

He retired in 2000 and moved to Coatbridge, never imagining that he would be so

close to his place of birth. On retirement he became involved with various churches

doing pulpit supply, especially Chapelhall and St. Andrew’s East in Glasgow.

His time teaching Classics and serving in the Ministry gave him much joy and

satisfaction. However, in spite of his intellect, he was a man who was interested

in people from all walks of life, no matter their occupation. He had many interests.

He was a Past President of the Caledonian Philatelic Society; Past President of the

Coatbridge Probus; Past President of the Scottish Church Theology Society. His

other interests were gardening, steam-trains, (he built an electric train layout in the

basement of the house), walking, especially with his many dogs over the years and

reading. His library echoes this - BOOKS, BOOKS, BOOKS! QUITE A HISTORY!

(JEREMY) DAVID PHILIP COOKE

Elma Cunningham

David thoroughly enjoyed his time at the Queen’s College and

made many long-standing friends. He gained a boxing blue

and was bow for a college eight that successfully ‘bumped’!

Born in Gilgit in the Himalayan foothills on 31 July 1936, his

first nine years were spent in different parts of the Indian

subcontinent and mountains were always a delight and inspiration.

He changed career direction from Engineering to become a Scottish Chartered

Accountant in his mid-thirties and enjoyed 47 years of a very active life in Stirling.

Sport was his main interest, firstly squash as a local club champion and junior

coach. Later orienteering predominated and for 20 years he was local club then

Scottish treasurer and lastly Hon Treasurer of the Word Orienteering Championships

in Inverness in 1999. Two new knees precluded further running so with friends he

enjoyed hill walking, completing the Scottish Munros in his 75th year.



Obituaries

He was also heavily involved in community affairs, particularly as treasurer. For 19

years he was the treasurer of the magnificent medieval Holy Rude Church where

James VI (James I of England) was crowned near Stirling Castle and helped with its

visitor service. He was also the financial ‘watchdog’ for the board of the Aberlour

Childcare Trust and treasurer of the Mamie Martin Fund, which funded education for

girls in Northern Malawi. Post retiral he became Honorary Treasurer of the Stirling

Abbeyfield Homes for the elderly and assisted many local community and ethnic

groups to present annual accounts to satisfy funding bodies.

In recognition of his contribution to local and national sport, and to the community,

David was presented with a Provost’s Civic Award in 2011 at Stirling Castle.

High life in the business world did not attract him in the same way as the great

outdoors! He was a lovely unassuming quiet, dependable man and a devoted and

inspirational father to two boys. We shall miss him greatly.

Tricia Cooke

At Oxford, the emerging characteristics that never wavered in later life - his

steadfastness, reliability, tireless work behind the scenes for the greater good,

intellectual spirit and lack of personal drama among many others - created a wide

circle of devoted and lifelong friends.

Richard met his wife Hilary when his sister, Madeleine, married Hilary’s brother,

David. Three months later they were engaged, and six months after that they married.

Never a poster child for precipitous decisions, this proved Richard was quite capable

of recognizing when prompt action was in order. He enjoyed 33 years of happiness

with Hilary as they raised their son Michael and daughter Eleanor.

Hilary made her career in ministry, and as she progressed into more visible positions,

particularly around the time Richard retired from teaching, he was always there in

a supporting role. He made his contributions in the background, never seeking the

limelight but always with total commitment to the community. He would be shocked

to learn exactly how many of Hilary’s former parishioners recall the many lawns he

cut. In short, here was a man who quietly got things done.

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RICHARD DAWSON

When searching for a photograph to accompany these

reflections on the life of Richard Dawson (1957-2024), I

stumbled across a metaphor that admirably represents

what I had been having trouble articulating. It is easy to

find photographs of Richard in group settings, but curiously

hard to find photographs of him alone. Even then, he is

typically at some distance enhancing a landscape such

as a pebbly beach in his beloved Devon. He simply never seems to be making the

statement, “Look at me!”

This is the true measure of the man who was my good friend from our first year at

Queen’s, 1976. Not concerned with seeking the spotlight, his ability and presence

nonetheless greatly enhanced any endeavour in which he was participating and,

therefore, his absence was equally keenly felt. This made him valuable in any eight

on the river, or rugby team - or expedition with friends to rural France that required

latrine duty, for that matter.

Richard arrived at Queen’s as many of us do, after a childhood of progressive

achievement in both schoolwork and extracurricular activities. Home was Bromley,

on the outskirts of London, and family holidays on the Isle of Wight were eagerly

anticipated each summer. French was the language he came up to study, and this

was the foundation of his long career in teaching.

His own career was founded on teaching, because that is what he loved to do, and

his lengthy tenure at Exeter School was entirely unusual, but he saw no reason to

pursue other avenues that might require more administration and offer less time in

the classroom. The ultimate compliment offered at his memorial service came from

a teaching colleague: “He was the consummate schoolmaster.”

Richard’s attraction to stability in all things was exemplified by the relatively small

number of places that formed the geographic foundation of his life - not that he

was averse to travel. He spent a total of several months in America, accumulated

at several different times in his life, and explored interesting places such as Turkey

and Iceland. However, he reliably returned to a small group of specific places that

fit his nature and personality. The family home in Bromley was a constant presence

throughout his life. He went on to establish deep connections with, among others,

the Isle of Wight, Devon, other western parts of England and, infallibly through his

career in teaching, France.

Richard conversed without drawing attention to his keen intellect and broad

knowledge, and was not unimpressive in his mastery of the double negative in

that regard. He loved music, and was an active performer, and yet could not help

himself providing the behind-the-scenes support that is so vital to any successful

artistic event.

I could not find a satisfactory solo photograph of Richard in my own archive. The

accompanying image was provided by Hilary. What an utterly reliable and constantly

solid friend he was: what an embodiment of the true worth of being educated at



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Queen’s. We mourn the loss of our friend, but we can celebrate his life and continue

his legacy through the service we give to others.

John Spencer Dixon, (Engineering & Economics, 1976

JOHN EDWARDS

John Edwards (1967), who died aged 74 in December

2023, is remembered with affection by friends, colleagues

and associates as ‘a deeply thoughtful and active Christian,

a meticulous scholar’, and a very individual academic.

John, from Wallington in South London and Trinity School, Croydon, came to

Queen’s with an Open Scholarship to read Modern History. His choice of papers

focused on the Early Modern Period, and led to graduate research on Spain, and

in this connection, he was awarded a Laming Travelling Fellowship, 1973-75, and

gained his DPhil in 1976.

From then he was a Lecturer in the Department of Medieval History at Birmingham

University until 1995. Then he returned to Oxford, becoming a Faculty Fellow in the

Faculty of Medieval and Modern Languages, lecturing and teaching and, in particular,

researching and writing - as he was still doing when he died.

From which it may be gathered that, as one friend has observed “nor did he act

with much concern for a conventional academic career”. But it was one in which he

earned great regard from his fellows and students alike.

“His scholarly trajectory”, writes one colleague, “went through three phases. First, he

established himself as a historian of the power-structures of late medieval Andalucía,

and, in particular, of the city and region of Cordoba. This led him to become an

acknowledged expert on the Spanish Inquisition. A final phase saw him venture

successfully into Anglo-Iberian history, with studies of Cardinal Carranza and

biographies of Cardinal Pole and most importantly, Mary Tudor”.

That’s a brief summary. John has been prolific, with his own major books and

contributions to journals and essay collections. His bibliography is nearly as big

in Spanish as it is in English. Each of those phases produced at least one major

scholarly work, and also books more accessible to the general reader. An example

is his book Inquisition (1999, paperback 2003).

Unsurprisingly, the multiple links of English and Spanish history drew him, with a

focus on the reign of Queen Mary I, famously married to her maternal cousin Philip

II - and this has provided a rich vein for study of the period. His big biography

Mary I, England’s Catholic Queen (Yale 2011) was accompanied by the shorter

Mary, Daughter of Time (Penguin Monarchs 2016). He also wrote the biography

of her fascinating Catholic Archbishop, Reginald Pole, for a major ‘Archbishop of

Canterbury’ Series: Archbishop Pole (2014).

Professor Hugh McLeod, friend and colleague from Birmingham days, writes: “The

Reformation [period] remained central to John’s concerns throughout his life. Sadly,

at the time of his death, he was still working on the big book which would bring

together the fruits of many years of research on the religious movements of the

16th-century and which would reflect his strongly ecumenical perspective”. I, fellow

Queen’s historian and friend, also lament that this remains incomplete.

John was Correspondiente de la Real Academia de la Historia (Madrid), the

collegiality of which he enjoyed, and Fellow of the Royal Historical Society.

So much for the scholar. What about the teacher? Hugh McLeod also writes “John

was very committed to students, and indeed could be quite critical of colleagues

who were less approachable, or whose commitment to research or university

management left little time for students”, and provided instance of that commitment.

Most eloquent, however, are the words of John’s DPhil student since December

2018, Eduardo Benítez-Inglott y Ballesteros: “I was amazed by his excitement for

all things Spanish, as well as his friendliness and desire to help me. … John’s

readiness to help … from moment zero definitely distinguished him from conventional

academics”. Others, pay heed to this appreciation!

Eduardo writes too about their “lively discussion” of issues, drawing on John’s

particular experience of Spain over the decades, including “Spain’s transition from

General Francisco Franco’s dictatorship (1936–1975) to its current constitutional

settlement”, and wider issues present in John’s historical interest and research

and still all too ‘live’ - discrimination, persecution and scapegoating of ‘the other’.

Back in Birmingham, John’s concern for political prisoners made him a co-founder,

with Hugh McLeod, of a University Amnesty Group. Another initiative together

was a History of Religion Seminar, designed to raise the profile of religious history:

“to cover all periods of history and to bring together historians scattered across

several departments”. “John took a leading role whatever the historical period under

consideration, and while visiting speakers included most of the leading Reformation

specialists, he was also very interested in contemporary themes”.

John’s church background was Methodist. I remember going with him to Oxford’s

Wesley Memorial Church. He was also very loyal to Queen’s Chapel, chaplains in

succession being David Jenkins, Alan Smithson, and David Whittington. There was

also the Anglo-Catholic Pusey House. That was the tradition which John would make

his home, in Birmingham and then in Oxford, lastly and for many years at St Mary

Magdalen in the city centre.

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But he was through and through an ecumenist - in every aspect of life. In Birmingham

he met Vivien Baggs - Viv - a Baptist minister with, already, her own strongly ecumenical

outlook, chaplain in the university’s ecumenical team, promoter of churches’

engagement with the arts and - already - Anglican High Church connections.

John and Viv were married in October 1993. After their move to Oxford in 1995,

she served as Chaplain at Broadmoor, in an Immigration Removal Centre, and

in church-based ministry latterly as the Baptist in the Ecumenical Partnership in

Wolvercote. For several years she chaired Churches Together in Central Oxford. All

these things aligned clearly with John’s own concerns. Perhaps it says something

of their very close partnership, that when Viv was Chair of Churches Together, John

was Secretary, his own role, also important, the more ‘stood back’.

For John has not been one to push himself forward. As Fr Peter Groves said in the

Requiem in St Mary Mags, John has been “scholar, Christian, historian, linguist,

ecumenist”, the order of those words suggesting how they’ve all gone hand in hand.

To this we may add what he has brought to teaching, and his concern for modern

day issues. Fr Peter spoke too of him as “a reader, a listener, a learner, who then is

able – without bombast but gently and insistently – to teach others”.

More might be said of John’s love of music - he sang with the Eglesfield Musical

Society - and not least of early and especially Iberian music; also of his wry sense of

humour, and love of anecdote. The words of others have spoken of his relationships.

degree and BCL from Oxford University and a Master of Law from Yale Law School.

In 1961, he began working as a visiting associate for Sullivan & Cromwell, a Wall

Street law firm. There he met the love of his life, Patsy Mantz. They were married

in 1963, moved back to Zambia, had their first child and then emigrated to New

York City, where they had two more children. In 1970, Walter moved his family to

Rochester and began managing international legal work for Eastman Kodak Co.

He loved what he did, which included traveling all over the world and working with

people from all different countries and cultures.

Walter was very active in the Rochester International Friendship Council, in which

families “hosted” single students from other cultures and involved them in family

events. He volunteered for Second Harvest and Habitat for Humanity, but his real

love was serving his family. Walter always “wanted to be useful,” which was another

way of saying that he wanted to be of service to those around him.

Walter is survived by his sister Yvonne Colhoun (Andrew), his sister-in-law Cheryl

Gilges, his son Kent Gilges (Elizabeth), his daughter Julie Martin (Steve), his son Keith

Gilges (Carlyle), and eight grandchildren.

GEOFFREY HATCHER

Kent Gilges

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Viv died in October 2022. John is survived by his sister Rosemary, for whose

assistance with this obituary I am grateful; as I am for the assistance of those quoted,

and of Peter Wheatley (1966) and David Whittington (1964), also John’s friends.

In the words of his student Eduardo: “He leaves a legacy of humanity and erudition.

May he be an example to us all”.

WALTER GILGES

Brian Curnew (Modern History, 1966).

Geoffrey Hatcher was born in Victoria Ward at Guy’s

Hospital, London in September 1927. His father died when

Geoffrey was only two years-old so he and his sister Joan

were brought up by their hardworking mother who never

remarried. They lived in Peabody Buildings in Southwark

which today would be known as ‘affordable housing’. His

sister Joan taught him to read and write. Geoffrey was a

very bright child who won a scholarship to St Olave’s Grammar School in Borough

and then an Open Exhibition to Queen’s College, Oxford where he studied Medieval

and Modern Languages. Academia never excited him much. He wanted to ‘do good’

in the world so, following graduation in 1948, he decided to become a doctor.

Walter Friedrich Gilges (Papa), of Pittsford and Pultneyville,

NY and Brentwood TN, passed away on Thursday 14

March in Brentwood, TN. He will be remembered as a

gentleman and a gentle man.

Walter was born in Johannesburg, South Africa to Wilhelm

and Liesel Gilges. He grew up in the African bush in what

he described as a perfect childhood. He received a law

He undertook his National Service in the RAF in Cambridgeshire and at Ely where he

met Bernadette, then enrolled at The Middlesex Hospital in 1950 to study medicine.

