College Report 2020-21 by Somerville College

College Report 2020-2021

Contents

Visitor, Principal, Fellows, Lecturers, Staff

The Year in Review Principal’s Report

Treasurer’s Report

Fellows’ and Lecturers’ Activities

Report on Junior Research Fellowships

MCR Report

Library Report

Members’ Notes President’s Report

Horsman Awards

Somerville Senior Members’ Fund

Somerville College London Group

Life Before Somerville

Report on the Year of 1950

Members’ News and Publications

Births

Deaths

Obituaries

Academic Report Prizes

Somerville Development Board Members

Notices Legacies

Editor: Liz Cooke Telephone: 01865 270632 Email: development.office@some.ox.ac.uk

Visitor, Principal, Fellows, Lecturers, Staff Visitor The Rt Hon The Lord Patten of Barnes, CH, PC, Chancellor of the University

Principal Jan Royall, Baroness Royall of Blaisdon, PC, MA, (BA Lond)

Vice-Principal Richard Stone, MA, DPhil, FREng, FSAE, FIMechE, Professor of Engineering Science, Tutor in Engineering Science

Jonathan Burton, MA, (PhD Cantab), Associate Professor of Organic Chemistry and Tutor in Almut Maria Vera Suerbaum, Chemistry MA, (Dr phil, Staatsexamen, Luke Pitcher, MA, MSt, DPhil, Münster), Associate Professor of German and Tutor in German (PGCert Durh), Associate Professor of Classics and Tutor Fiona Stafford, MA, MPhil, in Classics DPhil, (BA Leic), FRSE, FBA, DLitt (Leic), Professor of English Simon Robert Kemp, BA, Language and Literature, Tutor MPhil, (PhD Cantab), Associate in English Literature Professor in French and Tutor in French Lois McNay, MA, (PhD Cantab), Professor of the Christopher Hare, BCL, (Dip d’Etudes Jurid Poitiers, MA Theory of Politics and Tutor in Cantab, LLM Harvard), Politics Associate Professor of Law and Benjamin John Thompson, Tutor in Law MA, DPhil, (MA, PhD Cantab), Charlotte Potts, DPhil, FRHistS, Associate Professor (BA Victoria University of of Medieval History and Tutor Wellington, MA UCL), FSA, in History and Associate Sybille Haynes Associate Head (Education), Humanities Professor of Etruscan and Italic Division Archaeology and Art, Katherine Charles Spence, MA, and Leonard Woolley Fellow in (PhD Cantab), Professor of Classical Archaeology and Tutor Experimental Psychology in Classical Archaeology and Tutor in Experimental Karen Nielsen, (Cand mag, Psychology Cand philol Trondheim, MA, PhD Philip West, MA, (PhD Cantab, Cornell), Associate Professor Associate Professor of English, of Philosophy and Tutor in Times Fellow and Tutor in Philosophy English Julian Duxfield, MA, (MSc Julie Dickson, MA, DPhil, (LLB LSE), University Director of Glasgow), Professor of Legal Human Resources Philosophy and Tutor in Law Renier van der Hoorn, (BSc, Annie Sutherland, MA, MSc Leiden, PhD Wageningen), DPhil, (MA Cantab), Associate Professor of Plant Sciences and Professor in Old and Middle Tutor in Plant Sciences English, Rosemary Woolf Fellow Dan Ciubotaru, (BSc, MA and Tutor in English Babes-Bolyai, PhD Cornell), Daniel Anthony, MA, The Diana Brown Fellow and (PhD Lond), Professor of Tutor in Pure Mathematics; Experimental Neuropathology Professor of Mathematics and Tutor in Medicine Damian Tyler, (MSci, PhD Michael Hayward, MA, Nott), Professor of Physiological DPhil, Professor of Inorganic Metabolism Chemistry and Tutor in Francesca Southerden, BA, Chemistry MSt, DPhil, Associate Professor Beate Dignas, MA, DPhil, of Italian and Tutor in Italian (Staatsexamen Münster), Associate Professor of Ancient Louise Mycock, (BA Durh, MA, PhD Manc), Associate Professor History, Barbara Craig Fellow of Linguistics and Tutor in and Tutor in Ancient History Linguistics Natalia Nowakowska, MA, Mari Mikkola, (PhD Sheffield), DPhil, Professor of Early Associate Professor of Modern History and Tutor in Philosophy and Tutor in History Philosophy

Fellows

Renaud Lambiotte, (PhD ULB Brussels), Professor of Networks and Nonlinear Systems and Tutor in Mathematics Elena Seiradake, (PhD Heidelberg), Professor of Molecular Biology and Tutor in Biochemistry Vivien Parmentier, (PhD Observatoire de la Côte d'Azur), Associate Professor in Physical Climate Science and Tutor in Physics Faridah Zaman, (BA, MPhil, PhD Cantab), Associate Professor in History and Tutor in History Samantha Dieckmann, (PhD University of Sydney), Associate Professor in Music and Tutor in Music Robert Davies, DPhil (BSc Toronto, MSc Ottowa, Associate Professor of Statistics and Tutor in Statistics Michelle Jackson, (BSc, PhD Lond), Associate Professor of Zoology and Tutor in Biology Noa Zilberman, MA (BSc, MSc, PhD Tel Aviv), Associate Professor of Engineering Science, Tutor in Engineering Science Prateek Agrawal, (BTech Indian Institute of Technology Bombay, PhD University of Maryland), Associate Professor of Physics and Tutor in Physics Robin Klemm, (PhD Max Planck Institute of Molecular Cell Biology and Genetics and TU Dresden), Associate Professor in Medicine and Tutor in Medicine Patricia Owens, (BSc Bristol, MPhil Cantab, PhD Aberystwyth), Associate Professor of International Relations and Tutor in International Relations Margaryta Klymak, (MSc Edin, PhD TCD), Associate Professor in Economics and Tutor in Economics

Professorial Fellows Aditi Lahiri, CBE, (PhD Brown, MA, PhD Calcutta), Professor of Linguistics Stephen Roberts, MA, DPhil, FREng, FIET, FRSS, MIOP, RAEng-Man Professor of Machine Learning Steven Simon, MA, (PhD Harvard), Professor of Theoretical and Condensed Matter Physics Rajesh Thakker, MA, DM, (MA, MD Cantab), FRS, FRCP, FRCPath, FMedSci, May Professor of Medicine Stephen Weatherill, MA, (MA Cantab, MSc Edinburgh), Jacques Delors Professor of European Law Matthew John Andrew Wood, MA, DPhil, (MB, ChB Cape Town), FMedSci, Professor of Neuroscience

Administrative Fellows Sara Kalim, MA Director of Development Anne Manuel, MA, (LLB Reading, MA, MSc, PhD Bristol), Librarian, Archivist and Head of Information Services and Keeper of College Pictures Andrew Parker, MA, (BA Liverpool), ACMA, Treasurer Stephen Rayner, MA, (PhD Durh), FRAS, MInstP, Senior Tutor, Tutor for Graduates and Tutor for Admissions

Senior Research Fellows Tony Bell, (MA, PhD Cantab), CPhys, FRAS, FRS, MinstP Amalia Coldea, (MA, PhD Cluj-Napoca)

Stephanie Dalley, MA, (MA Cantab, Hon PhD London), FSA

Roman Walczak, MA, (MSc Warsaw, Dr rer nat Heidelberg)

Colin Espie, (BSc, MAppSci, PhD, DSc(Med) Glas), FBPsS, CPsychol, Professor of Behavioural Sleep Medicine

Premila Webster, MBE, DPhil, FHEA, FFPH

Sir Marc Feldmann, AC, BSc(Med), MB BS, PhD, MD(Hon), DMSc(Hon), FAA, FMedSci, FRCP, FRCPath, FRS, Professor of Cellular Immunology Manuele Gragnolati, MA, (Laurea in Lettere Classiche, Pavia, PhD Columbia, DEA Paris) Sarah Gurr, MA, (BSc, PhD London, ARCS, DIC), Professor of Molecular Plant Pathology John Ingram, (BSc KCL, MSc R'dg, PhD Wageningen NL) Joanna Innes, MA, (MA Cantab) Muhammad Kassim Javaid, (BMedSci, MBBS, PhD London), MRCP Patricia Kingori, (BA MSc RHUL, MSc UCL, PhD LSHTM Philip Kreager, DPhil Simon Kyle, (MA, PhD Glasgow) Catherine Mary MacRobert, MA, DPhil Boris Motik, (MSc Zagreb, PhD Karlsruhe), Professor of Computer Science Frans Plank, (Statsexamen Munich, MLitt Edin, MA Regensburg, DPhil Hanover) Philip Poole, (BSc, PhD Murdoch) Mason Porter, MA, (BS Caltech, MS PhD Cornell) Franklyn Prochaska, (PhD Northwestern University), FRHS Tessa Rajak, MA, DPhil, FRSA Owen Rees, MA, (PhD Cantab), ARCO, Professor of Music Alex David Rogers, (BSc, PhD Liv)

Jennifer Welsh, MA, DPhil (BA Saskatchewan)

Research Fellows Dan Rogers, (MEng, PhD Imp Lond), Engineering Justin Sirignano, (BSE Princeton, PhD Stanford), Mathematics

Ferenc Mozes, DPhil, (BEng, MSc Petru Maior University), Medicine, Fulford Junior Research Fellow Eoghan Mulholland, (MEng, PhD Queen's Belf), Medicine, Fulford Junior Research Fellow Belinda Nicholson, (BSc, MSc Melbourne, DPhil University of Southern Queensland), Physics, Fulford Junior Research Fellow Thomas Nicol, (BBMedSci, PhD), MRSB, Medicine, Fulford Junior Research Fellow

Junior Research Fellows

Godelinde Perk, (BA, BSc, MA, PhD), English, Fulford Junior Research Fellow

Jesus Aguirre Gutierrez, (MSc, PhD Amsterdam), Biological Sciences, Fulford Junior Research Fellow

Beth Romano, (BA Wellesley College, PhD Boston College), Mathematics, Junior Research Fellow in Mathematics

Charlotte Albury, DPhil, (MSc Durh), Medicine, Fulford Junior Research Fellow

Gitalee Sarker, (MBBS Dhaka, MSc Bonn, Dr sc ETH Zurich), Medicine, Fulford Junior Research Fellow

Gabe Cler, (PhD Boston University), Experimental Psychology, Fulford Junior Research Fellow Susan Dunning, (BA Seattle Pacific, MA, PhD Toronto), Classics, Fulford Junior Research Fellow Ana Laura Edelhoff, (BA, MA Freie University Berlin), Philosophy, Mary Somerville Junior Research Fellow Hussam Hussein, (BA, MA Trieste, MA College of Europe, Warsaw, PhD UEA), International Relations, Fulford Junior Research Fellow Kinga Kozminska, DPhil, (MA Warsaw, MA Chicago), Linguistics, Fulford Junior Research Fellow

Ludovic Scyboz, (BSc, MSc ETH Zurich, PhD MPP Munich), Physics, Fulford Junior Research Fellow Priya Subramanian, (BE University of Madras, PhD IIT Madras), Mathematics, Hooke Junior Research Fellow in Mathematics

British Academy Fellows Nelson Goering, MPhil DPhil Vilija Velyvyte, MJur, MPhil, DPhil (Bachelor of Laws, Master of International Law Mykolas Romeris University), Law, British Academy Postdoctoral Fellow

Peter Krafft, (PhD MIT) Computer Science, Fulford Junior Research Fellow

Career Development Fellow

Yvonne Lu, (BEng Jilin, PhD Sussex), International Relations, Fulford Junior Research Fellow

Fay Probert, (BSc, MSc, PhD Warwick), Dorothy Hodgkin Career Development Fellow

Emeritus Fellows Margaret Adams, MA, DPhil Pauline Adams, MA, BLitt, (Dipl Lib Lond) Lesley Brown, BPhil, MA

Gopal Subramanium, SA, Bencher (Hon.), Gray’s Inn

Honorary Fellows

Marian Ellina Stamp Dawkins, CBE, MA DPhil, FRS

Baroness Williams of Crosby (d. 12 April 2021) CH, PC, MA

Katherine Duncan-Jones, MA, BLitt, FRSL

Kiri Jeanette Te Kanawa, DBE, AC ONZ, Hon DMus

Karin Erdmann, MA, (Dr rer nat Giessen)

Carolyn Emma Kirkby, DBE, OBE, MA, Hon DMus, (Hon DMus Bath, Hon DLitt Salf), FGSM

Mary Jane Hands, MA Barbara Fitzgerald Harvey, MA, BLitt, FBA, FRHistS, CBE Judith Heyer, MA, (PhD London) Julianne Mott Jack, MA Carole Jordan, DBE, MA, (PhD London), FRS Norma MacManaway, MA, (MA, MPhil Dublin, DEA Paris) Helen Morton, MA, (MSc Boston, MA Cantab) Hilary Ockendon, MA, DPhil, (Hon DSc Southampton)

Joyce Maire Reynolds, MA, (Hon DLitt Newcastle-uponTyne), FBA Hazel Mary Fox (Lady Fox), CMG, QC, MA Averil Millicent Cameron, DBE, MA, DLitt (PhD London), FBA, FSA Baroness O’Neill of Bengarve, CH, CBE, MA Hon DCL, (PhD Harvard), FBA, Hon FRS, FMedSci

Josephine Peach, BSc, MA, DPhil

Kay Elizabeth Davies, DBE, CBE, MA, DPhil, (Hon DSc Victoria Canada), FRS, FMedSci

Stephen Guy Pulman, MA, (MA, PhD Essex), FBA

Baroness Jay of Paddington, PC, BA

Frances Julia Stewart, MA, DPhil

Irangani Manel Abeysekera, MA

Adrianne Tooke, MA, (BA London, PhD Cantab)

Paula Pimlott Brownlee, MA, DPhil

Angela Vincent, MA, MB, BS, (MSc London), FRS, FMedSci

Julia Stretton Higgins, DBE, CBE, MA, DPhil, Hon DSc, FRS, CChem, FRSC, CEng, FIM, FREng

Foundation Fellows Lady Margaret Elliott, MBE, MA Sir Geoffrey Leigh Robert Ng Lord Powell of Bayswater, KCMG, OBE Mr Gavin Ralston, MA Wafic Rida Saïd Kevin Scollan, MA

Susan Scollan, MA

Doreen Elizabeth Boyce, MA, (PhD Pittsburgh)

Ann Rosamund Oakley, MA, (PhD London, Hon DLitt Salford), AcSS

Venkatraman Ramakrishnan, Kt, (BSc Baroda, PhD Ohio), Nobel Laureate, FRS (President)

Theresa Joyce Stewart, MA

Tessa Ross, CBE, BA

Baroness Lucy Neville-Rolfe, DBE, CMG, MA

Joanna Haigh, CBE, MA, DPhil, FRS, FRMetS

Judith Ann Kathleen Howard, CBE, DPhil, (BSc Bristol), FRS

Akua Kuenyehia, BCL, (LLB University of Ghana)

Victoria Glendinning, CBE, MA

Baroness Wolf of Dulwich, CBE, BA, MPhil

Nicola Ralston, BA

Lorna Margaret Hutson, BA, DPhil, FBA

Antonia Byatt, DBE, CBE, BA, FRSL Anna Laura Momigliano Lepschy, MA, BLitt

Caroline Mary Series, BA, (PhD Harvard), FRS Sacha Romanovitch, BA

Rosalind Mary Marsden, DCMG, MA, DPhil

Alice Prochaska, MA, DPhil, FRHistS

Sarah Broadie, OBE, BPhil MA, (PhD Edinburgh), FBA

Margaret Casely-Hayford, CBE, MA

Harriet Maunsell, OBE, MA

Dame Elan Closs Stephens, DBE, BA

Hilary Spurling, CBE, BA Catherine Jane Royle de Camprubi, MA

June Raine, CBE, BA, MSc, BMBCh, MRCP

Nancy Rothwell, DBE, BSc, DS, (PhD London), FMedSci, FRS

Stipendiary Lecturers

Baroness Shriti Vadera, PC, BA

Ayla Barutchu, (BSc, DPhil La Trobe), Psychology

Elizabeth Mary Keegan, DBE, MA

Sophie Bocksberger, (DPhil), Classics

Carole Hillenbrand, CBE, OBE, BA, (BA Cantab, PhD Edinburgh), FBA, FRSE, FRAS, FRHistS

Achas Burin, BCL, DPhil, (LLB Leeds), Law

Angela McLean, DBE, BA, (MA Berkeley, PhD Lond), FRS Michele Moody-Adams, BA, (BA Wellesley, PhD Harvard) Judith Parker, DBE, QC, MA

Yvonne Couch, MSc, DPhil, Medicine Marcelo de Martino, (PhD), Mathematics Xon de Ros, DPhil, (Fellow of LMH), Spanish

Esther Rantzen, DBE, CBE, MA

Kamel El Omari, (BSc Paris VII, MSc, PhD Paris VI), Biochemistry

Caroline Barron, OBE, MA, (PhD London), FRHistS

Andrew Elliott, MPhil, DPhil, (BA Cantab), Economics Rachel Exley, (BSc Leeds, PhD Paris XI), Medicine

Clara Elizabeth Mary Freeman (Mrs), OBE, MA

Fiona Caldicott (d. 15 Feb. 2021), DBE, BM BCh MA, (MD (Hon) Birm, DSc (Hon) Warwick), FRCPsych, FRCP, FRCPI, FRCGP, FMedSci

Jenny Glusker, MA, DPhil

Emma Rothschild, CMG, MA

Ruth Hilary Finnegan, OBE, MA, BLitt, DPhil, FBA Janet Margaret Bately, CBE, MA, FBA Margaret Kenyon (Mrs), MA

Konstantinos Gatsis, (PhD University of Pennsylvania), Engineering Science

Francesco Hautmann, (Dottore in Fisica Florence), Physics James Kirkpatrick, BPhil DPhil, (BA Reading, MLitt St Andrews), Philosophy

College Lecturer

Library

Hanne Eckhoff, (Cand Mag, Cand Philol, Doctor artium, Oslo), Russian

Susan Elizabeth Purver, MA, Assistant Librarian

Chris Bamber, Systems Manager

Matthew Roper, MA, (MA Durham), Library Assistant

Porters’ Lodge

Quentin Miller, DPhil, (BMath Waterloo, Canada), Computer Science

Lecturer in Medicine

Ain Neuhaus, MA, DPhil, BMBCh, Medicine

Helen Ashdown, BMBCh, (MA Cantab), MRCP, MRCPG, DCH PGDip (Health Res), Janet Vaughan Tutor in Clinical Medicine

Emile Okada, (BA, MMath Camb), Mathematics Naomi Petela, MBioChem, DPhil, Biochemistry

Graeme Smith, MPhys, DPhil, Physics Kerstin Timm, (PhD Cantab), Medicine Timothy Walker, MA, Horti Praefectus, Plant Sciences

Joanne Ockwell, (BA, MA University of Gloucester), Welfare support and Policy Officer

Clare Finch, Deputy Development Director (Operations)

Will Dawes, (PGDip RAM, BMus (Hons) Edinburgh), Director of Chapel Music

Communications

Estates

Julia Hill, (BBA University of Kent), Undergraduate Officer

Matt Phipps, (BA York, MPhil Cantab), Communications Manager

Victoria Wilson, Scholarships and Funding Officer

Margaret Thatcher Scholarship Trust

Susan Anthony, (MBBS London), MRCP, FRCR, Medicine

Jessica Mannix, (MA St Andrews), Campaign Director

Claire Cockcroft, MA (PhD Cantab), Director of Richard Ashdowne, the Thatcher Scholarship MA, DPhil, Linguistics Programme Vilma de Gasperin, DPhil, (Laurea Padua), Modern Languages Oxford India

Centre

Radhika Khosla, MPhys, (PhD Chicago), Research Director

Pippa Byrne, BA MSt DPhil, History Dean Sheppard, MChem DPhil, Chemistry

Chapel Utkarsh Sharma, (MSc Warwick, MFin Cantab, BEng Surrey), Chapel Director

Retaining Fee Lectures

Departmental Lecturers

Mark Ealey, Lodge Manager

Brett de Gaynesford, (BA, College of William & Mary, USA), Deputy Development Director

Academic Office

Nisha Singh, MSc, DPhil, Medicine

Development Office

Vinita Govindarajan, (BA Christ University Bangalore, PGDip Asian College of Journalism), MSc, Partnerships and Communications Manager

Jack Evans, BA, Communications Officer

Alumni Relations

Steve Johnson, Estates Manager

Gardens Sophie Walwin, (Kew Dip), Head Gardener

Liz Cooke, MA, Joint Secretary to the Alumni Association Lisa Gygax, MA, Joint Secretary to the Alumni Association

Conferences and Catering Dave Simpson, Catering and Conference Manager

Treasury Elaine Boorman, College Accountant

Linus Ubl, MSt DPhil, (BA MA Eichstätt-Ingolstadt), German

Further details of all administrative staff are to be found on the College website.

Principal’s Report Another academic year has come and gone. Degrees have been awarded and new lives begun in the world beyond Oxford. Of course, this past year was not the year any of us wanted – nor, it seems, will the next one bring an end to these fevers and frets. And yet, look at what a lot our College has achieved in spite of these difficulties. Our students, confronted by a series of challenges more numerous and severe than any students have experienced since the Second World War, rose to the challenge spectacularly. They sat exams in their rooms, adhered with tremendous stoicism to the rigours of government and university guidelines and flattened infection rates to an extraordinary degree.

My only regret is that, due to the rise of the Delta variant, we were not able to give this year’s Leavers the send-off they deserved. We had meant to allow students to stay in College for an additional three weeks of ‘term’ in order to make up for all the missed Oxford experiences of the preceding year, and our JCR Committee poured vast amounts of time and energy into their planning – but, alas, it was not to be. The risks were simply too great. Fortunately, we have at least been able to pencil in a date in Michaelmas 2021 for our Leavers to return for a Formal and overnight stay. Meanwhile, so much else has happened. My colleague Richard Stone, who once again served as Vice Principal this year, was recognised with Fellowships at both the Royal Academy of Engineering and the Society of Automotive Engineers, while his fellow Engineer, Associate Professor Noa Zilberman, was named a Google Research Scholar 2021 in recognition of her work developing sustainable computing infrastructure. We have also had the pleasure of seeing three of our Fellows promoted to Professorships. Our Tutorial Fellows in Biochemistry and Maths, Dr Elena Seiradake and Dr Renaud Lambiotte, were respectively elected to full Professorships in Molecular Biology within the Department of Biochemistry and Networks and Nonlinear Systems within the Mathematical Institute. Meanwhile, Dr Radhika Khosla, our wonderful Research Director at the Oxford India Centre for Sustainable Development, was made Associate Professor in the School of Geography and the Environment. At Somerville, research and practice continue to dovetail seamlessly. Earlier this year, Biology Fellow Professor Renier van der Hoorn received a spectacular €2.5m grant from the

Photo by John Cairns

All of this is enduring testament to them. Even more than that, however, this generation of students should have our admiration and respect for the way they’ve continued to uphold the standards of Somerville. They produced events to support refugees during Refugee Week, organised drinks to celebrate Pride Month, ran a biodiversity audit to make us more sustainable and, most of all, supported one another with a compassion and generosity beyond their years.

European Research Council to continue his work on developing crop protection strategies by unlocking extracellular immunity. His research is reflected in the actions of our Sustainability Working Group – efforts that will shortly include, in a first for Oxford, the appointment of a Sustainability Champion to lead the march for greater sustainability throughout College. Our efforts also received a welcome boost in June, when HRH the Prince of Wales visited College to launch our sustainability programme and meet with Scholars from the Oxford India Centre for Sustainable Development. In the humanities, the benefits of interdisciplinary collaboration were highlighted by the publication, in February 2021, of Medieval Temporalities. The third book to be produced under the aegis of the Somerville Medieval Research Group, its diverse reflections on the experience of time in the Middle Ages pay remarkable tribute to the power of scholarship in forging new understanding and partnerships in a post-Brexit world. A fourth volume on ‘Openness’ is expected in 2022. Further evidence of interdisciplinary thinking came from the podcast series produced by our SRF and Associate Professor in Global Health Ethics, Patricia Kingori. The ‘Genuine Fake’ series saw Patricia meeting experts from the V&A, De Beers and the London College of Fashion to explore the growing sense that our Eurocentric notion of authenticity as a signifier of value is problematic. Patricia was even interviewed about the series by ex-Australian PM Julia Gillard, and both podcasts are now available via the usual platforms.

SOMERVILLE WAS RECOGNISED AS A UNIVERSITY COLLEGE OF SANCTUARY IN FEBRUARY 2021

DR ANWAR MASOUD AND HIS FAMILY

Extending access to Somerville will always be a fundamental priority of the College. I was so very proud, therefore, to see our Tutor and Fellow in Music, Samantha Dieckmann, gain national attention for her programme offering Oxford music students the chance to teach in local schools. A whole generation of young people have had their lives narrowed by lockdown, and Sam’s programme offers a pathway out of that cul-de-sac through music and culture more generally.

Home event featuring one of my great heroes, Lord Alf Dubs, he will come to Somerville with a full scholarship to read History and Economics.

