The Year 2020

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www.girton.cam.ac.uk

Girton College Cambridge

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2019/20

The Year 2019/20

Girton College Huntingdon Road Cambridge CB3 0JG

The Year

The Annual Review of Girton College Cambridge


Contents Welcome

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Fellows’ Profiles

A Letter from the Mistress

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James Anderson

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Births

Malcolm Guite

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Marriages and Civil Partnerships 126

Births, Marriages and Deaths

Features Profile: Margaret Mountford Jane Martin Poetry Prize

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Medicine and Health Testing the Health of the Nation 14 Spanish Flu, 1918

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Girton’s Role in Medicine

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A Pioneer in Women’s Health

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The Art of Medical Drawing

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College Reports

Bursaries and Grants

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Fellows and Officers of the College

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Postgraduate Affairs

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University and College Awards

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Library

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Archive

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Appointments of Fellows and Alumni

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Culture and Heritage

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Awards and Distinctions

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Fellows’ Publications

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Alumni Publications

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Lists

Cancer Research Today

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Choir

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Parliament and Public Health

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Chapel

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Research Evenings

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Hail and Farewell

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Eileen Power in Retrospect

Obituaries

Admissions and Widening Participation

Music

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127

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The Rising Tide Exhibition

In Memoriam

Alumni and Supporters

The Founding of Cambridge’s Clinical School

Women in History

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Foundation Day

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Student Reports

Spring Ball

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JCR

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Composing for a Quiet World

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MCR

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Painting the Pandemic

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Societies and Sports

Ethnicity and the Academy

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Boat Race

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Roll of Alumni

Crossword

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Calendar of Events

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Regional Associations

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Alumni Information Update your Details

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Alumni Events

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A Great Campaign

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Giving to Girton

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Designed and produced by Cambridge Marketing Limited, 01638 724100 Cover: Detail from Untitled (orchard view from memory II), acrylic and oil on canvas, 2020, by Artist in Residence Luke Burton Section title images: Girton in lockdown by Lilian Janik

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Welcome Welcome to the 2020 edition of The Year. This year’s issue was prepared against the backdrop of the COVID-19 pandemic, an event that has transformed the College more profoundly than anything in the lifetime of most Girtonians. It is particularly appropriate, therefore, that the edition should contain an extended feature on Medicine and Health; we’d like to thank Fiona Cooke for her invaluable advice on this matter. Girton’s 150th anniversary continues to resonate, and the second compendium feature, on Women in History, takes its lead from a major exhibition on women in the University; an article about this, by a current History Fellow, is linked to a profile of one of Girton’s most distinguished History Fellows of the last century. As a final anniversary flourish, we are pleased to present the first of what we hope will be a series of crosswords with a Girton theme. We are, as always, extremely grateful to our contributors, several of whom have overcome significant obstacles to produce their copy on time. Our warmest thanks go to our team of collaborators – Anne Cobby, Judith Drinkwater, Cherry Hopkins, Gillian Jondorf and Ross Lawther – who have helped in the preparation, copyediting and proofreading of the magazine. Hannah Sargent and Rachael Humphrey have once again provided invaluable administrative support. We are also indebted to Peter Morrison, Stuart Cleary and Derrin Mappledoram of Cambridge Marketing for their inventive approach to design, their willingness to work around delays, and their unfailing sense of humour. We are always glad to hear from Girtonians with news or stories to share; please contact the Development Office at Girton College, Cambridge, CB3 0JG (alumni@girton.cam.ac.uk). Martin Ennis and E Jane Dickson, Editors, The Year

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Christopher Andreou

A Letter from the Mistress Dear Friends, No superlative is sufficient to describe the highs and lows of the past academic year. It began with nearly half the 150th anniversary still to run, and ended with the first-ever termtime College closure. Michaelmas was magnificent: we gave freshers a typically warm welcome, celebrated Foundation Day in style, paid tribute to Emily Davies during our Ceremony for the Commemoration of Benefactors, and continued to enjoy a fabulous Girton150 concert series. This enabled us to mark two other important anniversaries. First, a London Girton Association concert featuring some of our most remarkable musical OGs attracted a huge gathering to Gray’s Inn. There we paid tribute to Baroness Brenda Hale, whose 15th year as our Visitor coincided with the 50th anniversary of her call to the Bar. Then, during a lively music reunion in College, we raised a toast to Dr Martin Ennis in his 30th year as the Austin and Hope Pilkington Fellow and Director of Music. I was glad to have the opportunity in December to make a visit, the first in our anniversary year, to Hong Kong. Despite the political unrest, we enjoyed some wonderful hospitality,

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That chapter began with a most unwelcome twist. I have written on several occasions about our response to the coronavirus crisis. I hope you and yours escaped the worst of it; my heart goes out to those who suffered illness or lost loved ones. We did all we could, as the pandemic took hold, to protect the educational mission of our College while meeting the health, safety and welfare needs of all our members. I have paid tribute – and still do – to all who worked so hard to keep the College together during those months, and who even now are planning for our physical, financial and emotional recovery. I am also immensely impressed by our students who not only rose to the challenge of a complete change in working practices, but also did their bit during term to keep our spirits up.

The Mistress with Barack Obama

and, on behalf of the College, thanked those who had helped create two new international scholarships. The Development Director and I also met alumni in Singapore, where we shared fond recollections of the Girton150 Asia weekend and attended an education benefit gala with guest of honour Barack Obama. Finally, just before Christmas we said goodbye to the

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Bursar, Debbie Lowther, after 26 years in office, and in January we welcomed her successor, James Anderson. A stimulating event celebrating the ‘history of history’ at Girton and the memorable once-in-a-decade Power Feast were followed by the Spring Ball (the last Girton150 event), and we were soon looking forward to the next chapter in Girton’s gripping story.

