Obituaries

Births

Bacon

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

Borg–Cooper

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 Matei

To Anna Matei (2009) and Jake Reich on 23 February 2019 a daughter Rosa Matei-Reich. (The editor apologises for not including this notice in last year’s Report)

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

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

Beadle

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

Belsey

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

Bennett

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

Britton

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

Broadie

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

Caldicott

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

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

Clayton

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

Day

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

Eckhard

Josephine Eckhard (1946) on 21 January 2021 Aged 93

Fassnidge

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

Fishman

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

Freeman-Attwood

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

Fuller

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

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

Green

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

Green

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

Greenall-Scott

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

Griffiths

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

Hales Tooke

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

Hands

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

Holmes

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

Lambert

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

Mariotti

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

Mellanby

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

Middleton

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

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 Rose

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

Shea

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

Simmill

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

Speller

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

Stewart

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

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 Wardle

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

Warner

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

Williams

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

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.

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!).

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 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.

JANE HANDS

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 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.

THERESA STEWART

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.’ 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

SHIRLEY WILLIAMS

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. 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

SUSAN PARTRIDGE

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.

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.

DOROTHY TWISS

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 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.

MARIGOLD FREEMAN-ATTWOOD

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

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.

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 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.

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.

ANN HALES-TOOKE

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 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

AUDREY DONNITHORNE

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. 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.

ROSALIND BEARCROFT

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

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.

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 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.

She is sadly missed by her sister Anne, and all who knew her.

ELLY MILLER

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 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 May Porter (1951)

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

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 PORTER

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.

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!

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.

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.

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

E. Ann Gray (1953)

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.

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.

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

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

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 JOSHI

Angur Baba Joshi (1957)

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 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

CAROL MARIOTTI

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.

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

CATHERINE BELSEY

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. 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

JANE DAY

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), 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.

SONIA ANDERSON

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

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.

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. 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.

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

GERALDINE ASHWORTH

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 Gabrielle Beadle (Molloy, 1982)

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

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.

JULIE BEADLE

Clare Robertson (JRF, 1982–85)

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.

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 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 Devanāgarā, Sanskrit and Geāez 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”.

DIANA CAROLYN UHLENBROEK

Francine Last, Marijke Sheraden and Charlotte Uhlenbroek, daughters