Given the appalling crisis occurring in Afghanistan, it is only fitting that Somerville has been working harder than ever to make our College a place of refuge and transformative opportunity for vulnerable students and academics. We began in October by welcoming our first Sanctuary Scholar, Dr Marwa Biala from Tripoli, to study for an MSc in Radiation Biology. Then, in February, we learned that our joint application with Mansfield College to become the UK’s first Colleges of Sanctuary had been successful. Becoming a College of Sanctuary formalises our commitment to ensuring that Somerville offers a safe and welcoming space for refugees and asylum-seekers. It is also a living, breathing part of our culture. That much was evident when our Tutorial Fellow in Medicine, Professor Daniel Anthony, approached us in June to see if we could help his new colleague, the Yemeni neuropathologist Dr Anwar Masoud. Dr Masoud and his family had just arrived in the UK thanks to CARA, the Council for At-Risk Academics, and it was a great privilege not only to help Anwar and his family, but to see the Somerville community coming together in support of its founding principles. The work will continue. This October, we will welcome our second Sanctuary Scholars to Somerville. Asif is a phenomenal young Afghan who came to the UK as a refugee aged 14 having never attended school in his life. Now, thanks to his own extraordinary tenacity and happening upon a Somerville at

In coming to Somerville, Asif is joining an outstanding community of young minds, just a few of whom I’ll mention here. Dr Cristian Trovato (2017, Computer Science) won Best Research Paper of 2020 from the Journal of Molecular and Cellular Cardiology for his doctoral research on computer modelling to understand specialised Purkinje cells in the heart. Also from the Department of Computer Science, Alex Pay (2019, Computer Science) won first prize in the Department of Computer Science’s annual Group Design Practical. In medicine, Abi Punt (2019, Medicine) and Eva Zilber (2015, Medicine) were both named proxime accessit for their performances in the First and Second BM examinations, respectively. Eva was also selected for the University of Oxford’s Academic Foundation Programme alongside her fellow finalist John Aaron Henry (2015, Medicine), which will enable both doctors to conduct research in an area of their choice while completing the Foundation Programme Curriculum. In postgraduate medicine, Young Kim (2016, DPhil ) was selected as the Nuffield Department of Medicine’s overall prize winner for best DPhil student based on publication records, references and the impact and novelty of his research. I was also delighted that Eoghan Mulholland, a Somerville JRF, won the Lee Placitio Research Fellowship in Gastrointestinal Cancer. In postgraduate humanities, Rebecca Bowen (2016, Medieval and Modern Languages) won the Society for Italian Studies’ 2020 prize best postgraduate thesis in Italian studies. She inspired us all in 2019 with her fundraising campaign to conserve our library’s holdings on Dante and other archival materials, so I have no doubt she’ll inspire us again in the future.

Photo by John Cairns

PRATISHTA DEVESHWAR

FROM LEFT: TRAVON FREE, MARTIN DESMOND ROE AND JOEY BADA$$ ON THE SET OF TWO DISTANT STRANGERS. PHOTO: ELMO KEBOUR/NETFLIX

On the subject of inspiration, few people could claim to have inspired more people than Pratishtha Deveshwar (2020, MSc Public Policy). An activist for persons with disabilities following a car accident aged thirteen which left her unable to walk, Pratishtha has gone from campaigning on the streets of Delhi to speaking before the UN – and this year she was recognised with a Diana Award, the UK’s highest recognition for young people creating social change.

this occasion, which helped us raise over £100,000 in vital funds for Somerville, with almost the same sum anticipated from the private sale of art donated by our alumni.

On a slightly less awe-inspiring, yet no less essential note were the refurbishments undertaken to the Somerville kitchens. For the entire year, we sacrificed the use of our Hall and much of the Quad so that the kitchens and buttery could be reconfigured and new equipment (including energy-efficient convection ovens) installed. Now our catering team will be able to create the delicious food for which they’re renowned with more confidence and creativity than ever. The passion and hard work of our development team, led by Sara Kalim, have enabled us to increase the number of Thatcher Scholars to 24 next year and the number of Oxford India Centre Scholars to 21– thereby meeting the target we set ourselves back in 2018 of having 20 fully-funded scholars per programme. Such scholarships are life-changing for those who receive them, and they add so much new life to our college. Making those opportunities a reality is, of course, endless but never thankless hard work. A shining example of our Development Team’s boundless energy was the Somerville Auction back in May. The first auction to take place in College in over twenty years, as well as the first one ever to go online, the auction was made possible by the generosity of our alumni and friends, and culminated in a joyous night of celebration that brought together students and alumni as well as VIP guests such as Susie Dent and Natasha Kaplinsky. I am so very grateful for your support on

Later in the summer, I was equally thrilled to participate in the inaugural OpenAg Symposium hosted by the OICSD and Indian agribusiness UPL. Focusing on global efforts to reshape the role of food systems in the face of climate change, the event featured leading academics such as Director of the Oxford Martin School, Sir Charles Godfray, alongside leading policymakers, industry pioneers and tech investors. The OpenAg Symposium bears the distinction of being our first fully ‘hybrid’ event, featuring both live and virtual guests. It offers further evidence, if any were needed, that the virtual world is one that our community continues to navigate with elegance and impact. Elsewhere, our Chapel and Choir have continued to produce live-streamed Choral Contemplations, our students have contributed regularly to events through their own platforms or in conjunction with the Development Programme and OICSD, and our Somerville at Home series has gone from strength to strength. If you have a moment to spare, you may wish to catch up on highlights of the latter such as our Climate Change Symposium or our interview with Oscar-winning director Martin Desmond Roe (1997, Lit. Hum.) and Travon Free, Co-Directors of the Black Lives Matter-inspired feature Two Distant Strangers. Last but not least, our Communications team were hard at work for much of this year developing our new website. We hope you’ll agree that it provides a vibrant online home for our community as well as an exciting window on Somerville for the students of tomorrow. JAN ROYALL, Baroness Royall of Blaisdon, Principal of Somerville

Treasurer’s Report As we envisaged in my report for last year’s College Report, Covid has continued to dominate our collegiate lives in 2020-21. Last year we had a loss of £2m as Covid had a dramatic impact on our rental income from our retail properties, on our conference income, and on our student rental income (we waived student rents for Trinity Term 2020 when our students were not in residence). This year much of this still pertains, although the impact on student rental income was not quite so significant, and we anticipate a further loss of £1.5m. The strength of the college endowment (we are now exactly mid table in college endowments) and the assistance of the government furlough scheme has given us the financial heft to absorb this without recourse to redundancies, although we have had had to cut our cloth accordingly to contain its impact, as you would expect.

During the year we also bought the long-term lease on 25-27 Little Clarendon Street (the building immediately west of the Vaughan arcade), giving us three shops at on the ground floor and a flat above each shop. We now own all the buildings in that Walton Street/Little Clarendon street corner and we own the freehold. We also completed the refurbishment of Bedford House which is now a teaching/function room. Following on from a commitment we gave as part of getting planning permission for the Catherine Hughes building, we will be making Bedford House available for local community use during September each year. In terms of our investments, our endowment has more than recovered the losses we experienced last year. During the year, we also completed the process of divesting from all our fossil fuel extraction related investments. The proceeds raised have been re-invested sustainably.

Picture by John Cairns

More positively we have just finished our £4m refurbishment of the kitchen and pantry, which you will remember had reached the end of their life shortly before the pandemic hit. We now have a state-of-the-art kitchen and our catering team are delighted. We expect great things...

ANDREW PARKER, COLLEGE TREASURER

Looking forward to the year ahead, next summer we are planning to put a sound absorbing material onto the dining hall ceiling in an attempt to soften the somewhat oppressive acoustics we experience in there during formal dinners. It won’t completely solve the problem but we anticipate an improvement. ANDREW PARKER

Photo by John Cairns

Fellows’ and Lecturers’ Activities Biology Timothy Walker’s book, Pollination: The Enduring Relationship between Plant and Pollinator, was published by Princeton University Press in October 2020. Timothy says that unlike many books on pollination it is written from the plant’s point of view.

Engineering Stephen Roberts is currently the Royal Academy of Engineering / Man Group Professor of Machine Learning and Director of the Oxford-Man Institute of Quantitative Finance (the OMI) and the last year he has helped to create the Oxford ELLIS (European Laboratory for Learning and Intelligent Systems) Unit, which aims to unite machine learning researchers across multiple departments. Stephen’s interests continue to lie in the theory and methodology of intelligent algorithms for large-scale real-world problems, especially those in which noise and uncertainty abound. In collaboration with colleagues in Zoology his team has developed techniques for detecting mosquitoes using smartphones; the technology developed is in current use in a field trial in Tanzania as part of a Gates Foundation project. Richard Stone reports : Teaching this year has been a mix of in-person and on-line, starting last summer with recording lectures for Michaelmas term. First the new material had to be prepared and then existing material reworked for recording. I used a webcam imaging a piece of paper to supplement the PowerPoint slides as this enabled key diagrams to be displayed and perhaps annotated, or perhaps for the paper to be used like a whiteboard. Making a recording gives even less feedback than in LR1, so I was grateful that I had lectured most of the material before. Tutoring in Michaelmas term was mix of in-person and on-line as not all students returned to Oxford. Hilary term was all on-line and in Trinity there has been a mix.

Research has been disrupted, but initially being away from the lab meant that we did thoroughly analyse our back catalogue of data, and start to design hardware for a new experiment. The combustion and engine activity will be secure for the next 5 years as we have just started an EPSRC funded Prosperity Partnership for which the key collaboration is with Jaguar Land Rover. Conferences and vivas have been on-line, so I have recently ‘attended’ a conference in Portugal that ran to US time. In December 2019 I agreed to be external for a viva in Malta that was held in April 2022; my willingness to take this on was not entirely academic grounds, although it did align closely with something we were doing 20 years ago. Anyway, activity in the lab is now recovering and we have learned to live with the restrictions.

English Fiona Stafford reports: The past year has been dominated by the pandemic and therefore by screens and microphones. Online classes, tutorials, research seminars, meetings, recorded lectures, remote library resources, online exams and Admissions have all been enormously time-consuming. In spite of this, it has been rewarding to see students adapting to the new challenges and embarking on mental travelling, if not physical. Academic events moved online, giving speakers the unnerving experience of delivering research from their rooms to a screen full of small faces or just initials. I gave various papers at digital events, including a celebration of the work of Somerville alumna, Claire Lamont. I also recorded videos, interviews and podcasts for the new Jerwood Centre in Grasmere, the British Academy, the John Clare Society, the Royal Forestry Society and BBC Radio. An essay on literary periodisation and another on the legacies of Irish Romantic literature were published. A new Everyman collection of Stories of Trees, Woods and the Forest, which I selected during the lockdown, and

an anthology of the literary magazine Archipelago, co-edited with Nicholas Allen, will appear in September 2021.

History Pippa Byrne spent 2020-21 adapting to virtual conferences and Teams teaching. She most recently published an article on twelfth-century ideas of authority in Historical Research, with forthcoming work in Mediterranean Studies. She is preparing a manuscript on Sicily in the medieval Mediterranean. She continues to be impressed by the excellent work done by Somerville history students in such a difficult year. Professor Natalia Nowakowska reports: The focus of this past year has clearly been to support History students, College and the Faculty during the pandemic, but Natalia has also published an article in The Journal of Global Intellectual History on the history of the concept of 'dynasty', and given an online lecture on that topic to the University of Silesia in Katowice, Poland. Benjamin Thompson’s tenure as Associate Head for Education in the Humanities Division continued to be dominated by Covid all year, with the ups and downs of both the virus and government policy requiring continual adjustment to our teaching- and examining-régimes. In the interstices he also completed his contribution to the latest Somerville Medievalists’ volume on Openness, assessing the vexed relationship between enclosed medieval monasteries and the world in which they were located.

Law Professor Julia Dickson reports that she has continued with the task of completing her forthcoming book, Elucidating Law, under contract with Oxford University Press, and hopes to have the manuscript with the publishers by the end of the long vacation in 2021, following her sabbatical leave in

Trinity Term 2021. As is the case for all academics, she had a very difficult year in academic year 20/21 owing to the extra work involved in moving teaching online, and then conducting it online often across multiple time zones, and in providing the considerable extra pastoral and academic support that students have needed during the pandemic. She is so grateful for the support of her excellent law colleagues, Professor Chris Hare, and Career Development Lecturer Achas Burin, and is glad that the College is already thinking about how to continue with the Career Development Lectureship once its current term comes to an end, because without it the Law School at Somerville would simply not have been able to make it through the pandemic while offering students the enhanced support that they have needed. Professor Stephen Weatherill, in his final year before retiring, has continued to teach European Union law at undergraduate and postgraduate levels while also supervising a terrific bunch of research students whose work covers matters such as EU competition law, state aid, consumer law, constitutional identity, procedural protection in tax investigations, and the digital economy. He has watched with dismay but no surprise as every single promise made by the Brexiters about the UK's prospects after Brexit has withered to dust, rotted on the vine or been steamrollered by reality. Throwing tantrums and incanting "sovereignty" cuts little ice in international Treaty negotiation - who knew? His main research in recent months has been devoted to the development of the UK's internal market now that the UK has quit the EU's internal market, which in particular concerns the need to reconcile the desire for unimpeded trade within the UK with the scope for divergent market regulation in areas previously regulated in common by the EU by the devolved administrations in Cardiff, Edinburgh and Belfast. Northern Ireland, by virtue of its notorious Protocol, is to general anxiety excluded from that UK internal market, whereas Scotland and Wales are to general anxiety included within it according to a statutory formula which savagely undermines their regulatory autonomy, exposing Scottish and Welsh markets to English-produced goods permitted to ignore Scottish and Welsh

rules. This, he thinks, is one more factor destabilising this increasingly fragile and rough-edged United Kingdom. If you want to read more, try ‘Will the United Kingdom survive the United Kingdom Internal Market Act?’, UKICE Working Paper 03/2021, United Kingdom in a Changing Europe, https://ukandeu. ac.uk/working-paper/will-the-unitedkingdom-survive-the-uk-internalmarket-act/

Linguistics Louise Mycock reports: In this most difficult of years, the Linguistics community at Somerville has shown great fortitude, flexibility, and perseverance. Our Linguistics undergraduates, including our thirdyear Modern Languages and Linguistics students who were studying at universities in Germany in 2020–2021, have shown great resilience in coping with teaching online and learning from home. Their continuing hard work and enthusiasm has given much reason to be optimistic. The switch to online teaching has been a major focus throughout the past academic year. I attended numerous online training events and took the opportunity to overhaul courses that I taught by making as much material as possible available online. In addition to lecture videos and online reading lists, I developed new resources to support asynchronous learning and ran drop-in sessions. I received positive feedback from students about the resources I made available and am looking forward to integrating these online materials into my courses in the future, as well as developing others to compliment in-person teaching once it returns. For the second year running, College Open Day events were held remotely and I participated in a lively online question and answer session on Linguistics at Somerville. With respect to my own research, I have had two further articles published on the pronoun tag construction (“It’s good, that”), examining its use in the works of Jonson, Marlowe and Shakespeare (L Mycock & J Misson ‘Lone pronoun tags in Early Modern English: ProTag constructions in the dramas of Jonson, Marlowe

and Shakespeare’ DOI: https://doi. org/10.1017/S1360674320000209) and in colloquial present-day British English (L Mycock & C L Pang ‘Funny that isn’t it: ProTags in combination at the right periphery’ DOI: https://doi. org/10.1016/j.pragma.2021.06.008). My research on this topic continues, with my current focus being on investigating the ways in which this construction has changed over the Modern English period based on a corpus of English drama. I have also had a chapter accepted for publication on the analysis of Bengali intonation, co-authored with my Somerville and Faculty of Linguistics, Philology and Phonetics colleague Professor Aditi Lahiri. I have given invited talks remotely at the Goethe-Universität Frankfurt (on the analysis of Hungarian question formation) and the University of Oslo (on information structure and prosody), and attended remote meetings of the research network of which I am a member (Syntax Beyond the Canon: Cutting-edge Studies of Non-Canonical Syntax in English). All being well, our first network meeting of 2022 will be held at Somerville next spring.

Mathematics Dan Ciubotaru reports : This academic year I have been on sabbatical leave from college. I had many plans for research visits and collaborations, but, of course, these plans had to be cancelled and replaced by zoom meetings. On 1 January, I have been awarded a new twoyear research grant by the EPSRC "New Horizons", supporting my research on the classification of unitary representations of reductive Lie groups. This was a competitive call, and I was happy that my project was selected. I have also collaborated with a research group in Ghent, Belgium, where my former postdoc and college lecturer, Marcelo De Martino, is now located; a paper with our findings is under journal review. In a different direction, I have worked with the Maths JRF, Beth Romano, and with a French collaborator, on a new idea in abstract harmonic analysis that we are very excited about. We have just posted a first preprint on the arXiv with this new construction, but there will be more work to come. I reported on my work in online talks, including a departmental colloquium at Cornell University, a seminar talk at

the Weizmann Institute in Israel, and a lecture at the American Institute of Mathematics. At the Maths Institute, I continued the supervision of my three DPhil students, two of whom will likely defend their theses next year, and the mentorship of postdoctoral fellows (Beth, Marcelo, and a new Titchmarsh fellow, Lucas MasonBrown). I organised the departmental Algebra (now online) seminar and I am looking forward to better times when we'll be able to also welcome speakers in person. As Chair of Prelims Examiners for Mathematics, I had a busy and, at times, stressful year given all of the disruption in learning and examinations, but in the end, the online exams worked better than I had feared. Renaud Lambiotte reports : As for many academics, this was a very unusual year. School closures and home working led to new challenges and pressures on (systemically) very busy schedules but I have been impressed by the agility of the whole system. Our students have been wonderful, motivated and hard working despite the circumstances. At the research level, I managed to finish writing a book, “Modularity and Dynamics on Complex Networks", which I started writing 3 years ago. It will be published in the next few months by Cambridge University Press. The book covers most of the important lines of my research from the last 15 years. I wrote it in the evenings, or when I found a minute, but it could actually be that the crisis was also instrumental in shaping the book, by making me take a step back, find the threads connecting my research projects.

Medicine Simon Kyle, Programme Director of the online MSc in Sleep Medicine, reports that since the course has been online since 2016 it has been relatively pandemic-proof and its experience has been invaluable in offering advice to other courses moving online as a result of the pandemic. Many MSc students, being frontline health care workers, were most definitely affected in the workplace but most were able to continue with their studies. Twenty-six students have so far completed the

MSc Sleep Medicine beginning with 4 students joining the programme in 2016 to 14 due to complete in October 2021. Three students achieved Distinction in the programme (one in each completed cohort). Nisha Singh, who is Senior Programme Manager , Oxford Vaccine Group, reports: I was based in the Department of Psychiatry at the beginning of the lockdown and had hoped to be back soon conducting my research on a drug for treatment resistant depression. That optimism was short-lived. End July, I received a call from a colleague who worked in the Oxford Vaccine Group. They needed someone to come in and hit the ground running with the two ongoing clinical trials of the OxfordAstra Zeneca COVID-19 vaccine. So, I nervously stepped in to help with the coordination between the 18 UK trial sites and Oxford, as the sponsor of the trial. Since then, I have been involved in the delivery of several trials involving the vaccine. So, for me, this has been an incredibly busy year, but also a very rewarding one. It is a rare privilege to be part of a team that implements such rapid translation of research into clinical application, which also addresses an unprecedented urgent, global health need. I think there is finally light at the end of the tunnel.

Modern Languages Simon Kemp reports: French studies at Somerville have come through a difficult year stronger than ever. Our marvellously resilient students have weathered a year of pandemic-related disruption to their studies, for most of which we have been restricted to online teaching. Thankfully, we managed to return to in-person teaching by the end of the academic year, which was a pleasure after months of interaction via screens. Our students on their year abroad have also had a difficult time of it, of course, although I’m pleased to say that the year abroad was designated ‘essential travel’, meaning that all our students in modern languages have managed to spend time in an immersive target-language environment. Earlier this year we were also the recipients of an immensely generous donation to support the teaching of French literature

at Somerville, for which we’re hugely grateful, and which will ensure the future of the discipline in the college for many years to come. Personally, this year I have published articles on contemporary French author Marie Darrieussecq and overview chapters on modern French literature for the Cambridge History of the Novel in French and Contemporary Fiction in French (also with Cambridge University Press). I’ve also been working to increase and foreground diversity in our literary studies, both in my own course plans and reading lists at Somerville, and in the faculty more widely. I’m about to embark on three terms of research leave, at the end of which I aim to have a new monograph in press, Reading the Mind: Theories of Consciousness and Literary Criticism. Francesca Southerden has spent the year working on a variety of projects, including a special issue on the topic of Medieval Barthes, co-edited with Jennifer Rushworth (UCL), and articles on both Dante and Petrarch. In March 2021, The Oxford Handbook of Dante, which she co-edited with Manuele Gragnolati (Senior Research Fellow, Somerville; Sorbonne; ICI Berlin) and Elena Lombardi (Oxford), was published by Oxford University Press. Francesca has also participated in several online events during the academic year, including two colloquia on lyric poetry which were an opportunity to discuss the volume, Possibilities of Lyric: Reading Petrarch in Dialogue, with an Epilogue by Antonella Anedda Angioy, co-authored with Manuele Gragnolati (Berlin: ICI Berlin Press, 2020). The last year has been very full for Professor Almut Suerbaum, as chair of the Faculty of Medieval and Modern Languages, supporting students whose course involves a year of travelling and living abroad - not easy for individual students or the faculty during a pandemic with so many rapid changes of course. But it has also been wonderful to see how resilient students and colleagues are. The highlight of the Somerville Medievalist Research Group has been the publication of our volume on 'Medieval Temporalities: The Experience of Time in Medieval Europe', shortly to be followed by the volume arising from our Berlin conference in summer 2019 on 'Openness in Medieval

Culture'. Just published: Medieval Temporalities. The Experience of Time in Medieval Europe, ed. Almut Suerbaum and Annie Sutherland, Boydell & Brewer, 2021.

Music In February 2021, the Somerville music students took part in an online seminar designed by their music analysis tutor, Dr Esther Cavett, to create connections across college years and raise awareness of the broader context of music analysis as an academic discipline. The seminar aimed to consolidate friendships and create reciprocal learning opportunities during a period when we were living disconnected lives in a fearful and largely online world. In preparation for the seminar all students viewed a talk titled Redrawing Analytical Lines, given online by Dr Vivian Luong (University of Saskatchewan) at the international Society of Music Theory conference 2020. This talk was a development of Dr Luong’s work on music ethics and analysis. Third years then mentored first years to create a brief, formal

conference-style response to her paper. The first years then sent their response to the second years who prepared their own informal responses to the first-year materials. The students worked together but largely independently of their tutor. The seminar took place fully online, chaired by Dr Cavett and Dr Luong took part in the discussions. Following the seminar, Dr Luong and Dr Cavett, with input from all the students, have written a short, “autoethnographic” article outlining their collaborative learning experiences. This is currently under consideration for an online music theory pedagogy resource based in the USA.

Senior Research Fellows Amalia Coldea is now an Associate Professor and she has received a national prize on Superconductivity, the Brian Pippard Prize of the IOP Superconductivity Group. https://www. iop.org/physics-community/specialinterest-groups/superconductivitygroup/brian-pippard-prize#gref. Laboratories have been operational

since August 2020 and she and her team were able to carry on doing research and getting new results on superconductivity under high pressures using diamond anvil cells (work in progress). They have not been able to travel and two experiments run remotely; they sent their single crystals abroad and their collaborators helped with setting up and running experiments at high magnetic field facilities in the USA and Europe. https://www.physics. ox.ac.uk/research/group/quantummatter-high-magnetic-fields. The last year has given Amalia time to publish several new papers. Stephanie Dalley’s book The City of Babylon: a history c. 2000 BC to AD 116, CUP, was published on 8th July 2021. Frank Prochaska published an article 'The Feminisation of the British Monarchy’, in the book The Role of Monarchy in Modern Democracy, eds Robert Hazell and Bob Morris (Hart, 2020).