Bernadette and he were married in St. Ethelreda’s, Holborn in 1953. His career was

cut short in 1956 when, at Southampton, he contracted poliomyelitis, was ill for

three months and worried whether he would ever walk again. Having played football

for Queen’s College 1st Football XI and rowed for the College Eight, this came as

a shock but fortunately he recovered well, save for a continuing minor limp, but his

active sporting days were over.



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He was offered the prestigious post as House Physician to Horace Joules at the

Middlesex in 1957. But it was at Great Ormond Street where, taught by the great Sir

Wilfred Sheldon, he realised his true love was in paediatrics. Before that, he spent two

years in General Practice at Tiverton in Devon then furthered his paediatric training

at the Middlesex, the Whittington and University College Hospitals before becoming

consultant paediatrician in Liverpool in 1967 with responsibilities for child health in the

Isle of Man. At his interview he was asked his views on private practice. He responded

in typical Hatcher fashion, that in principle he was opposed to it, particularly in a city

like Liverpool where he imagined there was plenty of paediatric work to do within the

NHS, but that in time, like some of them around the table, he might be corruptible.

Geoffrey always had a wonderful way with words. He moved to the Royal Alexandra

Hospital for Sick Children, Brighton in 1970 at the age of 43 and remained there until

he retired in 1990.

Geoffrey was a wonderful teacher and an astute clinician. No colleague ever heard

him raise his voice to anyone and he had a great sense of humour. He loved his work

in Brighton and all who knew him loved him. He became the father figure at RACH,

someone to approach in times of trouble, someone to ask for a medical opinion or

just someone to relax with and have fun. He had no time for ‘management speak’.

Whereas the trend throughout his consultant career was to specialise, resulting in

most doctors knowing more and more about less and less, Geoffrey was ‘content

to plough the furrow of general paediatrics’ as he so aptly put it. He was one of the

last great general paediatricians, trusted by parents and children alike, brim full of

intelligence and honest to the core. Respected by all colleagues, he taught and

influenced more young doctors and nurses than he realised and was responsible for

the highest standards of care wherever he worked.

Geoffrey died peacefully at home in Hove on 16 March 2024 in the care of his family.

He had survived the three loves of his life, Bernadette, Betty, and Annie but leaves

behind his children Amanda, Clare, Niul and Andrew, their children, grandchildren

and great-grandchildren and a host of other family members and friends, all with

memories of him which will last for the rest of their lives

Professor Warren Lenney MD FRCP FRCPCH DCH

CHRISTOPHER MACHALE

Christopher MacHale (known at Queen’s as Chris McHale)

was born in Liverpool on 15 January 1949 and died there on

17 April 2024. The news from his wife of his passing stunned

me as I had talked with him just three days earlier, when he

was as lucid and engaging as always.

He came up in 1966 and read French and Spanish, the foremost tutor who influenced

him being the redoubtable Ian Macdonald. Chris maintained for the rest of his life

feelings of fond gratitude to Macdonald—an improbable connection, given Chris’s

Irish Catholic heritage versus Macdonald’s anti-Catholic views and proclivity for blunt

remarks. But none of that got in the way of their academic relationship. Chris was

candid that he did not work especially hard at Oxford, but Macdonald was a source

of encouragement and necessary nudges.

Another major influence was David Jenkins, the College Chaplain, who provided

valuable support at key moments in Chris’ time at Oxford. With all this, he managed

to “scrape a Second”, as he put it, though that result did not reflect his native

academic ability or astounding breadth of knowledge.

My first encounter with him was in the Old Taberdars’ Room in October 1969. Having

recently arrived in England for the first time, I was a new face to Chris, who greeted

me politely. After a bit of small talk between us, I asked: “Where are you from?” He

put on an impish smile and said, “Take a guess”. I thought quickly, mentally played

back the words I’d heard, and said, “Liverpool”. He was suitably astonished and never

forgot that encounter. I suppose I made the guess because his speech bore some

similarity to that of the Beatles. A staunch Liverpolitan, Chris was proud both of the

city and his Irish antecedents. The Irish part I could not identify with, but I eventually

came to see a clear set of similarities between Liverpool and my native Philadelphia.

In light of his background, Chris sometimes felt uncomfortable at Oxford, but his

gregarious nature led to some very strong friendships from Queen’s, and he was

eager to get to know the community around him. One such friend was Terry Dolan

(1967), who authored the widely-respected Dictionary of Hiberno-English. An entry

in it came from MacHale, who elucidated a certain word’s usage and etymology.

Another long-term friend was Derek Ansell (1965), with whom Chris remained in

touch for many years until Derek’s death in 2021.

After Chris went down, he took a position at a Comprehensive School in Bootle

teaching Spanish and French. However, the adolescent audience, though often

interesting and challenging, proved not entirely congenial over time, so he went on to

complete an MA degree at the University of Liverpool, which promptly offered him a

Lectureship in Hispanic Studies. He taught there contentedly until retirement in 2014.

Yet no academic discipline could encompass his broad and varied interests. He

was an authority on Irish folk music, international currency, comparative linguistics,

English church architecture, merchant navy shipping lines and their individual

vessels, along with many other subjects. His Irish music passion led to regular visits

to the west of Ireland, where he was given the moniker “Christy”, one that he happily

adopted. In the realm of currency, Chris was especially pleased to have known Lord

Florey, who (among other achievements) appeared on the Australian $50 note; Chris

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was amused and delighted to have known someone whose face was on a banknote!

And there were languages: he studied at least ten of them, even Afrikaans (a quirky

interest which we shared). Regarding English churches, his aesthetic familiarity was

encyclopedic, and he happily shared that knowledge during my visits to England.

That intellectual exploration, along with the strong memories of David Jenkins, led

Christy to join the Church of England later in life.

Charles’s deepening interest in the quantitative nature of physiological processes

led him to undertake a DPhil in Physiology at Oxford. His research focused on

the changes in blood pH as it flows through the vasculature, an area that would

underpin his lifelong work on the microvasculature. This period at Queen’s College

was crucial, as it was here that Charles laid the foundation for his future contributions

to physiology, particularly his interest in the microcirculation.

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At age 34 he married Samantha (Sam) Byrne, a native Londoner of Irish descent

whom he had met at a Pancake Day party in Bootle while she was studying at the

University of Liverpool. What brought them together was his carrying to the party

Teach Yourself Catalan for reading on the bus. Sam noticed the book, went over to

him and inquired about it, she having already learnt Catalan. Their shared interests

and her devotion to him made for an extremely happy partnership. That marriage

was, by his own account and by my observation, one of the best decisions of his life.

Sam also became a valued friend to me and my husband Tom. Christy’s final years

saw the unwelcome development of Parkinson’s Disease, diagnosed on his 65th

birthday, and it gradually eroded much of his freedom of movement. Yet his mind

remained sharp and lively, and I am convinced that Sam’s staunch support added

many years to his life. So did Christy’s abiding interest and curiosity in the world; that

never deserted him.

CHRISTOPHER CHARLES MICHEL

Richard D. Keiser (History, 1969)

In recognition of his exceptional intellect and potential, Charles was appointed a College

Fellow at Queen’s immediately upon completing his medical course by Sir Howard

Florey, then Provost of the College. Many Queen’s medical students of the 1960s

and 70s will recall stimulating, intellectually rigorous tutorials with ‘CCM’. The College

Fellowship, coupled with his Lectureship in the Department of Physiology at Oxford,

allowed Charles to establish a research program that would become internationally

renowned. He developed the cannulation of single capillaries and used this in

groundbreaking studies on capillary blood pressure, transendothelial flow and the

permeation of large versus small molecules, setting the stage for later transformative

discoveries. Notable amongst these were the fibre matrix theory of capillary permeability

and the extension/revision of traditional ideas on fluid exchange. Characteristically,

quantitative mathematical analysis and prediction preceded experimental proofs.

From Oxford, Charles moved to St Mary’s Medical School (later Imperial College) in

London, where he led the Department of Physiology and Biophysics. His work there

linked the ultrastructure of endothelium to its permeability, in both amphibians and

mammals in health and in inflammation.

Professor Charles Michel was a distinguished physiologist

known for his groundbreaking work on the microcirculation.

His research, spanning several decades, significantly

advanced our understanding of blood vessel permeability,

particularly through his discovery of the role of

the endothelial glycocalyx in regulating water and solute

transport across capillary walls. This novel concept has

laid the foundation for effective treatments of conditions like shock and increased

vascular permeability.

Born in Leeds in 1938, Charles’s early exposure to Headingley’s cricket and rugby

grounds fostered a lifelong love of both of these sports. He attended Leeds Grammar

School and was later awarded a Hastings Scholarship to The Queen’s College,

Oxford, where he quickly distinguished himself both academically and personally. At

Queen’s, Charles’s passion for physiology blossomed. After two years of studying

Medicine, he took a year to pursue a first-class honours BA in Physiology. This pivotal

year marked the beginning of his long and illustrious research career, and resulted

in his first publication, a study on respiratory regulation involving members of the

1960 British Himalayas expedition.

Throughout his career, Charles was a respected tutor, mentor and collaborator,

fostering the growth of many other notable scientists. His contributions to scientific

societies were notable; he served as Honorary Secretary of The Physiological

Society, President of the British Microcirculation Society, and held honorary

memberships in several prestigious organisations. His accolades include the Malpighi

Prize, the Nishimaru Tsuchiya International Award, and the Annual Prize Lecture of

the Physiological Society.

After retiring in 2000, Charles moved to Alderney with his wife Rosalind, where he

continued collaborative research and indulged in birdwatching and studying puffin

and gannet colonies. He is survived by Rosalind, their children James and Catherine,

and their families.

Charles will be remembered as a brilliant scientist, a supportive mentor, and a

courteous and insightful colleague whose legacy continues through his numerous

students and collaborators. His time at Queen’s College, as a student, Fellow and

College Tutor, was instrumental in shaping his extraordinary career and widely

recognised contributions to physiology.

James Michel, assisted by Professor Dr Rod Levick (Animal Physiology, 1964)



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CHRISTINE PETERS

Christine Peters, early modern historian and devoted Lecturer

at Queen’s during 1994-2020, succumbed to early-onset

Alzheimer’s Disease on 5 April 2024.

Christine read History at St Hugh’s College, Oxford, obtaining

a First in 1988, and then embarked on doctoral research on

women in the English Reformation. The thesis, completed

in 1992, was notably original: in bridging the conventional late medieval/ early modern

divide by covering the period 1400-1570; in concentrating on rural women, mostly

not of high social status; and in making full and perceptive use of images, especially

wall-paintings.

It was this last interest that took her in an unexpected direction. The fall of Ceausescu

in 1989 sparked an urge to understand Romania before westernization transformed

it, and to pursue her fascination with cross-cultural religious change and art in a new

context. She learnt the language, and explored regions and topics then poorly known

in the West during a year of intrepid fieldwork. Her drive seemed almost superhuman:

living (by choice) on a budget no larger than ordinary Romanians had lived on under

communism, she travelled to Moldavian villages still without motorised transport or

plumbing. She allowed no practical obstacles to hinder her pursuit of wall-paintings,

on one occasion walking along a railway-track because the train was cancelled. The

outcome was a series of ground-breaking papers, especially on religious iconography

at the interfaces between Orthodox, Catholic and Lutheran traditions.

In 1994, Christine was appointed Stipendiary Lecturer in Early Modern History at

Queen’s. Pupils will remember the rigour of her tutorials (which regularly over-ran by

half an hour), and her merciless but creative dissection of their essays, covered with

criticisms, suggestions and alternative interpretations in her microscopic but regular

handwriting. Few Oxford tutors can ever have devoted so much of their time not just to

marking undergraduates’ essays, but to taking them apart and reassembling them. (She

did the same for her friends if they let her: the draft of my own book on the Anglo-Saxon

Church was ground through the mill of her criticism, and came out much improved.)

Not all students took to her style, but those who did found it transformative, and there

are now full-time academics who look back gratefully to the way she stretched their

analytical powers. Her study-skills notes were legendary, and at least one former pupil

uses a revised version for his own teaching. She taught widely across the course,

contributing especially to the History Faculty’s papers on ‘Women, Gender and Print

Culture in Reformation England’, and on early modern witchcraft.

Given the time and effort that she gave to her pupils, and the relatively limited period

when she was at the height of her intellectual powers, her achievement as a scholar is

remarkable. She specialised in gender, religious, and cultural history in the late medieval

and early modern Reformations, and explored how religious ideas and gender identities

varied according to cultural and political contexts. Her highly original ideas can be read

in her books Patterns of Piety (2003) and Women in Early Modern Britain (2004), her

major paper ‘Marriage in Late Medieval and Early Modern England’ in Past and Present

169 (2000), and several other articles. Helped by her considerable flair as a linguist,

she crossed both disciplinary and geographical boundaries: between late medieval

and early modern studies, between history and art-history, and between England and

central Europe. One former colleague in the History Faculty has commented: ‘She was

a brilliant mind and a great scholar. She will be remembered with great admiration.’

In 2006 Christine married Martin Edwards (Fellow in Mathematics at Queen’s, who

died in 2021). At that stage she was still happy and academically productive, but it

was not long afterwards that we began to get glimpses of the falling shadows. Over

several years, as the disease tragically affected her capacities and personality, friends,

colleagues and pupils struggled to understand what was happening to her. Now we

know: it was the Alzheimer’s, not Christine.

Those whose lives she enriched will want to remember her as she was in her prime:

her thinking running ahead of her talking, her talking running ahead of what most of us

could keep up with, her originality of mind, her devotion to pupils, and her stimulating

friendship.

RICHARD RAMPTON

Prof John Blair FBA, FSA

Last July, Richard Rampton had lunch with three old

friends from Oxford – David Simpson, David Stacey, and

myself. Richard and I were at Queen’s, and David Simpson

at Lincoln from 1959-62, while David Stacey was also at

Queen’s but a year behind. Oxford made us friends and

we remained so ever since.

