2012 Annual Report - Jesus College - University of Cambridge

146 OBITUARIES I Jesus College Annual Report 2012
Anthropology, having been inspired by his time abroad. After Cambridge he joined the
colonial service. He was posted to Northern Rhodesia and so he and his pregnant wife,
Ursula (née Carter), set off for Africa.
Their first daughter was born in Lusaka where Philip began teaching Classics at
Munali Secondary school, and a second daughter was born in Northampton on the
family’s first leave back to England.
Having risen to be deputy head he was persuaded to become a schools inspector.
He remained an inspector following Zambia’s independence, and finally left to return to
the UK, in 1969.
Despite his long career in education, his modesty and desire to learn new things led
him to enrol for the P.G.C.E. course at Oxford University. After completing the course he
taught Classics part time until his retirement.
A quiet, considered man, he found expression in playing the piano and photography;
his family have many stunning photographs of their time in Africa.
SUTHERS, John (1957) died on 24 April 2011 aged 72.
John Suthers was born on 7 June 1938 in Manchester. He attended King Edward VI
Grammar School, Birmingham. After a year as an assistant at Birmingham University he
came up to Jesus in 1957 to read Natural Sciences, graduating BA 1960; MA 1964.
Following graduation he remained in Cambridge to study to be a teacher.
He married Alma. We do not have any further information to share about his later life.
SWINDELLS, Julia (1981) died on 29 October 2011 aged 60.
Julia Swindells was born in Macclesfield on 13 August 1951. She undertook her
undergraduate degree at the University of Leeds before moving to Goldsmiths,
University of London, to complete a postgraduate certificate in the teaching of English
and Drama. Four years teaching at Itchen Sixth Form College in Southampton followed.
She returned to London in 1978 to train as a journalist at City University, London.
Her true vocation, however, was in academia and so she came to Jesus in 1981 to
complete her doctorate in Victorian writing. After completion of her thesis she worked
for a number of institutions in adult, community and higher education before joining
Homerton College, Cambridge, in 1989. At Homerton, she was variously director of
studies for English, senior member and fellow. She left Homerton in 2006, after which
she became a Senior Research Fellow at Anglia Ruskin University, where she was made a
Pofessor of English in 2010. Her major publications included Victorian Writing and
Working Women: the Other Side of Silence; The Uses of Autobiography; and Glorious Causes.
Beyond her working life she was a Labour party activist, a passion she shared with her
husband, Ben Bradnack. She had a strong commitment to women’s rights and was
therefore a natural choice to speak at the 25th anniversary of women entering Jesus.
When she spoke, she was standing in for her long-time friend, Lisa Jardine (1976).
Professor Jardine writes: "I had never encountered anyone of such total integrity, such
intensity of commitment and feeling, and such deeply lucid thoughts on politics …
Her sense of humour and her timing for a well-placed piece of irony were impeccable.
Her sense of fun was infectious…"
She and her husband had one daughter.
Professor Swindells took her own life while suffering a period of mental illness.