The fallout from COVID-19 is immeasurable; it will be years before the true cost is known. Yet, as we rise, phoenix-style, it is hard not to feel energised, indeed inspired, by the response of the Girton community to this setback. From the mundane (as the Secretary to Council rapidly and effectively steered our governance structures online) to the inane (I have finally embraced Instagram), from the unimaginable (‘virtual’ supervisions) to the uplifting (in which I include


Jeremy West

support of all kinds from alumni), we have been immersed in innovation and goodwill. Migrating online is not, however, as simple as it sounds. It has been a steep and time-consuming learning curve, which has added substantially to Fellows’ workloads. At the same time, it has encouraged experimentation, and pointed to efficiencies and opportunities that we might not otherwise have found. As well as supporting our students to complete their studies in all the ways you would hope, we mounted a series of stimulating virtual seminars, including several subject-society crowdpullers featuring prominent alumni as guest speakers. Moreover, in an effort to keep the rhythm of term in place, we have, serendipitously, created a lasting record of some key traditions that are integral to College life, but rarely captured for posterity. Take the College Feast – that special occasion when final-year students reflect over dinner on the traditions that informed their time at Girton, and that they, in turn, have shaped. This year we staged ‘Feast Online’, creating a permanent tribute to the year 1948, when Girton’s foundational aim, degrees for women, was achieved, as well as profiling key moments in 1998, 2018 and 2019 when, as a College, we considered explicitly how to make the most of that path-breaking legacy.

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The Mistress celebrates the successes of the 2020 graduands

Likewise, no academic year would be complete without May Week, whose eponymous concert has long formed a dazzling centrepiece to the end of Easter Term at Girton. This year, that too went virtual. So if you happened to miss the call in June, there is still time to arm yourself with strawberries and cream before entering a glorious sound-world that would otherwise be long gone. On a lighter note, we held the GirtOnline Garden Party to round off the year in a single allCollege get-together. That ‘party’ is ongoing! As autumn sets in, you can still wander through spring gardens; as normal life resumes, you can browse the lockdown scrapbook to see history being made. Also on this web page you will find one of several socially distanced, but very fond, farewells to the Revd Dr Malcolm Guite, who has retired as our Chaplain after 17 years of service. We wish him well as he expands his career as a writer and poet, and we are delighted that he is now a Life Fellow of the College. To complete our online programme we organised a virtual graduation celebration for students who, in a normal academic year, would have received their degree at the Senate House in June 2020. It features Jasper Dommett’s Fanfare for Girton Graduation, some powerful valedictory messages, a ceremonial reading of names and a tribute from the Visitor. We began the academic year full of confidence; we end it still positive, but certainly shaken by events, and not just those precipitated by COVID-19. The issues raised by the death of George Floyd in a world fractured by economic, cultural and religious divides, by race, gender, and a host of intersecting oppressions, likewise speak urgently to all that Girton represents. We may have completed 150 years in higher education, and established ourselves as a permanent institution within a world-class University, but we cannot let down our guard. Hope does not triumph unaided; it demands a plan of action. As an institution and as a community, Girton has action in mind. Susan J Smith, Mistress

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Features


The Many Lives of Margaret Mountford Lawyer, TV presenter and academic Margaret Mountford discusses her varied career with E Jane Dickson

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Mountford’s upbringing as the daughter of a Presbyterian argaret Mountford conjures, with undimmed minister on the shores of Belfast Lough marked her out for horror, the first-year French supervision that the wild side. ‘The troubles started in 1968, and of course set her on the path to becoming a lawyer. Her things were brewing before then, but apart from going up supervisor, the fabled Odette de Mourgues, was analysing to school (Strathearn Grammar) which was on the edge of ‘Booz endormi’, Victor Hugo’s rhapsodic retelling of the town, I didn’t really go to Belfast’, she explains. ‘My life was relationship between a biblical patriarch and his vastly at home and that always felt like a very safe place. I had a younger wife. ‘There is a line, “Vêtu de probité candide very happy, secure childhood; I was an only child and we et de lin blanc” [clad in candid probity and white linen],’ had a huge, double-fronted house where I had a playroom Mountford recalls. ‘Odette de Mourgues said: “This is to myself and acres of space. I used to think the greatest line of poetry in the French we must be quite wealthy, and only realised language…”. And I thought, “Right, I’ve I don’t think I was a later that we really weren’t.’ had it, then”.’

‘ “lawyer’s lawyer”;

I saw Law as a Opportunities for teenage rebellion were If Romantic sensibilities sat uneasily with means to an end few. ‘It was the kind of community where Mountford, Law was the perfect escape. everyone knew you, and knew your ‘After Christmas, I asked if I could change parents, and in any case I‘m not sure there was anything very from Modern and Medieval Languages to something else, transgressive to do there. I was once caught eating fish and anything else. They wouldn’t let me change immediately – chips in the streets with my friends, and it was felt that was they said I’d have to finish the year, which in hindsight I’m not appropriate for a minister’s daughter, but my parents very glad I did. But at the time it was awful. I couldn’t wait were always very supportive. I don’t think it ever occurred to to start Law, and I loved it from the outset. We had all the me that there was anything I couldn’t do if I wanted to.’ top people teaching us at Girton – Tony Jolowicz, Cherry Hopkins and her husband John – with Poppy Jolowicz The chip-shop incident barely counts as buried trauma (one as Director of Studies, and we were very, very fortunate. suspects she didn’t go in too much for adolescent angst), but I don’t think I was ever a “lawyer’s lawyer”, though. I Mountford, who was propelled to fame when she appeared saw Law as a means to an end, and the idea of steering with business tycoon Sir Alan Sugar on the hit BBC One through regulation to find a pragmatic solution appealed to show The Apprentice, remains wary of public attention. me very much.’