I was the odd man out and sometimes resented as an interloper because the others

had all been to school at Bryanston. But Richard and I were the only ones in our

year to be allowed to do the two-term Classical Preliminaries (reading Herodotus

and Caesar) rather than the arduous five-term Honour Moderations, before going

on to the seven terms of Greats or Literae Humaniores.

Richard had wanted to be a doctor and had spent the previous year studying the

necessary science ‘A’ levels. He narrowly failed to pass and so ended like myself

reading Classics. He arrived a day late because of illness and we were amused to

see his matriculation signature squeezed at the bottom of the page when the College

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invited us back 60 years later.

We were blessed with a remarkable tutor in Guy Chilver, who had also been tutor

to Richard’s redoubtable father, Anthony. Guy was one of the most civilised of dons

with a charming diffidence from whom we learnt values rather than just classical

history. He could shock at times – once apologising for cutting short a tutorial: ‘I am

so sorry. I have to go and see the bloody monarch’. But he was an inspired teacher

and you learnt without realising it. He was also empathetic and surprised me with

his acute distress at the suicide of one of our fellow undergraduates.

Our philosophy tutors were Brian McGuinness and Jonathan Cohen and were also

good, although I could not really understand philosophy and Richard, I think, could,

but found it boring.

We lived a privileged life: scouts, mostly male, brought tea in bed for the ‘young

gentlemen’ each morning, made their beds and cleaned their rooms full of stale

tobacco smoke. We smoked excessively and both of us had a pipe as well as

experimenting with exotic cigarettes such as Sobranie Black Russian, Benson and

Hedges, and Players Perfectos Finos. We also occasionally smoked monstrous

Havana cigars, known as torpedoes, somehow acquired by Richard from the

Directors’ room at his father’s firm.

the issues of the day. Our viewpoints were vaguely liberal although Richard claimed,

with family loyalty, to be a Socialist. But we took no active part in politics. I did,

however, persuade us all to join the march against the Commonwealth Immigration

Act – a case, I fear, of the heart ruling the head.

Richard and I often gambled, normally with a friend and others in Brasenose where

we would pass the night playing poker, becoming quite skilled in the game. Unwritten

rules prevented anyone losing too much – only play poker with friends. About six

in the morning, we would all stagger out to the busmen’s café in Gloucester Green

for a large breakfast.

I was always troubled by my failure to defeat Richard in argument even when I was

certain he was wrong. I took time to realise that he was cleverer than I. We both had

semi-photographic memories, but my photographs faded quickly, often in a matter of

days. Richard retained into old age the most astonishing recall, effortlessly repeating

the details of historical events or legal cases years later.

Richard also remained good at translating Latin, whereas I much preferred Greek. We

both studied the classical period of Greek History, but for Roman History he chose

and liked the early Empire, while I disliked the Romans and chose the Republic.

Scope for many an argument.

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Study, at least if taking an arts degree, took second place to enjoyment. We very

rarely ‘sported our oak’ closing the outer oak door of our rooms to work without

interruption. The only work requirement was to attend weekly tutorials with your

dons at which one of us would have to read an essay based on the reading list we

had been given. The essay was normally written, with the assistance of coffee and

alcohol, in the small hours of the preceding night, and the essayist quickly learnt

to brief the other on a few points to raise in discussion so that he did not need to

do the reading. There were also lectures but few attended them, although it was

considered polite to attend at least one of those given by your own don. But with

a don of the quality of Guy Chilver, polite but penetrating, however poor the essay,

the discussion after an essay was real education.

Richard’s family, unlike mine, was wealthy which would have ruined any friendship

– prickly and arrogant as we both were – had Richard not always behaved with

great restraint and consideration in money matters where absolute equality was the

rule. The only exception was that his father, who otherwise kept him on a tight rein,

allowed him a car. This was unusual in those days and meant that we had many

happy excursions into the countryside and country pubs.

Richard’s room was in Queen’s Lane Annexe. An evening there involved making illicit

entry back into the main College building if we stayed after 12 o’clock. This was not

too difficult – a Dean, asked why he did not block a well-known route, replied: “What

and have them climb on the roofs and break their necks?”

While we usually ate in Hall, the three, and then four of us, also spent time in convivial

meals – an Indian restaurant on the Iffley Road comes to mind – and once or twice,

we enjoyed haute cuisine at the renowned Elizabeth. We had endless, passionate,

alcohol fuelled discussions and arguments in each other’s rooms. Each of us affected

to favour a different v.s.o.p. cognac, which also caused many arguments over their

relative merits. Such evenings might end with us trying unsuccessfully to walk along

the line of a carpet or with Richard boasting of his Scottish blood in a theatrical

Scottish accent.

We were all interested in current affairs and politics and always had strong views on

Richard was also a good sportsman and played both cricket and rugger regularly.

This gave him friendships with another group in College, particularly the down-toearth

boys from Manchester Grammar School and the north who leavened the

somewhat over-confident southern public school element.

The College was a happy and tolerant place where everyone enjoyed a great deal

of freedom and was left to make their own choices. Senior college was virtually

unknown to us apart from the weekly tutorials. But there were limits. For our long

vacation, after our first term of Greats, we were expected to read extensively –

Thucydides and Plato I think - and face an exam called Collections at the start of

Michaelmas term. I went to Canada and Richard probably went fishing.



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On going back up, I confessed I could not sit the exam as I had done no work.

Richard, possibly untruthfully and out of loyalty, then said the same. Guy Chilver,

and the other powers that be, were not happy – ‘this is really not at all good you

know’ - but only mild punishment ensued.

In our third year, Richard’s relationship with Carolyn Clarke, his future wife, was

blossoming. He was precocious in this area while the rest of us, in our exclusively

male society, had little or no experience of contact with girls. So, we were quite

admiring, if envious, of Richard. The rule was that women had to be out of the college

by 11 o’clock, sexual contact being of course, as we joked, impossible before this

hour. One of my choicest memories, when we had all stayed together too late, is

of Carolyn, in an overlarge raincoat and hood, surrounded by the four of us as we

frogmarched her past the porter’s lodge into the street. I am sure the porter realised

quite well what we were doing.

As we reached our third year, with terrifying finals looming, I actually did do some

work and imagined that Richard was doing the same. But I had not fully realised

that, besides being cleverer than me, he was also more indolent. It came therefore

as a great surprise when he got a third - a class known as being for friends of the

examiners. It was only years later that he told me that he sat the set books unseen!

We are not perhaps the best of role models, but our three years were a happy and

inspiring preparation for adult life. And the close friendships we made stood the

test of time.

25 falsifications of history. It was also the high point in Rampton’s celebrated career,

leading to a film scripted by David Hare in 2016, Denial, in which he was played by

the actor Tom Wilkinson.

Rampton was instructed in the case by the well-known solicitor Anthony Julius,

along with Heather Rogers KC, with whom he formed a lifelong working partnership,

appearing together in many trials. He decided against putting either Lipstadt or

Holocaust survivors into the witness box, to avoid their cross-examination by Irving,

but also to ensure that attention was purely focused on Irving’s historical falsehoods,

as identified by the Cambridge historian Sir Richard Evans.

Rampton recalled later: “You must cut your head off from your heart, otherwise you’d

be destroyed. At one point I nearly cracked, with anger rather than emotion. Irving

was arguing about how many people might have been killed at Auschwitz, if it had

existed. I suddenly thought, ‘What am I doing here, does it matter if it is 900,000 or

1.1 million?’ You’ve got to keep that at bay.”

It was the case of which he was most proud from a long list of headline libel trials,

including Lord Aldington v Count Nikolai Tolstoy (1989); Andrew Neil v Peregrine

Worsthorne (1990); Gillian Taylforth v News of the World (1994); the so-called

“McLibel” trial (1997, the longest libel case in English legal history, involving

McDonald’s and two environmental activists); and George Galloway v The Daily

Telegraph (2004).

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John Parsloe (Literae Humaniores, 1959)

It had been a resounding victory for the legal team led by Richard Rampton KC

against David Irving, the Holocaust denier and Hitler apologist. Irving, who sued

Penguin Books and the author Deborah Lipstadt over her book Denying the

Holocaust (1993), nonetheless approached Rampton at the end of the trial to

shake his opponent’s hand. The barrister declined. “I couldn’t,” he said later. “Is it

surprising? It wasn’t a game of tennis.”

Rampton had spent two years preparing for the trial, ensuring he was equipped

to combat Irving on his own ground. His intensive study of the history of the Third

Reich and German language paid off: “I don’t think I have ever gone into court with

such a full belt of bullets.”

He opened his case saying: “My Lord, Mr Irving calls himself a historian. The truth

is, however, that he is not a historian at all but a falsifier of history. To put it bluntly,

he is a liar.”

In style, Rampton was old school and the epitome of an earlier generation at the

Bar: a big fire in his room, slightly ragged gown and wig, and always a fine bottle of

claret on hand. He never wanted to be a judge as he did not like judging others, and

neither did he want to have to impose lengthy prison sentences, doubting that prison

worked. As an advocate he used charm, his formidable intellect and a mastery of

language and debating skills to win over both judges and juries.

Pia Sarma, editorial legal director at The Times, who instructed him many times,

described him as “a superb advocate, brilliant. I recall him as thoughtful, contrary,

single-minded not given to grandstanding or pomposity at all; irascible and sometimes

contemptuous but a perfect gent and delightfully unconventional on occasion.”

Lord Garnier KC, who was his pupil, said: “Without doubt, he was the finest

defamation lawyer of the late 20th and 21st centuries in terms of his knowledge of

the law, and ability to apply it. He was understated, not grandstanding; more like a

Latin master, carefully explaining to the jury the evidence and what was needed to

reach a conclusion, but not lecturing them.”

The eight-week libel trial in 2000 became a key test of the defence of “justification”

or truth, and Irving who represented himself was found by Mr Justice Gray guilty of

John Richard Anthony Rampton was born in 1941 in Norwich, the eldest of four (his

siblings survive him). His father, Anthony, was an army officer involved in military



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training and his mother, Joan (née Shanks), was from Paisley, Scotland. They settled

in Petersham, Surrey. After the war, Anthony rejoined the family firm, Freemans, a

pioneer in the clothing catalogue business. When it went public in 1963, the parents

set up the Hilden Charitable Trust with the profits, which to this day funds causes

such as homelessness, refugee and prison charities. Each day in chambers before

starting work Rampton would deal with the applications to the trust for funds.

He went to Bryanston school in Dorset, excelling in music and sports, especially

rugby and cricket the latter he played into his sixties for the chambers team he

founded, the Brickbats. He went on to study classics at The Queen’s College,

Oxford, and was encouraged by his father to go to the Bar because of his love

of debating and argument. In 1963 he married his childhood sweetheart, Carolyn

Clarke. She later worked for the Liberal Democrats’ whips office in the House of

Lords and was appointed MBE for public service. Last April they celebrated their

60th wedding anniversary. She survives him along with their three children: James,

a journalist, Patrick, who runs his own estate agents, and Catherine, who runs her

own garden design business.

Rampton was called to the Bar in 1965. He joined One Brick Court, a set of chambers

that specialised in media law, and stayed there for more than 50 years. In 1987, he

was appointed a QC and later became head of chambers. With pupils he was

kind and generous with both his time and intellect; and financially, too, frequently

helping out those who fell on hard times, including a member of chambers and one

of his clerks.

For many years, Rampton was a heavy smoker usually Gitanes. One of his pupils

was (Dame) Victoria Sharp, now president of the King’s Bench Division. She hated

smoking and stuffed his cigarette with firework gunpowder, which exploded during

a case conference. “I won’t be smoking that one,” he remarked with a smile, before

simply lighting another.

He built a huge practice acting for both plaintiffs and defendants. In the McLibel trial,

he reputedly earned £2,000 a day for the two-and-a-half-year hearing, which ended

in 1996. It was a pyrrhic victory for the company, which won the trial but lost the PR

battle. Recently George Galloway, for whom Rampton acted and won against The

Daily Telegraph over false allegations that he had received up to £375,000 a year

from Saddam Hussein’s Iraqi regime, said: “He was simply magnificent. Literally.

Magisterial, witty, wise, like a vintage Rolls-Royce.” Another key win was when

he represented Associated Newspapers Group plc in Lucas-Box v News Group

Newspapers Ltd. Rampton also co-wrote the seminal textbook Duncan and Neill

on Defamation.

SAS shooting of three IRA members in Gibraltar in 1988. Their inquiry effectively

exonerated the journalists, concluding that it was “trenchant” work made in “good

faith and without ulterior motives”.

Outside work, Rampton indulged his passion for fly fishing, learnt from his father,

whether on the River Itchen in Hampshire, the River Grimsa in Iceland or on the Isle

of Arran. A bon viveur, he had a fine wine collection and he and his wife hosted many

generous parties at their house in Barnes, west London.

Scotland, where his mother grew up, was a passion: he was a devotee of Scottish

rugby and had debentures at Murrayfield. When Scotland famously came back

from 31-0 to draw the match against England 38-all at Twickenham in 2019, he was

reduced to tears of joy.

Rampton was also an accomplished caricaturist, drawing cartoons during trials. He

was renowned for completing The Times Crossword, doing the across clues first.

He also had a deep love of Mozart and would spend hours reading the scores as he

listened to the music. A polymath who relished etymology and ideas across many

disciplines, his interests embraced Renaissance art, Rembrandt’s self-portraits and

English ecclesiastical architecture.

The film Denial spawned for Rampton a second career lecturing in schools, colleges

and synagogues after he retired in 2019. But despite the film’s focus, the trial itself

Rampton insisted was not all about the Holocaust or about the Jews: “It was about

the distortion of history in order to exonerate Adolf Hitler.” As such, it was about the

new post-truth era, he told Jewish Renaissance magazine in 2017.

In comments that resound today, he said: “It’s the word of the moment, because

we live in an era where facts as we knew them don’t have a meaning any more. If

somebody wants to, they can believe the Holocaust didn’t happen or, if it did, the

Jews deserved it. There’s a very good scene in the film of the press conference

Deborah [Lipstadt] gives. She says: ‘Opinion is fine but there’s a difference between

fact and opinion. Elvis is dead the icecaps are melting.’”