Photo by John Cairns

Junior Research Fellows’ Activities The pandemic has had an impact on all aspects of our activity, including the research of our Junior Research Fellows (JRFs). We have extended the tenure of our existing non-stipendiary JRFs (i.e. those who have a postdoc independently of the College) from the normal two years to three, so we will have 24 JRFs in total for the next two years. We have invited our JRFs to send us reports on their research but we are conscious that these are difficult times, especially for our early career researchers, so we have not added to their burden by chasing everyone for a report. What follows is, therefore, a somewhat more select overview of our JRFs’ research than might normally be covered in the annual report. Susan Dunning works in Classics, investigating how common (as opposed to Imperial) Romans portrayed themselves or others as gods in funerary monuments and literary contexts. To pursue this, Sarah has been compiling datasets of several hundred examples of such ‘divine associations’ across different media. Susan’s progress has been limited by constraints on travel and reduced access to sources other than those available in the Ashmolean or online. Following discussion with our Ancient History Fellow, Beate Dignas, Susan has expanded the scope of her research to include the Greek practice of ‘heroisation’ and its influence on Roman funerary monuments. Susan delivered a paper at the Ancient History Seminar in Oxford and has actively contributed to College life, including participating in a workshop in which JRFs offered advice to current students about how to get research fellowships. Susan has made a great video entitled ‘Did the Romans Believe in their Gods?’, lodged at Did the Romans believe in their gods? | L.I.S.A. WISSENSCHAFTSPORTAL GERDA HENKEL STIFTUNG (gerda-henkel-stiftung.de). Ferenc Mózes works in the Radcliffe Department of Medicine, investigating non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD). NAFLD can cause serious scarring of the liver (termed advanced fibrosis). There are currently no drugs available to treat NAFLD but there are a number of clinical trials taking place. To assess suitability for participation in trials, patients are currently required to undergo a needle biopsy, which is invasive, carries risks, and has uncertain outcomes. Ferenc is investigating noninvasive alternative assessment options. Liver stiffness can be measured using something called vibration-controlled transient elastography. If this is combined with blood-based markers, the proportion of patients requiring a needle biopsy can be reduced from 33% to 19%. Ferenc’s work is likely to change clinical policy in the diagnosis of patients with advanced fibrosis. Godelinde Perk examines how female medieval authors reconfigure the liturgy (the Divine Office and the Mass) by way of memoria, the medieval art of memory. Godelinde focuses on six female-authored texts from the Low Countries, German-speaking lands and the British Isles. During lockdown, opportunities to travel have been more limited. Indeed, lockdown has had features in common with the medieval practice of enclosure, in which a nun might confine herself to her cell for religious reasons. Godelinde has been able to call upon the experience and the comparison to produce an article

on nuns, fashion and memory. Godelinde is also working on a monograph which will be the first book-length study to consider how theology and literature interplay in the works of Julian of Norwich (1343-1416), the earliest English women writer, most famous for writing ‘All shall be well and all shall be well and all manner of things shall be well’, a remarkable vision for someone who had lived through the black death in her early childhood. Hussam Hussein works in the Department of Politics and International Relations. His research focuses on analysing possibilities for transboundary resources management in the Jordan and Nile basins. In addition, Hussam has explored how and why transboundary freshwater agreements change over time. Hussam has also conducted research on the political economy of water scarcity in the Middle East, aiming to collect the findings into a manuscript for a book project. Hussam has received a 2021 departmental award for academic research having policy impact and was elected in 2021 to the Board of Trustees of the Arab Council for the Social Sciences. Hussam has been particularly active in College, contributing to the undergraduate admissions interviews for PPE and giving presentations to Somerville students on how to publish in academic journals. Eoghan Mulholland works in the Wellcome Centre for Human Genetics. Eoghan’s research explores the genetic and cellular architecture of colorectal cancers. To date, research tells us that it isn’t just the genetic defects in the cancer cells that influences how a cancer behaves, but also how the supporting (stromal) and immune cells interact within it. Current understanding is lacking in how these ‘cell conversations’ initiate and develop but using cutting-edge research methodologies we can have the opportunity to ‘eavesdrop’. Eoghan has published several manuscripts over the past year in Journals including Nature Reviews Cancer and Gastroenterology. Eoghan was awarded the Lee Placito Research Fellowship by the University of Oxford in May 2021 which will commence in October for a 3 year period. Jesus Aguirre Gutierrez works in the Department of Plant Sciences. investigating the impact of a changing environment on the plant functional composition of forests across the tropics. Jesus does this by carrying out field-based assessment collecting plant trait data such as leaf nutrients and morphology (shape) and also using drone remote sensing technology. Back at the office Jesus carries out statistical analysis based on the field collections and plant databases making also use of satellite remote sensing imagery. Over the last year Jesus has been also working with temperate forests in Chile. In collaboration with research partners from Chile, Jesus is working on a project investigating how climate change is affecting the distribution of these forests and which species may be more resilient to further climate changes in the near future. Jesus has published his findings so far in journals such as Remote Sensing in the Environment and Nature Communications. DR STEVE RAYNER, Senior Tutor

MCR Report The 2020/2021 academic year has definitely been a challenging year for us. Our student community had to adapt to new ways of learning and socialising virtually. The Somerville MCR committee has committed to ensure incoming and returning students feel supported and connected during these times. The welfare and the social team of the MCR worked hard over the summer to draw up plans to support students coming from overseas who had to quarantine, by ensuring that the committee has virtual check-in sessions with quarantining students to support them and help with any needs. The welfare officers (Bahar Kashef Hamadani and Gaurav Dubey) have kindly launched a new initiative, called Friend @ Somerville. This initiative aims at connecting incoming students with a returning student, a friend, who can guide their incoming peer through College and University life and answer any questions about life in Oxford and the UK more generally. I am proud that in the past year, with immense efforts and hard work from all our committee members, we were able to transform the MCR into a virtual as well as a physical space. Firstly, I have hosted during the past year virtually the MCR Academic Talks. The talks helped showcase MCR members’ research and academic interests in a wide variety of fields such as Psychology, Chemistry, Computer Science, Climate Change, and Classics. This was a great opportunity to connect our members academically within the MCR but also with members of the SCR, who participated as speakers and as audience at the Academic Talks. Secondly, our welfare officers planned

Photo by Banashree Thapa

and offered Welfare Walks to emphasise the importance of upkeeping physical and mental well-being in a safe manner that complies with social distancing rules and government guidelines. The social secretaries (Caroline Weglinski, Raphael Reinbold, and Kyoungeun Lee) offered virtually a book club, games nights, pub quizzes, chocolate tastings, and magic shows to our graduate students as opportunities to socialise and meet other MCR members. We are so proud of Somerville’s efforts to become a College of Sanctuary, and happy that our MCR members were able to contribute to Somerville’s amazing effort to show its ongoing commitment to its culture of inclusivity. Special thanks to our minority ethnic group representative, Gabriella Cook Francis, to Charlotte Feingold, Koto Akiyoshi, and all MCR members who supported Somerville’s application. I would also like to thank all our outgoing members for contributing to our social, academic, and intellectual life in Somerville and all previous and current members of the MCR committee for all their efforts to keep our community connected; also all our wonderful staff members and tutors who have worked tirelessly to make us all feel supported during the last challenging year. We highly appreciate all their efforts. A special thank you to Jan, for going above and beyond to make sure that all students feel safe and can manage as easily as possible in the difficult circumstances. Thank you all so much for being a part of our great community in Somerville. ASHRAKAT ELSHEHAWY, MCR President

The Library and Covid-19 The library has existed in a multitude of guises this year – a fully remote service for short periods, mostly remote with a few students and a reduced staff and partially remote with larger numbers of students and a full complement of staff! Services have been adapted as the need has arisen and I would like to pay tribute to Sue, Matthew and Kate who have been both flexible and innovative in their approach to the changing circumstances. We have not been able to resume 24/7 opening so far, with covid cases still rife in the city as I write, but we are hopeful it won’t be too far away! New services to help in the covid-19 crisis included lending books via a Click and Collect set-up, scanning book chapters for individuals, having books sent direct to students homes and setting up, populating, checking and updating online reading lists for tutors as well as general ferreting around for difficult-to-find online resources. As expected, borrowings have been significantly reduced this year as so many reading lists were reconfigured to make use of online resources and many students spent much of the year away from Oxford. So far this year, we’ve made 3,853 loans compared to

2019-20, when we’d made 8,491, and in 2018-19 (the last “normal” year) that figure was 10,874. Although we have continued to add to the collection, there were quite a few periods when staff were furloughed so no purchases were made. The numbers for this year are 1225 purchases compared to 1413 in 2020. As ever we are very grateful to all those who have donated books and papers to the library and a list of our donors can be found at the end of this report. Many thanks to all of you! Social distancing requirements and low student numbers on site meant that much of the library was closed off this year with only the ground floor of the main library in use for two terms. A one-way system was introduced with users entering from the Holtby fire door and exiting through the East level access door. The main doors have remained closed throughout the period. In Trinity term the upper library was opened enabling 22 students to use the library at a time in three sessions throughout the day and evening. Although we were not able to provide a normal library service, students have been very understanding and have consistently provided positive feedback about the services that we have been able to provide.

Picture by John Cairns

Library Report 2020-21

DR ANNE MANUEL

Archives and Special Collections Due to the pandemic, no researchers were admitted to the archives during the year so every effort was made to assist with digitised materials and remote viewings via Microsoft teams. The first researchers returned to the archives at the beginning of June 2021 and there are many others waiting to gain access once we are able to accommodate them safely . Email enquiries have continued throughout the year : Special Collections – 33 (43 in 2019/20) and 91 archives enquiries (113 in 2019/20). Thanks to our increasing amount of digitised documents, it was possible to answer a substantial number of email enquiries during the lockdowns, or provide a provisional response until access to the collections was possible once more.

Special Collection accessions and cataloguing

Picture by Anne Manuel

We have been fortunate to receive several interesting additions to the collections including letters written by Agatha Ramm, Margery Fry and Margaret Thatcher, the papers of writer and alumna Mary Crawford Nicholson and an addition to the Philippa Foot papers; a translation of Immanuel Kant’s Critique of Practical Reason by Heinz Cassirer, believed to have been lost.

THE LIBRARY EMPLOYED A BOOKING SYSTEM TO KEEP READERS SAFE DURING THE PANDEMIC

Over the long vacation we were lucky to have the services of intern Rebecca Keddie who had just completed her history degree at Somerville. She

Picture by John Cairns

HRH PRINCE CHARLES LEARNS ABOUT THE COLLEGE’S RADICALLY INCLUSIVE HISTORY FROM SPECIAL COLLECTIONS ASSISTANT, DR JANE ROBINSON

worked on a number of projects including indexing the College Log Books, cataloguing photographs from the Vera Brittain/Shirley Williams collection and scanning the 1872 travel diary of Amelia Edwards.

Exhibitions In Michaelmas Term 2020, an exhibition on the centenary of degrees for women at Oxford was put on display in Green Hall. This was hastily reassembled in June when we welcomed HRH the Prince of Wales to the college in June 2021. Jane Robinson (1978) conducted His Royal Highness through the exhibition and Anne showed him photos from the archives of his mother and great grandmother visiting the college in 1968 and 1921 respectively. We were very sorry to learn of the death of alumna Baroness Williams of Crosby and an exhibition commemorating her life was displayed in Green Hall from April to May 2021. In May 2021 the long process of digitising the Paradise of Dainty Devices https://tinyurl.com/ paradisedaintydevices from the Percy Withers Collection was finalised and it was published on Digital Bodleian. This autograph/visitors book, contains poems, drawings and messages from almost 40 important 20th Century cultural figures, including Max Beerbohm, Walter de la Mare, Paul Nash and W B Yeats. The project was generously funded by donors Karen and Ian Gray, and its publication makes

REBECCA KEDDIE

unseen content freely available to the world for the first time – well worth a browse!

John Stuart Mill Library The John Stuart Mill lectures in 2020 and 2021 were cancelled because of the pandemic. Similarly we have been unable to hold any seminars or visits this year. However, we hope to be able to restart a programme of events in Michaelmas Term 2021 and look forward to another visit from researcher/digitiser Professor Albert Pionke from the University of Alabama in December

Publications The website, ‘Education and Activism: Women at Oxford, 1878-1920:’ commemorating the centenary of women’s formal admission to the University of Oxford was launched on 14 October 2020, the 100th anniversary of the first degree

ceremony for women. The website, which is a collaborative project between the archivists of the former women’s colleges, the Bodleian Library and the History Faculty, has been welcomed by researchers and academics and is an invaluable resource for anyone interested in the history of women’s education. The pandemic did cause some delays to the project, but most of the content is now available and includes not only digitised material from the former women’s colleges archives (such as a complete set of The Fritillary, the magazine of the women’s colleges) but new content and essays about the early days of women’s higher education at Oxford. Hopefully 21-22 will feel a bit more normal and I look forward to seeing many of you again at in-person events when it is finally safe to hold them again! ANNE MANUEL College Librarian

A NEW WEBSITE COMMEMORATING THE CENTENARY OF WOMEN’S ADMISSION TO THE UNIVERSITY WAS LAUNCHED IN OCTOBER 2020

List of Library Donors 2020-2021 Anonymous donors

Frances Larson*

Jane Robinson (English, 1978)*

Caroline Barron (History, 1959)*

Tess Little (History, 2010)*

Matthew Roper

Lesley Brown (Lit Hum, 1963)*

Jude Mahmoud (English, 2017)

Mia Rothwell (History, 2018)

Nadine Brummer (Lit Hum, 1953)*

Anne Manuel

Charlotte Graves Taylor (1958)*

Arnold and Patrick Butler

Kate McLoughlin (English, 1988)*

Angela Trajkovska (Jurisprudence, 2017)

Melissa Chang (Music, 2018)

Valerie Mendes*

Richard Cullen*

Chris Naunton*

Stephanie Dalley (SRF)*

Rosie Oliver (Mathematics, 1976)*

Meriel De Laszlo (1968)*

Henning Ottmann*

Julia Gasper (English, 1979)*

Alysoun Owen (1987) and Jonathan Glasspool

Di Wang

Susan Owens (English, 1990)*

Stephen Weatherill

Oxford Review of Books

Isobel Williams (English, 1972)*

Philippa Tudor (History, 1975)* Peter Turner Linus Ubl (SCR) Martin Walker

Sophie Geoffroy* Cressida Heyes (PPE, 1989)* Grazyna Kubica* Trevor Pateman* Elinor Lamrick (French and Italian, 2016)

* Indicates donor’s own publication

Photo by John Cairns

The Somerville Association President’s Report 2020-2021 This has, of course, been a year when alumni and Association activity has been more or less entirely online. It will be wonderful to resume face-to-face contact but a mixed economy surely beckons. The pandemic has hugely accelerated the adoption of what used to be known as ‘videoconferencing’, with the software maturing at pace. Somerville has upgraded its technology, with generous support from many alumni. And the hugely successful online Auction encapsulates the benefits. It brought together our scattered alumni to create an amazing list of offerings, more than 1,000 bids, and raised £96,000 for the college. As a happy purchaser I hope very much that this is the first of many. The Spring Meeting was also, of course, virtual – and with record numbers attending. It was wonderful to welcome Xand van Tulleken (1996, Physiological Sciences), recovered from his own terrifying bout with Covid, and in great form. Another benefit of the format was that we were able to take some great questions from participating children, online with their parents. The same month saw Somerville celebrate 100 years of PPE, with an excellent panel and high online turnout. As a PPE graduate in attendance, I thought this was one of the occasions when an online format provided some major benefits, not least the way that people could and did get re-acquainted in the chat. The short notes that many of us provided were also fascinating because they focused on the degree, rather than on Oxford life more generally, and they are available to download online at https://bit.ly/3aUWwd5. I hope the college has some more great degree-specific anniversaries coming up – this format definitely deserves repeating. Other online highlights were the Climate Change Seminar and a discussion with Martin Desmond Roe (1997, Lit. Hum.) about his Oscar-winning short film Two Distant Strangers. The Principal hosted informal ‘meet the Principal’ events on Zoom for alumni in Asia, Europe and North America. The Somerville London Group hosted a wide range of talks, and their book club is also flourishing; there are several other Somerville book clubs and if anyone would like details please email elizabeth. cooke@some.ox.ac.uk However we also hit the downside of pandemic life. For the second year, the college had to cancel our wonderful

Commemoration Service and substitute an online Commemoration. This annual service is always greatly appreciated by the families and friends of Somervillians who have died during the previous year. Hopefully 2022 will see its return. Finally, this year, like so many others, has seen Somervillians honoured in the New Year and Queen’s Birthday Honours – and marks the first appearance there of ‘Somerville man’ in the person of Dan York-Smith (1998, Modern History), Director, Strategy, Planning and Budget, HM Treasury. He received a CB for public service, continuing the core Somerville tradition of service to society. Other Somervillians honoured this year were: Diana Evans (1978, English). MBE for Services to Heritage Mary Jones (2005, Jurisprudence). Lately Deputy Director, Home Affairs and EU Exit, Cabinet Office. OBE for Public Service. Prof. Farah Bhatti (1984, Physiological Sciences). First female consultant cardiothoracic surgeon in Wales. OBE for Services to Diversity in the NHS in Wales. Narmada Helen de Silva (1989, Experimental Psychology). Deputy Director, Strategic and Cross Cutting Policy Group, HM Revenue and Customs. OBE for Public Service. Dr Rachel Glennerster (1985, PPE). Chief Economist Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office. CMG for Services to International Development. Katherine Edda Escott (née Deakin, known as Kata and married to Fellow Somervillian Harry; 1997, Lit Hum). Strategy Director, Ministry of Defence. CB for Public Service. On behalf of the Somerville Association, I would like to congratulate them all; and also extend my thanks to the Association committee and year reps for all their work on behalf of the college, and to Liz Cooke and Lisa Gygax for, as always, offering enormous ongoing support to the Association and to alumni everywhere. ALISON WOLF (Potter, 1967)

Horsman Awards

The Somerville Senior Members’ Fund

The Alice Horsman Scholarship was established in 1953. Alice Horsman (1908, Classics) was a great traveller who wished to provide opportunities for former Somerville students to experience other countries and peoples, whether through travel, research or further study. The Alice Horsman Scholarship is open to all Somerville undergraduate and graduate alumni with the exception of Bachelor of Medicine and Bachelor of Surgery students at other Oxford colleges. Applicants should be in need of financial support for a project involving travel, research or further study that is intended to enhance their career prospects. Applicants who have secured a place on the Teach First, Police Now or Step Up to Social Work schemes will be looked on favourably. Priority will be given to applicants who have not received previous awards. For information about the application process please email academic.office@some.ox.ac.uk.

This Fund was established to provide small sums to help alumni with unforeseen expenses and hardship. We have also been able to use it to subsidize the cost of individuals attending College events which would otherwise have been unaffordable for them. We hope that people who find themselves in need will not hesitate to call upon the Fund. We are glad to hear from third parties who think that help would be appreciated. We are always grateful for donations to this Fund. Applications for grants should be addressed to elizabeth.cooke@some.ox.ac.uk or lesley.brown@some.ox.ac.uk

Applications are accepted each term.

Somerville London Group The Somerville London Group has expanded its reach over the past year to a global audience with a series of online events that have been attended by Somervillians from as far afield as the US and New Zealand, as well as our existing cohort of supporters from the south-east of England. Numbers attending grew from 45 to almost 200 over the course of the year, demonstrating the huge enthusiasm of Somervillians for entertainment, knowledge and opportunities for online contact and conversation. We began our programme of online events last autumn with two events about pioneering Somervillian journalists, Anne Scott James and Audrey Withers, the queens of Fleet Street in the mid-twentieth century. In September Clare Hastings and her daughter Calypso discussed Clare’s recent biography of her mother: Hold the Front Page! The Wit and Wisdom of Anne Scott James; and in November Julie Summers spoke about her biography of Audrey Withers, editor of Vogue for 20 years from 1940. Baroness Ruth Hunt opened our 2021 programme with a fascinating talk about Working through Conflict: Social Change in the 21st Century, sharing many personal experiences and insights and stimulating some interesting questions. In March Dr Clara Seeger spoke to us about Cultivating a Balanced Mind: An Art and a Science, describing the four functions of the mind and how to achieve a balance between these functions through meditation. In a first for us, the event was participatory with Clara leading a guided mini-meditation for 15 minutes.

Our final two events looked at women hidden from history. In June journalist and writer Ian Dunt talked to us about Harriet Taylor and her intellectual and romantic relationship with John Stuart Mill. In Ian’s opinion their intellectual partnership laid the foundations for modern liberalism though Harriet’s contribution was either vilified or ignored. In July Professor Ann Oakley spoke about the forgotten wives of her latest book – women whose achievements have been written out of history and who were footnotes to their husbands’ biographies until she shone a long-needed spotlight on their lives. In addition to our events, Committee member Ruth Crawford manages our Book Group, now meeting online every six weeks or so, and which has discussed an eclectic selection of books by Somervillian authors generating some passionate discussions about their merits. We are very grateful to all those who participated in Somerville London Group events over the past year and hope to see many of you in the coming year. CAROLINE TOTTERDILL, Chair of the Somerville London Group.

In addition to the SLG book club, several online book clubs have been established during the past year. If you might be interested in any of these, please contact Liz Cooke (elizabeth. cooke@some.ox.ac.uk) for details.

Life Before Somerville: Linda Appleby As Linda Jones, I read PPE, mostly Philosophy, 1975-78. I come from Cambridge and went to the Perse Girls’ School. After Oxford, I took an MA at London with a dissertation on the philosophy of psychoanalysis and a PGCE in English in a multi-cultural society (with distinction) at Leeds. After a year of social work, I was a college lecturer in Warwickshire, teaching 16+ and adults English Literature. I was A Level Course Organiser and then ran the college language policy. I took my interest in psychoanalysis further with a course in the theory of Melanie Klein at Birmingham University and have kept a strong interest in psychotherapy. Since I retired from teaching I have been involved in various writing projects, including two novels, The Kingdom is Yours and The Value of Nothing and several poetry collections. I have an anthology of poems on mental health, Harvest, to be published later this year. I was married to Professor John Appleby, a health economist, and we have two sons, Jack and Harry. They all live in London. I was doing well at school: a middle school prize, advanced grades in the piano and flute, hockey captain. Then something crashed mentally – I felt well, but so self-conscious that I couldn’t get dressed and go out. Everything was off. I had only been studying Latin for a year, but a term away from school saw the end of that. We tried various kinds of support: the child psychiatrist said that I was ‘in the top 2%’, the GP said I was ‘ambivalent’, the school sent a teacher to check on how I was and Anne Mackay (1976; Mrs Cowan) visited me with work. Someone mentioned schizophrenia. Someone else said agoraphobia. There was talk of hyperventilation. But nothing could get me out of my dressing gown and into school. I think subjects like Maths, which required continuous teaching, suffered most. At least I could still read. One day I came across a maroon dress. I put it on and felt confident. It suited me. Mum took me to the Arts Theatre to celebrate and I returned to school, passed my O levels and entered the sixth form. It wasn’t plain sailing, but I managed to gain sixth form prizes and offers from Somerville and Wadham. I was back on track. I wrote this poem for the school magazine when I was 16. A plea for an education that was holistic and not based on cramming. Thank goodness, my school never stopped giving me a chance.

Machinations Can I encompass seven years long of one? one place, one order, mortally clothed in blue the years were far too painful, far too slow to know of one effect as one mind grew the mental scars uncomfortably show and not to specify would not show true that children’s minds, as adults, only grow with time, by being, not by pushing through you bore these edicts peaceably in mind – in apposition to the normal grind – we were, and strove, the latter drew more force I only held the academic course now being and achieving rest as one allow time for those younger, striving on. LINDA APPLEBY

Report on the Year of 1950

The previous report on the year 1950, published in 1999 with a supplement in 2000, was very comprehensive, for Christian Fitzherbert (Mrs Parham; read History; died 2017) assiduously pursued everybody concerned with remarkable success. Since then, almost every year has brought deaths, and we are now very depleted. With the help of Liz Cooke, attempts were made to contact everybody believed to be still alive, but not all replied. As Margaret Bragg (Lady Heath; read History) remarked, ‘Many of my contemporaries are now dead or dotty’. Nevertheless, given our age, it has been a successful enterprise. I had twenty responses, which will be circulated among our year and placed in the Somerville archives, and which varied from full reports from people who are obviously still in good mental and physical health, to an email from a daughter whose mother is in a care home. One question not asked in 1999 was why and how we came to Somerville. In the 1950s, while there were notable academic girls’ schools which would encourage such ambitions – six of that year’s intake came from St Paul’s Girls’ School – it was still unusual for girls to continue to further education. Those who commented on this question mostly spoke of a knowledgeable teacher, often the headmistress, and parental backing, though in one case the choice of Somerville ran contrary to parental

wishes and caused a family rumpus! I chose PPE because it looked interesting and was different from anything one did at school, and Somerville because of its intellectual reputation. Marie Thomas (Dr Surridge; read Modern Languages) wrote ‘Somerville was a clear winner because of the warm and welcoming atmosphere it had established for its interviewees’ (Warm?? I remember sleeping in all my clothes and still freezing when I came for my scholarship interviews!). Bridget Davies noted that ‘Somerville was an obvious choice for someone wishing to study medicine, where Dr Janet Vaughan, as she was then, was Principal.’ José Cummins (Mrs Jo Murphy; read Chemistry) considered it was lucky that she chose a science subject, ‘as it was one of the less popular faculties.’ In the 1999 report it was found that ‘we all have high praise for the teaching within the college and for many of the lectures we attended.’ Twenty years on, it is rather the quirks that are recalled. Jenny Hugh-Jones (Mrs Newman) was accepted to read sciences in spite of having done little at school, but it was too much, and she dropped out. Maureen Oliver (Mrs Scurlock) found the Zoology course disappointing. Renate Steinert (Mrs Olins) remembers her ‘complete ignorance of what a Modern Languages syllabus entailed’. Naomi Shepherd (Mrs Layish) wrote, ‘The English syllabus in

1950 was better suited for a potential English scholar. I was woefully ill-equipped even to teach English to foreigners.’ Daphne Wall (read Modern Languages) wrote of her tutor, ‘She sat by a cosy fire and I felt she might doze off any minute’. Unqualified praise came from Bridget Davies: ‘Jean Banister was an outstanding tutor and friend to us.’ Marie Thomas remembered that, despite reservations, she ‘enjoyed and benefited greatly from the three years’, and overall, that was the general feeling. There were plenty of other things to do besides academic work. Rowena Patterson (Dr MacKean) considers that her time at Somerville was ‘more growing up and learning about life than about Classics, I’m afraid’. Naomi Shepherd was the first woman to be Features Editor of Isis, ‘doing investigative journalism about student politics and food (expletives deleted).’ Maureen Oliver admits that ‘the river took too much of my time, both coxing the women’s eight and punting’. We remember the music, and the choirs we joined. Several of us were involved in student politics. Then there was religion. Margaret Trowell (died 2005; read PPE) became a Catholic and spent fifteen years in an enclosed order of nuns. Rosemary Storr (Mrs Green; read Mathematics) had a profound religious experience soon after arriving in Oxford, married a minister in the Church of England, and has spent her life, in addition to raising a family, in working for the church. I discovered the Quakers and have been involved with them ever since. Kate Tristram (read History) became one of the first women to be ordained into the Anglican church. But above all, we remember the conversations, and making friendships that have lasted a lifetime. To Naomi Shepherd, ‘The University seemed very much a male preserve’. Daphne Wall had tutorials with a don at St John’s College, and, ‘At the end of my sessions with him, he looked at me thoughtfully, and told me I had a brain like a man. I took this as the compliment it was supposed to be!’ Male dominance restricted our choice of careers, and, for most, all the careers advisory service could offer was teaching, social work, secretarial work and the like. Pauline Wickham (read English) wanted to work at the BBC, but ‘there was no recruitment programme at this time for women producers’. The civil service was a possibility, but women had to resign on marriage; this affected Ann Geale (Mrs Diamond; died 2020; read Chemistry) who was accepted for the Factory Inspectorate but had to leave after a year. The only one of us who made the move, now commonplace, into finance was Beryl Reid Davies (Lady Mustill; died 2012; read English). Some degrees led to a professional qualification, notably in medicine. Bridget Davies and Elizabeth Hunter (Dr McLean) both became consultants in psychiatry, and Rosemary Troughton (Dr Millard; died 2019) was a medical researcher. For Hilda Robinson (Mrs Cole), PPE led to a career as a statistician. Several of us, as would be expected of Somervillians, had distinguished academic careers; Marie Thomas, who retired as Professor and Head of Department of French Studies at Queen’s University, Kingston, Ontario, is the survivor of these. There are fiction authors Daphne Wall and Naomi Shepherd, and published Gillian Dickinson (read History and died in 2002) and Pauline Wickham. Shirley Summerskill qualified as a doctor, became a Labour MP, and was a junior minister under Harold Wilson. Renate Steinert was Director of

London Marriage Guidance. Henrietta Lamb (Mrs Phipps; died 2016; read History) gained an entry in Wikipedia for her work as a landscape gardener. Many of us were schoolteachers, fullor part-time, often for its convenience for a married woman with children. Several of us married early to men we had met at Oxford, most of us had children, most remained married to the same person, though the majority of those who remain are widowed. I asked responders to comment on their activities since the previous report. There were new travel opportunities. Music was often mentioned. Jill Todd (Mrs Hayward; read Mathematics) ‘sang with the same choir in Harrow for forty-nine years’. For fifteen years José Cummins joined Maureen Oliver and her husband for the London Mozart Players’ Eastbourne weekend. Elizabeth Hunter took an Open University course in music and started a U3A madrigal group, also playing chamber music, until deteriorating health limited her activities. Several others mentioned the U3A, and Rowena Patterson pursued her interest in the Tasmanian U3A to the extent of a PhD at the age of 86. Jane Sheldon (Mrs Peters; read Chemistry) became a tourist guide, an occupation she was able to continue into her eighties. Naomi Shepherd wrote, ‘I’ve gone back to my early love of short stories. I’ve only published one collection but have another in hand, and some have appeared in magazines.’ Daphne Wall took up painting, and has written her memoir and a collection of short stories. We enjoy our gardens, and Hilda Robinson noted that ‘My dog keeps me fit’. I myself continued to research the history of early Quakerism, though restricted by the need to care for my husband. Several of us mentioned caring responsibilities. I included a question as to how we were coping with Covid. Naomi Shepherd was one who found the protracted lockdown difficult: ‘At this stage, over a year on, I have to admit that it has taken a serious toll. We Somerville graduates should have the intellectual resilience to combat Covid accidie, but that “should” now sounds rather empty and arrogant’. But most of us have weathered Covid well, with family, friends and neighbours to lend a hand. Jenny Hugh-Jones reported, ‘Shutdown in New Zealand was short. I live in a Retirement Village for the Actively Retired so we actively shut down, ordering groceries online, with coffee parties in the road and lending each other books.’ Bridget Davies wrote that her garden and Zoom made lockdown ‘shamefully easy’, which is also my experience. Daphne Wall wrote, ‘In some ways I think our generation has been able to cope better than our children and grandchildren – after all, we were the war babies and knew about ration books and the importance of making our sweet ration last the week!’ So, seventy years on, a fair number of us are still enjoying life. Good Somerville brains are still active despite Covid and the physical limitations that come with old age. DR ROSEMARY MOORE (née Filmer, 1950, PPE)

In last year’s College Report we included a report on the year of 1952. If anyone would like to undertake a report on another year from the 1950s decade, please contact Liz Cooke (elizabeth.cooke@some.ox.ac.uk)

Photo by Jack Evans

Members’ News and Publications If you have a news item which you would like to appear in the next College Report, please send in your contribution before 31 July 2022

1951 Jenifer Weston (Mrs Wates) held an exhibition of her paintings, responding to the experience of the Coronavirus pandemic, at the Museum of Oxfordshire in Woodstock in July this year: Corona – Exploring love and loss in a time of pandemic.