Finding her métier transformed Mountford’s College experience: ‘One of my good friends told me that when I arrived I was categorised as “one of the miserable Irish”. But I had a good time once I found my feet.’ It seems to have been accepted in 1970 that Irish students came in binary form – ‘miserable’ or ‘raucous’ – and nothing in

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‘I became a solicitor specialising in corporate law because the idea of getting up on my hind legs in court terrified me. Corporate lawyers are very much men and women in grey suits, and that suited me very well. Also, because I’m very bad at recognising people, I don’t find it comfortable when people I don’t know recognise me. I once met Esther


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Rantzen and I asked her “What do you do when people keep coming up to you in the street?” She said, “Well, it’s my fault they’re doing that, because I made myself known to them. So if I’m not in too much of a hurry, I always stop and say ‘Hello’, and let them have a photograph.” I thought, “Well, that’s a very good lesson. I will do that,”’ says Mountford. And does she? ‘Mostly.’ Celebrity was never part of her life plan, but after 25 years with a top City firm, Herbert Smith, Mountford was looking for a new challenge: ‘I just felt I’d worked in corporate law long enough. In the 80s and 90s we worked terribly hard. I didn’t mind that: I have a lot of stamina and I could do one or two nights without sleep. All that’s fine when the buzz is there. But then you start to think, “I’ve argued that point ten times with ten different people and I can’t be bothered to stay up all night to do it again.” And I didn’t need to go on working because I could afford not to, so I just decided not to do it any more. I toyed with the idea of running a business, but quickly realised that no one was going to give me a business to run, and I’ve never been entrepreneurial. Then I thought, “I really enjoyed being a student. Why don’t I go back and do that?” I’d done Latin and Greek at school, and I’d always been fascinated by the Classical period, but I wanted a course that wasn’t too literature-oriented. I was still scarred by Victor Hugo and I’m too pragmatic for philosophy – I have this vision of an Athenian philosopher sitting agonising on the precise moment his will to eat fish for lunch becomes action, and his poor wife snapping, “Oh, for goodness’ sake! Will you just get up and do it!” So I went to University College London to do a course in Ancient World Studies – a mix of archaeology, ancient history, some literature and some language – and I enjoyed that very much.’

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Constitutionally unsuited to half-measures, Mountford followed up her renewed interest in Classics with a parttime MA and, soon after, a full-time PhD in papyrology. The study of ancient manuscripts, she found, suited her perfectly, testing her forensic, as well as her linguistic, skills. ‘You’re working with documents relating to real lives, and at times you even get to hold them. That is very exciting, because usually you’re working with scans, but sometimes you need to see the original document to work out whether that little black mark is ink or a fold in the paper. I love that puzzle element, finding connections, following up leads. It’s deeply satisfying.’ A contented life in academia could well have been on the cards, had opportunity not come knocking in the grizzled form of Sir Alan Sugar. ‘Alan had been one of my clients at Herbert Smith, and he’s a very loyal person. I had done all his corporate work, and when I retired I went on the board of Amstrad. When he first approached me about taking part in The Apprentice, I had no idea what it was going to be like.’

Margaret at Graduation

As the world now knows, the format of The Apprentice, a television series in which 16 young entrepreneurs fight like rats in a sack to become Sir Alan’s business partner, was a global hit (one Donald Trump took the helm in the original US version of the programme). Mountford’s role, as Sugar’s ‘eyes and ears’ – half spy, half steely enforcer – won her the soubriquet of ‘the nation’s headmistress’, which rather undersells her commanding screen presence. So appreciated was her cool, sardonic manner that her left eyebrow, permanently lifted at the antics of the candidates, gained its own Twitter account. ‘I took comfort in two things: it wasn’t live TV, and it

wasn’t in the interests of the programme to make the advisors look like idiots,’ says Mountford. ‘If I slipped on a banana skin, they probably wouldn’t show that, whereas if one of the candidates slipped on a banana skin, that would definitely make the edit. So I thought it might be an interesting experience, and it was – though there was an awful lot of time spent hanging around while the camera guy or the lighting guy was setting up, and I’m not good at hanging around. I wasn’t involved very long – I did it for five years, and had a minor role for another three – but it felt like an eternity.’ TV producers, however, knew a good thing when they saw it. Mountford and fellow candidate-wrangler Nick Hewer were signed up to co-present a suite of social-issue documentaries for BBC One. Mountford was also a natural fit to present BBC documentaries on the Ancient Greek poet Sappho and the nineteenth-century Northern Irish women’s rights campaigner, Isabella Tod.

‘The Apprentice did open doors to a few other television programmes, most of which I enjoyed doing,’ she says with lawyerly caution. ‘The programmes I did with Nick [The Town That Never Retired (2012), We All Pay Your Benefits (2013) and Too Many Immigrants? (2014)] were interesting because they opened my eyes to things I wasn’t quite aware of. Looking at Britain’s benefit culture from both sides, you realise how thin the line is, for a lot of people, between managing OK and not managing at all. We met families who were working hard, one parent working all day and the other working through the night so they could share childcare, and they were just scraping along on that basis: all it takes is for one weekly wage to stop for some reason, or for somebody to be ill, and they’re at the food bank.’

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Margaret with Bamber Gascoigne and the winning ‘Girton Challenge’ team at Girton150. From left to right: Cecilia Oram (Hughes 1977), Gill Woon (Doubleday 1977), Bamber Gascoigne (University Challenge quizmaster, 1962–87), Margaret Mountford (Gamble 1970), Paul Cook (1984), Jonathan Mayor (1990)

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A more nuanced, collaborative view of social issues would, in Mountford’s view, be a step forward. ‘The usual route is to throw a lot of money at these problems. But here we are with COVID-19, loads of money is being thrown at all sorts of things, and we’re still in a mess. Why can’t politicians just say, “I’m sorry, we didn’t get it right at the beginning, but we’re doing our best”? Instead, they’re always prowling around trying to score points off each other.’

This is not, she points out, an argument for feminine rule. ‘Oh, I know people say, “If women were in charge, it would be this, or it would be that”, and I just think, “Oh, come on!“ I’ve never been a fan of positive discrimination for women and I don’t understand why anybody is. Would I want to be given a position because I was a woman? No, I would not. If I can’t get there on equal terms, I don’t want to be there at all.’

While she prefers to roll up her sleeves at board level (she has, among other appointments, chaired the governing body of three London state schools), one can’t help feeling an hour in a locked room with Mountford would buck up government ministers’ ideas nicely. ‘A situation like the one we’re in now needs gravitas from a leader,’ she says, ‘but there’s no gravitas now in politics any more. Angela Merkel has gravitas, so does Jacinda Ardern in New Zealand, but most of the rest are awful.’