Richard Rampton KC, MBE, libel silk, was born on 8 January, 1941. He died of frailty

on December 23, 2023, aged 82.

Reprinted with kind permission of The Times where this was first printed on 12

January 2024. © Times Newspapers Limited 2024

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He was co-author with Lord (David) Windlesham of the report into Thames

Television’s controversial Death on the Rock programme, which investigated the



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DONALD RUTHERFORD

Donald Rutherford died in Edinburgh on 11 August 2023.

He was born in Newcastle-upon-Tyne on 5 September 1942

to parents Lilian and George. He remembered a Morrison

shelter in the family home, placed there during the war in

case of air raids on Newcastle. He retained a deep affection

for Newcastle and the north-east of England throughout his

life. He had two brothers, one of whom, Malcolm, tragically

died in childhood. Donald didn’t speak much of this loss, but it had clearly deeply

affected him. His other brother, David, lived in Norfolk until his death earlier in 2023.

Donald went up to The Queen’s College in 1959 to read Philosophy, Politics &

Economics, graduating in 1962. Whilst an undergraduate, he founded a College

Rambling Club, which used to venture out into the highways and byways of the

surrounding Oxfordshire countryside. As an undergraduate, he toyed with the idea

of a career in manufacturing, and there was an internship with Proctor & Gamble

involving (so he used to recount) work on trying to stabilise the formula for Fairy

soap. In the end, he left Oxford to pursue, first, a career in the City of London. He

was employed for a while with stockbrokers Kitkat & Aitken, as well as the Evening

Standard. He greatly enjoyed his work for the Standard, which often entailed having to

attend companies’ annual meetings. In those days, attendees at such meetings would

be plied with copious amounts of alcohol. Back at the office, well oiled, Donald had

to attempt to construct a report of the company’s financial position for the following

day’s edition of the paper. He rather enjoyed this work.

In 1969, he applied for and secured a Lectureship in Economics at Edinburgh

University. He was to hold this post for the next 40 years, retiring in 2009. In addition

to his lecturing duties, his early years at Edinburgh also saw him acting as a warden

at the Pollock Halls of Residence. He is fondly remembered by students from those

days who resided in the halls of residence, some of whom were the source of hijinks

which Donald had, good-naturedly, to curtail.

Donald was a leading expert on the history of economic thought, and generations

of students benefitted from his deep knowledge of the subject. That knowledge

was made manifest not only in brilliant teaching, but also in a number of important

published works. He left behind a highly regarded Dictionary of Economics (now in its

third edition) as well as the popular work Economics: Key Concepts. A monograph,

entitled In the Shadow of Adam Smith, explored the impact of Smith’s work on later

economists, and his last book, Suspicions of Markets: Critical Attacks from Aristotle

to the Twenty-First Century, is an historical tour de force. Donald was also the editor

of the masterful two volume Dictionary of British Economists, a project which involved

his having to manage the contributions of a staggering 198 contributors. It was a

testimony to his skill and diplomacy that he was able to oversee such a herculean

task, one which few others could have pulled off. At his death, he was compiling

notes for a new book, diligently filling several notebooks. Alas, this final work will be

denied to us.

Latterly, Donald’s health declined, and he became housebound. However, he enjoyed

the steady stream of visitors who came to see him, as this gave him the chance to

indulge in his favourite pastime: quizzing others about their lives and hearing what

they had been up to.

Donald leaves behind a sister-in-law, Moira, his niece, Karyn, and many friends who

will greatly miss his wit, his conversation, his naughty sense of humour, and his

unfailing kindness.

Professor Martin A. Hogg LLB, LLM, PhD, FRSA, FSA Scot

ED PARISH SANDERS

Ed Parish (E. P.) Sanders died peacefully at his home in

Durham, North Carolina, on November 21st, 2022. He was

85 years old. Ed was born in Grand Prairie, Texas, to the

late Eula Thomas Sanders and Mildred Parish Sanders.

He attended Grand Prairie High School, where he was a

star football player as well as an outstanding student. Ed

went on to receive academic degrees from Texas Wesleyan

College in Fort Worth, the Perkins School of Theology at Southern Methodist

University in Dallas, and Union Theological Seminary in New York City, where he

studied under W. D. Davies. With generous financial support from others, he was also

able to study Rabbinic Hebrew with David Daube in Oxford and Mordechai Kamrat

in Jerusalem, experiences that profoundly shaped his career.

A world-renowned scholar of the New Testament, early Christianity, and late Second

Temple Judaism, Ed was passionate about his research and teaching. He authored

10 books, most notably Paul and Palestinian Judaism: A Comparison of Patterns of

Religion (1977; 40th anniversary edition, 2017). He also published dozens of book

chapters and scholarly articles and lectured widely to academic and lay audiences.

Ed taught for nearly 40 years, first at McMaster University in Canada (1966-84), then

at Queen’s College in Oxford (1984-90), and finally at Duke University in Durham

(1990-2005). He was deeply honoured to receive the 2016 Shevet Achim Award

from the Council of Centers on Jewish-Christian Relations for his “outstanding

contributions to Jewish-Christian understanding.” Ed was a Fellow of the British

Academy and of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and held honorary

doctorates from the University of Oxford, University of Helsinki, and Southern

Methodist University.

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In private life Ed was an avid reader of all sorts of books, an enthusiastic sports fan

and conversationalist, an adventurous traveller, lifelong gardener, devoted friend,

and a loving husband, father, and grandfather. He appreciated the finer things in life,

from fancy fountain pens and knives to special holiday food and drink, and loved to

share his enthusiasms with family and friends. “Old-fashioned” in the best sense,

he instilled in the family a sense of formality and an appreciation for traditions, and

gently modeled the “right way” to do things, from planting a rose to driving a stick

shift to writing an essay. He never forgot his Texas roots and enjoyed reconnecting

with old friends from his high school and college days there after he retired.

Ed was pre-deceased by his parents and by his brother, Jack, who was also an

accomplished New Testament scholar. He is survived by his wife of 26 years,

Becky Gray; his daughter, Laura Turcotte (from a previous marriage to Becky Jill

Hollingsworth); and two grandsons, Jonah and Gabriel Turcotte.

JENNIFER SHAW NÉE SPICER

Written by his family

My lovely wife, Jennifer Shaw (née Spicer), passed away on

30 May 2023 at the LOROS hospice in Leicestershire. She

was surrounded by her family and slipped away peacefully.

made for her on an almost daily basis. The second was as a tax advisor, where she

understandably came home with fewer cards and pictures, but where she equally

managed to find happiness and success.

We married in 1998 and had two children, Oliver and Martha. Jenny loved being

a mum and was rightly proud of her children and of the love that she gave them

throughout her life, which will no doubt last the rest of theirs.

Jen lived for a long time under the shadow of the cancer that finally took her, but

however much she suffered through her illness she was never defined by it. She

retained that remarkable ability to appreciate and savour every single moment, and

though it ended far too soon, hers was a life lived to its fullest with love, kindness

and joy.

Jenny is survived by her husband, Michael, their two children, Oliver and Martha, her

parents Terry and Maureen and her sister, Caroline, as well as many close friends.

We are all heartbroken that she is gone, but feel equally privileged to have known

and loved her as we did.

Michael Shaw (English and Modern Languages, 1991)

ANTHONY SIMON

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Jenny was born on 30 September 1972 in Catterick, North

Yorkshire. As part of a military family, Jenny spent much

of her childhood moving around, living in different places

and attending different schools. She would often share her childhood memories of

living in Berlin, holding a special fondness for the elaborate and fantastical Christmas

parades.

Anthony John Blundell Simon was born on 26 April 1945,

to parents serving in the British Navy. During the war his

father was a navigator on Atlantic convoys and, later on,

a British aircraft carrier in the Pacific, while his mother

joined the Women’s Royal Naval Service (WRENS) in 1939,

becoming a Signals Officer.

Jenny studied Modern History at Queen’s, which is where we met and where I fell in

love with her. I was remarkably lucky, and also completely amazed, that she loved me

back. Oxford was a magical time for us both, with so many wonderful experiences

and memories. Jenny had a particular appreciation for the sheer beauty of the

College, never taking it for granted and making the most of every day spent there.

Jenny was one of those rare people who could thoroughly live in and savour the

present, finding great joy and appreciation in both the special and the everyday

moments of life. Her ability to share that happiness with others drew people towards

her, generating deep and loyal friendships.

Education was important to the Simons and Anthony was to spend many of his

happiest years at some of the world’s top schools and universities.

After attending boarding school from the age of nine, Anthony took up a place

at Westminster School in London, where he developed his lifelong passion for

languages, studying French and German, and for the arts. As part of the school’s

400th anniversary celebrations he had the honour of presenting the school’s drama

and stage programme to Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II. His time at Westminster

was an active one, singing in the Choir, performing in the drama club, playing cricket

and football, and participating in the school corps.

After Oxford, Jenny had two different careers. Her first was as a primary school

teacher, where she would come home with cards and pictures that the children

Following Westminster, Anthony came up to The Queen’s College (always ‘The

Queen’s’) in 1963 to read for a Bachelor’s degree in Modern Languages. Anthony



Obituaries

had been influenced by his deputy housemaster at Westminster to choose a college

with ‘diverse backgrounds’, and for him the College’s northern heritage duly fit the

bill. At Oxford, he immersed himself in drama, sports, the Eglesfield Musical Society,

and academic pursuits, excelling in French and German literature. His time in College

culminated in organising the successful Queen’s College Ball in 1965; indeed on later

trips back to College one would often hear him reminiscing about this and finding a

moment to go out and listen to student performances in the Fellows’ Garden.

As his contemporary Peter Poland (Modern Languages, 1963) writes:

With his formal education complete, Anthony joined CPC Europe in Brussels as

part of a group of high-potential managers. CPC, an American multinational, sought

to diversify from industrial starch products to consumer goods. Anthony’s career

at CPC involved significant responsibilities, including managing a critical safety

issue involving a mercury-contaminated product in 1973, which for him especially

underscored the importance of working across international borders to achieve

standardisation of products. In his many years at CPC Anthony was able to develop

brands such as Knorr while honing his marketing skills, eventually moving up into

the company’s senior management.

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Anthony and I were on the committee of the Queen’s College Spring Ball. For the

first time ever, we employed a ‘No.1 hit band’. They were called The Animals. Their

latest big Hit record at that time was called “We Gotta Get Out Of This Place” which

followed on from their first No.1 hit entitled “The House of the Rising Sun”.

The price for hiring 45 minutes of The Animals’ time was expensive but Anthony’s

sister Rosie got us a very good deal. At the time she was helping to run the UK’s top

rock TV programme called “Ready, Steady, Go” so she had many useful contacts.

The Ball was a sell-out and the College made a tidy profit. The Don in charge of the

Ball (Paul Foote) was initially horrified by what we were planning to spend. But he

was won over by the ticket sales. This must have been the first of Anthony’s many

commercial successes.

Stewart Jones (Modern Languages, 1963) also reminded me that Anthony appeared

in an obscure play while at Queen’s called Leonce und Lena by Georg Büchner in

which he played a lead part … for which he dyed his hair yellow. He was so pleased

with this yellow hair that he kept it for the rest of the term.

It was thus at Queen’s that Anthony was to meet what became an important and

life-long group of friends. Collectively known as ‘The Queen’s Table’ Anthony, Peter,

Stewart, and others would continue to meet up in the years to follow at places around

the world, including back at College nearly every September for drinks and dinner.

The annual Queen’s Table reunion, organised by Michael Roberts (Jurisprudence,

1962) became a highlight in Anthony’s calendar and whenever in Oxford he always

made it a point to stop in to visit the Old Members’ Office to discuss modern

languages and the latest College news.

After graduating from Oxford, Anthony joined Bowater, a paper and packaging

corporation, as a management trainee. However, this did not last long, and it

was from this point on that Anthony became an expatriate, soon relocating to

Fontainebleau to pursue an MBA at INSEAD. INSEAD’s international environment

invigorated him, and the friendships formed there also made a lasting impact, as did

witnessing the May 1968 student riots in Paris.

A focus on the international was to become perhaps the defining feature of Anthony’s

post-Queen’s life. He always saw himself as a Brit living in Europe and celebrated

the connection between the two. He used his talent for learning languages as a way

to build bridges and close gaps between the UK and the rest of the Continent. The

Brexit referendum in June 2016 was an existential moment in his life and something

which Anthony said he was never able to get over. He was adamant that there was

more keeping the UK and the EU together than driving them apart. He spent many

of his later years organising talks and colloquia, including two hosted in Oxford, to

discuss the importance of the UK-EU relationship and its role in fostering innovation,

cultural exchange, and political dialogue.

In 2017 Anthony was elected to an Eglesfield Benefactorship by the College’s

Governing Body, in recognition of his many years of support for the College, and

particularly the New Library. He was always proud of his connection to Queen’s

and would help wherever he could. In 2021 Anthony purchased for the College

Benjamin Sullivan’s Siegbert Prawer (2019), a true-to-life portrait of the former

Taylorian Professor of German and Emeritus Fellow that now hangs in the Senior

Common Room’s New Dining Room.

Anthony was a friend to many and his love of languages and different cultures was

apparent to all who knew him. His family reflected this, and at his funeral in Brussels

in October 2023 the sounds of at least eight languages could be heard at the postservice

reception. Anthony would have loved seeing all the people and cultures there

to celebrate and he will be missed by those from around the world who knew him.

Dr Justin B. Jacobs, Director of Development and Supernumerary Fellow

with contributions from Peter Poland (Modern Languages, 1963)



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NORMAN EDWARDS TERRELL

Norman Edwards Terrell was the son of John Cecil Terrell, a

cabinet maker, and Devie Dell Edwards, a seamstress and

department store manager. He was an only son.

A native of Texas, Norman Terrell began his undergraduate

studies at the University of Texas in Austin but at the

outbreak of the Korean War he left college to join the Air

Force, which assigned him to the Defense Language School in Monterey, California,

where he graduated from a one-year intensive course in Polish. While enlisted,

he served as a language specialist in Germany where he learned German. Once

discharged, his parents having moved to Seattle, he enrolled at the University of

Washington where he majored in Slavic Languages. He was the recipient of a

Woodrow Wilson Scholarship and a Rhodes Scholarship. As a Rhodes Scholar, he

spent two years in Oxford at Queen’s studying the Russian language and literature.

