The Biographical Office

General Overview

The College’s statutory aims are the advancement of education, religion, learning and research, and the work of the Biographical Office has continued to contribute to all those areas. We have helped students and academics at this College and at schools and universities around the world whose research has led to their interest in individual members of the College, or groups of people which include Johnians, from the sixteenth century to the present day. We regularly support the work of other departments who are all in different ways performing key functions in the College, including the Master’s and President’s Office, Communications Office, Chapel and Choir Office, and the Development Office. Each term the Library Newsletter, circulated to the College community and published online, has highlighted aspects of our work with articles including ‘40th Anniversary of the admission of women to the College’, ‘Johnian Winter Olympians’, and ‘Learned societies and lists: awards, prizes, medals and lectures’.

Over the years, staff working on biographical records have been in the Library, the Johnian Office, then back in the Library since 2007. From July 2022 we continue to be housed in the Library where the Biographical Archive and other materials we need to access are held, but in terms of staff structure we now fall under the Development Office, reporting to the Head of Alumni Relations.

The table below offers an insight into the volume of biographical information received and correspondence generated over the last year from 1 August 2021 until 30 June 2022, after which point we were no longer part of the Library establishment. The previous three full years’ figures are provided for comparison.

Action

Biographical material received Biographical collection consulted Items filed in Biographical collection Emails and letters sent Proactive research

2021-22 2020-21 2019-20 2018-19

2700 2971 4099 4021 530 470 559 611 365 978 235 515 4284 6100 5019 3816 1200 1575 2390 2415

Most of the work of the office continued to be carried out by the two full time members of staff, but with some assistance from the Library Graduate Trainee 2021-22, Jess Hollerton, the Library Assistant, Katie Hannawin, and the Special Collections Assistant, Adam Crothers, whose support until June was much appreciated.

Biographical Data Entry

As with any other year, data entry has been a big part of our undertaking, forming the spine that provides stability to the rest of our tasks. Inputting information supplied to us at the beginning of someone’s admission to the College, monitoring their academic progress and extracurricular involvement, and following their subsequent career and contributions to society. Even after registering their deaths, we continue to find out new information about them.

The accurate recording of facts and detection of discrepancies between sources is an important aspect of our work, and the reason this is necessary is demonstrated when

members of the College community, or those within the University or further afield, require details which are as accurate as possible, often at short notice. The source and date of material received makes it possible to ensure accurate data is not overwritten by an erroneous update. Johnians themselves sometimes provide incorrect information about their own lives via a CV on which they have inaccurately recalled dates, for example. This can be detected if we still have the information on record which was recorded back when they were a student, or at an earlier stage in their career. When facts are unclear it can lead to time spent checking resources to establish a definitive answer.

We have stayed on track with our rolling task to check Who’s Who annually in order to ensure no Johnian entrant goes for more than five years without having their entry thoroughly checked, in addition to performing a full check for every Fellow and Honorary Fellow each year. Despite verification by the person themselves, the entries often throw up challenges to information the Johnian has provided to us in the past. We have also updated the records of every known Johnian member of the clergy from Crockford’s Clerical Directory, a task we aim to complete on a biannual basis, having already laid good foundations in the past and consolidating the information this year.

Johnian successes in the arts and sciences continue to be monitored by way of the learned societies and important international awards, including the biannual Honours lists.

We continue to note student involvement in College and University clubs and societies, however societies all work to differing schedules on a variety of media platforms, if they even publicise their committees or membership anywhere online at all, so thanks to those societies who maintain excellent, chronological webpages! This ongoing task is only approachable in a piecemeal way but does allow us to capture important aspects of a student’s wider involvement whilst at Cambridge. The information has proven useful in supporting work towards events targeted towards those with a particular interest, often associated with

anniversaries. For example, the Adams Society’s forthcoming centenary has involved work from this office.

Biographical Enquiries

The fact we have one of the best biographical collections of its kind, often complimented by researchers and envied by other institutions, is thanks to the efforts of Fellows, Masters, Librarians, and others who have compiled, maintained, and added to the Biographical Archive since the eighteenth century, and as we continue to do. The enthusiasm of researchers is infectious, and we always try to do our best to help them, but the level of detail we can supply depends on what we have on record - which in some cases may be detailed but can sometimes be sparse (especially if we are going back to the 1500s). The assistance of researchers who approach us for help and in turn provide us with new information is much appreciated. Some detective work is sometimes required in order to even identify who the researcher is interested in, for example, a matriculation photograph donated to a museum where the writing at the top is faded so it is not immediately clear even which year group it is, so to identify the donor who was connected to someone on that photograph is difficult; or requests to identify someone mentioned in a letter who may have been called Henry or Herbie and may have studied economics and may have rowed for the LMBC. We often impress people by managing to succeed despite being provided with very little to go on.