She has similarly robust views on ‘no-platforming’ and public apologies for historic wrongs. ‘If you’ve done something wrong, apologise for it. Otherwise, you can say you’re sorry something happened, but you don’t apologise for something you haven’t done. You can’t deny what Cecil Rhodes or other people did, but you think, “Well, here we are. What can we do to redress what is unfair now?” But this whole idea of no-platforming is profoundly unhelpful. If people have done, or are saying, horrible things, you

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need to address them and refute them, not just close your ears to them. And I think it’s shocking that universities, including, I think, several Cambridge Colleges, are going along with this.’ Mountford’s views are, perhaps, strengthened by her deep affection for Cambridge and, in particular, for Girton where she has endowed the annual Mountford Arts and Humanities Communication Prize and is a frequent visitor. ‘I’m always struck by how nice and friendly the Girton dons are – not at all the standoffish sort, and it’s lovely to be included in the life of the College.’ Some things never change: ‘The College has the same smell I remember from my student days,’ says Mountford, fondly. ‘I think it’s polish and cabbage, combined.’ Victor Hugo can consider the score settled.

Jane Martin Prize for Poetry 2020 Now in its tenth year, this national prize for young poets (aged 18–30) is a key part of the College’s support for poetry; it is judged by experts drawn from across the literary world and academia. This year the College will publish a special anniversary anthology featuring previous winners of the Jane Martin Poetry Prize alongside other eminent Girton poets.

Inisbofin Evening settles like a film of ash along the headland. Just before the light is fully stifled, everything is held in strange relief. The fading shapes of wind-bent grasses soften and regain their sharpness. Coming home the bodies of the rabbits on the path no longer stand for death. Alone their shadows clock in pale-blue circles, like the rings of planets spinning tenderly in place. © Anna Forbes, winner of the First Prize, 2020

Margaret with winners of the 2013 Mountford Arts and Humanities Communication Prize. From left to right: Liliana Janik (Fellow in Anthropology), Aleksander Musialam (2013), Margaret Mountford (Gamble 1970), Josie Teale (2011), Susanne Mesoy (2011)

Anna Forbes, who is from Edinburgh, studied at King’s College London, where she received a degree in Comparative Literature. She is currently working towards an MLitt at the University of St Andrews.

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MEDICINE AND HEALTH

A Season of Dither and Delay Phil Hammond (1981) examines our national health and the lessons learned from coronavirus The Future of Health

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n 2018, I decided to dip my toe into politics. Fed up with the daily diet of Brexit aggression, I announced that I would stand against my MP, Jacob Rees-Mogg, at the next election. I would be independent and serve for one term only, and try to unite the opposition parties around a ‘health for all’ campaign. I was inspired by Jacinda Ardern, who had produced a ‘health and wellbeing’ budget in New Zealand. The health and wellbeing of people and planet should be our paramount political concern. Everything we do should be seen through this prism. 80% of the diseases that kill us prematurely are preventable with better lifestyle and public-health support. The polluted air we breathe and the ultra-processed ‘food-like substances’ we eat account for millions of deaths every year. The food industry employs the same dirty tricks as the alcohol and tobacco industries. We must use science, compassion, politics and communication to reduce inequality and improve health. All of the opposition parties liked my message, but none wanted to play ball. Collaboration was an alien concept to them. They wanted a Brexit punch-up. I stood aside, predicting Labour and Lib Dems would split the opposition vote down the middle and they did, waving Rees-Mogg back in. Brexit was the only game in town. Health and wellbeing was for the birds. Nature’s Revenge? Bird flu is also for the birds. And sometimes humans. Indeed, 70% of the viruses that kill us in epidemics and pandemics originate from animals. This isn’t the fault of the virus or the

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animal. Viruses exist only to replicate and are home-loving creatures. They find a host that suits them and stay put. It’s the behaviour of humans – deforestation, urbanisation and the unhygienic and cruel ways we treat and use animals for food – that allows the viruses to jump species, mutate and harm us. Bats, rodents, badgers, civets, pangolins and monkeys are all known to carry coronaviruses in the wild. SARS-CoV2 probably originated from one or more of these species before crossing to us, perhaps via the wet markets of Wuhan. If we overexploit the natural world, it eventually bites back to exploit us. But at least ‘health and wellbeing of people and planet’ is now top of the political agenda. We must keep it there. Britain’s Poor Showing The chart-topping 41,000 excess deaths in the UK so far, either directly from COVID-19 or indirectly from the measures brought in to tackle it, show how ill-prepared we were for this pandemic. We went into it with the worst NHS waiting times on record and over 100,000 job vacancies in both the NHS and social care. Despite very clear instructions from the World Health Organisation, we did not prepare for the relentless ‘screen, test, trace, isolate’ strategy that is needed to crush a disease outbreak. It’s very hard work and requires huge resources, but not nearly as expensive as keeping the borders open, giving up on community testing and praying for herd immunity. Now, at last, we’re building a Test, Trace and Isolate programme. We’re going to need it to spot and crush any second wave. Our high death toll is not just down to the dither and delay of our leaders. The high levels of poverty and chronic disease


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in the UK are equally important. Your risk of death has always been higher the older, poorer and sicker you are, but in a culture of free choice, when no-one can be sure when that heart attack, stroke or cancer will strike, it’s easy to do nothing. The risk of death from COVID-19 almost perfectly mirrors the risk of death from all other causes, but death is quicker. A whole year’s worth of ‘death risk’ has been condensed into a few months, and 95% of those who have died have had pre-existing health conditions. Following the Science? ‘Following the science’ has become the mantra of our pandemic plan, but what does it mean? People like to think science will

A doctor protesting outside Downing Street

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give us simple truths and rules to follow, but it is often contradictory. In the space of a week, the World Health Organization told us that asymptomatic shedding of coronavirus is both ‘very rare’ and comprises ‘up to 40% of cases’. No wonder we’re all so confused. Science is best viewed as a process for dealing with uncertainty, understanding the present and predicting the future. It can be used to enhance our lives or destroy them. At its best, it embraces transparency, rigour and challenge, and the ability to admit and learn from error. And we made a big one in this pandemic. Back in March, the virus was spreading far more rapidly than the government was being advised. The first big press conference on coronavirus was on 12 March, when the number