1952 Anne Fawcett (Mrs Kirkman) has filled second lockdown with Zoom classes from the Cambridge U3A group (the largest in the country) and found them enjoyable and instructive. ‘I have been contributing to a poetry writing group, which I originally took up because the Welsh Language class was full. I had never really written poetry, although I did produce a sonnet for the Somerville Entrance general paper in 1951. My other long-term class is called Flights of Fantasy and is a reading group for various SF and fantasy novels, especially the work of Terry Pratchett. This last term I’ve also joined a Literature Quiz group, hard going but fun.’

1958 Elspeth Langlands (Elspeth Barker) won four awards for her novel O Caledonia and it was short-listed for the Whitbread Prize when it was first published 20 years ago. It is due to be re-published in October this year. It was recently read by the Somerville London Book Club with the greatest enthusiasm.

1964 Margaret Beckham (Dr Cone) has for 36 years been engaged in writing A Dictionary of Pali for the Pali Text Society. Part III was published in 2019, following Part I, published in 2001, and Part II, published in 2010. Alison Skilbeck writes ‘We are aware how lucky our generation is, and feel

for all students, and indeed the middleaged with children and older parents. My husband Tim was ill at the start, but was able to stay at home, and made a full recovery. I have kept busy: for RADA on Zoom I have taught some challenging Communications Skills sessions, and a more manageable course on The Winter’s Tale, with students as far apart as New York and Russia. For Radio 4 I was in Christie’s drama The Lie, and also read all the quotations on the latest series of Quote Unquote. I’ve performed short monologues on Zoom – one as Dame Janet Vaughan – and written two more one-woman shows. We have just performed – live! – our Chosen Words to raise money for the Swallow Theatre in Scotland; also at Shipwright’s House in London.’ Sue Watson (Mrs Griffin) and Jill Barnes (Mrs Hamblin) and Mary Keegan (Mrs Keen) have been active year reps for 1964. As Sue Griffin reports: ‘The year reps for 1964 set up a meeting on Zoom in April. Nineteen of us located in India, the US, Spain and Switzerland, as well as across the UK, had a convivial hour and a half, talking in a relaxed way about our Somerville memories and our lives now. We started with each person recounting briefly something good that had happened for them over the last year and conversation flowed from that, including some time spent in “break out” groups. Emails received afterwards showed satisfied customers, keen for a repeat before too long.’

1965 Susanna Pressel was re-elected in May to both Oxford City Council and Oxfordshire County Council and this year she is vice-chair of the County Council. ‘For the first time ever the County Council is not run by the Conservatives. Instead, an Alliance of LibDems, Labour and Greens is in charge for the next four years (at least).’

1966 Elizabeth (Liz) Masters (Mrs Shaw) writes ‘I’m delighted that my third historical novel has recently been published. Had we never loved so blindly like my other books is set on the Isle of Skye although this time I have moved forward in time. It is set during the Second World War although the action moves to the Mediterranean convoys and Bletchley Park. The story is told alternately by John Norman, a fisherman’s son who joins the Merchant Navy, and Felicity, the daughter of a retired tea planter. It’s available online at Blackwell’s (I’m especially pleased at that!), Waterstones, WH Smiths, Amazon and uk.bookshop.org/shop/ CarminaGadelica.’

1967 Edwina Brown, who is a Consultant Nephrologist at the Hammersmith Hospital, and Honorary Professor of Renal Medicine, Imperial College, writes in November 2020: ‘I am now President Elect for the International Society for Peritoneal Dialysis (will be President 2022-4) and, given that we can’t travel to low-income countries to educate and support colleagues, I am starting a webinar programme with lower-income countries who are wanting to grow peritoneal dialysis – this is cheaper than haemodialysis and therefore can enable more people with advanced kidney disease to get the treatment they need. The first webinar will be in a couple of weeks with Pakistan to build on an education programme I contributed to on a visit this time last year.’

1968 Rosalind (Ros) Carne has had two novels published during the last year: The Pupil (2020) and The Stepmother (2021). Both were published by Canelo Books. ‘I came up to Somerville to read English in 1968 so I am definitely a late

starter! I am currently working on my third. I have recently moved to Oxford. It's great to be back after almost 50 years.’

1972 Isobel Williams has written and illustrated Catullus: Shibari Carmina, published by Carcanet Press. Her versions of 60 poems by Catullus are viewed through the lens of Japanese rope bondage (shibari), a metaphor for the poet’s voluntary emotional enslavement. The pictures are from her blog about drawing shibari performances and workshops in Oxford, London and Paris. More information is on http://isobelwilliams.org.uk/Catullus. php. ‘There is a poetic urgency in her renderings that can make the heart stop’ – Stuart Lyons, Classics for All. ‘Deliciously illustrated … Literary charcuterie, as neat as it is naughty’ – Frederic Raphael, The Critic.

1974 Jane Elizabeth Mellor (Professor Everson) writes ‘Along with many other Somervillians these months of lockdown have been a crash course in the use of Zoom. In my case this has been not only for meetings and research seminars, but also most importantly for continuing my Silver Swans ballet classes. In addition to twice-weekly classes, we have also put together a video of clips of each of us performing at home, to a Beethoven soundtrack: in my case in my garden against a sound track of wind and bird song too! View it here: https://youtu. be/3fMjm5vSWp8. Keeping in touch with my fellow dancers has been a lifesaver.’ Bernadette Nelson writes ‘I am continuing to research and publish in Renaissance music, especially Iberian and Franco-Flemish, and participate regularly in international conferences (recently remotely by Zoom). I am currently a Principal Researcher at CESEM–FCSH (Centro de Estudos de Sociologia e Estética Musical), Nova University in Lisbon, Portugal, having been awarded a contract in the 2017 CEECIND (Individual Scientific Employment Stimulus) competition promoted by

the Lisbon Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (FCT). I am also affiliated with Wolfson College. Owing to current travel restrictions, I live most of the time in Somerset enjoying the peace of the countryside and walks in the hills.’

1975 Helen Glanville has been awarded a Prix du Rayonnement de la Langue et de la Littérature Françaises by the Académie Française. ‘Unusual news … my last prize was that of best Tennis Umpire when I was 12. After Somerville I became a paintings conservator, and as I had always had a passion for the sciences, I specialised in the scientific analysis of works of art, to interpret analytical data in the light of the cultural context in which the painting was “made” – that is Italian and French original sources of the 16th and 17th centuries. It is for this that I received the Médaille de vermeil, and for setting up international collaborations between the CNRS research laboratory (LAMS-CNRS, Sorbonne Universités) and museums such as the Capodimonte in Naples and the Barberini in Rome. I would like to urge the young who are linguists to find a field in which to use their languages – as a tool for communication and understanding, not an end in itself.’ Our warm congratulations to Helen.

1978 We most warmly congratulate Diana Evans, of Historic England, who was awarded MBE for Services to Heritage in the New Year’s Honours list. Clare Potter (Mrs Whittaker) writes ‘Andrew and I are now happily settled in South Devon, just outside Torquay. I am still doing a couple of part-time roles with a London focus (as a training consultant to the Competition Appeal Tribunal, where I was previously a Member and as a member of the RIIO2 Challenge Group championing consumers in the context of the electricity distribution network price review – fascinating opportunity to see some of the implications and challenges of decarbonisation). I would be delighted to be in contact with other Somervillians in the area.’

1980 Jane Stemp (Mrs Wickenden)’s book Waterbound, first published in 1995, has been republished this year : https:// www.thegreatbritishbookshop.co.uk/ products/waterbound?_pos=2&_ sid=ff59bcf15&_ss=r and https:// www.fast-print.net/bookshop/2323/ waterbound are sources for the paperback; it is also available on Kindle. Shriti Vadera has been the Chair of Prudential plc since January 2021 and on 28 April 2021 she was appointed Chair of the Royal Shakespeare Company.

1982 Elspeth McPherson runs a charity Journey Enterprises. It provides day services to adults with intellectual disability and substantial ‘assessed needs’. The charity is now moving back towards resumption of normal full Day Service and life has been very busy. Elspeth writes ‘We’ve been operating both the new outreach service which we quickly designed and launched as the Day Centres were closed in March ’20 together with an on-site service from September 20 so very much “all hands to the pump”. We were absolutely delighted to be chosen as one of 15 organisations named as “best practice” across the UK by the House of Lords as part of the Parliamentary Review.’ Link herewith: Journey Enterprises - The Parliamentary Review

1984 We most warmly congratulate Professor Farah Bhatti, the first female consultant Cardiothoracic Surgeon in Wales, who was awarded OBE for Services to Diversity in the NHS in Wales in the New Year’s Honours list.

1985 We most warmly congratulate Rachel Glennerster, Chief Economist at the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office, who was awarded CMG for Services to International Development in the New Year’s Honours list.

1988 Nicole Belmont writes ‘I have recently started as Executive Director of Phoenix Chorale, a Grammy-winning choir based in Phoenix, Arizona. This is a big career (and location!) change following 17 years in NYC as a media strategist. In parallel I had been running another choral organization, on a voluntary basis, for the past 7 years.’

1989 We most warmly congratulate Narmada Helen de Silva, the Deputy Director, Strategic and Cross Cutting Policy Group, HM Revenue and Customs, who was awarded OBE for public service in the New Year’s Honours list.

1993 Brenda Neece (Mrs Scott) reports ‘While the world closed, I created The Cello Museum, a real institution in an online space, inspired by a 2019 conversation with my DPhil supervisor, the late Jeremy Montagu (retired Bate Collection curator and Wadham College Fellow). This was a natural extension of my time at Oxford, harmonizing my love of cellos and cello history with my experience as a museum curator, making a dream come true. In a year, I developed the website (https:// cellomuseum.org/); our first virtual exhibition debuted in October 2020 alongside informative articles, news, and events. We also foster a community of cello enthusiasts across social media platforms.’ Lucy Powell is a member of the shadow Cabinet as shadow Secretary of State for Housing.

1994 Cornelius Grupen reports that in 2020, he won two obscure literary awards, one for a German-language story about a mad scientist published under his own name and one for an English-language story about a native American myth published under an alias Cornelius has been using on and off since he started writing professionally 25 years ago. The stories can be found

at https://bit.ly/3yeTHxb and https:// bit.ly/3AfIsGr respectively. For more English-language stories, see https:// bit.ly/3hl7qf5.

1997 We most warmly congratulate Katherine (Kata) Deakin (Mrs Harry Escott), Strategy Director at the Ministry of Defence, who was awarded a CB for public service in the New Year’s Honours List. We also most warmly congratulate Martin Desmond Roe on becoming the first Somervillian to win an Oscar, for Best Short Film for Two Distant Strangers. Martin co-directed Two Distant Strangers alongside its writer, the noted activist, comedian and writer Travon Free. Earlier this year Somerville was delighted to host a discussion between Martin and Travon with JCR Ethnic Minorities Officer Gabby Cook Francis (2019, MPhil Politics) and the playwright Ella Road (2010, English) about their film and the institutionalised racial violence that forms its subject. This can be viewed on YouTube via the Somerville website. Two Distant Strangers is essential, urgent viewing in its unflinching examination of the deaths of Black Americans during encounters with the police. The film is available on Netflix.

1998 We most warmly congratulate Dan York-Smith, Director, Strategy, Planning and Budget, HM Treasury, who was awarded CB in the Queen’s Birthday Honours List for public service.

2005 We most warmly congratulate Mary Jones, lately Deputy Director, Home Affairs and EU Exit, Cabinet Office, who was awarded OBE for public service in the New Year’s Honours list.

2010 Racha Kirakosian worked as College tutor 2013-14 after completing her DPhil. She met her husband in College

and they got married in the College Chapel. Since 5 June this year she has been a new member of the German National Young Academy (tenure is always five years). https://www. diejungeakademie.de/neuigkeiten/ detail/neues-2021-wir-begruessenunsere-zehn-neuen-mitglieder/

2012 Brigitte Stenhouse has been awarded the Montucla Prize by the International Commission on the History of Mathematics for her article on Mary Somerville’s early mathematical education: https://www.mathunion. org/ichm/report-montucla-prize2021-brigitte-stenhouse, https://doi. org/10.1016/j.hm.2019.12.001 .

Births Bacon

Matei

To Jenny Bacon (1998) and Andrew Barnett on 6 October 2020 a daughter Ava Lily Barnett

To Anna Matei (2009) and Jake Reich on 23 February 2019 a daughter Rosa Matei-Reich.

Borg–Cooper

(The editor apologises for not including this notice in last year’s Report)

To Katie Borg (2008) and Nick Cooper (2008) on 21 August 2020 a daughter Daisy

Macdougall To Laura Macdougall (2003) on 27 November 2020 a daughter Thea Margaret Hope Macdougall

Seaman To Beth Seaman (2004) and Matthew Ross on 5 May 2021 a son Barnaby Ezra Seaman-Ross.

Wilkinson To Susan Wilkinson (2001) and Benedikt Roos on 27 January 2021 a daughter Matilda Helen Wilkinson, a sister for Charlotte

BARNABY EZRA SEAMAN-ROSS

Deaths Batty

Chitty

Gibbs

Gillian Margaret Batty née Lipsham (1964) on 2 January 2021 Aged 75

Susan Elspeth Chitty née Hopkinson (1947) on 13 July 2021 Aged 91

Jane Cicely Gibbs née Eyre (1954) on 27 June 2021 Aged 85

Beadle

Clayton

Green

Julie Gabrielle Beadle née Molloy (1982) on 26 August 2020 Aged 56

Anne Margaret Clayton née Crennell (1949) on 8 November 2018 Aged 87

Daphne May Green (1954) née Fenner on 14 November 2020 Aged 84

Belsey

Day

Green

Catherine (Kate) Belsey née Prigg (1959) on 14 February 2021 Aged 80

Jane Mary Day née Osborn (1959) on 24 June 2021 Aged 81

Gladys Brett Green (1946) née BrettHarris on 6 January 2021 Aged 93

Bennett

Eckhard

Greenall-Scott

Cecily Mary Eleanor Bennett née Hastings (1942) on 25 September 2020 Aged 96

Josephine Eckhard (1946) on 21 January 2021 Aged 93

Jane Greenall-Scott (1987) née Greenall on 13 December 2020 Aged 52

Britton Barbara Britton née Marshall (1953) on 4 September 2021 Aged 87

Broadie

Virginia Fassnidge née Cole (1958) on 12 April 2021 Aged 81

Fishman Harriet Fishman née Levine (1961) on 2 July 2021 Aged 78

Griffiths Rhiannon Berresford Griffiths (1995) in about May 2020 Aged 42

Hales Tooke

Sarah Broadie née Waterlow (1960; Honorary Fellow 2005) on 10 August 2021 Aged 79

Freeman-Attwood

Ann Mary Margaret Hales Tooke (1944) née Petre on 6 November 2020 Aged 94

Caldicott

Marigold Diana Freeman-Attwood née Philips (1941) on 23 May 2021 Aged 98

Hands

Fiona Caldicott née Soesan (1960 St Hilda’s; Principal of Somerville 19962010; Honorary Fellow 2010) on 15 February 2021 Aged 80

Fassnidge

Fuller Anne Elizabeth Fuller née Havens (1953) on 22 May 2021 Aged 89

Mary Jane Hands (Bursar 1960-63; Fellow and Treasurer, 1963-1995; Emeritus Fellow 1995) on 13 December 2020 Aged 92

Holmes

Rose

Wardle

Carol Holmes née Bentz (1967) on 15 June 2021 Aged 77

Dora Louise Rose née Birch (1951) on 19 January 2020 Aged 87

Ann Elizabeth Wardle née Taylor (1969) in about June 2020 Aged 72

Lambert

Shea

Warner

Katherine Mary Lambert (1968) on 3 September 2020 Aged 70

Lorna Miranda Shea (1953) on 14 February 2021 Aged 85

Valerie Margaret Warner (1965) on 10 October 2020 Aged 74

Mariotti

Simmill

Williams

Carol Ann Mariotti née Ashton (1958) on 23 February 2021 Aged 82

Gillian Anne Simmill née Evans (1954) on 28 September 2019 Aged 84

Mellanby

Speller

Shirley Vivian Brittain Williams (1948; Honorary Fellow 1970) on 12 April 2021 Aged 90

Jane Helen Victoria Mellanby (1956) on 8 February 2021 Aged 82

Lydia Margaret Speller née Agnew (1975) on 9 February 2021 Aged 66

Middleton

Stewart

Margaret Middleton née Rider (1960) on 12 July 2020 Aged 79

Theresa Joyce Stewart née Raisman (1948; Honorary Fellow 2001) on 11 November 2020 Aged 90

Olver Olga Olver née Robb (1942) on 7 December 2019 Aged 95

Partridge Susan Partridge (College Secretary 1978-1992) on 3 August 2021 Aged 89

Porter Sheila May Porter (1951) on 1 August 2020 Aged 88

Twiss Dorothy Twiss née Casson (1940) on 1 July 2019 Aged 97

Uhlenbroek Diana Caroline (Carol) Uhlenbroek née Barnsley (1951) on 26 October 2020 Aged 87

Woodside Marilyn Dorothy Woodside née Wright (1960) in 2021 Aged 79

Wyman Michael Jonathan Wyman (1999) on 3 January 2021 Aged 40

Obituaries For reasons of space it is sadly not possible to print all available obituaries in the College Report. In addition to the obituaries printed below, many others of recently deceased Somervillians can be found in the College’s Commemoration booklet available on the website at www.some.ox.ac.uk/alumni/news-publications

Dame Fiona Caldicott (Principal of Somerville, 1996-2010) Dame Fiona Caldicott was born on 12 January 1941. She was the Principal of Somerville from 1996 to 2010. She had studied medicine and physiology at St Hilda’s College, having not been offered a place at Somerville, and worked in general practice. She chose to specialise in psychiatry because it enabled her to combine her parenting responsibilities with part time work as a consultant psychiatrist and psychotherapist in Coventry and Birmingham. She became the first woman President of the Royal College of Psychiatrists from 1993 to 1996 and chair of the Academy of Medical Royal Colleges from 1995 to 1996. Through these roles, she came to the attention of the Chief Medical Officer for England and Wales who appointed her to chair a committee on how patient information was protected; the committee included 50 people with a wide range of conflicting views. Their report led to the establishment of the six Caldicott Principles for sharing personal confidential data which should only be used when absolutely necessary, for a justifiable purpose, within the law and on a strict need-toknow basis. She recommended that every NHS trust and social services provider should appoint someone to monitor these and there are now more than 22,000 Caldicott Guardians in the UK. She chaired further reviews in 2013 and 2016 which led to two more Principles being added – the duty to protect patients’ confidentiality should be balanced by the duty to share information when there is a clear benefit in doing so and that patients should be informed as to how their confidential data might be used. When she was appointed Principal, Somerville held a very different place in the university from the one it holds now. The college had only recently begun to admit men, after long and bitter debate, and was still adjusting to the changes. The transformation to the modern, professional and forwardlooking institution it is today is very much the product of her leadership and determination during her years as Principal. She brought a fresh approach and managed change with finesse and discretion, while always maintaining high standards and remaining calm and poised. She built an excellent relationship with alumni and established a professional fundraising team which has helped to support the college in many ways ever since and used her charm and influence to bring new life to Guest Nights. She worked closely with many key members of the University, in particular the Vice-Chancellor, and in my

FIONA CALDICOTT

view this was largely responsible for Somerville having been offered the opportunity to develop the two new Somerville buildings on the Radcliffe Observatory Quarter. Of course she was not only the Principal of Somerville but also held several other roles – she was the Pro-Vice-Chancellor Personnel and Equal Opportunities for the University from 2001 to 2010 and a member of Council. She was a NonExecutive Director, and from 2009 to 2019 Chair, of what is now the Oxford University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust. Her leadership and her strengthening of the relationships between the Trust and the University enabled the Trust to achieve Foundation status. She calmly and effectively steered the Trust through some difficult times while improving its clinical performance and always celebrating the dedication and excellence of all the staff and partners. She was appointed National Data Guardian for Health and Social Care in 2015 and held many other trustee or board member roles in public bodies. I met her in July 2000 when I was interviewed to become Treasurer of the College. I was attracted to Somerville

because I knew of and admired her achievements through my work in a hospice. We worked very closely together for ten years and developed not only a very good working relationship but also a strong friendship which continued until her death in February 2021. I learnt so much from her inspiring example and always came away from meetings with her feeling encouraged, energised and ready to tackle the next challenge. What made her so special? I think there were a number of different reasons - she was an enormously influential and compelling role model. She was intelligent and knowledgeable and had a very retentive memory enabling her to absorb large volumes of information and retrieve it very effectively – an essential skill given the number of meetings she chaired or attended! She had a very good memory for the names and faces of people, even those she only met briefly, again very helpful when getting to know almost 200 new students every year. She was wise and found the right balance between passion, emotion and evidence which enabled her to cut through the inessentials to the real issues. She would consider difficult situations and judge when to make decisions or to intervene, when to carry on the discussion and when to go away in order to do more work and come back at a later stage. Her dry sense of humour and surprising wit helped her to deal with whatever situations she encountered, however complex, and she was never to be underestimated. She always took the time to express her thanks and demonstrate gratitude for a job well done or a kindness shown. She listened well and was always there to discuss challenges and problems and offer sage and compassionate advice in the full confidence that anything you discussed would not be used against you and would not be passed on to anybody else inappropriately. She was therefore an amazing confidant and support in difficult situations for me and for many other colleagues. Her serious approach and elegant appearance could make her seem formidable on the surface but I and many others experienced her warmth, kindness, integrity and compassion. She introduced an ‘open door’ policy and was always approachable. She cared for the students and they knew that they could count on her for support, advice and very practical help when needed, whether personal or professional. She delighted in their success and was very pleased to join ‘Dame Fi’s Barmy Army’ of supporters on the touchline cheering on the college’s first women’s soccer team. The students admired, respected and were proud of her, particularly due to the special effort she made to get to know all of them personally through one-to-one meetings. There was a running joke that she and her beloved college cat, Pogo, were in fact the same entity, but this actually reflected the huge amount of affection the student body had for their Principal. Certainly no cat ever got more attention and fuss than Pogo! Pogo, who came from St Hilda’s, was an ever present, if not always well behaved, part of college life and it seemed only fitting that he should be included in the striking portrait of Fiona that now hangs in the dining hall. She had breast cancer in 2014 and was diagnosed with an unrelated pancreatic cancer in 2020 but continued her work as National Data Guardian until shortly before her death, cared for by her daughter Lucy and her husband, Robert Caldicott, who survive her, as does her cat Pogo (now aged 23!). Helen Morton (Treasurer of Somerville, 2000-2012)

Sarah Broadie (Waterlow, 1960; Honorary Fellow) Sarah Broadie (Waterlow, 1960; Honorary Fellow) died 10 August 2021. An obituary will appear in the next College Report.