The requests received by this office primarily concern individual Johnians, but some are more wide-ranging, dealing with several members of the same family or those with shared interests, achievements, or experiences. For example, The Eagle 2022 includes an article (pp.14-17) mentioning past work relating to Johnians from the North of England. Other requests have related to members of sports teams, those commemorated on the War Memorial, and alumni

of certain schools (in connection with a visit aimed at widening participation at Cambridge we identified twelve former pupils or masters from the nineteenth century onwards). It is also pleasing to note that some help we provided is leading to an internationally renowned expert in his field undertaking a research project relating to a group of Johnians who were at the forefront of advancement in a key area integral to changing the course of a key event in history. Our response to enquiries takes data protection and privacy into account.

Over the last year the office has dealt with several enquiries in connection with the admission of women to the College. Michaelmas 2021 marked 40 years since the first female graduate students, and one Fellow, became members of St John’s, and the first undergraduates came up in 1982.

The pattern of enquiries completed this year is shown below, along with the previous three years’ figures for comparison.

Sixteenth

Century

Seventeenth Eighteenth Nineteenth Twentieth Twenty-first More than one century/Other

Total 2021-22 2020-21 2019-20 2018-19

12 9 11 15

9 10 10 13

11 48 10 43 11 51

14 53 240 257 334 348 25 24 39 45

15 9 10

12

360 362 466 500

The figure is comparable with last year despite not quite covering a full year, as mentioned above. The number of emails, phone calls, letters and visitors seeking assistance remain broadly the same – higher than the figure above for completed work as there continues to be a backlog of requests, the workload of the office preventing it being possible to catch up. It is still the case that those with urgent requests receive a response in a timely fashion, often the same day, and those working towards deadlines are prioritised, but it is frustrating we are unable to deal with all requests promptly. Some changes outlined below may help with this eventually.

Deaths and Obituaries

The table below compares figures regarding the death of members of the College recorded over the last three years.

Deaths recorded

2021 2020 2019

Total number 170 162 160 Included in Alumni obituaries section of The Eagle 2022 145 134 137

The process for recording deaths and the time-consuming and detailed work to ensure that the College’s records are up to date and that details put forward to assist in compiling obituaries are accurate, has been described in previous years’ reports. An example of the effort that has been taken to verify information this year includes the Library Assistant, Katie Hannawin, using her French language skills to correspond with a deceased Johnian’s old school. The volunteer obituary writers Colin Greenhalgh (1960), Obituaries Editor since 2015, and Tim Jones (1974), Assistant Obituaries Editor since 2020, have invested a good deal of time and effort in the process, and their dedication is appreciated. Their contribution ended

this year, with The Eagle 2022’s alumni obituaries section (pp.98-154) being the last to be compiled by them with the assistance of this office.

This decision was made after the year covered by this Report, but as the Biographical Librarian’s work towards obituaries for The Eagle 2023 commenced in January 2022, correspondence with relatives since that time will be revisited and they will be advised of the new procedure for supplying obituaries to the Editor. The full effect of the College’s decision on this will not be felt until next year, but by then much less time will be spent in contact with relatives of Johnians. For some examples of the positive feedback received from families see the appropriate section later in the Annual Report.

The image above is a wreath made by Ann Couldrey, daughter of Peter Clark (1947) who died in December 2021 (see The Eagle 2022, p.104). The origami flowers made from maps were a fitting tribute to someone who first visited the Map Room at the Royal Geographical Society at the age of 16, describing it as ‘nearly paradise!’, and years later became Keeper of that Map Room. The Biographical Librarian’s correspondence with the families of Johnians, and the opportunities it has afforded to expand the College’s records of its members (and come across some lovely things like this), has been one of the things she has found most rewarding over the twenty-one years she has been the main College contact for relatives of deceased Johnians.

Fiona Colbert Biographical Librarian Paul Everest Biographical Assistant