of deaths in Italy had risen rapidly to over 1,000. Sir Patrick Vallance, Government Chief Scientific Adviser, announced ‘We’re maybe four weeks or so behind Italy based on the scale of the outbreak’. In fact, we reached 1,000 COVID-19 deaths twelve days after Italy. The scientific advisers told Boris Johnson that infections in the UK were doubling every five to six days, based on early data from Wuhan, but more recent data from the UK and Italy suggested the doubling rate was every three days, and this data was available at the time. This really matters. If an infection doubles every three days rather than six, then after a month every single infection has spread to 1,024 people rather than 32. That’s a huge difference. If Johnson had been given the right data, he might have ordered lockdown a week earlier and at least 20,000 people would be alive today who aren’t, including many of the 200 health and social-care workers who have died. Johnson might well have avoided his own near-death experience, and we might have been out of lockdown earlier and back to school, work and university life. I’m no great fan of politicians, but serious errors have been made by everyone in this pandemic. The important thing is to own up to them and learn from them. Seed and Soil Health, as it turns out, has very little to do with what goes on in the National Health Service. Since its inception in 1948, it has been a National Sickness Service, taking away the fear of not being able to afford medical treatment when you fall ill. Every developed nation spends a fortune pulling people out of the river of illness and trying to put them back

together again. Very few wander upstream to try to stop people falling in. Prevention is key. No risk is an island, we are all connected and for any health system to survive in the future, we need to help citizens stay as healthy as possible for as long as possible. That means creating an environment that is fit for life, and motivating people to enjoy and sustain it. For a plant to thrive, the soil is as important as the seed. So it is with humans. We’re only alive thanks to a few inches of topsoil and some rainwater. No health service can reverse an environmental catastrophe. The Meaning of Health Globally, we spend trillions in the name of health and yet nobody knows what it means. In 1948, the World Health Organisation defined health as ‘not just the absence of disease and disability, but a complete state of physical, mental and social well-being’. This suggests that someone with a chronic illness or disability can never be healthy. And, orgasms and opium aside, when were you last in ‘a complete state of physical, mental and social well-being’? To me, health is our freedom to live a life that we have reason to value, whilst also valuing others. It requires a bit of self-work. As the poet Mary Oliver put it: ‘Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?’ We all need passion and purpose, and to pleasure ourselves in a safe and sustainable way, but only you can figure out what works for you. But health is also about taking as much responsibility as we humanly can for ourselves, and those around us. It’s about widening our circle of compassion beyond our immediate friends and family, embracing a culture of intelligent kindness.

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COVID crisis, patients were discharged to care homes without testing to protect the NHS, and some care-home managers accepted them to protect their income stream. Others objected but were bullied into compliance. It was infection control at its worst, as two separate systems slugged it out.

Lessons from COVID-19 COVID-19 has reminded us that we live with risk every day. Our susceptibility to this particular threat is determined by our government’s competence, our individual and collective behaviour, and the evolution of the virus. In trying to defeat one risk, we mustn’t neglect others. The risks of lockdown – social isolation, domestic and child abuse, loss of livelihood, worsening mental and physical health, delayed education – have to be balanced against it. Following the science means embracing uncertainty, publishing all models and data for public scrutiny, inviting challenge, admitting error, changing direction when needed and treating the public as informed participants in the challenge. In medicine, we talk of a ‘learn, don’t blame’ culture. Politicians have a long way to go to catch up. The Future of the NHS Care means care. We need a united health and social-care system where everyone is treated according to need, not ability to pay. In the

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The NHS performed miracles creating enough beds and intensive treatment unit (ITU) capacity for the pandemic, but a third of hospitalised patients died, rising to half on ITU. At the same time, non-COVID deaths soared and the waiting list for treatment of other conditions (cancer care, heart surgery, organ transplantation etc.) rose to seven million. We must have a plan for future pandemics that crushes the outbreak early and doesn’t neglect other patients. Above all, we need to teach people how to be healthy without relying on experts. I use the CLANGERS model to illustrate the daily joys of health: Connect, Learn, (be) Active, Notice, Give back, Eat well, Relax, Sleep. Anyone can be taught these at any age. These healthy habits are far more powerful than any drug we could hope to invent. And you’re even allowed five portions of fun a day. We’re All Going to Die Not all deaths from COVID-19 have been ‘avoidable tragedies’. My advance directive states that if I develop dementia, I would not want high-tech intervention for any serious illness. For the elderly, a COVID-19 death can be gentle. For all the bells and whistles of high-tech healthcare, too often we prolong the inevitability of death. Having that important conversation about how


much intervention you would want if you were seriously ill can greatly assist a gentle death. www.dyingmatters.org is a good place to start.

We need all three to survive and thrive, with a peaceful expectation of death. It’s just nature’s way of recycling.

The moment your sperm meets your egg, you join the queue for death. Science, and good fortune, helps us stay near the back. Art helps us feel our way. And love binds us into belonging.

Dr Phil Hammond (Medical Sciences 1981–84) is an Associate Specialist in Paediatric Chronic Fatigue, a Private Eye journalist, author, broadcaster and comedian

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MEDICINE AND HEALTH

Pandemic 1918 – The Long View Catharine Arnold (1979) finds contemporary parallels in global attitudes to Spanish flu

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or a historian, it is extraordinary to experience a significant historical event at first hand. While writing Pandemic 1918 four years ago, I never imagined the world would be engulfed in another pandemic on such an epic scale, or that Britain would have the highest death rate in Europe (currently 41,000 and counting) owing to our government’s catastrophic mismanagement of the crisis. But I only need to look out of my window to see and hear how the world has changed: the ring road eerily silent apart from the wail of ambulances; the cricket field deserted when it should echo to the smack of leather on willow; my street, normally an informal car park for the local outpatients’ department, tranquil now that the hospital is dedicated to combating coronavirus. The latest cataclysm has created a surge of interest in Spanish flu, as if learning what happened in the past can help us understand what is happening now. Over the past two months I’ve been engaged in a regular compare-and-contrast

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Protecting pets from Spanish flu, 1918