Mary Jane Hands (Treasurer 19631995; Emeritus Fellow, 1995) ‘Aunt’ Jane, as she was affectionately known by many, was much loved by friends and family alike. She was a great character – extremely kind, caring and capable but could be a force to be reckoned with and always knew her own mind. Jane was born in Chichester in September 1928, to Edmund and Alice Hands and had one sister, Elizabeth. When the time came she elected to be educated at Frensham Heights School in Farnham, Surrey, where her independent spirit thrived. Her father’s family came from North Wales, for which she had a lifelong passion, and generations of her mother’s family were yeoman farmers from the West Country. Not surprisingly, perhaps, she enjoyed the outdoor life – horse riding, fishing for salmon and trout in her beloved Scotland and spending time with her Norfolk Terriers, of which she had several over the years. In her younger days she enjoyed sailing in the harbour at Bosham, where the family lived. More recently she owned ‘parts’ of several racehorses and enjoyed a good day out at the races. She also spent many happy hours in Devon with family and friends and in her garden and allotment in Brill, where she lived after leaving College. She also had a love of antiques and her collection of china filled virtually every surface in the cottage. She enjoyed music, particularly the Welsh harp, and made many trips to Glyndebourne, which were always accompanied by an impressive picnic basket. Jane was an excellent cook, greatly enjoyed her wine and delighted in a good party. It was her love of cooking and entertaining that led her to catering college in Bognor Regis and the path towards the job of a lifetime which she adored – Bursar and Treasurer of Somerville College. She was well served in her career by her administrative and financial skills. In addition she had a good knowledge of the stock market and investments, which she had learned from her father. Her love and understanding of wine also came in useful when she was laying down the wine cellar for College. Family was always extremely important to Jane. After the war she met a dashing young Royal Navy test pilot, Lieutenant Christopher John Barclay, who used to drive to Bosham to see her. They were a smart and attractive couple, who were clearly meant for each other. However, he died tragically in 1953 when his plane crashed on take-off. They were both just 24 at the time. No one could ever take his place in Jane’s affections afterwards. Although she did not have a family of her own, Jane was immeasurably fond and caring of her sister’s children

and their families – Robert Evans, his wife Jane and their two children Alice and Mollie; Sarah, her husband David Semken and their two children William and Freya. Jane was a formidable character and could be quite stubborn at times. Despite losing her memory during her final years, she remained ‘Jane’ right until the end – so much so, that she discharged herself from one care home, ordered a taxi and went home to a cold, empty cottage.… She is very sadly missed by all her family and friends. Mary Coles, cousin Jane Hands was employed by Somerville from 1954, first as Assistant Bursar (known as the ‘baby bursar’), then as Bursar and then as Treasurer. She became a Fellow in 1963. She was devoted to Somerville and her enthusiasm, hard work and practical abilities made an enormous impact on the college and all its members. Some Fellows’ recollections of Jane : Margaret Adams: By 1963, nine years after her initial appointment as Assistant Bursar, Jane had become Treasurer of Somerville. She remained in post until she retired in 1995. During this time the college moved from one of the poorer ones to the middle rank. While Somerville had benefited from university schemes to increase endowment of the poorer colleges, the relative change in fortunes was in no small way the result of Jane’s good financial management. Keeping the college on track through the inflationary later 1970s was no mean feat. A College Treasurer, particularly in uncertain times, needed to use a careful mix of looking for restraint on expenditure and for increase in income. Since fee income was, to a large extent, out of the individual college’s control, other sources needed to be increased. Jane’s expertise included a good knowledge of and interest in the stock market, something which she made good use of when encouraging the college brokers to move investments to profitable areas. Her active involvement in this investment was a major contribution to the improved position of the college. Involvement with junior members was a substantial part of her job. Sorting out the financial position of individual undergraduates took a considerable amount of time and she clearly made an enormous difference to those who needed her help. Discussions with individual MCR members were often even more difficult as their funding was frequently precarious and resolution more time-consuming. For her later years as Treasurer, negotiations of rents and charges with the undergraduate body increased in importance. This was a difficult task but one in which she demonstrated an ability to explain the position of the college, have sympathy with the problems of the student body and still achieve an outcome which was acceptable. Hilary Ockendon: By 1964, when I arrived in Somerville, Jane, the Junior Fellow and its first professional Treasurer, was already running the college at a practical level. She had an impressive building programme under way – Vaughan just finished and Wolfson about to start, later the Margaret Thatcher Centre and Dorothy Hodgkin Quad. She was full of schemes for improving

JANE HANDS

the college – new buildings, setting up the crèche, buying and selling houses both for the use of the college and for investment. She kept a firm hand on the Treasury and on college buildings and gardens. Her filing system was a mystery to anyone else but everything was in her head and easily recovered. Her office did the accounts and paid bills and salaries and latterly employed an accountant but Jane was in charge and knew everything that was going on. As a non-academic in an academic community she was totally supportive of the academics but had the confidence to know that they needed her to run things. She enjoyed the social life in Oxford and had good relations with most of the bursars/ treasurers in other colleges. Running the wine cellar with Christina Roaf was another interest which led to socialising via wine tastings etc. Jane always knew how to get things done. She knew the best place to buy something – anything from smoked salmon to hats. She knew the best place to stay if one ever mentioned visiting anywhere in the UK. She knew a little woman who would make you a dress or a man who would mend your car – I tried out a number of her recommendations and found no flaw in them. Jane always had a dog. Her Norfolk terrier was the only dog allowed in college and Jane would stride about inspecting the buildings or garden with the dog at her heels. The dog spent the day on a chair in her office. Jane was devoted to Somerville. She was always good company – I remember her 85th birthday tea which was held in the college hall – I should think 100 people were there from very varied walks of life and it was a very jolly affair. Almut Suerbaum : As Treasurer Jane played a huge role in translating the academic deliberations at Governing Body into reality.

Theresa Joyce Stewart (Raisman 1948; Honorary Fellow 2001) If you ask people in Birmingham which politician made the most positive impact on the lives of Birmingham residents, then many will identify Theresa Stewart even 21 years after she retired as a councillor. Theresa fought for those who could not fight for themselves. She was a feminist and the first and only woman leader of Birmingham City Council who encouraged and supported other women who wanted to enter politics, as the many tributes to her show. Theresa was born into a warm and supportive Jewish family in Leeds in 1930 but this life was disrupted when her father went bankrupt and fled to South America. She was a very bright girl and she worked hard. At the age of 17 she was offered a place at Somerville and a Clothworkers’ Scholarship to study Maths. Before taking up her place the following autumn Theresa took a boat to Argentina and spent several weeks with her father; an incredible experience for a young woman who had never been abroad. She went to Somerville in 1948, made close friendships, particularly with older Somerville students who had done war work and brought broader life-experience than many of the privately-educated girls with whom she had little in common. She learnt to ride a bike, although never confidently, she learnt to punt and to climb over the college walls late at night when the gates had closed! In her second year at Oxford, Theresa met John Stewart who was at Balliol studying PPE. They married despite considerable opposition particularly from Theresa’s mother, as John was not Jewish. John joined the staff of the newly formed National Coal Board and Theresa became a maths teacher in a tough boys’ secondary school. The next few years were busy: having four children, moving around the country from Edinburgh to London then Doncaster, as John’s Coal Board career progressed. Theresa was always active in the Labour Party, campaigning for CND, being a founder member of the Natural Childbirth Trust and supporting the anti-apartheid movement among other campaigns. In 1966 we moved to Birmingham as John became a senior lecturer in Local Government Studies at Birmingham University. Theresa was appointed to the Regional Hospital Board, became secretary of the local Labour party and was a founder of the Birmingham Pregnancy Advisory Service, set up to make sure abortions were available in Birmingham. She also stood for election as a councillor and won the marginal seat of Billesley. Theresa became chair of social services and then opposition lead as Birmingham switched between Labour and Conservative control. She was also passionate about good and affordable public transport. In the late 1980s local authority funding had been viciously cut by the Conservative government. She argued that the remaining funds should be spent on core services instead of major infrastructure projects being favoured by the Birmingham leadership. As a result she

THERESA STEWART

was removed from her role as chair of social services; the Labour whip was then removed from her as well as 19 others on the Labour group. However in October 1993 she was elected as the first and only woman leader of the council by the Labour group. She transformed council services with her ‘back to basics’ agenda. Theresa appointed inspiring senior officers like Adrienne Jones in Social Services, Tim Brighouse in Education and Michael Lyons as Chief Executive and increased funding of these key services. Both social services and education became outstanding. In 1999 Theresa was defeated in the annual Labour group election. Theresa knew how cruel politics can be but she took up the opportunity to become Lord Mayor, a role she took on with typical energy and enthusiasm with John as her consort. Theresa held the ward of Billesley, always marginal, for 30 years, sometimes as the only Labour councillor, retiring through choice in 2001. As those involved in politics know, a personal vote is a very rare thing but there is no doubt Theresa had a very strong and loyal following. Throughout these years Theresa was also focused on family. Each week Theresa and John hosted us all on Sundays. As the family grew this included spouses and ten grandchildren and then the six great-grandchildren, born up until Covid lockdown; the number could be up to 30. Theresa and John semi-retired and enjoyed travelling around the world in their 70s and 80s. Theresa was still leafleting in her local ward until ill health made it too difficult in 2018. Theresa leaves behind her family, John, her husband, four children David, Lindsey, Henry and Selina, ten grandchildren and eight great-grandchildren. Selina Stewart, daughter

Shirley Vivian Brittain Williams, Baroness Williams of Crosby (Catlin, 1948; Honorary Fellow 1970) A short obituary cannot do justice to the life and achievements of one of the most highly regarded members of her generation in British politics. Shirley Williams’s memoir, Climbing the Bookshelves (2009), and Mark Peel’s Shirley Williams: A Biography (2013), together with entries in biographical dictionaries and numerous obituaries in the national press, provide an abundant record. Many Somerville alumnae too have personal memories, including some from the many visits she made to the college that she always loved, and served as an Honorary Fellow. Helge Rubinstein (Kitzinger, 1949), a dear friend from their Somerville days, describes how ‘Shirley arrived in Somerville … like a clap of thunder’, telling the Principal that she did not want the scholarship she thought she had been offered simply because of the fame of her Somervillian mother Vera Brittain. Her memoirs record how the remarkable Janet Vaughan sat down beside her on the floor and persuaded her to change her mind. When she came up in 1949, she became, as Ms Rubinstein writes, ‘instantly a familiar figure in Oxford. In her long scholar’s gown, the rolling gait of a sailor newly arrived on land, blond hair all over the place like a Shetland pony, gravelly speaking and angelic singing voice, she was at every meeting of the Labour Club, and in due course its chair; in the gallery of the Union … and a member of the OUDS … And of course she was invited to every desirable party.… [When male visitors were allowed into college at 2pm] Shirley’s room was always besieged, standing room only. There was an 11pm curfew, so Shirley had her special climbing-in spot.’ Her three years reading PPE at Somerville were packed with glittering events and adventurous travels with friends. In addition to OUDS and the Labour Club, she wrote for Isis, featuring as the ‘Isis idol’ in one term. Her boyfriends included the charismatic Peter Parker, subsequently chairman of British Rail, Roger Bannister, whom she describes sprinting along the station platform to kiss her goodbye as she left for America on a Fulbright scholarship, and the brilliant philosopher Bernard Williams, who helped her out with essays and became in 1955 her first husband. (They divorced in 1974.) Alongside her glamorous social life, the undergraduate Shirley Catlin had a deep concern about the social deprivation that prevailed in post-war Britain. Her memoirs comment on the underlying seriousness of the generation of rather older than average undergraduates who had fought in the Second World War. She enjoyed Economics more than Philosophy in her PPE course, and writes in her memoirs: ‘I was fortunate in having a wonderful tutor, a woman for whom the word “gaiety” might have been invented. Margaret Hall was elegant, brilliant, vibrant and occasionally frivolous. She wore scarlet suits and very high heels, and had a mind like a razor, precise, sharp and effective. She exemplified what I wanted to be – an outstanding professional, an attractive woman, and a wife and mother. She understood that for me economics was not an interest but a tool.’

SHIRLEY WILLIAMS

In another book, God and Caesar: Personal Reflections on Politics and Religion (2003), Shirley wrote of her Roman Catholic faith (her father’s faith), to which she converted formally in her first year at Oxford and which underpinned some political choices, notably her opposition to abortion and gay marriage. While studying PPE was almost incidental to all the other excitements of life at Oxford, the questions it posed, the discussions with friends and other groups that it informed, and the interaction between her studies and her faith together made up the background to the public career in which this great woman of conscience never stopped learning, listening, thinking and enquiring. Shirley Williams’s formal career started as a journalist with the Daily Mirror and then the Financial Times. She fought her first parliamentary election as Labour candidate for Harwich in a 1954 by-election and the subsequent general election, stood for Southampton in 1959, became General Secretary of the Fabian Society in 1960, and was elected MP for Hitchin in 1964. A passionate internationalist, she repudiated the Labour Party’s initial opposition to British entry into the EEC, but held ministerial appointments nevertheless in Harold Wilson’s government including Secretary of State for Prices and Consumer Protection in 1974. In 1976 James Callaghan promoted her to Secretary of State for Education. In later life, she would tell a Somerville gathering that the achievement in office she felt most proud of was the creation of comprehensive schools. Ironically, she and her Somervillian near- contemporary Margaret Thatcher both pushed forward the replacement of grammar with comprehensive schools, though from very different political stances. Of those two, it was for some time Shirley Williams whom many observers, Somervillians included, expected would become the first woman prime minister of the United Kingdom. By the time Thatcher formed her first government in 1979, Williams was finding herself increasingly at odds with her own party’s move

towards the more militant left, and in 1981 she became a leading figure in the ‘Gang of Four’, which led to the formation of the Social Democratic Party and eventually the Liberal Democrats. Shirley Williams won the Crosby by-election for the SDP in 1981, overturning a huge Conservative majority, but lost the seat at the 1983 general election, and later an election in Cambridge. Subsequently as a Liberal Democrat member of the House of Lords, she was a leading voice for progressive causes at home and abroad. And, when asked (at another Somerville gathering) whether she would ever consider re-joining Labour, her polite but firm reply was no, Labour was not sound on civil liberties. Shirley Williams became, after leaving the Commons, a professor at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard, where she married the political scientist Richard Neustadt. She remained very much engaged in British and European political life, serving for some years as leader of the Lib Dems in the House of Lords. She worked on producing new constitutions for several East European countries after the end of the Cold War, and campaigned with all her heart against Brexit. Amongst her many roles on boards, she was a patron of the Seva Mandir community in India, a country she visited often, and retained close links with US politics. She was awarded an Honorary Degree at Oxford (among other universities), appointed a Companion of Honour in the New Year’s Honours of 2017 for ‘services to political and public life’ and remained sought-after as a public speaker and broadcaster nearly to the end of her life. Shirley was always glad to return to speak at Somerville, loved meeting and listening to students there, and gave the college some of her own archives and mementos of her mother, whose memory as a campaigner and a great chronicler of the First World War she honoured. Always a loving family person and an affectionate friend, she leaves a daughter Rebecca, two grandsons, and the children and grandchildren of her late brother. Among Somervillians of every generation she will be remembered with love and admiration. Alice Prochaska, Principal of Somerville 2010-2017

Susan Partridge (College Secretary 1978-1992) Susan was born in February 1932, and lived locally to Oxford, in Cassington, for most of her life. Her family was firmly rooted in the area and she was proud of that heritage. After an early career in what she remembered as exciting 1950s London, she returned to Cassington to look after her mother and father, and held a job as secretary to Professor Sir David Phillips, in the University’s Chemistry Department. She very much enjoyed her time there but needed a post with slightly more flexibility; her parents were ageing and needed more attention. Dr Margaret Adams told her Somerville was looking for a college secretary, and, much to the chagrin of her department, Susan got the job and moved in September 1978 to Somerville. At home, she moved her parents from a large farmhouse to a small bungalow, and, with the new job, cared for them. She

SUSAN PARTRIDGE

was to stay happily with what her father called ‘them women’ for the next 14 years. Her time at college largely coincided with the principalship of Daphne Park, and many of her fondest memories involved her – not least a shared whisky at the end of an especially long day. Susan was a college secretary most undergraduates remember with gratitude; supportive and approachable, she helped generously those who were ill or struggling in different ways. She remembered, for instance, whizzing one poorly finalist along to Exam Schools in her car – going the wrong way down the newly one-way Turl Street to get there! Fellows remember her as a warm and no-nonsense person, who could always be relied on to get things done in a goodhumoured way. People were reliant on Susan getting things right and doing what was needed for students, and she didn’t let them down. Everything was meticulously prepared for committees, without crises or ructions. She gained everyone’s thanks and respect for her professional and caring manner. On her retirement in 1992, Susan wanted to give something to the college where she had been so happy, and worked with the then college gardener, Robert Washington, to choose plants (including roses planted by Maitland and a witch hazel for Darbishire Quad). She continued to be a great supporter of Somerville, and a quiet but regular donor, in the years of her retirement, and often attended alumni events. She was fond of saying that she had been very lucky in her later years, and a bequest from her aunt meant she was able to travel to some far-flung places in the world – from a memorable trip to Alaska with her brother and sister-in-law to several visits to her god-daughter in Australia. When travelling alone, she made the most of the Somerville global network. On what was perhaps her last visit to the Antipodes, her flight had a stop-over in Hong Kong, and her first thought was ‘Is there a Somervillian I could see there?’ There was, of course. After treating the retiree to a memorable dinner at the hotel she owned, she asked if Susan could teach her hotel staff how to

make and serve a British afternoon tea. Hence Susan had a delightful afternoon explaining the nuance involved in putting milk in first (or not), and how to cut cucumber sandwiches. Unsurprisingly, she was a hit! The routine of retired life suited Susan. She was encouraged to join the Oxford University Pensioners by Nan Dunbar and, typically for her, she was initially worried that admin staff wouldn’t be welcome amongst the academics – but she was, to her delight, proven wrong. She enjoyed many visits and learnt a great deal, as she did on her regular trips to the Ashmolean and the Botanic Gardens, of both of which she was a committed Friend. Meeting up with former undergraduates from college, she enjoyed opera (especially New College Opera in the summer) and theatre. One of her last evenings out was to Stratford to see Twelfth Night for her birthday in 2018. Shortly following that, Susan moved from her beloved Cassington to the nearby Freeland House care home, where she lived quietly but contentedly for her final years, until her peaceful death on 3 August 2021. Looked after by her family, particularly her niece, Margaret, she enjoyed looking back over a life she was happy to think had been well-lived. Most of us who knew her would agree.

DOROTHY TWISS

Jackie Watson, 1986

Dorothy Twiss (Casson, 1940) Born (13 May 1922) and raised in Sutton Coldfield, Dorothy Casson came up to Somerville in 1940 to read Mods and Greats. She joined the women’s rowing club for exercise and light relief, earning her half-blue for her part in winning the 1942 Oxford-Cambridge women’s race. Her war service in the First Aid Nursing Yeomanry (FANY) was as a cryptographer with the SOE (Special Operations Executive), liaising with resistance operatives in France and Norway, in their own languages. Released on compassionate grounds to nurse her dying mother, she became her father’s housekeeper and hostess in post-war England. She was asked in 1946 to help out as secretary at her old school, a post that gave her considerable insights which were to prove valuable in later life. She met Trevor Twiss while both were spring-cleaning their church for Easter 1947. They were engaged on her 25th birthday and married a month later; a month after that Trevor departed for the post to which he was already committed in the Southern Rhodesia civil service! Dorothy was only able to secure passage six months later, and the newlyweds were reunited on Christmas Day 1947 at Cape Town docks. Asked, many years later, how she came to take such a dramatic plunge, she responded, ‘It was an adventure; we had a lot of fun!’ There followed years of domesticity, leavened with adventure and incident, as housewife and smallholder in a young, developing country. When the youngest of their three children was of nursery school age, Dorothy returned to formal

employment. She taught Maths briefly at a government school, engaging the interest of 5th stream boys via dice, card games and racing odds, before accepting a post as Latin teacher at Arundel School in 1963. Between 1963 and 1968 Dorothy rapidly, if unintentionally, rose through the ranks and was appointed Headmistress from 1969. Grace and Learning from Africa, her history of Arundel’s first 50 years, includes an overview of her 20 year tenure. She developed this girls’ boarding school to internationally admired excellence despite clashes with successive governments, first Rhodesian, then Zimbabwean, over the independent schools’ resolutely impartial stance on colour and creed. After Trevor’s untimely death in 1985 Dorothy was persuaded to remain at her post, retiring in 1988. She continued her connection with Arundel via a seat on its Board of Governors, and founded a full-time secretariat for the independent schools’ association, under which she launched a teaching bursary scheme intended to ensure a continuing flow of quality staff to these schools. She gradually withdrew from active participation to spend time on an early passion (breeding and showing bullmastiffs); became active on her parish council, where her acute mind and good-humoured resolve were greatly appreciated; and furthered her eclectic travels through six continents. In 2016, with Zimbabwe’s government reverting to destructive policies, Dorothy removed to the UK. The high principles and moral standards she imbued in so many continue to impact further generations worldwide: ‘Possunt quia posse videntur’. Stephanie Twiss, daughter In the College Report 2019-2020, ‘Life Before Somerville’, Professor Fareda Banda paid tribute to Mrs Twiss as her former headmistress.

Marigold Diana Freeman-Attwood (Philips, 1941) Born in rural Derbyshire on 23 April 1923, Marigold Philips grew up in a family that ranked horses and hunting above education. Dreamy and bookish, and on the side of the fox rather than the chase, she was an uncomfortable misfit. Luck came her way when her elder sister, enraged at missing the hunting season, ran away from boarding school, leaving the expensive uniform unused: Marigold took her place. Downe House was run by Olive Willis, a distant cousin and a brilliant educationalist, and there, among inspiring teachers who recognised her gifts, the misfit flourished. Marigold’s admission to Oxford in 1941 to read English was, for her family, an unprecedented, puzzling event (her mother once scolded her after a disorganised shopping trip to Ashbourne, ‘What’s the point of having a degree if you can’t remember the fish?’). But Marigold took to college life joyfully. Forever, she held her two wartime years at Somerville as her lodestar. Into them she crammed the learning of a decade, and drank poetry like water. She delighted in Oxford, revelling in its beauty, friendships and constant intellectual stimulation. Through lectures and tutorials, she encountered some of the great literary minds of the day, including JRR Tolkien and CS Lewis. Tragedy marked Marigold’s early life. Her father died of cancer when she was 12. Then, during her last term at Somerville, her dearest friend from home, a young pilot called Billy Astell, lost his life in the 1943 Dambusters raid. Shattered, she went to her tutor and asked to be excused her essay that week. Miss Lascelles said no, it would help her to bear the loss if she kept working. The courage and fortitude awakened by that instruction remained with her always, and one can only hope it sustained her when her beloved only brother was killed in training later that summer. Recruited into the WRNS, Marigold worked at Bletchley Park from August 1943 until the end of the war. She breathed not a word and when, years later, she was permitted to speak, remained discreet and self-deprecating. But working on Colossus, receiving the enemy’s coded messages, was vital war work for which she was at last commended in a letter from Prime Minister David Cameron. This late recognition was accompanied by interviews, TV appearances and features in books and newspapers. Her wit and glamour meant she was much in demand. After the war, Marigold sought what so many young women of her time had craved during those hard years – normality. She married a regular soldier, David Wedderburn, and they had three children, Robin, Sarah and Harry. She suffered another terrible loss when David was killed in Singapore in 1960. She married again, and with Warren Freeman-Attwood had a fourth child, Jonathan. All her life, Marigold wrote beautifully crafted poetry, and up to her last months could recite by heart astonishing swathes of verse, from Wyatt to Eliot, with appropriate quotations ever at the ready. Poetry was her great love, but she also wrote fine prose, and published two books. Leap Castle – A Place and Its People is a history of her Anglo-Irish mother’s family home in

MARIGOLD FREEMAN-ATTWOOD

County Offaly. It received enthusiastic reviews in the national press. She followed it with a novel, The Wire Fund Ball, which examines the social mores of her mother’s heyday in the English shires. Marigold’s wit and dexterity with language were legendary, and her amazing gift for human relations changed many people’s lives. She is survived by her four children. Sarah Wedderburn (1971), daughter

Cecily Mary Eleanor Bennett (Hastings, 1942) Cecily Bennett was born in 1924 in Malaya, where her father, William George Warren Hastings, was a lawyer (and indeed played a significant part in shaping the constitution for the country when it gained independence). However, Cecily returned to England to go to school, subsequently winning a place to study at Somerville. Like many of her generation, her degree was somewhat disrupted by the war. Alongside her studies, she joined the fire warden service, spending nights sitting on a camp bed in a museum, watching for any fires started by the bombings. When eventually her degree was cut short to just two years, she was interviewed for foreign service, and chosen to go out to New York as a Vice-Consul – the first female ever to be appointed to this role. Her responsibilities covered a wide range, but focused particularly on helping British subjects to get home following the war. On returning to England, she completed the final year of her degree (gaining a First) and took up a job with the publishing house run by Catholic writer Frank Sheed. At this time she also

CECILY BENNETT

ANN HALES-TOOKE

became a regular speaker on behalf of the Catholic Evidence Guild. This didn’t seem enough, though, and for a time Cecily gave serious consideration to becoming a nun. She spent six months as a postulant at Kirk Edge in Sheffield, but concluded it was not right for her, and instead returned to London as a language teacher.

writing letters to the Catholic Herald to increase awareness, and raising funds in the UK to help the doctors who were supporting the war-torn community in Hue.

Cecily had kept up her connection with the Sheeds, and during this period, at their instigation, she undertook a number of lecture tours around the United States. In the course of this work she became increasingly aware of the Civil Rights movement which was then increasing in momentum. True to form, Cecily got involved in campaigns to encourage black citizens to vote (and once was even shot at – although she insisted the shot was intended to miss), and helping rebuild and repaint black community churches that had been destroyed by white activists. Once back in England, Cecily’s continued interest in theology now led to her becoming a lecturer in divinity at St Mary’s College, Strawberry Hill, in Twickenham. To support this she took a further degree (another First) in philosophy and theology at Heythrop College, a three-year degree which she completed in only two years, including starting Hebrew and Greek from scratch, while also managing a full teaching load. Meanwhile the threat of war in Vietnam was building, and Cecily heard of a plan to form a small fact-finding group of people who would go to Hanoi and make their presence known, acting as a kind of ‘human shield’ to try to prevent bombings by the Americans. She met many people – including Cambodian leader Prince Sihanouk – and saw at first hand the increasing numbers of American planes, not only violating Cambodian air space, but (contrary to American and European press reports at the time) actually dropping bombs. Through the connections she established, she was to visit Vietnam several times more over the next few years, while

It was quite late in Cecily’s life that she was to meet and marry Eddie Bennett, a flamboyant Irish potter with a shock of white hair and a great love for life. They had only a relatively short time together, but through Eddie Cecily also gained a family of step-children and grandchildren who continued to be of great importance to her. She gave her time unstintingly to supporting family and friends, visiting those who were unwell and supporting those who needed help or a place to stay. She was very quick to realise the implications of the environmental crisis, investing at a very early stage in solar panels for her own house, and collecting discarded tins and bottles for recycling while on her daily walks with her dog. In sum, she lived by her own very strong principles; and although she would argue fiercely in support of these principles, or on finer points of Old Testament theology, she was quite remarkably unjudgemental of others. Cathy Hastings Davies, niece

Ann Mary Margaret Hales-Tooke (Petre, 1944) My mother, Ann Hales-Tooke, who has died aged 94, was a teacher and child welfare campaigner who strove to see the world from the child’s standpoint. She developed an interest in child welfare while bringing up her three sons, and in the 1960s wrote articles for the Guardian and the Times, sometimes illustrated with her beautiful photographs of her own children. She also contributed to BBC Woman’s Hour. In 1970, she became a governor of United Cambridge Hospitals.