In Kent, England, at a Thanksgiving Day Party in 1958 hosted by the alumni of

Marymount College, he met his future wife, Thalia Barzacos, a double major student

in History and French at the University of London and a native of Argentina. They

were married on 22 September 1960 in Buenos Aires, Argentina.

Terrell’s public service career started when he joined the US State Department in

1963 and ended in 1987, when he left NASA. In 1964, after a one year’s service in

the passport office in Washington DC, he was assigned to a two-year foreign service

tour of duty abroad in Canberra, Australia where he served under Ed Clark, the US

Ambassador to Australia, a close friend of President Lyndon Baines Johnson. His

second two-year stint abroad was in Poland, a hardship post during the iron curtain

days. Returning stateside, he transferred to the civil service, becoming an official in

the Senior Executive Service. As such, Terrell worked in several technical agencies,

where he dealt daily with several complex engineering, scientific and technical

materials. These agencies included the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC),

the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency (ACDA) and NASA. He was Director

of International Affairs in NASA, Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Science

and Technology, the top science and technology job in the State Department, and

Assistant Director for Nuclear Non-Proliferation in ACDA, serving in that capacity

under Eugene Rostow, and acting as an advisor to Henry Kissinger during the nonproliferation

negotiations with the Soviet Union. The ACDA job required an in-depth

knowledge of conventional and nuclear weapons design and technology as well as

expertise in strategic analysis. He retired from the government as NASA’s Associate

Administrator for Policy, serving under Administrator James M. Beggs and Deputy

Administrator Hans Mark. As a result of his government career, he delved deeply

into several technical and legal fields, including nuclear engineering, aerospace

technology, regulatory law, and mathematical statistics. In his 25 years of government

service, he served his country under six presidents: Jack F. Kennedy, Lyndon B.

Johnson, Richard M. Nixon, Gerald R. Ford, Jimmy Carter, and Ronald Reagan.

Norman is survived by Thalia, his wife, friend, and partner of 63 years, and his three

children, John, Ariadne, and Vanessa and three grandchildren, Arianne, Kevin, and

Austin. He shared with Thalia a love of music, literature, and languages. He joined

her translation agency once he retired from his government service in 1987. They

delivered their last translation on August 30, 2023, three months before Norman’s

passing and 44 years after their translation agency was first launched in 1979.

JOHN ROBERT TURNER

Thalia Terrell

It is 0th week of Michaelmas Term 1984. An incongruous

figure arrives at Iffley Road. Young and blond yet balding,

astigmatic, crisply dressed in a Jaeger blazer, John Turner

did not fit into any student tribe. We hurtled around on old

Raleighs; John had a bus pass. We slouched around in

newly fashionable Levi’s; John wore pressed Farah slacks.

We offered visitors Typhoo and Hobnobs from Honey’s;

he had a decanter of Tia Maria and his own fridge full of Marks & Spencer quiche.

Looking and sometimes acting like someone who was three times the age of

almost everyone else, John instantaneously became a “college character”. He was

a genuinely different person who rapidly gained the lifelong friendship and respect of

many in both the JCR and MCR, albeit frequently leaving us perplexed at his unique

ways. While utterly comfortable in his own skin, John also loved to spend time with

others. He seemed to know everything about everyone (the “Back Quad Stasi” or

“college uncle” depending on your point of view) – no doubt due to his well-ordered

room becoming a regular gathering place for fellow students. Here John regally

dispensed his seemingly inexhaustible supply of food, drink and well-meaning advice

in equal measure.

Given his strong predilection for administering his own life as a creature of habit,

John was a committee man par excellence. He served with distinction on the

1986 Maharani Ball Committee, taking charge of catering. “Once he realised that

his personal preference for Tournedos Rossini and Chateauneuf du Pâpe did

not fit the costings, he got the job done efficiently and swiftly, communicating

well with the kitchen,” recalled a fellow committee member. His confidence and

grasp of detail could make him doughty to the point of stubbornness on this and

subsequent committees.

Obituaries



Obituaries

After making such a strong impression at Queen’s, John went on to do the same at

Lloyd’s TSB over a distinguished 36-year career. Thanks to his friend and colleague

Nick Hughes for his generous contribution to this article.

John progressed to the Commercial Banking business from training in branch. Here

he was very much in his element, working in the International Trade Advisory and

Transaction Services business, also known as ITAS, where he spent much of his

time financing aircraft for the bank. He had always been fascinated by air travel,

often catching the Heathrow Shuttle from outside Queen’s just to watch take-offs

and landings. He loved travel for his whole life, especially with friends and their

families, and his own parents when they were alive. He liked to travel in style; as his

goddaughter said in his funeral elegy: “Uncle John sat with us in Economy when we

travelled together. He pretended not to mind.”

John’s career evolved in the bank, and he took on the role of Head of Portfolio

Management, where his expertise ranged across aircraft, rail and shipping portfolios.

It was a challenging role, made all the more demanding by John’s poor eyesight.

“At no point did he ever let this hold him back,” said Nick. “There were so many

technical reports and legal documents that he would read late in to the night. But

John knew what he wanted and was extremely determined to deliver, often without

letting people see how hard it was for him to do so.”

Earlier this year, John met with some fellow Queenspeople and shared his plans

for the future. He was about to embark on a tour of the Far East to see old friends

and decompress after a long career, to be followed by a retirement dedicated to

the service of charities. He looked lean and fit, at last appearing to be the youngest

person in the room. It is a tragedy that he was not able to see all those plans

come to fruition. And yet, it is impossible not to smile when thinking of this unique

Queensman. John loved people, and people – from his decent, hard-working parents

to his many friends and colleagues - loved John.

John had no surviving family when he died, but St Everilda’s, Nether Poppleton,

near York, where his parents had been married and he had been christened, was

full for his funeral service. Almost all the mourners were from his two other lifelong

“families”: The Queen’s College and Lloyd’s TSB. The only disappointment at his

lively wake was that The Grand Hotel in York did not have any Tia Maria, although

the quiche was excellent.

Simon Gotelee (Modern History, 1984) and Martin O’Halloran (Modern History,

1984) with a contribution from John’s friend and colleague, Nick Hughes.

LAURIE VEALE

Obituaries

His own experience made John a passionate advocate for disability inclusion, and

he led the Access community at Lloyds for over 13 years. He grew Access from very

humble beginnings to over 1,300 active members, helping and inspiring countless

individuals across the disabled community of the bank. When John announced that

he was soon to retire and would need to step down as Access Chair, the response

was overwhelming – including tears, personally written poems, a video message

from Gareth Gates and a standing ovation at his last Access national event. It was

clear that John had had a hugely positive impact on everyone within Access and

leaves an incredible legacy.

John also took much pleasure in seeing his Lloyd’s mentees progress and formed

lifelong friendships with many of them. At Queen’s too, John worked hard to ensure

that other students might one day benefit and flourish from the same benefits that

he had.

Over the last 15 years, John gave back and supported his College as an active member

of the Development Committee, helping Provosts and Directors of Development find

their feet with Old Member relations - providing both perspective and wise counsel.

At the end of 2023, John’s lifetime of support was formally recognised by Queen’s

and he was elected to a Philippa Benefactorship by the College’s Governing Body.

A fitting tribute for such a passionate advocate for Queen’s.

In November 1943 Lawrence “Laurie” Veale was offered

a place to read Physics, starting the following autumn.

The following month he volunteered for the RAF and was

selected for a University Short Course for Commissioned

Aircrew. As he had already been accepted by Queen’s, that

was where he was sent in October 1944.

When the war ended on VJ Day 1945, Laurie was still under training as a navigator.

On completion of his training, he decided not to take a permanent commission, so

was mustered to ground duties. It would take nearly another three years until he

was demobbed, after which he returned to Oxford in October 1948 to begin his

degree course.

Always keen on sport, while he was in the RAF he was a regular member of his

station soccer team and signed amateur forms for Manchester City. On returning to

Oxford, he continued to be active in sport, representing the College at both soccer

and rugby, and winning a Soccer “Blue” in the 1949/50 season. The match against

Cambridge was played at White Hart Lane, the Tottenham Hotspur ground. Laurie

scored the second Oxford goal in a 2-2 draw, with the first Oxford goal being scored

by Donald Carr, the England cricketer and senior cricket administrator.



Obituaries

Laurie Veale was born near Lanark, in Scotland, in 1926. Just before his fifth birthday,

his family moved to Holme, a village in Cumbria (then Westmoreland), roughly halfway

between Kendal and Lancaster. He attended the local Heversham Grammar School.

On graduating in 1951, he worked briefly for Pilkington Glass in St. Helens. In

September 1952 he accepted an offer to teach Physics and Maths at Boston

Grammar School. He later became Head of Physics, and in 1967 was appointed

Deputy Headmaster, a position he held for 21 years until his retirement in 1988. He

was also Acting Headmaster for the Spring Term in 1978.

In April 1953 he married Moira Sylvia Jamieson, from Kendal, who survives him. They

celebrated their 70th wedding anniversary in 2023. Their only son, Stuart, was born

in 1959, and also survives him.

At Boston Grammar School Laurie was actively involved in school sport, coaching

the 1st XI soccer team, the tennis team, and U14 cricket. He also played soccer for

the Old Bostonians football team and was a member of Rochford Tower Tennis Club

and Boston Golf Club for many years.

He started his career in the early computer industry with English Electric in Kidsgrove

working on early mainframe computers such as DEUCE, one of the earliest British

commercially available computers, which traced its routes to Alan Turing’s ACE

machine and his wartime work at Bletchley Park in code breaking.

Dad’s heart was always in teaching and research, and it was therefore no surprise that

in 1969, he moved into academia, becoming a Senior Lecturer in Computer Science

at the then North Staffordshire Polytechnic in Stafford (becoming Staffordshire

University in 1992). He specialised in computer applications in archaeology, obtaining

his PhD from the University of Keele in 1972. In a university teaching and research

career of over 30 years, he published widely in computer archaeology and also in

cave research, chairing the British Cave Research Association.

In retirement, he was busier than ever, including further research activities, travel,

singing, Scottish country dancing, theatre, railways and cruise ship lecturing, as well

as being an attentive grandfather to six grandchildren. After a very full, well-lived life,

he died peacefully in Stafford on 12 December 2023. He is survived by my mother

Ann, his wife of 61 years and two sons, me and David.

Obituaries

In retirement, Laurie and Moira enjoyed many holidays touring around Europe in

their Volkswagen camper van. They were also keen dancers, particularly modern

sequence dancing.

He died peacefully in Willoughby Grange Nursing Home in Boston on 12 August

2023, aged 97.

JOHN WILCOCK

Stuart Veale

A proud Yorkshire man, born in Bradford in 1937 into a

musical family, my father won a City of Bradford scholarship

to Bradford Grammar school in 1948, developing many

interests at an early age that would stay with him for

his whole life – caving, archaeology, scouting, science,

singing, and walking. After two years of national service

in the RAF as a radar specialist on early jet fighters such

as Gloster Meteors and Hawker Hunters, he read physics at The Queen’s College,

matriculating in 1958. He recalls how ‘northern’ the College was in those days – he

joined 16 other Bradford Grammar pupils. A keen caver, he was a leading member

of the pioneering 1961 Oxford University Cave Club expedition to Northern Spain.

He remained in close contact with the OUCC, going on further expeditions, including

the 50th Anniversary one in 2011.

PAUL WILLNER

Dr Ian Wilcock

Paul Willner was one of five who entered the Final Honour

School of PPP (Psychology, Physiology and Philosophy)

at Queen’s in 1966-67, a large group for the study of

psychology, which was still a relatively new and small

field at the University of Oxford. Paul was the outstanding

scientist in the Queen’s group, obtaining first class honours

in both psychology and physiology in 1969. He chose to

remain in Oxford, working on insect neurobiology with Jane Mellanby and obtaining

a DPhil in Behavioural Neuroscience. Following this he took up the position of

Lecturer in Psychology at the City of London Polytechnic (now London Metropolitan

University) in 1973, rising to Professor in 1988. In 1993 he moved to the University

of Swansea as Professor of Psychology.

Paul’s contributions to interdisciplinary research in psychology and physiology were

many. In 1989 he became the founding editor-in-chief of the journal Behavioural

Pharmacology, a post he only relinquished in 2000, while remaining an editor of the

journal. His research on depression, developing the animal models which he had

first learned in Oxford, is perhaps best known. A sabbatical year at the University

of California, San Diego in the early 1980s led to an influential book on Depression:

A Psychobiological Synthesis and a few years later to his ‘chronic mild stress’



Obituaries

model of depression. As late as 2013 he published a superb review article on ‘The

neurobiology of depression and antidepressant action’ in the journal Neuroscience

& Biobehavioral Reviews. It integrates data from affective neuroscience, neuro- and

psychopharmacology, neuroendocrinology, neuroanatomy, and molecular biology.

Paul succeeded not only in making unipolar major depression understandable in

terms of a developing vulnerability (‘a depressive diathesis’) as a result of cumulative

episodes of stress (‘kindling’), but also offered an explanation of how it could be

healed by the action of serotonergic antidepressants on the hippocampus.

BENEFACTIONS

We are delighted to acknowledge the generosity of those donors who made a

gift to Queen’s in the Financial Year 2023-24 (1 August 2023 – 31 July 2024). All

care has been taken to ensure the accuracy of this list. However, if you spot

an error please accept our apologies and notify the Old Members’ Office so

that we can amend our records for future publications.

Benefactions

Paul was a person of wide interests, popular, and engaged with others from

undergraduate days onwards. Not self-centred, he listened closely to what others

had to say. We kept in contact through reunions at Queen’s right up to a joyful

encounter at the College’s garden party in the summer of 2023 just a few months

before his sudden untimely death as the result of a cerebral bleed. Paul wanted to

make a difference to society and expended huge energy in all he did. At Swansea

he became interested in problems of drug addiction, establishing a centre for its

study and the treatment of addicted individuals. In 2000 he resigned his post at

Swansea University while remaining an Emeritus Professor and worked for the NHS

as a Chartered Clinical Psychologist, having obtained the necessary qualifications.