Wellcome Collection

exercise between the two pandemics, advising journalists and editors desperate to fill their schedules. First, although coronavirus presents an existential threat to us all, in terms of mortality rates coronavirus is mercifully not on the same scale as Spanish flu. According to Spanish flu expert Professor John Oxford, up to 100 million people died as a result of the 1918 pandemic. So far, official figures for coronavirus record a death rate of 900,000 worldwide. In 1918, the Great War was another major factor, spreading flu across the globe via troop movements. Initially, Spanish flu gave no undue cause for alarm. At a time when flu was a common cause of death, the new strain, which gained its name following an outbreak in Madrid which almost killed King Alfonso XIII, was regarded as a distraction rather than a serious menace. As a result, the immediate response to Spanish flu was muddled, with examples of sound medical practice by individual doctors co-existing alongside criminal levels of neglect by government officials. The Times reflected the temperature of popular debate by ridiculing the notion of Spanish flu as a lethal infection and predicting the epidemic would vanish at the first sign of wet weather, while discounting the rising death count from the factories and collieries of the north. The refusal to take Spanish flu seriously was also evident when Dr Walter Fletcher, the brilliant Cambridge don recruited to head the Medical Research Committee, implored the government to impose quarantine restrictions on public transport. Fletcher was batted away by Sir Arthur

Contemporary cartoon

Newsholme, Chief Medical Officer of the Local Government Board, who stated that it was impossible to stop pandemic flu. Newsholme’s priority was the war effort. He maintained that ‘the vast army of workers must not be impeded by regulations as to overcrowding of vehicles in their efforts to go to work and return home’. Another doctor who took the threat of Spanish flu seriously was Dr James Niven, Chief Medical Officer of Health for Manchester, and an alumnus

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of Aberdeen University and Queens’ College, Cambridge. When schoolchildren started dying at their desks like poisoned plants, Dr Niven knew he was dealing with a significant threat. As flu spread like wildfire in shops, factories and offices, Dr Niven instructed the council to close the schools and issued 36,000 handbills instructing people with symptoms to self-quarantine for a fortnight. Dr Niven’s swift response saved lives. 100,000 Mancunians became infected with the flu that spring, but only 330 died. In the USA, public-health officials responded to the pandemic on a state-by-state basis rather than following an overall national strategy. Surgeon General Rupert Blue, who correctly assessed the gravity of the situation, could only recommend quarantine and masks; he had no power to enforce these measures. While the local authorities in New York, San Francisco and Washington DC imposed quarantine, St Louis took a more laissez-faire approach, with a correspondingly inflated death toll. Philadelphia exhibited a confusing sense of priorities. While places of public entertainment were closed, citizens were actively encouraged to attend patriotic fundraising parades. On 28 September 1918, 250,000 people attended the Liberty Loan Drive. Just three days later, on 1 October, 635 new cases were reported. Masks, distributed by the Red Cross, soon became the symbol of the fight against flu. In Seattle, masks were mandatory on public transport, while in Washington DC, Louis Brownlow, the Commissioner responsible for health, stated that public coughing and sneezing constituted a menace to the community, with offenders fined or even imprisoned. In San Francisco, the Board of Health ordered all citizens to wear masks, with the warning that ‘whoever leaves his mask behind, dies’. The majority accepted this, and one couple of newlyweds shyly informed their doctor that they had worn their masks,

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and nothing else, on honeymoon. While a downtown attorney argued that she believed the mask ordinance was ‘absolutely unconstitutional’, an extreme example of the consequences of refusing to wear a mask appeared in the San Francisco Chronicle on 28 October 1918:

REFUSES TO DON INFLUENZA MASK: SHOT BY OFFICER While scores of passers-by scurried for cover, H D Miller, a deputy health officer, shot and severely wounded James Wisser, a horseshoer following Wisser’s refusal to don a mask. According to the police, Miller shot in the air when Wisser first refused his request. Wisser closed in on him and in the succeeding affray was shot in the arm and the leg. Wisser was taken to the central emergency hospital, where he was placed under arrest for failure to comply with Miller’s order. When San Francisco’s Mayor Rolfe issued another mask order following the third wave of Spanish flu in December 2018, one group refused to wear them. The Anti-Mask League, comprising doctors, libertarians and cranks, maintained that enforced mask-wearing was unconstitutional. While reasonable at first – they submitted a petition to the mayor at a council meeting – their tactics became increasingly hostile. On 18 December, an IED fashioned from an alarm clock and three pounds of gunpowder was delivered to the public-health offices with a message reading ‘compliments from John’. The device did not detonate, but in January 1919 the mayor’s office relented, though it warned protesters that, without masks, the death rate would spiral. Within ten days, 300 flu deaths were reported. There are contemporary parallels, such as May’s disturbing scenes from Michigan, showing armed anti-lockdown protesters invading the Capitol building and calling for the murder of Governor Gretchen Whitmer.


Socially distanced funeral, c. 1918

Back in Manchester, Dr James Niven had warned the local council that mass gatherings to celebrate the Armistice would result in further outbreaks. But his advice was ignored, and thousands poured into Albert Square on 11 November. By the end of that month, Niven had recorded 383 influenza deaths in one week. As the Manchester Guardian noted, ‘a real calamity had befallen the city’. This perceived failure left an indelible impact on Niven. After the

war, and following the death of his wife, Niven went into a decline. In 1925, he travelled to the Isle of Man, took an overdose of pills, and swam out to sea. His body was retrieved from the ocean two days later. Catharine Arnold is the author of Pandemic 1918, The Story of the Deadliest Influenza in History, published by Michael O’Mara Books.

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MEDICINE AND HEALTH

Women in Medicine Fiona Cooke, Official Fellow in Medicine, surveys Girton’s role in medical history

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bout ten years ago, Dr John Marks and I embarked on a project to look at the history of medicine at Girton and the contribution of the first Girton medical students. With his usual commitment and enthusiasm, John moved into College for a week so that he could review original documents in the Archive, and we were assisted in the later stages of our work by Dr Margaret Branthwaite (1953, Barbara Bodichon Fellow 2007), Kate Perry (Archivist Emerita) and Peter Sparks (Life Fellow). Our

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findings were summarised and displayed on information boards for use at College events – a reminder of past triumphs and battles still to win. The Long Road to Gender Equality In the first half of the nineteenth century, the medical profession was exclusively male and entirely self-regulating. Training was secured either through Royal Colleges


established by charter, or through guilds such as the Society of Apothecaries. The Medical Acts of 1840 and 1858 established the General Council of Medical Education (now the General Medical Council), which set common standards of medical practice but did not prevent the unqualified from offering ‘medical services’. The first English woman to graduate in medicine was Elizabeth Blackwell, who qualified in 1849 from Geneva Medical College, New York, after her family relocated from Bristol. She practised initially in New York, but returned to London and was appointed the first Professor of Gynaecology at the New Hospital for Women. The Medical Act of 1876 (commonly known as the ‘Enabling Act’) empowered medical schools to offer equal opportunities to women and permitted their medical registration. However, numbers were restricted in most schools to about 20% until 1968, when the Todd Report ensured parity. In recent years, the number of female medical students has grown considerably, and they now make up more than half of all medical students nationally. Women also play an increasingly important role in the medical workforce, making up 45% of doctors in the UK. Nonetheless, genderbased disparities persist: •

2% of consultants are female compared to 54% of training-grade doctors.