Two years later she went to work in the Ida Darwin hospital in Cambridge, on a ward for children and young adults with disabilities. During her time there she wrote a passionate plea for people with severe disabilities and learning difficulties, The Children of Skylark Ward, which was published as a book by Cambridge University Press in 1978. It was of great satisfaction to her that the forward thinking in the book was put into practice in Cambridge, with children being moved out of wards in the hospital into small community houses. After a PGCE at Homerton College in 1978 she taught in a primary school for a short time before resuming teaching children at Rees Thomas special school, where she stayed until retiring in 1990. She then qualified as a psychodynamic counsellor, contributing articles to Cambridge Therapy Notebook. She also qualified as a supervisor and, after retiring as a counsellor, trained as a spiritual guidance director. Ann was a keen painter of landscapes, with a particular interest in standing stones, and also made paintings depicting dreams she had collected over several years. She exhibited at the Tavistock Foundation in London and the Cambridge Open Studios. Born in Loddon, Norfolk, to William Petre, a land agent who managed farms in different parts of the country, and his wife, Marjorie (née Bruce), Ann went to New Hall, a Catholic girls’ boarding school in Essex. From there she went to Somerville, where in 1947 she graduated in PPE. In 1949 she joined a progressive Catholic religious order from Europe that had established a base on the outskirts of London. She left the order in 1953 and two years later married John Hales-Tooke. In 2006, Ann published Journey Into Solitude, about her experience as a devout Catholic leaving her husband, and her life journey afterwards. She and John divorced in 1986. This was followed by The Lost Priory in 2009, a historical novel, and the story of her uncles, pioneer aviators in the early years of flight, in The Family That Flew, in 2017. Ann was a good listener: present, active and generous, enriched by an intellect that was incisive and interested to the end, and a deep desire to give the best of herself to others. Hugh Hales-Tooke, son

Audrey Gladys Donnithorne (1945) At the end of Audrey Donnithorne’s requiem mass in Hong Kong on June 26 the congregation filed out to the strains of Amazing Grace sung in Chinese, neatly encapsulating the two dominant themes of her life: deep attachment to China and its people, expressed throughout her career as a political economist, and her Catholic faith. The only child of Protestant missionaries, she was born in Anxian, a country town in Sichuan, China in 1922, where her parents had been sent by the Church Missionary Society. There she recalled being carried in a little sedan chair to go shopping with her mother and feeding mulberry leaves to silkworms that she kept in a drawer. Like other mission children

AUDREY DONNITHORNE

she was sent to school in England (1927-40), first in Norfolk and then St Michael’s, Limpsfield in Surrey; holidays were spent with guardians or relatives unless her parents were on furlough. After School Certificate she rejoined them in Sichuan, relearning Mandarin and taking courses in Chinese history and anthropology at the West China Union University, a Protestant foundation in Chengdu. Spiritually, her dissatisfaction with the modernist direction of Protestant thinking was growing and she attended her first Catholic mass. She was eventually received into the Catholic Church in 1944. In July 1943, following a perilous journey that took six months, including some weeks hospitalised in Agra with hepatitis, she landed in Liverpool and was conscripted into military intelligence in the War Office. By the time she went up to Somerville on a scholarship in October 1945, she was already 23 and, like returning servicemen, found it hard to adjust to the rarefied atmosphere of academia. In her autobiography, China in Life’s Foreground (2018), she comments on the psychological division between the post-war intake and those straight from school, for whom the undergraduate system was designed. She settled down to read PPE despite being irked by aspects of the curriculum, especially economic theory, and suffering from the cold as electric fires were allowed only for two hours a day. The parts of university life she most enjoyed were the lasting friendships she made and the activities of the Catholic chaplaincy, though her lack of ballroom dancing skills put her at a disadvantage at its Saturday evening socials. She also joined the university Conservative Association, succeeding Margaret Roberts as the Association’s college secretary. Her degree proved to be her ‘rice bowl’ for life. On graduating she took a research assistant post in the department of political economy at University College London as a stop-gap, but stayed for twenty years, was made Reader in Chinese

economic studies, co-wrote books on Western enterprise in the Far East with Professor G.C. Allen, and published her major work, China’s Economic System (1967). The latter entailed arduous field trips to China, where besides researching agriculture, industry and finance, she sought out Chinese Catholics; she found Beijing’s policy towards religion at any one time was a useful measure of the general political atmosphere. The second half of her career, 1969-85, was spent at the Australian National University (ANU) in Canberra as a Professorial Fellow and first head of the Contemporary China Centre. The Cultural Revolution had just begun and put a stop to field trips for a number of years, during which time she converted part of her house to shelter Vietnamese refugees from communism. When her visits to China resumed in the 1980s, she planned a sequel to her earlier book, but had to abandon the project because the fast-changing economic system was ‘like an unset jelly’. Culture wars were not confined to China: on the ANU campus she found herself at odds with radical feminists, especially over abortion, and a vocal critic of naive Maoist euphoria. Her decision to retire early to Hong Kong was inspired. From here she could visit the mainland regularly (until denied a visa) and work discreetly to aid surviving Catholics, for which the Holy See awarded her the Pro Ecclesia et Pontifice medal in 1993. Unmarried, she kept in touch assiduously with friends from all over the world, and her numerous relatives and godchildren. Philippa Ingram, cousin

Rosalind Irene Bearcroft (Chamberlain, 1946) Rosalind was born in Cardiff on 16 May 1926 and spent her formative years in the city. Although she had a lifelong love of animals, she decided at a young age that she wanted to be a doctor rather than a vet and so, after a successful school career, she studied Physiology, Anthropology and Anatomy at University College, Cardiff in 1943. In 1946 she came up to read Physiology at Somerville. She met her future husband, Peter, who was at Balliol. Never one to pass up a challenge, Rosalind hitch-hiked to Rome on a college bursary, returning with more money than she set off with through the astute sale of black market coffee. After two years at Somerville, she continued her medical training at University College, London, gaining her MBBS in 1951. She and Peter were married in 1952. Rosalind soon entered the rapidly developing field of psychiatry, becoming a consultant in 1966 and moving to Barming in Kent. When a local primary school was threatened with closure, Rosalind and Peter bought Barming Place, intending it to become both their family home and the new school site. Life at Barming Place was extraordinary. There were animals: dogs, cats, horses, goats, polecats, a tortoise, stick insects. There were concerts, weddings, and even a Plymouth Brethren church, which was given a temporary home by these two devout Catholics.

ROSALIND BEARCROFT

Over the years Rosalind kept in contact with a number of her friends from Somerville, most notably Audrey Donnithorne. Rosalind was an active member of a large number of groups, including the Catholic Union, the Association of Catholic Women, the Knights of the Holy Sepulchre, the Friends of the Holy Father, the Council of Christians and Jews, the St Augustine Society, the Catholic Medical Association, and many more besides. If anything, her contribution to these groups only increased as she grew older, as did the attention she gave to her many pet projects, including her longstanding attempts to obtain a dog for Pope Benedict XVI! Rosalind’s energy was legendary, as was her generosity and kindness. She continued working into her late 80s and was awarded Catholic Woman of the Year in 2018. She always went the extra mile: taking on a primary school while also raising a family and being a consultant child psychiatrist was only the tip of the iceberg. Her dedication to family, faith and work was truly impressive. She will be greatly missed. Roy Peachey, son-in-law

Josephine ( Josie) Eckhard (1946) Josephine (Josie) Eckhard died peacefully on 21 January 2021 at Augusta Court Care Home, Chichester aged 94. Josie was born in 1927 to Oscar and Doris Eckhard, who managed a farm in Wiltshire before moving to Weybridge to run a family grocer’s. She spent her early years at the Hall School, before going to the progressive Dartington Hall School in South Devon established by the Elmhirsts. William Curry was the headmaster at the time, placing the school at the centre of a network of progressivism, concerned not only with

JOSEPHINE ECKHARD

ELLY MILLER

education, but with socialism, internationalism and pacifism through the1930s. These values influenced Josie and she always had a deep commitment to peace and social justice.

Green Party throughout her life, and a committed member of Friends of the Earth and Amnesty International. Josie was also a much-loved attender of the local Quaker community. She was extremely humble, non-judgemental and had a huge generosity of spirit. She had the most infectious warm laugh and always saw the best in others, which in turn gave her great peace and happiness throughout her life.

Following Dartington, Josie went on to Cheltenham Ladies’ College as a scholar (throughout the war) before becoming a Somerville scholar reading History – specialising in medieval history and tutored by May McKisack. She loved the college and all it stands for and was always happy to return for events over the years. She jointly founded the Somerville periodical magazine Venture and was its first contributor. Josie wanted to be useful and practical so after Somerville she qualified as a librarian and her first job was at Chatham House (the Royal Institute of International Affairs) headquartered in London. Josie was inspired by architecture and completed a course in Estate Management, leaving Chatham House to work as a librarian for the architect Ove Arup. Arup envisioned the company being a force for peace and social betterment and pursued a progressive philosophy. Josie loved living in cosmopolitan London and hosted international student lodgers at her little house in North London. She relished the abundance of architecture and culture and enjoyed the vibrancy that London offered. Following her work for Arup Josie dedicated the rest of her working life to the Civil Service, working as a librarian for the Foreign Office, until moving to Chichester to help care for her elderly mother, where she continued working for the Civil Service in Portsmouth in Estate management until her retirement. Josie was always active and enjoyed swimming and cycling and was still riding her bike around Chichester well into her 80s. She lived a quiet, simple and non-materialistic life and was a great humanitarian. Josie had been a vegetarian from her teens and was a passionate environmentalist and campaigner for humanitarian causes. She was an active member of the

She is sadly missed by her sister Anne, and all who knew her. Anne Nutbeem (Eckhard, 1948), sister

Elly Miller (Horovitz, 1946) Elly was born in Vienna on 5 March 1928 into a publishing family, her father Béla Horovitz having founded the Phaidon Press in the 1920s. The family were fortunate to escape Nazi persecution by leaving Vienna in early 1938, Elly and her older brother Joseph travelling together only days after the German annexation of Austria. Eventually reunited in Belgium with Béla, their mother Lotte, and baby sister Hannah, they reached Britain in the summer. At first living in London, the family moved to Bath and, from 1941 to 1946, Oxford, where Elly attended the Oxford High School, going up to Somerville in 1946 to read PPE. Her brother, who became a composer, read Music and Modern Languages at New College. The stimulating and adventurous intellectual and cultural milieu at Oxford offered a rich experience about which Elly would often reminisce in later years, and indeed Elly kept in close contact with a number of her Somerville friends, enjoying lifelong relationships. After graduating, thanks to an introduction from her politics tutor, MRD Foot, Elly worked for a time as a researcher for

The Times and for OUP in New York, then returned to England to work at the Phaidon Press. In 1950 Elly married Harvey, a Cambridge science graduate; they had three children, Dorothy, Tamar and Malcolm, who fondly recall the warm home life in South-West London with highlights such as their shared love of the annual Oxford and Cambridge Boat Race! After the untimely death of Béla in 1955, Elly and Harvey took over the reins of the Phaidon Press, developing its international profile. Upon selling it in 1967, they set up their own publishing house, Harvey Miller Ltd, devoted to art and medicine. Elly pursued her passion for medieval and renaissance art, nurturing young scholars at the cutting edge of what was then a new and ground-breaking discipline. Harvey Miller books rapidly became renowned for leading the field in medieval art history, with large-scale surveys and detailed studies of illuminated manuscripts. A highlight was the Lambeth Apocalypse, produced as a jewel-like facsimile with commentary, the first copy presented at Lambeth Palace to the Archbishop of Canterbury. All her authors recognised that Elly was more than just a publisher: she brought a personal interest to their work, helping to develop their ideas and to bring them to life through fine design and lavish illustration. In 2000 a partnership was formed with the Belgium firm Brepols, to publish the Harvey Miller imprint. After Harvey’s death in 2008, Elly continued to publish their large-scale projects, including the multi-volume Corpus Rubenianum, The Paper Museum of Cassiano dal Pozzo, and studies of illuminated manuscripts in Cambridge colleges, achieving popular success with numerous exhibition catalogues and commemorative volumes. The creative ambience of Elly’s Somerville days, with myriad parties, and theatrical and musical performances, remained a strong influence throughout her life, evidenced in her infectious enthusiasm for composing and performing witty songs and poems for special occasions. Allied to this was Elly’s favourite pastime of translating the cautionary verses of Wilhelm Busch into witty English rhyme, which she would read to her children and grandchildren, as in her version of Busch’s classic ‘Max and Moritz’, entitled ‘Mac and Murray’, published by Canongate. Describing her legacy as a publisher for over seven decades, one of her longest-standing authors, the medieval art historian Professor Lucy Freeman Sandler, recently noted: ‘Elly’s work on Harvey Miller publications, with their abundant illustrations, encouraged the study of illuminated manuscripts in depths never before achieved. Her concept of publication lives on in the innumerable, large-scale manuscript projects of the digital age, heralding not the end, but the beginning of a new era.’ Her legacy also lives on in the example of her joyful approach to life, an inspiration to her family, including offspring of three generations, and to her wider circle of friends and colleagues. Malcolm Miller, son

Ann Cunnington Diamond (Geale, 1950) Ann Geale was born on 1 February 1931 in Birmingham. She attended King Edward VI High School for Girls in Birmingham, and came up to Somerville in 1950 to read Chemistry. She and I got to know each other in a loose group of friends reading sciences and PPE, and I remember Ann as an active person, playing a lot of tennis, and, when five of us spent a fourth year sharing a flat in Norham Road, as a very good cook. Ann came of a Quaker family, and she was a keen member of the Oxford Young Friends [Quakers] Society. Among its activities were work camps, practical help for some local project, and I have a photo of her busy on the roof of Eynsham Youth Club during one of these weekends. When she applied for the Factory Inspectorate, her interviewers were most impressed to hear that she had actually worked on a building site. In the summer of 1954 she was one of a group of British Young Friends who hosted six young people from the (then) Soviet Union, who had been invited on a visit to England, a remarkable undertaking at the height of the Cold War. Ann was one of the drivers who carried the Russians 1500 miles around England. Another driver was a young Cambridge graduate named Robert Diamond, and it was not long before he and Ann became engaged. Ann enjoyed her time with the Factory Inspectorate, but at that time women had to resign from the Civil Service on marriage. Ann was advised that if she stayed for a second year she would have to undertake much specialised study, so she spent a year teaching at the Bournville Technical School for Girls in Birmingham before marrying in 1956. For the next few years Ann and Bob moved around until Bob’s work brought them to Cambridge in 1963. During this time they had a daughter and two sons. After their youngest child started school Ann worked part-time for twelve years designing models of crystal structures, and then as Assistant Secretary for the Workers’ Educational Association Eastern District. After retirement, she served as a voluntary adviser to the local Citizens’ Advice Bureau. In due course, she and Bob acquired nine grandchildren and four great-grandchildren. Ann and Bob remained closely involved with Quakers, and Ann served her Meeting as Clerk and as Treasurer for a total of seventeen years, besides undertaking other offices. Ann loved gardening, and when she was on the Sunday flower rota, hirers of the Meeting House always enjoyed the magnificent flower display. In 2018 Ann was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s Disease, but continued to live at home with Bob, until in 2020 it became necessary for her to move into a residential care home. She died in hospital from respiratory complications on 29 August 2020 and received a woodland burial. Rosemary Moore (Filmer, 1950), with use of the text by Finola O’Sullivan prepared for the Hartington Grove Quaker Meeting newsletter

ANN DIAMOND

SHEILA PORTER

Sheila May Porter (1951)

for opera in particular, and her final publicist position was with the violinist Anne Sophie Mutter whom she held in very high regard.

Sheila Porter was born in Cape Town, South Africa, on 1 April 1932, and passed away peacefully in New York City one day after her 88th birthday on 2 April 2020. Her father, Andrew John Porter, was a dentist and her mother was Vera Bloxham, who, prior to having children, was a dental nurse. Vera was English, having met Andrew while he was studying dentistry in London. Sheila’s brother, Andrew Porter, who was a well-known international music critic, writer and organist, predeceased her in London in 2015.

Sheila lived the latter part of her life in New York City. She loved animals and had two (not at the same time) that she particularly cared about: Pia her dog and Monkey her cat. Sheila was an eccentric woman, frighteningly bright, fiercely independent, and an exceptionally loyal friend. Over the last 15 years of her life, she reconnected with her South African family, and this enriched her life beyond measure, and she theirs. She will be missed.

Sheila was educated at St Cyprian’s School in Cape Town, where she performed exceptionally well throughout her school years. She matriculated in 1948 with distinction for her Joint Matriculation Board Examinations. She then moved, with her mother (as her parents had divorced), to live in England, where her brother was studying at Oxford. She came up to Somerville in 1951 with an Exhibition to read Mods and Greats. In fact when she applied she had no Greek and had to cram this before embarking on Mods. While at Oxford, she was secretary of the University Opera Club in 1954/5, and she involved herself in a variety of musical activities in the university. At age 23 years in 1955, she graduated with a second-class honours degree in Literae Humaniores. After her graduation, and after working and studying in Vienna for six months, in 1955 Sheila approached the Royal Opera House in London for employment. She was an accomplished linguist, speaking English, Italian, French, and German. She joined the ROH in 1958 as Press Assistant, became the Press Officer in July 1968 thereby succeeding William Beresford, and held this position until she left the ROH in 1972 to work for Sol Hurok. Living in New York, she became a notable publicist,

Jen Porter, cousin

Lorna Miranda (Miranda) Shea (1953) Born in Finchley, Miranda was the only child of parents struggling to make a living until 1942 when her elderly father was recruited for office work at Carlisle RAF Training Aerodrome, where her mother also found employment. They rented rooms in a nearby farm and lived there over fifteen years. Miranda loved roaming the fields with the dog or spoiling working cats during the hours she spent alone. She found it hard to fit into the village school, partly because of her accent, but later won a scholarship to Carlisle High School where, steeped in her mother’s love of literature and music, she enjoyed academic subjects but hated P.E., confessing later she’d hung upside down on the wall bars to avoid hockey. At the headmistress’s insistence she applied to Somerville and was proud but nervous coming to Oxford. This is when I met her. Contemporaries may only remember a small, red-haired girl, not

very ‘outgoing’. However, she gloried in the recitals, concerts and plays we savoured together. In her second year ‘digs’ she enjoyed mixing with others in shared facilities.

Miranda scarcely revealed at Somerville that strong independence with which she did, later, ‘touch the lives of many’ in very significant ways.

After graduating we lost touch for two years. Then I discovered, with surprise, she worked in a Barnardo’s home before going to Birmingham then Liverpool University training for social work. She became a qualified Children’s Officer. Then immediately she was appointed as one of only two Officers responsible for all the children with problems in the whole of Lancashire. We met frequently then. I remember the nights ‘on call’: she might have to rescue a child from home, find a rebellious runaway (once in Jersey) or interview an imprisoned parent. I realised Miranda’s political ideals made sense of all these experiences and, as a colleague said, ‘She loved writing reports’. But she could laugh at herself, later recalling one team-building exercise involving pony trekking. She jumped so hard to get on the pony, she went right over the top!

E. Ann Gray (1953)

After being employed by Manchester in the 1970s, progressing through senior posts, she moved to Tameside M.B.C., being actively involved for over 35 years in training, supporting and assessing hundreds of staff while developing partnerships with nearby colleges and universities, as a ‘much respected member of their management boards’. This work and the friendships made then were hugely important to Miranda, who lived alone in Stalybridge. We shared far-ranging exploratory holidays abroad every year (she spotted the blue whale first), but some of the most memorable were those we spent visiting every part of Scotland; that had been ‘over the Border’ to the child. I relished our discussions but she could be persistently hard, sometimes ferocious, in argument. After retirement she continued N.V.Q. programmes at Stockport College until twelve months before her death. She joined Healthwatch as an independent inspector of hospital services, and held public information sessions in libraries, pharmacies and supermarkets; now she liked being recognised as well as writing reports.

Jane Helen Victoria Mellanby (1956) ‘Dr Mellanby’s greatest gift to me’, wrote one of her students, ‘was to both fearlessly champion me and to tell me in no uncertain terms when I’d been an idiot.’ Jane Mellanby’s multifaceted 60-year career at Oxford resounds with these themes of supportive mentorship and challenging fierceness. It was as an ‘outstanding and inspirational educator of female medical students’ that she was elected to an Honorary Fellowship of the Royal College of Physicians in 2016, and in later years it was her students, she felt, that were her most important legacy. Often unorthodox in her selection and approach and with a determination to help potential students from difficult backgrounds, she inspired first fear and then fierce loyalty and love from those she championed – many of whom hold positions of importance worldwide. Born in Sheffield on 14 April 1938 into a scientific family, Mellanby was always determined to follow in their footsteps. This was not always easy in a wartime childhood full of upheaval, including evacuation at the age of two and the divorce of her parents. She had to attend science A level classes at a neighbouring boys’ school because physics and chemistry were not even taught at her girls’ school, which may well have contributed both to her passionate support of women in science, and to her support of her students, as although brilliant she was a difficult pupil herself.

Miranda read ceaselessly, very widely, possessing many very costly volumes about art and music. Despite pain and final immobility, she also devoured sackfuls of books, often obscure biographies, which a perceptive librarian regularly brought. Miranda had accepted carers reluctantly but later found she liked hearing daily about their lives.

In 1956 she went up to Somerville to read Botany, Physiology and Chemistry. She much enjoyed her time at Somerville and made lifelong friends – as one of her closest friends put it, ‘we started talking nonsense to one another and never stopped since.’ She participated fully in Oxford social life – her tight budget assisted by an eccentric great aunt who bought her couture ball gowns – and once turned down an admirer because she ‘already had a boyfriend for every day of the week’. Her academic work evidently did not suffer, as this was followed by a D.Phil. on intermediary metabolism with Nobel scientist Sir Hans Krebs.

However, anyone meeting Miranda soon learned her greatest love was her cats: throughout her life she rehoused rescue cats, giving them Shakespearean names. Helena lived to be twenty, leaving Miranda devastated in September 2020. When she herself died five months later in hospital, from cancer and many other causes, we discovered she wanted a Humanist funeral. There I met some former students who had decided to come despite Pandemic restrictions out of admiration and gratitude to her. One man said, ‘I would have no career if she hadn’t taken time to explain things and tell me I could do the assignments when I’d given up completely.’

Ignoring Krebs’ advice that marriage would ‘end her career’, in 1961 Mellanby married Oliver Impey, whom she had met drawing an aspidistra in a botany practical, and to whom she was happily married for 54 years until his death in 2005. They had four children, and combining it all was a battle, especially given the societal attitudes of the time. However, this only served to strengthen her interest in issues of gender equality in science, and her extraordinary energy and determination won out every time. She began as a neurochemist, working with tetanus toxin and botulinum toxin as a Research Associate at the Sir William Dunn School of Pathology, and with Professor

JANE MELLANBY

ANGUR JOSHI

Larry Weiskranz she went on to set up a Neurochemistry unit in the new Department of Experimental Psychology in South Parks Road.