As well as treating patients, he collaborated in research on patients with intellectual

disabilities, a relatively new area of research for him, while maintaining his previous

interests.

He was strongly involved in societal and political affairs and was a passionate

‘European’. Rather than being discouraged by the vote for Brexit he energised

resistance to the attitudes that he considered had brought it about. He founded

the pro-EU group Swansea for Europe, became a board member of Wales for

Europe, and joined various pro-European groups within the Labour party. In his

last days he was working on European issues, focusing on the case for restoring

freedom of movement. As always with Paul his determination to persuade others

was coupled with a concern to listen first to what underlay their contrary attitudes.

His commitments could be seen reflected in his family background. His parents had

fled from Vienna in 1939 to escape persecution and they and he remained hugely

grateful for the reception they received in the UK. Paul’s own family life was very

happy, and he enjoyed travelling with his wife, Heather Reid, their children Matthew

and Jessica, and his four grandchildren. He and his wife had only recently returned

to Oxford to be closer to their family. As his obituary in Behavioural Pharmacology

concludes, ‘he is sorely missed’.

Peter Coleman, PPP (1966)

Eglesfield Benefactors

Anonymous x 3

Mr Michael Boyd (1958) qs

Mr Mike Hawley (1959)

Dr Ray Bowden (1960) qs

Dr Robert Feinberg (1961) and

Mrs Betsy Feinberg

Mr Andrew Parsons (1962)

Mr Rick Haythornthwaite (1975) qs

Philippa Benefactors

Anonymous x 2

Mr John Palmer (1949) qs

Dr Bill Parry (1955) qs

The Revd Canon Hugh Wybrew (1955) qs

Mr Tim Evans (1956) qs

Mr Walter Gilges (1956)

Mr Barry Saunders (1956) qs

Mr Martin Bowley (1957) qs

Mr Keith Dawson (1957) qs

Mr Gordon Dilworth (1957) qs

Mr Charles Frieze (1957) qs

Dr Roger Lowman (1959) qs

Mr John Parsloe (1959)

Mr John Rix (1959) qs

Mr Michael Lodge (1960) qs

Mr John Price (1960)

Mr Martin Dillon (1961) qs

Mr Ron Glaister (1961) qs

QS: Queen’s Society member

Mr Paul Newton (1975)

Dr Mel Stephens (1976)

Mr Mark Williamson (1982) qs

Mr Jacky Wong (1986) qs

Mr Chris Eskdale (1987) and

Mrs Julia Eskdale

Mrs Nishi Grose (1998) qs

Mr David Brownlee (1962)

Mr Philip Hetherington (1962)

Professor Peter Bell (1963)

Mr Raymond Kelly (1963)

Dr Clive Landa (1963)

Dr Dennis Luck (1963)

Mr William Marsterson (1963)

Dr Ken Morallee (1963)

Professor John Baines (1964) qs

District Judge Chris Beale (1964) qs

Professor Dr Rod Levick (1964) qs

Professor Lee Saperstein (1964) qs

Mr John Clement (1965) qs

Mr Derek Marsh (1965)

Dr Michael Collop (1966) qs

Mr Andrew Horsler (1966) qs

Mr Gregory Stone (1966)

Dr Juan Mason (1967) qs



Benefactions

Dr Bruce McLucas (1967)

Mr Paul Clark (1968)

Mr Alan Mitchell (1968) qs

Dr Howard Rosenberg (1968) qs

Mr Jim Gibson (1969)

Mr David Seymour (1969) qs

Professor Hugh Arnold (1970) qs

Mr Richard Geldard (1972) qs

Mr Tom Ward (1973) qs

Mr Robin Wilkinson (1973) qs

Mr Philip Middleton (1974)

Mr Stuart White (1975) qs

Mr Fred Arnold (1976) qs

Mr Mark Neale (1976) qs

Mr Gerry Hackett (1977) qs

Mr Terence Keyes (1977)

Mr Charlie Anderson (1978) qs

Mr Nick Beecroft (1978) qs

Dr Chris Ringrose (1979) qs

Mr Steve Crown (1980) qs

Mr John Ford (1980)

Mrs Diana Webster (1980) qs

Mr Donald Pepper (1981) qs

Mr Jonathan Webster (1981) qs

Mr Joseph Archie (1982)

Old Members

Anonymous x 23

Mr Graham Lewis (1948) qs

Mr David Thornber (1948) qs

Dr Duncan Thomas (1949) qs

Mr Stan Whitehead (1950) qs

Mr John Hazel (1951) qs

Mr Allan Preston (1951)

Mr David Duke-Evans (1952)

Professor Bob Fowler (1952)

The Revd Colin Hurford (1952)

Professor Keith Jennings (1952) qs

Dr Tony Lee (1952) qs

Mr John Percy (1952) qs

Mr Geoff Peters (1952) qs

Mr Jim Ranger (1952) qs

Mr Alan Leigh (1982) qs

Mr John Turner (1984)

Mr Mark Ashton-Rigby (1986)

Mr Krispen Culbertson (1986)

Mr Bob Burgess (1987) qs

Mr John Stansfield (1987) QS

Mr Tim Wong (1987)

Mr John Bigham (1988) qs

Ms Sia Applin (1990) qs

Mr Cameron Marshall (1991) qs

Dr Christoph Rojahn (1991)

Mr Jonathan Woolf (1991) qs

Mr Ian Brown (1993) qs

Mr Marc Kish (1993)

Mr Matthew Lawrence (1993) qs

Mrs Claudine Heron (1994)

Mr John Hull (1994) qs

Mr Nick Stebbing (1994) qs

Mrs Anna Hull (1995) qs

Mr Chris Woolf (1995) qs

Mr John Startin (1997)

Mr Dan Lynn (1999) qs

Mr Ahmet Feridun (2003) qs

Dr Bernhard Langwallner (2007)

Mrs Jayne Saberton-Haynes qs

His Excellency Michael Atkinson

(1953) qs

Mr Michael Bradford (1953)

Mr Richard Brimelow (1953)

Mr David Bryan (1954) qs

Mr Bill Burkinshaw (1953) qs

Professor Victor Hoffbrand (1953)

Mr Donald Clarke (1954) qs

Mr Michael Drake (1954) qs

Mr Robin Ellison (1954) qs

Dr Edwin Gobbett (1954)

Mr Gerry Hunting (1954) qs

Mr John Kennett (1954)

Mr Don Naylor (1954) qs

Mr Christopher Atkinson (1955)

Mr Strachan Heppell (1955) qs

Mr Peter Lefroy-Owen (1955)

Dr David Myers (1955) qs

Mr Derek Whilesmith (1955)

Mr Eric Miller (1956)

Dr Bill Roberts (1956) qs

Dr Brian Sproat (1956) qs

Mr Christopher Stephenson (1956) qs

Mr Graham Sutton (1956) qs

The Revd Canon Michael Arundel

(1957) qs

Professor David Catchpole (1957) qs

Mr Ian Chisholm (1957) qs

Dr David Hirst (1957)

Mr Colin Hughes (1957) qs

Professor Laurence King (1957) qs

Mr Krishnan Krishnan (1957)

Dr Brian Salter-Duke (1957) qs

Mr Martin Sayer (1957) qs

Mr Peter Thomson (1957) qs

Mr Roger Cline (1958)

Mr Malcolm Dougal (1958) qs

Mr Gerald Evans (1958) qs

Dr Michael Gagan (1958) qs

Mr Nigel Hughes (1958) qs

Mr Richard Hull (1958) qs

Canon Christopher Lamb (1958)

Dr John Reid (1958) qs

Mr Frank Venables (1958) qs

Mr Barrie Wiggham (1958) qs

Mr Robert Adams (1959)

Mr Michael Allen (1959) qs

Mr David Beaton (1959) qs

Mr Graham Brown (1959)

Mr Philip Burton (1959) qs

Mr John Foley (1959) qs

Professor John Gillingham (1959) qs

Professor David Goodall (1959) qs

Sir John Goulden (1959)

Professor John Matthews (1959) qs

Mr Ian Parker (1959) qs

Mr John Seely (1959) qs

Mr Alan Weyman (1959) qs

Mr Robin Bell (1960) qs

Mr Alistair Brown (1960)

Mr George Comer (1960)

The Rt Revd Graham Dow (1960)

Mr David Foster (1960) qs

Mr Jim Gilpin (1960) qs

Dr Don Ratcliffe (1960)

Mr James Robertson (1960) qs

Dr Derek Robinson (1960)

Mr David Ross (1960) qs

Mr David Stacey (1960)

Dr David Williamson (1960)

Mr Robert Wilson (1960) qs

Mr Chris Bearne (1961) qs

Mr Philip Bowers (1961) qs

Mr Desmond Cecil (1961)

Dr Norman Diffey (1961)

Lord Colin Low (1961) qs

Professor Andrew McPherson (1961) qs

Mr Richard Nosowski (1961) qs

Mr Godfrey Talford (1961) qs

Dr Ivan Walton (1961) qs

The Revd Graham Wilcox (1961) qs

Professor Nicholas Young (1961) qs

Professor John Coggins (1962) qs

Mr Bruce Collins (1962) qs

Mr Martin Colman (1962) qs

Dr Steve Higgins (1962) qs

Professor Bryan Jenner (1962)

Sir Paul Lever (1962) qs

Mr Adrian Milner (1962)

Mr Richard Mole (1962) qs

Professor Peter Tasker (1962) qs

Mr George Trevelyan (1962) qs

Professor Brad Amos (1963) qs

Mr Richard Batstone (1963) qs

Mr Stephen Davies (1963)

Sir Brian Donnelly (1963) qs

Professor Chris Eilbeck (1963)

The Revd Canon Andrew Greany (1963)

Mr Rod Hague (1963) qs

Mr Patrick Hastings (1963) qs

Mr Charles Lamond (1963)

Professor Ron Laskey (1963) qs

Professor Alan Lloyd (1963) qs

Mr Andrew Quaintance (1963)

Professor Kevin Rafferty (1963)

Benefactions



Benefactions

Mr John Skilbeck (1963)

Mr Keith Studer (1963)

Mr Alan Wilson (1963) qs

Professor Mike Atkinson (1964)

Dr Ian Bayman (1964)

Mr Philip Beaven (1964) qs

Pastor Jeff Clark (1964)

Dr Stephen Cockle (1964) qs

Mr Brian Evans-Watt (1964)

Mr John Gregory (1964) qs

Mr David Jeffrey (1964) qs

Mr Robin Leggate (1964) qs

Mr Paul Legon (1964) qs

Dr John Lewis (1964) qs

Dr John Marzillier (1964)

Dr Graham Robinson (1964) qs

Dr Alan Shepherd (1964) qs

Mr Tony Turton (1964) qs

Mr Stephen Watson (1964)

Mr Philip Wood (1964) qs

Mr John Wordsworth (1964) qs

Mr Andy Connell (1965) qs

Mr Peter Cramb (1965) qs

Mr Rodger Digilio (1965)

Professor John Feather (1965) qs

Mr Jeremy Fletcher (1965)

Professor Christopher Green (1965) qs

Dr Philip Helliwell (1965)

Mr Peter Hickson (1965) qs

Mr David Hudson (1965)

Lord Roger Liddle (1965) qs

Mr David Matthews (1965) qs

Mr William Morton (1965)

The Rt Revd Paul Richardson (1965) qs

Mr Ian Swanson (1965) qs

Mr David Syrus (1965) qs

Dr Paul Tichauer (1965)

Professor Max Wheeler (1965) qs

Dr Tony Whelan (1965)

Mr Alan Beatson (1966) qs

Dr George Biddlecombe (1966) qs

Mr Roger Blanshard (1966) qs

Professor Andrew Brook (1966)

Mr Christopher Buttery (1966)

Professor Peter Coleman (1966) qs

Mr Richard Coleman (1966) qs

Dr Alan Cornell (1966)

Mr Peter de Moncey-Conegliano (1966)

Professor Christopher Gilbert (1966)

Mr David Haynes (1966)

Mr John Kitteridge (1966) qs

Dr Nicholas Newton (1966)

Dr Paul Schur (1966) qs

Professor Peter Sugden (1966) qs

Mr Derek Swift (1966) qs

The Rt Revd Peter Wheatley (1966)

Mr Paul Wolfarth (1966)

Mr Richard Atkinson (1967) qs

Dr Tony Battilana (1967)

The Revd John Clegg (1967) qs

Dr Peter Kelly (1967)

Dr David Roberts (1967) qs

Professor Philip Schlesinger (1967) qs

Mr John Simkins (1967)

Mr Mike Thompson (1967) qs

Mr Rob Bollington (1968) qs

Mr Peter Burroughs (1968) qs

Professor Tim Connell (1968) qs

Mr John Crowther (1968) qs

Mr Thomas Earnshaw (1968) qs

Mr David Hudson (1968) qs

Mr Julian Jacobson (1968)

Mr Andrew King (1968)

Mr Colin Markley (1968)

Mr Steve Robinson (1968) qs

Professor Andrew Sancton (1968)

Mr Chris Thatcher (1968)

Mr Jon Watts (1968) qs

Dr John Windass (1968) qs

Mr Neil Boulton (1969) qs

Mr John Brown (1969)

Mr Robert Hamilton (1969)

Dr Martin Horner (1969)

Professor Mark Janis (1969)

Mr Abe Marrache (1969)

Mr Anthony Prosser (1969) qs

His Honour Erik Salomonsen (1969) qs

Mr Chris Shepperd (1969) qs

The Revd Dr Brian Sheret (1969)

Mr Alan Sherwell (1969) qs

Mr Nigel Tranah (1969) qs

Mr Frederik van Bolhuis (1969)

Mr Ian Walton-George (1969) qs

Dr Martin Cooper (1970) qs

The Revd Dr Richard Crocker (1970)

Dr Richard Heaton (1970)

Professor Peter Lamarque (1970)