New hospital for women

Elizabeth Garrett Anderson’s New Hospital for Women

General practice has a higher proportion of women compared to hospital medicine. However, within general practice only 40% of partners are female compared to 68% of salaried GPs. A similar distinction is found in hospitals, with females under-represented at more senior grades.

Women doctors are significantly under-represented in some specialities, particularly surgery, and there are very few women in senior clinical academic positions (for example, deans of medical schools).

Few women doctors are appointed to key medicopolitical roles.

Girton’s Medical Pioneers In spite of historical and ongoing difficulties, Girton and Girtonians figure prominently in the annals of British medicine: Elizabeth Garrett Anderson was encouraged by Emily Davies and Elizabeth Blackwell to seek a career in medicine, despite considerable opposition from her family. She enrolled as a nurse at the Middlesex Hospital, but attended lectures for medical students. Thwarted by male students who resented her academic success and had her banned from further tuition at the hospital, she studied privately and, in 1865, exploited a loophole in the regulations of the Society of Apothecaries to obtain a

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licence to practise. Unable, still, to obtain a medical degree in Britain, she taught herself French and graduated from the University of Paris. She remained great friends with Emily Davies and returned to Girton to lecture soon after she qualified. In 1871 Elizabeth established London’s New Hospital for Women. In 1874, with Sophia Jex-Blake (aunt of Katharine JexBlake, Girton’s eighth Mistress), Elizabeth Blackwell and Thomas Henry Huxley, she founded the London School of Medicine for Women (later the Royal Free Hospital Medical School), the first medical school in London to admit female students.

Edith Brown graduated from Girton in Natural Sciences in 1885. After clinical training in Edinburgh, she was refused entry to final examinations but graduated as MD from Brussels in 1891. She became a medical missionary and founded Asia’s first medical college for women in South Punjab. In 1932 she was appointed DBE in recognition of her pioneering work in India. Professor Dorothy Stuart Russell was born in Australia and graduated from Girton with a first in Natural Sciences in 1918. She completed her clinical studies at the London Hospital (now the Royal London Hospital), and qualified in medicine in 1923.

She won the London University Medal for her doctoral thesis, and became one of the foremost pathologists of her time. Despite working in London, she maintained her links with Girton and was a member of the Girton Governing Body (1948–54) and an Honorary Fellow from 1960 until her death in 1983. Professor Alice Mary Stewart, née Naish, began her university career at Girton in 1925, and qualified as a doctor from the London School of Medicine. In recognition of her pioneering work on the link between leukaemia in children and maternal irradiation during pregnancy, she became, in 1946, the first woman under 40 years old to be elected Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians. Dame Margaret Turner-Warwick (Honorary Fellow 1993) was the first woman to be elected President of the Royal College of Physicians (1989). Dr Suzy Lishman (1986), one of the group of Honorary Fellows elected during the College’s 150th-anniversary year, served as the second female President of the Royal College of Pathologists (2014–17). Professor Lesley Regan, Director of Studies in Medicine, 1986–90, served as the second female President of the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists (2016–19).

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MEDICINE AND HEALTH

Fighting for Women’s Welfare Lucy Pollard (Robertson 1962) reflects on the achievements of her pioneering grandmother Margery Spring Rice (Garrett 1907)

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n 1924, Margery Spring Rice was a young married woman living with her family on the well-heeled side of the London borough of Kensington. Like many of her generation (she was born in 1887), she already had a good deal of personal history behind her: she had lost a brother at Gallipoli and her husband on the Somme, as well as an infant daughter to meningitis. She had remarried in 1919, and now had four children, two by the first marriage and two by the second. However, she was not suited to or content in the role of stay-at-home wife, and since the family was wealthy enough to have servants and nannies, she was ready for something else. Margery came from a family in which both men and women expected to take action to change the world. Her aunt and godmother, Elizabeth Garrett Anderson (an early supporter of Girton), aided by her father’s fierce advocacy, had been the first woman to qualify as a doctor in Britain. Her aunt Millicent Fawcett was still completely occupied by the cause of women’s suffrage, since the extension of the vote in 1918 had not enfranchised all women. Margery’s aunt Agnes Garrett had set up, with her cousin, one of the first interior design firms run by women. And her father Samuel Garrett was instrumental in giving women access to the legal profession. Margery herself, after her education at Girton,

Margery Spring Rice as a young woman

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‘a puny infant was adopted by two enthusiastic young foster-mothers, whom you see before you. At that time the baby, whom we called Birth Control, had only two relatives – a slightly seedy, but courageous one in Walworth, and a flamboyant one off the Tottenham Court Road, called Marie Stopes’.2 These two clinics, Walworth Road and Marie Stopes, had both been founded three years earlier, in 1921, but birth control (as contraception was generally known at the time) was far from being a Living in Kensington, she and her friend Margaret respectable subject. It had no place in medical Lloyd were horrified to hear the stories told by education: doctors were often not only ignorant their charwomen of life at the other end of the but also hostile. Undaunted, Margery, Margaret borough, where workingLloyd and their friend Margaret class women were struggling Dighton Pollock set about Birth control was far to bring up large families on raising funds and finding from a respectable insufficient means. Margery premises, and the North subject; it had no place realised that one cause of Kensington Women’s Welfare in medical education their poor health, alongside Centre came into existence. poverty, bad diets, insanitary From the start, it offered much housing conditions and lack more than simply contraceptive of access to medical care, was their frequent advice. It also provided help with minor childbearing. As Margery recounted forty years gynaecological problems, children’s illnesses, later, the two women listened, incredulous, as marital problems and infertility. their servants ‘poured out their stories; they told us of the measures they had tried to limit their The premises the three friends found, 12 families, such as driving their husbands into the Telford Road (the building no longer stands), arms of another woman rather than take the had been a child-welfare clinic, so it was fairly “Saturday night risk”; jumping from a ladder well equipped, and available from the local during pregnancy’1 and going to back-street authority at a reasonable rent. The three used every contact they had for money and support. abortionists. Margery’s charwoman (of whose Margery cajoled friends – among them the name there is no record) had herself undergone writer Naomi Mitchison and her husband Dick, an illegal abortion. a barrister, as well as her sister-in-law Ethel Sprigge, whose husband was editor of The Spring Rice and Lloyd decided that what they Lancet – to sit on a committee, and she found needed to do was start a contraceptive clinic. volunteers to run the clinic (at the beginning the Recalling the history of the clinic, Margery wrote: where she read Moral Sciences, had begun to train as a factory inspector, but had given it up on her marriage in 1911. During World War I, although she did not describe herself as a pacifist, she was strongly anti-war, and in its aftermath she had worked for two years as secretary to the newly formed League of Nations Society; however, she had not yet found a cause that would engage all her considerable energy and talents.