Angur Baba Joshi (1957)

From 1971 Mellanby had a Tutorial fellowship at St Hilda’s, and her flair as a teacher and mentor was able to develop fully, as well as her interest in the issues of the college and the university as a whole. She fulfilled many other roles including Vice-Principal and Tutor for Admissions, and was a passionate supporter of the college staying women-only. In the 1990s, Mellanby’s focus began to shift towards education, in particular socio-economic disparities in performance and the identification of underachievement. Her team developed VESPARCH, a verbal and spatial reasoning test to tackle the bias within contemporary standardised tests against underprivileged children, which looks set to have a lasting impact on the approach to underachievement in the UK. This led in 2014 to the publication of her book Education and Learning: An Evidence-Based Approach, followed by a series of lecture courses for trainee teachers, which will continue to influence our education system in the future. Right up to the end of her life, Mellanby continued to work, swim every morning, garden, supervise students, paint, cook enormous meals, chair endless committees and travel around the world to visit family and friends. ‘There are’, she would say, ‘just so many things that need doing.’ One might argue that during her 82 years Jane Mellanby managed to do most of them. Harriet Impey, daughter

Angur Baba Joshi had a lot of ‘firsts’ in her life. She was among the first four women to pass the School Leaving Certificate (SLC) exams; the first Nepali woman to get a master’s degree, and the first Nepali woman to graduate from Oxford University; the first female lecturer in Nepal, and the first female college principal in the country, as well as the only woman in the committee which worked on the country’s new draft constitution in 1966. Angur Baba was born as the second child, a shy introvert who stammered. Her father called her lati (simpleton), a pet name she loved. At a time when girls were not encouraged to study, Angur Baba along with her sister used to listen from the side while her brothers were being home tutored. When she managed to answer the guru’s questions that the brothers didn’t know, the girls were allowed to be educated along with the boys. As per the tradition in those days, she was married when she was 11 to the only child of a widow, a boy who was just a year older than she was. Luckily for Angur Baba, unlike most daughters-in-law, she was allowed to be home tutored even after marriage. However, she had to fight for further formal education every step of the way after that. She wasn’t allowed to enrol in college to study science, unlike her husband, due to which her career path took a U-turn. The couple went to study in India, and then came

to England under the Colombo Plan. Her application to go to Oxford, which had not been forwarded by officials because of her gender, only went through because she brought it to the attention of King Mahendra during a tea party in the palace! Taking a nearly month-long steamer ride, leaving her three young children behind, Angur Baba arrived in England with her husband in 1957. She did her B.Litt. at Somerville, the Bar exams at Middle Temple, and also managed to get rid of her stammer before returning home in 1961. As the principal of the nation’s only women’s college at that time, Padma Kanya College, for 12 years, she managed to make it a pioneer institution for the multidimensional development of Nepali women. Later, she was nominated to the Rastriya Panchayat legislature by King Birendra, and had also been chairperson of many social service organisations including the Nepal Women’s Organization in Kathmandu and the Tara Gaon Development Board. She also set up the Gargi Kanya Gurukul, a one-of-a-kind school for girls, combining ancient wisdom and modern vision, and empowering girls, from all social classes, with the mastery of Sanskrit, traditionally a domain for males only. Angur Baba received many awards and recognitions for her work in social service and education, including the Gorkha Dakshin Bahu II and Tri Shakti Patta III, and the Jagadamba Shree Purasakar in 2014 for lifetime achievement. She authored a number of books and articles, her writings on spirituality, morality, positivity and purity in human thought, words and behaviour ‘bubbling up’ (in her words) following her two bouts of cancer and heart failure. The operation after her first cancer left her with a disfigured face, but she never shied from public appearances to motivate others. She believed she was more beautiful after the disfigurement, for it was ‘inner beauty that matters most in life’. Angur Baba died on 20 June 2020 leaving behind a 106-yearold mother-in-law, a son, two daughters, ten grandchildren and eight great-grandchildren. Rupa Joshi, daughter-in-law

Carol Ann Mariotti (Ashton, 1958) Our mum Carol Ann Ashton was born in January 1939 in a London on the eve of the Second World War, memories of which she carried throughout her life. We will always remember her reminiscing about the sound of the air raid sirens, of the planes overhead, and the deafening silence of the bombs dropping. She also put down her long-lived claustrophobia to hiding in the shelter at the bottom of the garden. Before going to Somerville, Carol studied at Christ’s Hospital, where she developed her love of books, in particular illuminated manuscripts, the Anglo-Saxon Chronicles, and Shakespeare, and where it became emphatically clear that she did not love science, as she accidentally emptied the school’s

CAROL MARIOTTI

entire stock of mercury onto the floor. She also relished the story of sneaking into the kitchen one night with some friends and surreptitiously cooking waffles. Carol was a proud Somervillian. We recently found her matriculation certificate – still in Latin! Oxford was where she first tried to learn to ride a bike (at the tender age of 19!), where she read Modern History and studied under Barbara Harvey (Moral Tutor) with whom she kept in touch throughout the years, including the many Gaudies she attended. Modern History was a subject she deeply loved, including medi-aeval times, as she always stressed the word should be pronounced, and studying Dante in Italian (she particularly enjoyed the Inferno). This would lead to the next chapter in her life: travelling to Italy first to study Italian, and then moving there definitely when she fell in love with, and later married, Aldo Mariotti, who predeceased her in 1980. While in Italy, Carol worked in a number of different places, including a brief stint in the Iranian Embassy (before the Revolution) and teaching in High Schools. She also held a very culturally satisfying position working on the lexicon of the English-Italian dictionary ‘Sansoni’, which helped her hone her Italian and vocabulary to an extent above the average of many native speakers, although she always kept her lovely British accent and inability to roll her ‘r’ letters, something which Italians found very endearing. Most of her working life was with the British Council, where she worked for the Director General of Italy and was a key member of the Scholarship Board, a position she enjoyed tremendously and found most rewarding from a human perspective. Years after she retired, we would have people coming up to us telling us how the ‘Signora

Mariotti’ had made all the difference to their lives. After her retirement, she turned to teaching the intricacies of the English language, and to challenging translations, which she relished doing. In addition, she enjoyed her grandchildren, crosswords, travel, her beautiful adoptive city Rome for many years, until senility took its toll. Carol was an intelligent, vivacious, cultured and witty person, with a passion for good food and opera, starting with Wagner (whom she discovered in Somerville), musicals, and westerns. One of the qualities we most respected in Mum was that she was always, always, true to herself. She never pretended – whether it was about liking someone, music, food or a play. Furthermore, she saw and appreciated people for who they were, not for what they did for a living or for their standing in life, leading her to have a diverse set of friends and acquaintances. In the words of one of her closest friends: ‘Your mum was such a powerful and much-loved person in my life’, a sentiment which sums up what we all feel. Carol died in Rome, at home, on 24 February 2021, and will be sorely missed. She is survived by her twin daughters, Diana and Julia Mariotti, six grandsons, sister Dr Pamela Ashton, and brother Gerald Ashton and families.

CATHERINE BELSEY

Diana and Julia Mariotti and Pamela Ashton (1968)

Catherine Belsey (Prigg, 1959) In 1980, I received a thin book in the post with a dedication from Kate, as she was always known: ‘I don’t suppose it will do you much harm’. This little book, Critical Practice, did me no noticeable harm but, by making post-structuralist theories accessible to many, it became influential far beyond Britain’s shores. The dedication acknowledges that this form of critical practice was controversial at the time and heralded a shift in focus in English Studies. There are, no doubt, still readers who would prefer a more ‘common-sense’ approach to literary texts, while Kate saw it as her mission to ‘unsettle conventional ways of understanding’, a quality that she also attributed to ghost stories in her last book. The publication of Critical Practice also marked the moment when Kate’s academic career began to take off in a big way. The list of publications that followed is long, and divided between works of critical and cultural theory and studies of Early Modern authors, notably Shakespeare. After a brief period as a lecturer at New Hall, Cambridge, Kate had been appointed to a lecturer’s post at Cardiff University in 1975. She became Professor there in 1989, and, most importantly, from 1988–2003 she chaired the Centre for Critical and Cultural Theory. I met Kate when we both started out as undergraduates. Even in those days, she charmed and inspired people; the wit and the conversational skills that were so characteristic of her were already in place. She had entered Somerville to read History, as I had, but soon understood this to be a mistake and switched to English. Even if Kate’s time at Somerville was not

entirely happy, she owed the college a great deal, particularly Dame Janet Vaughan, who intervened at a crucial moment and ensured that Kate took her degree. Our friendship grew in our second and third years when we had rooms close to one another in Penrose, and would talk for hours in the communal bathroom. This friendship was cemented after we went down by the memorable months that we spent together in a rented flat in Maida Vale. Uncertain as to what to do next, Kate had started to work at the London Zoo where, no doubt because of her efficiency, she was rapidly promoted and put in charge of the kiosks and vending machines. But the academic life beckoned and, following a brief period with a publisher, Kate started out on the course that would lead to a PhD at Warwick in 1973 and her future as a scholarly star. As a teacher and a colleague, she was demanding but generous, making students and junior colleagues feel that they were taken seriously. Perhaps her greatest strength was her capacity to make difficult ideas accessible. Both in her writing and in lectures she would translate theoretical jargon into more readily comprehensible English while not over-simplifying central concepts. Equally at home on Woman’s Hour as on the world stage, Kate was a magnificent lecturer and I have often watched in awe as she spellbound audiences at international conferences. In despair over the marketisation of higher education, Kate retired early from Cardiff (2003) and moved back to Cambridge. Here she started a new life, furnishing her flat with all the elegance and aesthetic sense she possessed and asking to be called Catherine. She also involved herself in the

social life and politics of the Residents’ Society, though she refused to sit on the committee; she had had enough of such meetings. Nonetheless, Kate had not really let go of her calling. One of Cambridge’s main attractions was the University Library where she often gathered like-minded people around her in the tea-room. Before long she had also taken up a research post at Swansea which was of mutual benefit – the University could count her publications in their annual report while Kate had an opportunity to interact with students. At the time of her death, she was a Visiting Professor at the University of Derby. Having experienced discrimination early on in her career at Cardiff, Kate regarded herself as a feminist, but her political engagement was broad, encompassing both Union activism and grass-roots campaigns. On moving to Cambridge, she joined the Green Party, being both convinced by the threat of global warming and disillusioned with the Labour Party under Tony Blair. In due course, she returned to Labour; though often despairing at the course that politics appeared to be taking, she maintained her faith in the possibility of a fairer society. Following her separation from Andrew Belsey, whom she had married in 1965, Kate embraced the single life. In order to be able to interact so intensely with others, she needed the private space which she guarded very carefully. She gave greatly of herself, but it had to be on her terms. It was a choice that in the end had consequences. Around October 20 Kate suffered a major stroke and was not discovered for a couple of days. The damage was considerable but, for a time, it seemed that efforts at rehabilitation were working well. When it eventually became apparent that she would never be able to live independently again, Kate lost her will to live. Characteristically, she had left clear instructions to cover such an eventuality and her wishes were respected. She died peacefully in the Arthur Rank Hospice outside Cambridge on February 14. Her closest relatives are her brother Simon, and the two sons of her deceased brother Richard, Nicholas and Philip. She is mourned too by friends in many parts of the world. For me, the conversation that started in the Penrose baths is now at an end. Catherine Dahlström (Sandbach, 1959)

Jane Mary Day (Osborn, 1959) Jane Mary Day (née Osborn) was born on 20 April 1940 in Birmingham, and she was able to remember the bombs dropping near her house there during the war. Her parents were at that time both Congregationalist ministers (the Congregationalists had ordained women since 1917). However, her father later joined the Church of England, and her mother subsequently taught Scripture at secondary level. Already as a child Jane’s academic prowess was apparent, and she was awarded a Scholarship to St Paul’s Girls’ School. She thus received a free education at what was arguably the best girls’ school in the country.

JANE DAY

From 1959-63 Jane studied Classics (Literae Humaniores) at Somerville. Although she was a brilliant linguist, especially enjoying Greek, her greatest interest was in Philosophy, in which she excelled. Ancient History, she felt, had too many facts, though Ancient Historians would doubtless feel the opposite! Her Somerville tutors included Elizabeth Anscombe and Philippa Foot for Philosophy, Mildred Hartley for Greek and Latin language and literature, and Isobel Henderson for Ancient History. Jane really loved Somerville, where she formed some good friendships which lasted over half a century. Her closest friends as an undergraduate were Beryl Bowen (Lodge), Anne Seaton (Vernon), Mary Ormerod (Charlesworth), Jane Gordon (Mackintosh) and Judith George (Holt). Other Somerville friends came to include Doreen Innes and Helen Brock (Hughes). After her BA, she undertook the postgraduate BPhil in Philosophy under Gilbert Ryle, part of which involved writing a thesis on Causality. She would later recall with wry humour that the typist repeatedly mistyped ‘causality’ as ‘casualty’, so the thesis had to be retyped! She did not undertake a doctorate, as she was advised that it was not necessary for an academic career. She spent one year as an Assistant Lecturer in Philosophy at Leeds but was soon heading back to Oxford. In 1966 Jane became Fellow and Tutor in Philosophy at LMH, a position she held until her retirement in 2007. She subsequently enjoyed regaling that the job interview consisted of no more than a chat over dinner! Her central interest was in Plato, but also in Greek philosophy more generally. However, as seems common among Oxford Philosophy tutors, she taught over an enormous range, including Plato and Aristotle, Pre-Socratic Philosophy, Philosophy of Mind, Ethics, Philosophy of Religion, Philosophy from Descartes to Hume, and Formal Logic. She wrote a book on Plato’s dialogue Meno which is still bringing in royalties

almost thirty years after publication, and she also wrote several articles. However, her heart was primarily in her teaching, and in this she proved very popular. Students found in her an encouraging and sympathetic tutor, as well as a stickler for rigorous thinking. One student simply wrote on their feedback form about Jane’s teaching, ‘We all love Mrs Day!’ Over the years Jane also undertook a rather heavy administrative burden. In addition to frequent university examining (Philosophy being involved in so many different Schools), she was LMH’s Senior Tutor for five years in the 1980s and Vice-Principal for another five years from 19972002, the latter including the arduous organisation of a Principalian election. But it was 1980-81 that saw a most dramatic transformation in her life. From 1979 LMH, which had been the first Oxford college to admit women (beating Somerville by a whisker), became the first women’s college to admit men, a move which she wholeheartedly supported (she was sorry that Somerville took so long to do the same). Soon afterwards, in 1980, a new Theology tutor, a specialist in Old Testament studies, was appointed in the form of Dr (later Prof.) John Day. She was part of the committee which appointed him (one of the college representatives). Although this might sound incredible, he had a strong conviction that Jane would become his future wife already during his brief encounter with her at a reception prior to the interview. It was literally love at first sight! So when he returned to Durham (where he was a Research Fellow), he told friends he had met the person he was going to marry. Not surprisingly they said, ‘John, don’t be crazy! How can you possibly know? You haven’t even heard you’ve got the job yet!’ Well, after a few days he heard he’d got the job, and after a few months at Oxford John and Jane were married in 1981. They were a perfect match, the first Fellows of the same Oxford college to marry each other, and they stayed married for 40 years. The Principal of LMH, Duncan Stewart, joked that students of Philosophy and Theology would be having tutorials ‘day after day’! Another dramatic transformation in her life occurred in 1990. She was unfortunately unable to have her own children, so in 1990 she and John adopted two children, Lisa (aged 7) and Sebastian (aged 5). They were quite demanding (especially Sebastian), but both eventually went to university (unusual for children adopted at an older age) and now Sebastian is a social worker and Lisa works for Oxford council. It was most unfortunate that illness struck her in the very year that she retired (2007) in the form of Parkinson’s disease. But the first five years of her Parkinson’s were relatively mild, since in that period she was still able to continue travelling abroad with her husband, including visits to Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, Israel and the USA. Little more than a limp was then apparent. But sadly, her condition seriously deteriorated from 2012, when she developed Lewy body dementia, but she was lovingly cared for at home by marvellous carers till her death on 24 June 2021. Jane held distinctly liberal views in both politics and religion (regularly attending St Giles’ church opposite Somerville till her dementia became severe). Prior to her final illness she was astonishingly bright, having an IQ of 160 (near genius level!).

She was a truly delightful person, always maintaining a good sense of humour, and will be sorely missed by those who had the pleasure of knowing her. Professor John Day, widower

Harriet Fishman (Levine, 1961) Harriet Fishman (Levine, 1961) died 2 July 2021. There will be an obituary in the College Report for 2021-2022.

Sonia Anderson (1962) In a brief autobiographical note which she wrote for the 1962 Golden Reunion in 2012, Sonia described her undergraduate self as ‘diffident although potentially sociable’. The air of diffidence never quite left her, but the huge circle (or, rather, circles) of friends who mourn her death are testimony to the extent to which she realised her potential for sociability. A devoted Scot, she grew up in Dairsie, a small village in Fife, and went to St Leonards School in St Andrews, where the influence of the formidable Somervillian headmistress, Janet Macaulay (1928), and of an inspirational History mistress determined her choice of college and subject. At Somerville she developed the working habits which she was to maintain throughout life, rarely starting to write her weekly essay until the early hours of the day it was due to be presented, and snatching an hour or two of sleep before arriving for her tutorial bearing a capacious red leather bucket bag from which she extracted the closely written pages of the resulting masterpiece. Outside work, she threw herself enthusiastically into a wide range of activities, including a brief experiment with bell-ringing, from which she emerged spectacularly bruised after letting go of the bell-rope at the wrong time. And she formed friendships, which were to last a lifetime, across an equally wide range of academic disciplines and colleges. On the recommendation of her tutor, Agatha Ramm, she spent two vacations working as a volunteer in the archives of the Earl of Harrowby at Sandon Hall, Stafford. A Long Vacation essay based on material in the Sandon archives confirmed her aptitude for original research: in 1964 she was awarded a Shaw Lefevre Exhibition, and in 1965 an M.V. Clarke Graduate Scholarship enabled her to stay on at Somerville to work for a B.Litt. The resulting thesis was eventually published in revised form under the title An English Consul in Turkey: Paul Rycaut at Smyrna, 1667-1678. Sonia remained interested in Near Eastern history for the rest of her life, accumulating a wonderful antiquarian library (which she generously bequeathed to Somerville), corresponding on related subjects with academic colleagues throughout the world, and travelling widely to attend conferences and visit historic sites. In 1968 she moved to London and, after two years working as a Research Assistant for the Society of Antiquaries of London, joined the staff of the Historical Manuscripts Commission.

Editorial work was to prove her forte: during her 32 years at HMC she helped edit seven volumes in the Reports and Calendars series, twelve Joint Publications, four Guides to Sources, and many annual or occasional publications, besides serving 11 years as reviews editor of the Journal of the Society of Archivists and being involved in advising owners, custodians, and users of archives, and grant-giving bodies. Early retirement in 2002 enabled her to travel widely: she now visited Galapagos, Costa Rica, Kerala, Antarctica, the Pyrenees. In Greece, where – as she noted with satisfaction – a twenty-minute talk can earn a week’s hospitality, she gave papers on at least five different Ionian islands. Her range of interests and determination to miss nothing (particularly not a bargain) could leave her staider friends feeling exhausted. She relished giving and attending drinks and dinner parties, trips to the theatre, concerts, exhibitions, wine tastings, sporting fixtures – sometimes taking in several of these in a single day. Journeys outside London were carefully planned with an eye to the cheapest mode of travel compatible with taking in the maximum number of events. A keen eye for occasions offering free refreshments enabled her sometimes to go for days on end without needing to cook for herself. She was a passionate ornithologist, a talented nature photographer, and an avid reader of crime fiction. Addicted to competitions of all kinds, she was an enthusiastic participant in Mastermind and a ruthless aficionado of Scrabble. She was a terrifying driver, because her mind was usually on other things, but mercifully never needed to run a car in London. Family was central to her life: she was a devoted aunt to her brother’s children, maintained close contact with a widely dispersed cousinage, and acted as expert custodian of the family archive. She was an exceptionally generous hostess, offering hospitality to family and friends in a succession of increasingly central London flats. In the last two years of her life, she underwent an exhausting succession of operations and courses of chemotherapy for stomach cancer. She remained very much herself to the end, determined to stay in her flat, despite all the difficulties of doing so during lockdown, until the last possible moment. A friend who visited her shortly before her death writes ‘It is not possible to overpraise the absolute courage she displayed in the face of very great pain and impending inevitable death.’ Pauline Adams (1962), with assistance from Elizabeth Danbury (1967)

Katherine Mary (Kathy) Nichols (Lambert, 1968) Katherine (known as Kathy or Katie) was born in Stockholm where her father served as First Secretary to the British Embassy. From there the family lived in Greece (where she and her sisters were founder members of the British School in Athens – at that time situated in the grounds of the British Embassy), followed by Bulgaria (then behind the Iron Curtain),

SONIA ANDERSON

and Tunisia (where she was at the Lycée de Carthage, and where her early intelligence manifested itself as she was always top of the class). When her father was posted to Finland, she was sent to boarding school at Wycombe Abbey. She was offered a place at Somerville in 1969 to read PPE. There, academic life didn’t really intrude on her social life. She had a wide circle of friends and many admirers and held legendary parties from a cottage she shared with friends outside Oxford. By this time her father had moved to Portugal as Ambassador and during the summer months, hordes of Oxford undergraduates descended on the Lisbon Residence to be entertained by her long-suffering parents. On leaving Oxford, she worked at the Economist and was then Assistant Editor of the Bankers Magazine. Tiring of the commercial world she left and started a small book packaging business, producing several books, including Sir Hugh Casson’s diary and Magnus Linklater’s Massacre: The Story of Glencoe; in editing The Garden in Winter she started a long association with Rosemary Verey. In the mid-1980s Kathy moved to a cottage in Oxfordshire, where she lived happily for 20 years. On giving up the book packaging business, she edited several gardening books and ghost-wrote a number of Rosemary Verey’s books. She edited The Good Gardens Guide, initially with Peter King and later with Annie Gatti, as well as writing numerous gardening articles for publications such as The Times, the Independent and Gardens Illustrated. She also wrote a book on Scott’s last expedition, Hell with a Capital H. With money left to her by her father, she found an idyllic but dilapidated cottage in the North Devon hamlet of Bucks Mills. She set about making the cottage habitable and forging new friends. It was in Bucks Mills, at the age of 60 and hitherto

KATHERINE NICHOLS

GERALDINE ASHWORTH

unmarried, that she met Jeremy Nichols, who had had a long and distinguished career as a House Master at Eton, and then Headmaster at Stowe. Jeremy (recently widowed) had a holiday home in Bucks Mills. Kathy and Jeremy married in 2013 and she moved to Jeremy’s family house in Cornwall. Thus began one of the happiest periods of her life, and for seven years she immersed herself into establishing her place in Cornish society. There she wrote The Gardens of Cornwall, and became an organiser of the Cornish NGS; she and Jeremy founded The Cornish Lunch Club.

supervising clinics and maintaining exceptionally valuable personal contact with the patients and their families from across the country who were referred to the specialist team.

With absolutely no prior experience she coped with running a large house with invasions of stepchildren and grandchildren. In September 2019 Jeremy suffered a near fatal heart attack and the shock of this accelerated an aggressive form of dementia in Kathy. Jeremy died in August 2020, followed by Kathy a month later. She is survived by her elder sister, Janie. Jane Kinnersley, sister

Geraldine Jasmine Ashworth (1973) Geraldine Ashworth came from a well-to-do Birmingham family where the prevailing culture was that girls trained as secretaries and then were expected to marry well. She did the former briefly and the latter not at all. Accepted as a mature student at Somerville, Medicine brought her the stimulation and the vocation that exercised her understated gifts. Following training posts, Oxford became her home professionally and personally for the rest of her life. As a member of the highly regarded Craniofacial Unit at the old Radcliffe Infirmary, Geraldine was an omnipresent figure,

Her contribution to the clinical team was significant and much valued. One senior surgeon recalls: ‘Perhaps my most enduring memory of Geraldine is her dedication to those times when the team would drop in and out of the coffee room for terrific lunches as well as the inevitable sharing of stories, case discussions, general support and (unstated but of greatest importance) the forging of precious team relationships and trust. I cannot remember a time when – be it mornings, lunches, teas, weekends, celebrations of birthdays, welcoming the constant stream of visiting guest surgeons and others, students, the outstanding well-knit team of secretaries, our many friendly colleagues from other disciplines and many more – Geraldine was not ever present to lift spirits and forge the team life that delivered so much.’ She also managed the Kilner Library of Plastic Surgery which was a treasured resource for the team. Outside of her work, Geraldine enjoyed gardening, good food and wine and particularly her sailing. As a popular member of the Medley Sailing Club in Port Meadow, very close to her home, she regularly took to the water in her beloved Moth dinghy. Geraldine was held in affection by all who knew her. I met her in her Somerville days and her enduring and loyal friendship was, I soon realised, valued by many people. We all felt – indeed knew – that she was a bit special. She was good at doing ‘special’. Whether it was oysters and champagne at home to celebrate a birthday or an occasional outing for one of her wonderful Anna Belinda dresses (she

had as an adolescent wanted to be a ballerina and retained the bearing and style), she was never less than fun and thoughtful company. Her gracious, gentle and generous nature belied a strong character. Integrity both at work and home made her a trusted and wise counsel. In retirement Geraldine volunteered once a week at St Martin– in-the-Fields centre for the homeless – washing the dishes. Typically self-effacing, only subsequently did they discover her experience and gifts which were then used in direct contact with the clientele. Indeed my only knowledge of her ever announcing herself in public was when she survived a near drowning in her dinghy in the mid-1990s. A concerned passer by enquired, ‘Do you need a doctor?’ ‘I am a doctor,’ croaked Geraldine. Geraldine died in her sleep with her beloved cat alongside her. No fuss or bother to anybody, just as she would have wanted. We have lost a good friend. The Rev. Carl Attwood, long-time friend JULIE BEADLE

Julie Gabrielle Beadle (Molloy, 1982)

Clare Robertson ( JRF, 1982–85)

It is with sadness that I write about Julie for Somerville.

Clare Robertson’s death on 20 June 2020 brought to a premature close a most distinguished academic career. She read Mods and Greats at St Anne’s, before taking a PhD at the Warburg Institute in 1986. Her Somerville years, 1982-85, were spent as the Randall-MacIver Junior Research Fellow in the History of Art, living in Penrose, alongside Pauline Adams (and Dudley, her cat). I first met her there. Next came a fellowship at St Peter’s, followed by a post, later a full professorship, in the History of Art at Reading. She retired early, in order to enjoy more time for research in Italy with her husband John.