Mr Jamie Macdonald (1970) qs

Mr Michael Roberts (1970)

Mr David Stubbins (1970) qs

Mr Andy Sutton (1970) qs

Professor Morton Thomas (1970)

Mr Eric Thompson (1970) qs

The Revd Canon Peter Wadsworth

(1970) qs

Mr Christopher West (1970) qs

Professor Stephen Williams (1970) qs

Dr Ephraim Borowski (1971)

Mr John Clare (1971) qs

Mr Chris Counsell (1971) qs

Mr Anthony Denny (1971)

Professor Jean-Daniel Dubois (1971)

Dr Michael Fleming (1971)

Mr Chris Fox (1971)

Mr Winston Gooden (1971) qs

Mr Francois Gordon (1971) qs

Dr Ulrich Grevsmühl (1971) qs

Mr Jonathan Hoffman (1971)

Professor Christopher Huang (1971) qs

Dr Michael Hurst (1971) qs

Dr Myfanwy Lloyd Jones (1971)

Mr John Peat (1971) qs

Mr Simon Peerless (1971)

Mr Anthony Rowlands (1971) qs

The Revd Julian Sankey (1971)

Mr Gary Stubley (1971) qs

Mr Derek Townsend (1971) qs

Dr Stephen Wilson (1971) qs

Mr Alaric Wyatt (1971) qs

Mr Nigel Allsop (1972) qs

Mr David Bowen (1972)

Mr Lou Fantin (1972)

Mr Peter Farrar (1972) qs

Dr Stephen Gilbey (1972) qs

Mr Peter Haigh (1972) qs

Mr Jonathan Harrison (1972)

Mr Will Jackson-Houlston (1972) qs

Mr Rhidian Jones (1972)

Mr John McLeod (1972) qs

Mr Carlo Morini (1972)

Mr Simon O’Leary (1972)

Mr David Palfreyman (1972) qs

Mrs Felicia Pheasant (1972) qs

Mr John Pheasant (1972) qs

Dr Keith Pringle (1972) qs

Mr Andrew Seager (1972) qs

Mr Alan Singer (1972)

Dr John Wellings (1972) qs

Mr Andrew Barlow (1973)

Mr David Baxter (1973)

Mr Albert Brenner (1973)

Mr Tony Middleton (1973) qs

Mr Robert Perry (1973) qs

Mr Stephen Plunkett (1973)

Mr Peter Richardson (1973) qs

Mr Dick Richmond (1973) qs

Mr Martin Riley (1973) qs

Dr Robert Sullivan (1973)

Dr Alan Turner (1973) qs

Professor Julius Weinberg (1973)

Mr Colin Wight (1973)

Mr Colin Williamson (1973)

Mr Russell Booth (1974)

Mr James Britton (1974) qs

Dr Mark Eddowes (1974) qs

Mr Simon English (1974) qs

Dr Grant Gibbons (1974)

Mr Eric Halpern (1974) qs

Mr Havilland Hart (1974) qs

Mr Robert Johnston (1974)

Mr Martin O’Donovan (1974)

Mr Richard Prince (1974)

Dr Kieran Quinlan (1974)

Mr Paul Rivett (1974)

Mr Tim Shaw (1974) qs

Dr Jeffrey Theaker (1974) qs

Mr Michael Thompson (1974)

Mr Steve Tomlinson (1974)

Dr Peter Williams (1974)

Professor Stephen Bell (1975)

Benefactions



Benefactions

Mr Oliver Burns (1975) qs

Mr James Calder (1975)

Professor John Cremona (1975)

Dr Rhodri Davies (1975) qs

Mr Ian Dougherty (1975) qs

Mr Robert Hughes (1975)

Dr Chris Hutchinson (1975) qs

Mr Andrew Jones (1975)

Professor Steffen Junker (1975)

Mr Graham Lane (1975)

Mr Martin Moore (1975) qs

Mr David Noble (1975)

Mr Nevill Rogers (1975) qs

Mr John Adams (1976)

Professor Peter Clarkson (1976) qs

Mr John Dixon (1976)

Dr Nick Hazel (1976) qs

Mr Raymond Holdsworth (1976)

Mr George Newhouse (1976)

Mr Jim Nicholson (1976)

Mr David Powell (1976)

Mr Brian Stubley (1976)

Dr Christopher Tibbs (1976) qs

Mr Edwin Allan (1977)

General Sir Richard Barrons (1977) qs

Mr Paul Bennett (1977) qs

Dr Michael Cadier (1977) qs

Christopher Donnellan (1977)

Dr Rupert Earl (1978)

Mr Mark Evans (1977) qs

Mr Paul Godsland (1977) qs

Mr Francis Grew (1977) qs

Mr Tony Hogg (1977)

Dr Gregor Jason (1977)

Mr Martin Kelly (1977) qs

Dr Nick Kitchen (1977)

Dr John Morewood (1977) qs

Mr Tim Morris (1977)

Mr Michael Penrice (1977) qs

Mr Václav Pinkava (1977)

Professor Matti Sintonen (1977)

Professor Udo Thiel (1977)

Mr Chris Thompson (1977)

Mr Mike Thompson (1977) qs

Mr Steve Anderson (1978) qs

Dr Nina Clark (1978)

Mr Paul Dawson (1978) qs

Dr Mike Fenn (1978) qs

Mr John Gibbons (1978) qs

Mr Peter Hamilton (1978) qs

Mr Jeremy Jackson (1978) qs

The Revd James Johnston (1978)

Mr John Keeble (1978) qs

Dr Simon Loughe (1978) qs

Mr Anthony Marks (1978)

Mr Graham Parnell (1978) qs

Mr Jervis Smith (1978) qs

Mr Neil Summers (1978)

Dr Trevor Barker (1979) qs

Mr Chris Bertram (1979) qs

Mrs Judith Bufton (1979)

Dr Mark Dickinson (1979)

Dr Edwards Edwards (1979) qs

Mr Philip Epstein (1979) qs

Mr Trevor Fitzsimmons (1979)

Mr Martin Hattrell (1979)

Mrs Isobel Morland (1979)

Mr David Nevell (1979)

Professor Cathryn Rees (1979) qs

Mrs Alison Sanders (1979) qs

Mr Gary Simmons (1979) qs

Ms Christine Smith (1979)

Mr Donald Sturrock (1979) qs

Mr Simon Whitaker (1979) qs

Mr James Clarke (1980)

Dr Graham Davis (1980)

Mrs Nicola Dick-Cleland (1980) qs

Dr Cathryn Edwards (1980)

Dr Louise Goward (1980) qs

Mrs Carrie Kelly (1980) qs

Mr Peter King (1980) qs

Mrs Caroline Nuyts-Speck (1980)

Mr Mark Olivier (1980)

Dr Tim Shaw (1980) qs

Mr Tim Stephenson (1980) qs

Dr Peter Wyatt (1980)

Dr Mark Byfield (1981) qs

Dr Paul Driscoll (1981) qs

Ms Sara Hall (1981)

Ms Janet Hayes (1981) qs

Mrs Linda Holland (1981) qs

Ms Jackie Rolf (1981) qs

Professor Marcela Votruba (1981) qs

Dr Christian Wolf (1981)

Mrs Cathy Driscoll (1982) qs

Mr Ian English (1982) qs

Mr Mark Jewell (1982)

Mr Ian King (1982)

Mr Richard Lewis (1982) qs

Mr Mark Pearce (1982) qs

Mr David Price (1982) qs

Mr Nick Snee (1982)

Mr Tom Webber (1982) qs

Mr Francis Austin (1983) qs

Mr Andy Bird (1983) qs

Mr Stephen Bowler (1983)

Dr Miriam Brod (1983)

Mr Andrew Campbell (1983) qs

Dr Francoise Carter (1983)

Mrs Rose Craston (1983) qs

Mr Steve Dembitzer (1983)

Mr Charles Glasse (1983)

Mr Neville Hall (1983)

Dr Robert Hughes (1983) qs

Mrs Sarah Liebrecht (1983) qs

Mr Brian Messenger (1983)

Mrs Monika Neumann (1983)

Mrs Juliet Patsalos-Fox (1983)

Mr Mike Potter (1983)

Mr Adrian Robinson (1983)

Mrs Christabel Seedhouse (1983)

Mr Richard Simpson (1983)

Dr Neil Tunnicliffe (1983) qs

Mrs Antonia Adams (1984) qs

Dr Miles Benson (1984) qs

Miss Lindsay Bramley (1984)

Mr Mike Cronshaw (1984) qs

Mr Quentin Curtis (1984)

Professor Phil Evans (1984) qs

Dr Nigel Greer (1984) qs

Mr Richard Hopkins (1984) qs

Dr Katherine Irving (1984) qs

Mr Robert Lawson (1984) qs

Mrs Rachel Lawson (1984) qs

Mr Tony Lovick (1984) qs

Mr Chris McIntyre (1984)

Ms Louise Moran (1984)

Mr Christopher Morley (1984)

Mrs Sarah Mortimer (1984)

Ms Valerie Nash (1984)

Dr Jan Pullen (1984) qs

Mr Steve Thomas (1984) qs

Mr Jeremy Tobias-Tarsh (1984)

Ms Sue Adlam-Hill (1985)

Mr Graham Aldridge (1985)

Dr Udayan Chakrabarti (1985) qs

Mrs Claudia Coles Gallagher (1985)

Mr Steve Evans (1985) qs

Mr Ed Kemp-Luck (1985) qs

Dr Keith Langmack (1985)

Dr Philippa Moore (1985) qs

The Revd Canon Matthew Pollard

(1985) qs

Dr Ioanna Psalti (1985)

Mr Adrian Ratcliffe (1985) qs

Mr Martin Riley (1985) qs

Dr Edward Roelofse (1985)

Mr Juan Sepulveda (1985)

Mrs Julie Smyth (1985) qs

Mr Michael Tsang (1985)

Mr Octavius Black (1986)

Major Matthew Christmas (1986) qs

Ms Jude Dobbyn (1986) qs

Mr Steve Jones (1986) qs

Mr Andrew Mitchell (1986) qs

Dr Chris Pearson (1986)

Mr Gerald Rix (1986) qs

Mrs Cathy Sanderson (1986) qs

Dr Susan Schamp (1986) qs

Dr Garry Stuttard (1986)

Mr Rob Tims (1986) qs

Mr Derek Wright (1986) qs

Dr Philip Apps (1987)

Ms Katie Crowther (1987)

Dr Richard Fynes (1987) qs

Mrs Vikki Hall (1987) qs

Mr Mark Highman (1987) qs

Mr Jon Howells (1987)

Mrs Sarah Kucera (1987) qs

Dr John Morgan (1987) qs

Benefactions



Benefactions

Ms Susan Sack (1987)

Mr Philip Sanderson (1987) qs

Mr John Stansfield (1987) qs

Mrs Rachel Thorn (1987) qs

The Hon John Tien (1987)

Dr Andrew Carpenter (1988) qs

Ms Jo Clarke (1988)

Mrs Hilary Corroon (1988) qs

Miss Celestine Eaton (1988) qs

Mr Christopher Fewtrell (1988) qs

Mr Tim Grayson (1988) qs

Dr Jules Hargreaves (1988) qs

Professor Blair Hoxby (1988)

Ms Kate Jones (1988)

Mr Alastair Kennis (1988) qs

Dr Adrian Tang (1988) qs

Mrs Caroline Chartres (1989)

Dr Susan Ferraro (1989) qs

Mr Ben Green (1989) qs

Mr James Horsfall (1989) qs

Ms Caroline Jackson (1989)

Mr Jim Kaye (1989) qs

Ms Hetty Meyric Hughes (1989) qs

Mr Marc Paul (1989)

Mr Matthew Perret (1989) qs

Mr Chris Porton (1989) qs

Mr Iain Redford (1989)

Mr Simon Sutcliffe (1989)

Mr Ian Tollett (1989) qs

Mrs Alex Antscherl (1990)

Mrs Penny Crouzet (1990) qs

Mr Jason Hargreaves (1990) qs

Mr Keith Hatton (1990) qs

Mr Bonny Loo (1990)

Mrs Morag Mylne (1990) qs

Mr Gregory Norton (1990)

Mr Fabio Quaradeghini (1990) qs

Dr Thurstan Robinson (1990)

Dr James Semple (1990)

Ms Eva West (1990)

Dr Angela Winnett (1990) qs

Mr Nik Everatt (1991) qs

Mr Paul Gannon (1991) qs

Mrs Kay Goddard (1991) qs

Ms Emma Hogan (1991)

Mrs Jo Hooker (1991)

Mr Kieron Humphrey (1991)

Mrs Olwen Lintern-Smyth (1991)

Dr Philippe Masson (1991) qs

Ms Jess Matthew (1991) qs

Dr Christopher Meaden (1991) qs

Dr Kausikh Nandi (1991) qs

Mrs Victoria Paleit (1991)

Mr Adam Potter (1991) qs

Mr Stephen Robinson (1991)

Dr Vicki Saward (1991) qs

Dr John Sorabji (1991) qs

Mr Russell Strevens (1991)

Mr Dev Tanna (1991) qs

Miss Sarah Witt (1991) qs

Dr Jason Zimba (1991) qs

Mrs Samantha Benson (1992)

Mr Jonathan Buckley (1992) qs

Mr James Campbell (1992)

Dr Rebecca Emerson (1992) qs

Mr Michael Farnworth (1992)

Professor Mike Hayward (1992) qs

Mr James Holdsworth (1992) qs

Mr Wayne Leslie (1992)

Mrs Caroline Makropoulos (1992)

Mr Peter McDonald (1992)

Mrs Claire O’Shaughnessy (1992) qs

Dr Nia Taylor (1992) qs

Dr Tyler Bell (1993)

Mr Matt Keen (1993) qs

Mrs Jenny Kelly (1993) qs

Ms Olivia McCannon (1993)

Dr Said Mohamed (1993) qs

Mr Neil Pabari (1993) qs

Mr Peter Sidwell (1993) qs

Mrs Lauren Strevens (1993)

Mrs Helen von der Osten (1993) qs

Mr Simon Wood (1993)

Ms Alex Woods (1993)

