2012 Annual Report - Jesus College - University of Cambridge

Alan had a deep, abiding and informed love of classical music. He and Peter Nolan
enjoyed their discussions about the latest recordings of their, often overlapping,
favourites. I thought it a supreme tragedy that Alan became so deaf in his later years that
he could no longer listen to music.
While obviously I could never comprehend the details of his outstanding scientific
contributions, I do remember we discussed a paper he published in his late eighties
when his daily visit to his Department allowed him to think through and ultimately crack
a puzzle, the solution of which had eluded him for many years. He gave me an off print
of the published solution. It was marked by the extraordinary clarity of its powerful
analysis. Even to an outsider it was clearly the work of a rare intellect completely on top
of what it was doing. Alan also had a dry, sometimes quirky, quiet wit which was on
display, for example, in the speech he gave at his eightieth birthday celebration in
college.
Alan and Jean were a great team. She was an unfailing help mate and companion
during his many faceted career. When she became so ill in her last years and withdrew
from all contact with others, Alan nursed her with utter devotion and much patience.
Such old-fashioned verities, especially his love of family, were very much characteristic
of his behaviour.
I count it a great privilege to have known him for nearly 30 years. When he retired as
Master Joan and I took Alan and Jean to lunch at The Old Fire Engine at Ely to say “thank
you”. It was a fun occasion with much laughter, gossip and, of course, good food and
wine. I shall remember him with fondness and admiration, sad at his passing but proud
to have been associated with an outstanding scholar who even more was a man of quiet
integrity and great kindness. He truly was a good man.
Geoff Harcourt
Emeritus Fellow, 1998
OBITUARIES I Jesus College Annual Report 2012 125
Sir Alan’s interview in the British Library oral history archive of eminent scientists:
Sounds.bl.uk/oral-history/eminent-scientists/021M-C1379XOO46XX-001VO
Siegbert Prawer (1944) was born on 15 February
1925 and died on 25 April, 2012.
The former Taylor Professor of German at Oxford,
and a Fellow and Honorary Fellow of the Queen’s
College, Siegbert was a prominent scholar of
literature and culture. He graduated in English and
Modern Languages from Jesus in 1947 and was
elected to an Honorary Fellowship in 1996. He was
a frequent and popular attender at Jesus feasts and
instituted the annual Marcus Prawer, essay prize
for a Jesus student, in memory of his son, who
died before he could take up a place at Jesus.
He was made a Fellow of the British Academy in 1981, and was elected to the German
Academy of Language and Literature in 1989.
Born of Jewish parents, a Polish father and German mother, Siegbert escaped from
Cologne in 1939. The family settled in Coventry where he attended the King Henry VIII
School. He remembered dropping an unexploded fire-bomb into a bucket of sand