Julie was born on 8 July 1964. She studied Jurisprudence at Somerville and for her solicitor finals at Chester College before starting articles at Freshfields solicitors. After 12 years at Freshfields she changed career direction to allow her to spend more time with her family and her three boys. She requalified with an MSc in Information Systems, and volunteered part-time for school reading schemes for disadvantaged children and as an information officer for Into, in the resource centre of City University, again helping young students in their study paths and generally. Julie lived her entire life looking to help others. A quiet, charming, empathetic person, highly intelligent, observant and discerning, Julie enjoyed the special trust of many friends, peers and especially her young students. Julie could relate to and calm a distressed five-year-old on a reading scheme so they could have a happy learning experience, just as she could defuse and move forward an entrenched legal negotiation, always with a subtle, almost imperceptible, glint in her eye, earning her respect in her professional and personal relationships. Julie passed away in August 2020. She lived for her last two years with cancer. Enduring continuous treatment without remission or relief, her endurance, courage and determination shone through until she slipped away at home in Highgate after a difficult day, hoping for a better tomorrow. Julie leaves her immediate family, her husband of 28 years, her three wonderful adult sons and her father; her inner circle, that she was not ready to leave. May she rest in peace. Trevor Beadle, widower

Her scholarly work centred on Italian Renaissance and early Baroque art. Her first major book, Il gran cardinale: Alessandro Farnese, Patron of the Arts (Yale, 1992), laid the foundations of much to come, centring initially on the Farnese family’s practice of artistic patronage, and on the great buildings associated with them: the church of the Gesù, the family’s villa at Caprarola, and their Roman Palazzo. It involved close study of the Carracci family of artists, about whom it became clear how much investigation of documentary sources still needed to be undertaken. As she pursued this, Clare was a fellow of Harvard’s Florentine research centre I Tatti in 1992-93; in 1993-96 she held a Leverhulme research fellowship at the British School in Rome, returning to I Tatti in 1996 as a visiting professor. An outcome of this long, hard but happy labour came in 1996 with the publication, with Catherine Whistler, of Drawings by the Carracci, accompanying an exhibition at the Ashmolean. Twelve years later it bore full fruit in her important study The Invention of Annibale Carracci, published in Milan. Clare took on large projects, requiring patience, tact, and considerable, varied, expertise. In 2000-01, she was back

in Rome, as a visiting scholar at the Bibliotheca Hertziana, preparing her magnificent Rome 1600: The City and the Visual Arts under Clement VIII (Yale, 2015). She decided next to home in on a particular area that Rome 1600 had opened up: the teaching of drawing. A second fellowship at the British School in 2017 was therefore spent gathering material for the book she had planned in detail, Federico Zuccaro and the Art of disegno in Rome around 1600. Work on it had advanced substantially by the time of her death, but it remains unfinished. This brief account has emphasised Clare’s significance as a scholar. But that was far from ‘all’. Warm, generous, always modest, and with the greatest grace, she shared her understanding of the places, works of art, and much else she valued. Her love of Italian culture embraced also its cuisine; she was a fine cook; her restaurant recommendations were infallible. She loved music, the operas of Verdi not least. In the spirit of Somerville, to which she remained devoted, with characteristic elegance and intelligence she passed on to her pupils, colleagues, and many grateful friends so much that is life-enhancing and affirmative. Eric Southworth, Emeritus Fellow, St Peter’s

Diana Carolyn Uhlenbroek (Barnsley) Diana Carolyn Uhlenbroek(born Barnsley), 87, died peacefully on the 26th of October 2020 after a brief illness, at her home near Bristol with her three daughters by her side. Carol (as she was known) was born in London in 1933. In 1940 she was sent to Canada with her sister fortheir safety during the War and it was there that she developed a passion for reading which remained an enduring pastime her whole life. Carol attended Sydenham House in Devon and then Tortington Park School in Arundel. She was a gifted student and went up to read Chemistry at Somerville, one of only five women reading Chemistry there at the time. She was tutored by Nobel Prizewinning chemist Dorothy Hodgkin, an experience she cherished. Carol enjoyed her studies and also had a wide circle of friends. Vera Lupton, a close friend and fellow chemist, remembers lively gatherings in Carol's rooms for tea and listening to music on her gramophone. After graduating in 1954, Carol worked in the lab at May & Baker in London. She subsequently taught at the Oxford High School for Girls, where she discovered an exceptional talent for teaching. She went on to teach both Chemistry and Mathematics, consistently bringing out the best in her students and inspiring them with her passion and dramatic demonstrations! At 26, Carol left England to become a lecturer in Chemistry at the University of Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. There, she married George Uhlenbroek, a Dutch agronomist, and together they

DIANA CAROLYN UHLENBROEK

lived, worked and raised their three daughters in Ethiopia, Ghana, Nepal and Tanzania. The family often ventured into the wilderness, and Carol later led numerous school expeditions into India and up into the Himalayas including one to the Khumbu Glacier below Mt. Everest Base Camp. Carol loved an academic challenge and, in every country where she lived, she not only delved into the history and culture, but also undertook to learn the language, even tackling Devanāgarī, Sanskrit and Geʽez Amharic. Carol had a flair for acting and joined local amateur groups in Ethiopia and Nepal. Twoof her most memorable roles were as Viola in Twelfth Night, which was attended by the Emperor Haile Selassie of Ethiopia to whom she was presented afterwards, and Elizabeth Proctor in The Crucible, attended by King Birendra of Nepal. In retirement on the Isle of Man, George and Carol became involved in several environmental campaigns and her lifelong fondness for animals led her to keep rare breed ponies and sheep, in addition to the dogs that she never lived without. Later in life, Carol re-established her connection to Somerville, regularly attending reunions that she enjoyed as opportunities to meet like-minded people and old friends. Carol was preceded in death by her beloved husband of 50 years and is survived by her three daughters, seven grandchildren and one great grandchild. In the words of her grandson, “We cannot help but be inspired to live as fully, bravely and curiously as she did”. Francine Last, Marijke Sheraden and Charlotte Uhlenbroek, daughters

Photo by John Cairns

Academic Report 2020-21 Examination Results Undergraduate and Graduate Results for 2020-21 will appear in the online version of the College Report at www. some.ox.ac.uk/alumni/publications. If you would like a copy of these lists please email communications.officer@ some.ox.ac.uk

Scholarships and Exhibitions awarded to students for work of especial merit Anne Brazell Exhibition Simon Derry (Physics), John Pearce (Physics), Vuk Radovic (Mathematical and Theoretical Physics), Tom AshtonKey (Physics), Matt Jennings (Physics), Chuqiao Lin (Physics), Joseph Lord (Physics), Kieran Moore (Physics), Ylias Sadki (Physics)

Bryant Exhibition Finlay Dove (Music), Max Rodney (Music)

Bryant Scholarship David Aitken (Molecular and Cellular Biochemistry)

David Scourse Exhibition Anurag Choksey (Medicine - Preclinical)

Edith Haynes Exhibition Andrei Diaconu (Computer Science), Miles Keat (Engineering Science)

Edith Haynes Scholarship

Jean Ginsburg Scholarship

Alastair Flynn (Computer Science), Dunfan Lu (Computer Science), Alex Pay (Computer Science), Kai Pischke (Computer Science), Sophie Kuang (Engineering Science), Josh Lilley (Engineering Science), Ming Ow (Engineering Science), Haris Saeed (Engineering Science), Eleanor Thompson (Engineering Science), Jiale Wang (Engineering Science)

Abigail Punt (Medicine - Preclinical), Merlyn Latimer Smith (Molecular and Cellular Biochemistry), Mary McBain (Molecular and Cellular Biochemistry)

Emma Clarke Beilby Exhibition Lauren Eddie (Biology), Will Norton (Biology), Ajay Patel (Biology), Natalie Said (Biology), Albert Tremlett (Biology)

Emma Clarke Beilby Scholarship Eloise Hedgecott (Biology), Dulcie Havers (Molecular and Cellular Biochemistry), Amy Roberts (Molecular and Cellular Biochemistry), Emer Shell (Molecular and Cellular Biochemistry)

Gilbert Murray Scholarship Lucy Thynne (English Language and Literature)

Herbert Bull and Ethel Mary Bull Exhibition Caecilie Lotz (Classical Archaeology and Ancient History)

Herbert Bull and Ethel Mary Bull Scholarship Althea Sovani (Classics and Oriental Studies)

Jean Ginsburg Exhibition Raphaella Ridley (Medicine - Preclinical)

June Barraclough Exhibition Emma Burberry (English Language and Literature), Rosalyn Durham (English Language and Literature), Anna Roberts (English Language and Literature), Isobel McDonach (Modern Languages), Abi Charlton (Modern Languages and Linguistics), Lauren Hazel Keane (Modern Languages and Linguistics)

June Barraclough Scholarship Sofia Justham Bello (Modern Languages), Chloe Green (Music), Franco Lopez (Music)

Madeleine Shaw Lefevre Scholarship Devang Sehgal (Engineering Science), Christopher Wheeler (Engineering Science)

Margaret Pelly Exhibition Anna Elliott (Experimental Psychology)

Margaret Pelly Scholarship Marie-Louise Klampe (Experimental Psychology), Shah Moore (Experimental Psychology)

Samuel Dukinfield Darbishire Exhibition Charlotte Yates (Chemistry)

Samuel Dukinfield Darbishire Scholarship Alice Penrose (Biology), Jamie Walker (Biology), Daniel Cubbin (Chemistry), Emily Haasz (Chemistry), Will Hadley (Chemistry), Weiyu Kan (Chemistry), Dorian-Gabriel Muntean (Chemistry), Michal Pychtin (Chemistry), Ephraem Tan (Chemistry)

Sir William Bousfield Exhibition Phoebe Hyun (Ancient and Modern History), Sam McLoughlin (Ancient and Modern History), Ines Andrade Castro (Experimental Psychology), Claire Yun (Experimental Psychology), Rebecca Keddie (History), Romy Patrick (History), Emma Walker (History), Adam Broomhead (Mathematics), Reuben Frost (Mathematics and Statistics), Kitty Towler (Mathematics and Statistics)

Sir William Bousfield Scholarship Devanshika Bajpai (History), Ewan Connell (History), Reuben Cook (History), Magdalena Kosciolek (History), Luca Webb (History), Kate Dorkins (History and Modern Languages), Phoebe Daly-Jones (Mathematics), Alex Grey (Mathematics), Wooseok Jung (Mathematics), Benjamin Kotlov (Mathematics), Andra Mircea (Mathematics), Joel Summerfield (Mathematics), Ramona Deaconu (Mathematics and Statistics), Charlie Kidd (Mathematics and Statistics)

Exhibition Susannah Ames (Philosophy, Politics and Economics), Ethan Meller (Philosophy, Politics and Economics), Anushka Shah (Philosophy, Politics and Economics)

Scholarship Ellie Cooper (Philosophy, Politics and Economic), Telemi Emmanuel-Aina (Philosophy, Politics and Economics), Marua Mukanova-Finch (Philosophy, Politics and Economics), Fabio Rossi (Philosophy, Politics and Economics), Dorcas Chua (Psychology, Philosophy and Linguistics), Johannes Keil (Psychology, Philosophy and Linguistics), Migara Kumarasinghe (Psychology, Philosophy and Linguistics), Lucy Psaila (Psychology, Philosophy and Linguistics)

Exam Prizes to Undergraduates and Graduates This list is accurate at the time of print and some awards may be made after this date. Awards with an * were not listed in the 2019-20 report, and are therefore included here. Awards with an ** were listed incorrectly in the 2019-20 report, and are therefore included here.

Alyson Bailes Prize Magdalena Kosciolek (History)

Archibald Jackson Prize (for Graduates who achieve a Distinction in examinations) Charles Blake (Computer Science)*, Hong Fok (Computer Science)*, Fleur Uitzetter (Computer Science)*, Emmet Hall-Hoffarth (Economics), Brook Dambacher (Environmental Change and Management)*, Kay Cai (Financial Economics)*, Zaki Rehman (Global and Imperial History), Kaelyn Apple (History)*, Victoria Brown (History), Paul Hutchinson (History), Pak Hei Hao (International Relations), Cheng Da (Mathematical and Computational Finance), Christos Papachristou (Mathematical Sciences), George Tyler (Mathematical Sciences), John Henry (Medicine - Clinical), Eva Zilber (Medicine - Clinical), Katie Bastiman (Modern Languages), Carolin Jürs (Modern Languages)*, Caroline Lehnert (Modern Languages), Manuel Pass (Modern Languages)*, Mathew Madain (Modern Middle Eastern Studies)*, Varun Mallik (Modern South Asian Studies), Francesca Millar (Music)*, Chutiratn Pramuksun (Sleep Medicine)*, Xinxin Chen (Water Science, Policy and Management)*, Ellen Kujawa (Water Science, Policy and Management)*, Zineb Mimouni (Water Science, Policy and Management)*

College Prize Max Buckby (Ancient and Modern History), Lauren Eddie (Biology), Eloise Hedgecott (Biology), James Hubbard (Biology), Will Norton (Biology), Philippa Rolfe (Biology), Evan Slater (Biology), Emma Thornton (Biology), Albert Tremlett (Biology), Jamie Walker (Biology), Tom Drayton (Chemistry),

Georgia Fields (Chemistry), Amaar Sardharwalla (Chemistry), Ephraem Tan (Chemistry), Mason Wakley (Chemistry), Jordan Welsh (Chemistry), Finian Bassford (Computer Science), Alfie Brazier (Computer Science), Alex Pay (Computer Science), Kai Pischke (Computer Science), Miles Keat (Engineering Science), Haris Saeed (Engineering Science), Devang Sehgal (Engineering Science), Jiale Wang (Engineering Science), Christopher Wheeler (Engineering Science), Alistair White-Horne (Engineering Science), George Whittle (Engineering Science), Caitlin Kelly (English Language and Literature), Hannah Andrews (Experimental Psychology), Molly Cohen (Experimental Psychology), Parker Joly (Experimental Psychology) Ingrid Yu (Experimental Psychology), Katie Birch (History), Ella Johnson (History), Matyas Knol (History), Sonny Pickering (History), Jemima Storey (History), Sam Thomas (History), Michelle Chan (History and Economics), Alexander McFadzean (History and Economics), Samuel Ajakaiye (History and Modern Languages), Kristy Chan (Jurisprudence), Darren Leow (Jurisprudence), Giuseppe Maurino (Literae Humaniores), Jason Bell (Mathematics), Alex Grey (Mathematics), Richard Zhang (Mathematics), Tofunmi Adigun-Hameed (Mathematics and Computer Science), River Newbury (Mathematics and Computer Science), Dimitar Oparlakov (Mathematics and Computer Science), Jessica Richards (Mathematics and Computer Science), Ellie Washington (Mathematics and Statistics), Lucy Thompson (Medicine Graduate Entry), Sarafina Otis (Medicine - Preclinical), Abigail Punt (Medicine - Preclinical), Rae Amosu (Modern Languages), Haley Flower (Modern Languages), Daisy Martin (Modern Languages), Rohan Silvestro (Modern Languages), Ismay Forsyth (Molecular and Cellular Biochemistry), Ruby Cooper (Philosophy, Politics and Economics), Helena Holter (Philosophy, Politics and Economics), Isabella Mencattelli (Philosophy, Politics and Economics), Maria Rotaru (Philosophy, Politics and Economics), Tom Ashton-Key (Physics), Corinne Barker (Physics), Calum Holker (Physics), Chuqiao Lin (Physics), Elizabeth Lloyd-Wilson (Physics), Kieran Moore (Physics), John Pearce (Physics), Ylias Sadki (Physics), Joseph Spruce (Physics), Kaiyun Sun (Physics)

Mary Somerville Prize Arthur Eastwood (Ancient and Modern History), Phoebe Hyun (Ancient and Modern History), Daniel Cubbin (Chemistry), Melissa Flynn (Chemistry), Dorian-Gabriel Muntean (Chemistry), Michal Pychtin (Chemistry), Andrei Diaconu (Computer Science), Alastair Flynn (Computer Science), Dunfan Lu (Computer Science), Sophie Kuang (Engineering Science), Ming Ow (Engineering Science), Eleanor Thompson (Engineering Science), Beth James (English Language and Literature), Jude Mahmoud (English Language and Literature), Marie-Louise Klampe (Experimental Psychology), Shah Moore (Experimental Psychology), Ned Ashcroft (History), Ewan Connell (History), Harry Hyde (History), Henry Raikes (History)*, Toby Sanderson (History), Sam Warburton (Jurisprudence), Lucy Bannatyne (Literae Humaniores), Vuk Radovic (Mathematical and Theoretical Physics), Wooseok Jung (Mathematics), Benjamin Kotlov (Mathematics), Joel Summerfield (Mathematics), Anurag Choksey (Medicine - Preclinical), Eve Webster (Modern Languages), Laura Packham (Modern Languages and Linguistics), Rija Zaidi (Molecular and Cellular Biochemistry), Finlay Dove (Music), Max Rodney (Music), Michelle Huang (Philosophy, Politics and Economics), Marua Mukanova-Finch (Philosophy, Politics and Economics), Simon Derry (Physics), Ishraq Irteza (Physics)**, Matt Jennings (Physics), Joseph Lord (Physics)

Awards with an * were not listed in the 2019-20 report, and are therefore included here.

Alice Horsman Scholarship Leo Ackerman (2017), Maria Adebisi (2014)*, William Andrews (2015)*, Isobel Bandurek (2006)*, Stefano Domingues de Castro Pachi (2014)*, Christina Hunt (2013), Elizabeth McGowan (2016), Maia Perraudeau (2013)*, Rosalind Perrett (2017), Miriam Swallow Adler (2015), Maya Tysoe (2016)

Awards for Travel, Projects and Internments Awards with an * were not listed in the 2019-20 report, and are therefore included here. .

Alan Hodge Travel Grant Victoria Brown (History)

Alcuin Award Phoebe Hyun (Ancient and Modern History)*, Zaki Rehman (Global and Imperial History), Ned Ashcroft (History)*, Nadia Awad (History), Hazim Azghari (History), Henry Raikes (History)*, Luke Tinniswood (History)*

Margaret Kohl Prize

Alice Horsman Grant

Sofia Justham Bello (Modern Languages)

Samira Mathias (Civil Law), Eleanor Thompson (Engineering Science), Alex Haveron Jones (English Language and Literature), Rosalind Perrett (English Language and Literature)*, Alex HughesMorgan (Modern Languages), Alexander Brindle (Philosophy, Politics and Economics), Zander Watson (Philosophy, Politics and Economics)*

Medical Fund Scholarship Sarah Peters (Medicine - Clinical), Lara Reed (Medicine - Clinical), Nandana Syam (Medicine - Clinical)

Sarah Smithson Prize Ellen King (Modern Languages)

Somerville Lawyers Group Prize Sam Warburton (Jurisprudence)

Alumni Awards

Anne Clements Travel Grant Yuhang Song (Computer Science)*, Gaurav Dubey (Geography and the Environment), Saman Malik (History)*, Rosie Maxton (History), Elisabeth Siegel (International Relations), Sanah Ali (Medicine - Clinical)

Carmen Blacker Travel Grant Katherine Krauss (Classical Languages and Literature)*, Jemima Storey (History)

Catherine Hughes Grant Huw Robinson (Classical Archaeology and Ancient History), James Leader (Engineering Science), Cosima Tiffou (English Language and Literature), Zaki Rehman (Global and Imperial History), Ned Ashcroft (History), Aleksandra Rutkowska (History of Art), Elisabeth Siegel (International Relations), Richard Wagenländer (Jurisprudence), Anna Yakovleva (Medicine - Graduate Entry), Betty Barber (Modern Languages), Aneeska Sohal (Modern South Asian Studies), Emily Bullock (Philosophy and Modern Languages), Ash Elshehawy (Politics), Marwa Biala (Radiation Biology), Apoorva Kulkarni (Zoology)

Catherine Hughes Internship Award Jordan Welsh (Chemistry), Priya Garg (Civil Law)*, Samira Mathias (Civil Law), Abhijeet Singh Rawaley (Civil Law), Matilda Trueblood (Classical Archaeology and Ancient History), Ming Ow (Engineering Science), Lucy Taylor (Engineering Science), Lucas Jones (European and Middle Eastern Languages), Ingrid Yu (Experimental Psychology), Rebecca Keddie (History), Michelle Chan (History and Economics), Kate Dorkins (History and Modern Languages), Wesley Ding, (Jurisprudence), Kate Zhu (Mathematical Modelling and Scientific Computing), Wooseok Jung (Mathematics)*, Andra Mircea (Mathematics), Huiyuan Xiao (Medicine - Graduate Entry), Maya Szaniecki (Modern Languages), Lauren Hazel Keane (Modern Languages and Linguistics)*, Dulcie Havers (Molecular and Cellular Biochemistry), Melissa Chang (Music), Ruby Cooper (Philosophy, Politics and Economics), Calum Holker (Physics), Chuqiao Lin (Physics), Daisy Makin (Physics), Nikita Ostrovsky (Physics), Gauri Chandra (Public Policy), Byron Fay (Public Policy)*, Jinrui Liu (Public Policy)*, Alexander Mok (Public Policy)*, Isabel Morris (Women's Studies), Julius Bright Ross (Zoology)

Daphne Robinson Travel Grant Lucy Psaila (Psychology, Philosophy and Linguistics)

Dr Stephanie Dalley Internship Award Summia Tora (Public Policy)

Geiringer Travel Grant Aivin Gast (Classical Archaeology and Ancient History), Emma Burberry (English Language and Literature), Eloise Peniston (English Language and Literature), Lucy Thynne (English Language and Literature), Eleonora Lomi (Experimental Psychology), Hazel Ferguson (History)*, Eva Zilber (Medicine - Clinical), Matthew Zimmerman (Medicine - Clinical), Isobel McDonach (Modern Languages)*, Emily Bullock (Philosophy and Modern Languages), Byron Fay (Public Policy)*

Hansell Travel Grant Tom Hickling (Engineering Science), Stavros Dimitriadis (Medicine Clinical)*, Miranda Rogers (Medicine - Clinical)*, Varun Mallik (Modern South Asian Studies)*, Isabel Morris (Women's Studies), Aavika Dhanda (Zoology), Apoorva Kulkarni (Zoology), Adriana Mordente (Zoology)

Janet Treloar Travel Grant

Sanah Ali (Medicine - Clinical)*, Margaux Steyaert (Zoology)

Monica Britton Travel Grant Zaki Rehman (Global and Imperial History), Betty Barber (Modern Languages)

Olive Sayce Travel Grant Aleksandra Rutkowska (History of Art)*, Betty Barber (Modern Languages)*, Varun Mallik (Modern South Asian Studies)

Rhabanus Maurus Award Lucas Jones (European and Middle Eastern Languages), William Chamberlain (Modern Languages), Lara Chittick (Modern Languages), Asher Sandbach (Modern Languages), Rohan Silvestro (Modern Languages)

Rita Bradshaw Travel Grant Sheila Atuona (Creative Writing), Luigi Campanaro (Engineering Science)*, Devanshika Bajpai (History), Mary O'Connor (History), Susannah Ames (Philosophy, Politics and Economics)

Wilma Crowther Travel Grant

Oliver Greaves (Modern Languages)

Caroline Weglinski (Pharmacology)

Janet Watson Travel Grant

Other Awards

Ash Elshehawy (Politics)

Maria and Tina Bentivoglio Travel Grant Luca Ricci (Ancient History), James Leader (Engineering Science), Zaki Rehman (Global and Imperial History), Grace Denton-Spalding (History)*, Anna Espínola Lynn (History of Art), Aleksandra Rutkowska (History of Art), John Henry (Medicine - Clinical), Chloe Freeman (Medicine - Graduate Entry), Lucy Thompson (Medicine - Graduate Entry), Finlay Dove (Music)*, Zeynep Gunes (Obstetrics and Gynaecology)*

Marya Antonina Czaplicka Travel Grant

Chloe and Helen Morton Choral Award Rebekah Possener (Modern Languages), Jake Timmins (Music), Nikita Ostrovsky (Physics)

Daphne Robinson Language Award Nadia Award (History), Alexander Brindle (Philosophy, Politics and Economics), Wooseok Jung (Mathematics), Tristan I'Anson-Sparks (Music), Kieran Moore (Physics)

Margaret Irene Seymour Music Award Brigitte Wear (Biological Sciences), George Whittle (Engineering Science), Ned Ashcroft (History), Lauren Hazel Keane (Modern Languages and Linguistics), Trina Banerjee (Music), Chloe Green (Music), Tristan I'AnsonSparks (Music), Mar Umbert Kimura (Music),

Pat Harris Spirit of Somerville Award David Aitken (Molecular and Cellular Biochemistry), Corinne Barker (Physics)

Sports and Wellbeing Award Haochen Wang (Chemistry), Abhijeet Singh Rawaley (Civil Law), Yuhang Song (Computer Science), Karen Wendt (Engineering Science), Isabella Fergusson (English Language and Literature), Nolan Whitcomb (History and Economics), Samuel Ajakaiye (History and Modern Languages), Raphael Reinbold (Interdisciplinary Bioscience), Joe Hickey (Literae Humaniores), Christos Papachristou (Mathematical Sciences), Jae Park (Medicine - Clinical), James Atkinson (Medicine - Preclinical), Holly Abrahamson (Modern Languages), Lara Chittick (Modern Languages), Charlotte Geißler (Modern Languages), Dulcie Havers (Molecular and Cellular Biochemistry), Lucas Stolle (Molecular and Cellular Biochemistry), Mar Umbert Kimura (Music), Siobhan Tobin (Physics), Adam Isherwood (Physiology, Anatomy and Genetics), Yassine Lahna (Statistical Science), Adam Thomas (Systems Approaches to Biomedical Science)

Chloe and Helen Morton Choral Scholarship Emma Walker (History)

Students Entering College

College Prize

This list will appear in the online version of the College Report at www.some. ox.ac.uk/alumni/publications. If you would like a copy of this list please email communications.officer@some.ox.ac.uk

Wilf Jenkins (Medicine - Preclinical), Maya Mellor (Medicine - Preclinical), Nikki Miao (Physics and Philosophy)

Somerville Development Board Members

Distinguished Friends of Somerville

as of March 2021

Kay Brock, CBE, LVO, BA Karen Richardson, BA

Co-Chair Sybella Stanley (1979) Co-Chair Ayla Busch (1989)

Susan Scholefield, CMG, BA Elizabeth Bingham, BA Ginny Covell, BA Sue Robson, BA

Basma Alireza (1991) Judith Buttigieg (1988) Sophie Forsyth (Wallis,1989) Clara Freeman (Jones, 1971) Lynn Haight (Schofield, 1966) Niels Kröner (1996) Vicky Maltby (Elton, 1974) Nicola Ralston (Thomas, 1974)

Honorary Development Board Members Tom Bolt Doreen Boyce (Vaughan, 1953) Paddy Crossley (Earnshaw, 1956) Clara Freeman (Jones, 1971) Sam Gyimah (1995) Margaret Kenyon (Parry, 1959) Nadine Majaro (1975) Harriet Maunsell (1962) Hilary Newiss (1974) Roger Pilgrim Sian Thomas Marshall (Thomas, 1989)

For full details see the college website at www.some.ox.ac.uk/alumni/the-development-board

Eleanor Sturdy, BA, FRSA Charlotte Morgan, BA

Photo by John Cairns

Legacies Legacies are a vital source of support for the college’s activities and a deeply meaningful way to help ensure its continued success. Here we record our thanks to all of those who have left legacies to support Somerville and we honour four of the Somervillians whose recent legacies have made a lasting and significant difference.

Dorothy Mary Vernon Nee Grodecki (1943, Modern History)

Gaby Charing (1962, PPE)

Patricia Jean Hall (1943, English)

Sheila Porter (1951, Lit. Hum.)

Woodstock Road, Oxford OX2 6HD T: +44 (0) 1865 270600 www.some.ox.ac.uk Exempt charity number 1139440

College Report 2020-21

Articles inside

Obituaries

Legacies

Members’ News and Publications

Report on the Year of 1950

Treasurer’s Report

Report on Junior Research Fellowships

Fellows’ and Lecturers’ Activities

Library Report

President’s Report

Life Before Somerville

MCR Report

Principal’s Report