Miss Danielle Bertfield (1994) qs

Ms Christine Cairns (1994) qs

Mr Russell Finch (1994)

Mr Piers Master (1994)

Dr Jo Nonweiler (1994) qs

Professor Tim Riley (1994) qs

Dr Marielle Sutherland (1994)

Dr Francis Tang (1994)

Ms Claire Taylor (1994) qs

Mr Alistair Willey (1994) qs

Mr Tim Claremont (1995) qs

Mr Noel Dilworth (1995)

Mr Tim Horrocks (1995) qs

Mr Eric Law (1995)

Mr David Line (1995) qs

Mr Torsten Reil (1995) qs

Mr Adam Silver (1995) qs

Mrs Georgina Simmons (1995) qs

Mr Jeremy Steele (1995) qs

Ms Sally Stephens (1995)

Dr Llyr Williams (1995)

Dr Gavin Beard (1996) qs

Dr Andrew Cavey (1996)

Mrs Helen Geary (1996) qs

Miss Bridget Jackson (1996)

Mr David Smallbone (1996) qs

Dr Jonathan Smith (1996) qs

Mrs Rachel Taylor (1996) qs

Dr Linda Bamber (1997) qs

Mr James Bowling (1997) qs

Dr William Goundry (1997) qs

Mr Will Guest (1997)

Dr Eri Hitotsuyanagi-Kobayashi (1997)

Mr Endaf Kerfoot (1997) qs

Mr Gareth Powell (1997) qs

Mr Charles Price (1997)

Mr James Taylor (1997) qs

Mr Gonçalo Abecasis (1998)

Dr Martin Birch (1998) qs

Miss Marie Farrow (1998) qs

Mr Elliot Han (1998)

Mrs Wendy Hansen (1998) qs

Mr Matt Henderson (1998) qs

Mr Oli Henman (1998) qs

Mr James Marsden (1998) qs

Miss Jacqueline Perez (1998) qs

Mr Charlie Sutters (1998) qs

Dr Rachel Symes (1998)

Mr Ryan Tollit (1998)

Mr David Traynor (1998) qs

Dr Premila Webster (1998) qs

Ms Aubrey Charette (1999)

Mrs Kate Cooper (1999) qs

Mr Matthieu Edelman (1999)

Ms Nicole Gera (1999)

Mr Douglas Gordon (1999) qs

Dr Simon Guest (1999)

Mr Jim Hancock (1999) qs

Mr James Levett (1999) qs

Mr Jim Luke (1999) qs

Mr Dan Lynn (1999) qs

Dr Greg Magee (1999)

Mr Tahmer Mahmoud (1999)

Mr Gareth Marsh (1999) qs

Mr Michael McClelland (1999) qs

Mrs Emma Smith (1999)

Mr Leo Smith (1999) qs

Ms Kat Stephens (1999) qs

Mr James Walton (1999) qs

Mrs Laura Andrews (2000) qs

Mr Thomas Brown (2000)

Mr Andrew Buchanan (2000) qs

Dr Cecily Burrill (2000)

Mr Rory Clarke (2000) qs

Dr Amy Deacon (2000)

Ms Cécile Défossé (2000) qs

Dr Claire Hodgskiss (2000) qs

Miss Elizabeth Pilkington (2000) qs

Mrs Holly Pirnie (2000)

Mrs Rhiannon Seah (2000) qs

Miss Rachel Thorn (2000)

Mr David Ainsworth (2001) qs

Dr Mark Andrews (2001)

Mrs Sarah Andrews (2001)

Mrs Chrissy Findlay (2001) qs

Mr Mark Hawkins (2001) qs

Mr James Klempster (2001) qs

Mr Nick Kroepfl (2001) qs

Mr Oliver Leyland (2001) qs

Miss Alex Mayson (2001) qs

Mr Matthew Osborne (2001) qs

Mrs Cassie Smith (2001) qs

Miss Elinor Taylor (2001) qs

Mrs Zoe Wright (2001) qs

Mrs Kathryn Aggarwal (2002) qs

Mrs Laura Ainsworth (2002)

Benefactions



Benefactions

Mr Matt Allen (2002) qs

Mrs Fran Baker (2002) qs

Miss Sarah Berman (2002) qs

Mrs Caroline Doherty (2002)

Mr Jeremy Humm (2002)

Miss Elizabeth Meehan (2002) qs

Mrs Anushka Osborne (2002) qs

Mrs Karishma Redman (2002) qs

Mr David Richardson (2002) qs

Mr Tony Ruschpler (2002)

Mr James Screen (2002) qs

Mrs Rhian Screen (2002) qs

Ms Kathryn Smith (2002)

Dr Abigail Stevenson (2002) qs

Dr Ian Warren (2002) qs

Mr Christopher Wright (2002) qs

Mr Nikhil Aggarwal (2003)

Dr Jessica Blair (2003) qs

Ms Sarah Buckley (2003) qs

Ms Gillian Diesen (2003)

Mrs Olivia Haslam (2003) qs

Dr Jon Hazlehurst (2003) qs

Mr Rakesh Patel (2003)

Ms Lilia Petkova (2003)

Dr Enrique Sacau (2003) qs

Mr Dane Satterthwaite (2003) qs

Dr Ellen Sherratt (2003)

Ms Gaby Turner (2003) qs

Dr Guy Williams (2003) qs

Mr Kuowei Wu (2003)

Ms Jennifer Chan (2004)

Miss Nina Dutta (2004)

Ms Kathryn French (2004)

Ms Claire Harrop (2004) qs

Dr Jen Jardine (2004)

Ms Kate Newton (2004) qs

Dr Philippa Roberts (2004) qs

Dr Joshua Eisenthal (2005)

Mr Oliver Elias (2005)

Ms Katelin Fuller (2005) qs

Dr Amanda Greene (2005)

Ms Cerridwen Mellish (2005)

Mr Daniel Shepherd (2005) qs

Mr Arul Umapathy (2005) qs

Mr Ho Yi Wong (2005) qs

Dr Bartu Ahiska (2006)

Mrs Bella Bosworth (2006)

Dr Matthew Hart (2006) qs

Mr George Kanelos (2006) qs

Miss Nicola Mollat (2006)

Ms Helen Randall Aldred (2006)

Dr Weiliang Wang (2006)

Sergeant Tom Whyte (2006) qs

Miss Lauriane Anderson Mair (2007) qs

Dr Caitlin Hartigan (2007)

Mr Tony Hu (2007) qs

Dr Hassanatu Mansaray (2007)

Mr Matthew Watson (2007) qs

Mr Andy White (2007) qs

Mr Nicholas Burns (2008) qs

Dr Conor O’Brien (2008)

Ms Kat Steiner (2008) qs

Mr James Dinsdale (2010) qs

Dr Shaoyan Liang (2009)

Mr Chris Lippard (2010) qs

Dr Qian Liu (2010)

Mr Tom Mead (2010) qs

Dr Monica Merlin (2009)

Miss Michelle Van (2010)

Miss Amy Down (2011) qs

Mr Tom Nichols (2011) qs

Mr Alfred Burton (2012)

Mr Tom Byham (2012)

Dr Beojan Stanislaus (2012)

Dr Alex Mortimore (2013)

Ms Amy Lynn (2014)

Mr Bill Kroeger (2016)

Mr Kibum Park (2016)

Miss Julia Hussain (2018)

Mr Zachary Walker (2018)

Mrs Caroline Howard (2019)

Mr Mukahang Limbu (2019)

Miss Ying Ying Teo (2019) qs

Mr Daniel Craigmcfeely (2020)

Miss Libby Harris (2020)

Mr Aidan Richardson (2020) qs

Legacy Gifts

Mr Harold Searle (1950)

Mr Trevor Beeforth (1956)

Mr Barrie Craythorn (1956)

Professor Bob Faulkner (1956)

Mr David Wilkinson (1957)

Mr Donald Rutherford (1962)

Mr Richard Shaw (1968)

Mrs Daphne Badcock

Ms Janet Lancaster

Mrs Maria Morris

Within College

Anonymous x 1

Professor Sir John Ball qs

Professor John Blair

Dr Claire Craig qs

Dr Charles Crowther qs

Dr John Davis

Mrs Emily Downing

Dr Phillip Harries

Mrs Catherine House qs

Dr Justin Jacobs qs

Professor Jonathan Keating

Professor Owen Rees

Dr Matthew Shaw

Ms Jen Stedman

Dr Lindsay Turnbull

Ms Heather Weightman

Professor Seth Whidden

Friends

Professor Timothy Congdon qs

Mrs Wiesia Cook-Bownas

Mr David French qs

Professor Joshua Getzler qs

Professor Martin Hogg

Mr Jeffrey Jackson

Mr David Landers

Ms Mary Landers

Benefactions



Benefactions

Mrs Jean Littlewood

Mrs Christine Mason qs

Mr Michael Oporto

Mrs Sri Owen qs

Mr Abul Rahman Jilani qs

Miss Emma Simpson

Mrs Kathleen Thompson

Mrs Helen Wilkinson

Mr Eric Wooding qs

INFORMATION

College Record 2025

Please submit your news and details of any awards or publications for inclusion in

the 2025 College Record here: https://www.queens.ox.ac.uk/update-details-sharenews/.

Alternatively, you can send this information by post to the Old Members’ Office

in College. The deadline for entries is 1 August 2025.

Information

In memoriam

You are also invited to submit obituaries of Old Members. Please send these to the

Old Members’ Office.

Mrs Lillemor & Mr Kenneth Gardener In memory of Anthony Simon (Modern

Languages, 1963)

Mrs Lena & Christopher Martinsen In memory of Anthony Simon (Modern

Languages, 1963)

Professor John McCormick In memory of Peter McCormick (Psychology and

Philosophy, 1965)

Trusts, foundations and companies

Elba Foundation

Andrew And Carol Parsons Family Foundation

JJC Foundation

Sannox Trust

DJANDCO Limited

Swire Chinese Language Foundation

Waverley Charitable Fund

Margaret Rolfe Charitable Trust

Independent Schools’ Modern Languages Association

Late Habibur Rahman, Late Rokeya Khanum and Professor A.H. Shamsur Welfare

Trust

Visiting the College

If you are an Old Member visiting Oxford you are very welcome to visit Queen’s

during your stay.

Please enter the College via the main High Street door and report to the Porters’

Lodge. (If you require level-access to the College, please ring the bell at the new

High Street gate by the new Porters’ Lodge.) Mention that you are an Old Member

wishing to visit and if your visit has been pre-arranged with the Old Members’ Office,

please let the porter know so they can contact the office. The Porters will need to

check your Old Member credentials, so you can either show your University of Oxford

Alumni Card (‘My Oxford’ card) or answer a couple of questions so the Porters can

locate you on the database.

Do I need to book my visit?

You do not have to pre-arrange a visit, but we do encourage it, so we can check

there are no restrictions on the areas you want to see. You can bring friends or family

with you, including children, but if you are a group of six or more, please let us know

in advance, if you can.

Generally Old Members are able to walk around the cloisters, quads, gardens, and

Chapel and Hall, if the spaces are not being used for other purposes. The Lodge

Porters will advise on which areas are not accessible.

You will need to let us know in advance if you would like to look around the Library.

The Library has different visiting times to the main College – as visits can only take

place when the Library is staffed – and this varies depending on whether you plan

to visit during term, vacation time, or at a weekend. The Library is also sometimes

closed for events. Read more about Library access on the Library’s web page.

When are you open?

The College is generally open to Old Member visitors most of the year, with the

exception of the two-week closure period over the Christmas vacation and on



Information

occasions where there are large events taking place in College, such as the College

Ball. Visits between 9am-6pm are preferable, and the College is open at weekends

and on most of the public holidays (except Christmas/New Year).

Degree ceremonies

An MA can be taken by anyone who has completed a BA or BFA, 21 terms after their

matriculation date. Old Members can either attend a University degree ceremony or

receive an MA in absentia. To take your MA in person or in absentia, please email

college.office@queens.ox.ac.uk.

Transcripts and certificates

If you matriculated before 2007 and require proof of your exam results, or a transcript

of your qualifications for a job application or continuing education purposes, please

contact the College Office on 01865 279166 or college.office@queens.ox.ac.uk.

During vacation

College bedrooms are mostly occupied by private function and conference guests,

including the two Old Member guest rooms. Occasionally student bedrooms (single

and twin) are available over the Easter and Summer vacations and can be booked

for bed and breakfast. Old Members are welcome to enquire about room availability,

but dates are often limited.

Email the Old Members Office with your visit dates. If a room is available, we will

confirm the room rate (commercial rate, with a discount applied for Old Members).

We will then provide a link to complete your booking and payment online.

All stays are for a maximum of three nights (unless agreed with the Domestic Bursar)

and under 18s are not allowed in B&B rooms.

Information

If you need a copy of your certificate, or confirmation of your degree if you have

not attended a ceremony, then all the information on acquiring these can be found

at the University’s Student Records and Degree Conferrals Office: www.ox.ac.uk/

students/graduation/certificates.

For those who matriculated after 2007, transcripts/proof of degree documents can

be ordered online: www.oxforduniversitystores.co.uk/product-catalogue/degreeconferrals.

Updating your details

If you have moved or changed your contact details, please complete the online

update form: https://www.queens.ox.ac.uk/update-details-share-news/ or email

oldmembers@queens.ox.ac.uk.

Bed and breakfast

During Term

We have two Old Member guestrooms that can be booked during term-time via the

Lodge or the Old Members’ Office.

One is a twin room, with en suite facilities, in Back Quad; the other is a very basic

small single room, with shared bathroom facilities (NB access is via a steep staircase

and the bathroom facilities are not on the same floor). The rates include breakfast

in Hall.

No payment is required for these rooms when booking, instead you will be invoiced

the month following your stay for payment via bank transfer, or you can telephone

the Bursary to pay by credit or debit card.



The Queen’s College

High Street

Oxford

OX1 4AW

www.queens.ox.ac.uk

news@queens.ox.ac.uk

Edited by Emily Downing and Michael Riordan

Designed & Printed by Holywell Press

Cover image by David Fisher

Holywell Press

The College Record 2024

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