1,2

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Wellcome Collection SA/FPA/SR21


only paid member of staff was the doctor). All the funds had to be found from voluntary contributions, because Ramsay Macdonald’s Minister of Health was a devout Catholic who refused to allow local authorities to support contraceptive advice. I think there is no doubt that part of Margery’s motivation came from the state of her own second marriage, which had run into problems very early, and was to end a few years later, after an acrimonious separation, in divorce. The clinic supplied her with a cause into which she could pour her enormous energy: she was fund-raiser, manager, strategist, interviewer, bottle-washer. All her life her reaction to seeing a need was to try to find a way to fill it, and her reaction to grief or pain was to take action. She worried at problems like a terrier that refuses to let go. She was not the most tactful or sensitive of people – Freda Parker, one of the clinic’s employees in the 1950s, described her as ‘dominant’ – but she certainly made things happen.

Margery with one of her nursery children, c. 1942

Spring Rice, along with her medical colleagues Joan Malleson and Helena Wright – all the doctors were women – was usually ahead of her time in her attitudes. She believed that men as well as women should be involved in decisions about children, and in the early 1930s she tried to include the Kensington Fathers’ Council (founded in 1921) in the activities of the clinic. Later in the 1930s the clinic ran into controversy over the question of giving contraceptive advice to unmarried women: this was against official policy, but

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patients were not asked for proof of marriage. When the Medical Officer of Health for the borough asked for Margery’s assurance that single women were not being accepted as patients, her reply was carefully worded to comply with his request without quite closing the door to the unmarried. Spring Rice remained involved with the North Kensington centre for thirty years, but after she moved to Suffolk in 1936 she embarked on many other projects: she ran a war nursery for London evacuees, and after World War II founded the Suffolk Rural Music School. She made friends with Benjamin Britten and Peter Pears, who lived in a neighbouring village, and was one of the supporting founders of the Aldeburgh Festival. She was never one to sit still or to rest on her laurels! Lucy Pollard’s Margery Spring Rice: Pioneer of Women’s Health in the Early Twentieth Century, published with the help of a grant from Girton College, came out in April 2020. Copies are available to buy or as a free download from Open Book Publishers: https://www.openbookpublishers.com/ product/1132

The 1939 publication inspired by Margery’s work in North Kensington

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MEDICINE AND HEALTH

From Sketch to Scalpel: Medical Illustration since 1900 Julia Ruston (2005) outlines the discipline of anatomical drawing

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am often asked about the role of the medical illustrator. ‘Surely,’ it is put to me, ‘everything has been drawn already?’ or ‘Can’t you just use a photograph?’ The purpose of medical art, however, is not simply to create accurate renditions of anatomy or technique. Rather, a key role for medical illustration is to make anatomical concepts and relations easier to understand and visualise.

in carbon dust and watercolour by Dorothy Davison, founding member of the MAA

By

pe rm

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of t he A rc h iv e

s of al dic Me the

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r of G e a t B ritain

The medical artist must take on the roles of both educator and psychologist. The artist must be aware that, while some pictures or layouts create the required mental representation, other images may confound medics’ learning. Capturing the essence of a visual concept is often about reducing the ‘white noise’ of imagery, or about the amplification or omission of certain features and colours. Directing focus in this way requires higher-order thinking and cannot be done by photography alone. Using different perspectives, windows or cut-outs, for example, one may reveal and visualise otherwise hidden or microscopic structures. The modern medical artist’s repertoire includes digital art software, three-dimensional and multimodal media techniques, even augmented reality. But, for all this, I have come to learn that a cleverly presented line drawing often communicates more effectively than a photorealistic rendition.

Fig. 1: Hemithorax

Medics and artists have long collaborated, but it was only in the last century that medical illustration emerged as a specialist practice in its own right. In the early 1900s, medical-illustration departments emerged within hospitals, and in 1949 the Medical Artists’ Association of Great Britain (MAA) was founded to fulfil the need for a collective voice. Membership

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By permission of the Archives of the Medical Artists’ Association of Great Britain

implied a certain standard of work, a quality assurance for the medical professionals commissioning the illustrations (Figs. 1 and 2). Medical-illustration departments within hospitals ensured artists could work seamlessly alongside medical teams, with access to the laboratory, operating theatres and mortuary. Unfortunately, most hospitals no longer employ in-house artists and, given issues of bureaucratic consent and ethical limitations, this degree of immersion is rarely possible (I’m aware that, as a doctor, I have privileged access). Formalised training has, however, gone some way to guarantee standards and facilitate exposure to the medical world. Since the 1960s, postgraduate medical-art training has been overseen by the MAA and is currently led by the Medical Artists’ Education Trust (MAET) under the patronage of the Worshipful Company of Barbers. Once granted MAA membership, artists often work freelance or for private companies, and it is an ongoing challenge, entailing vast amounts of research and learning, to conceptualise and visualise key details of which they may have limited or no direct experience. In addition to gaining a higher degree (a desirable CV attribute for junior doctors), I learned in the course of my MAET training to understand ‘convention’ in terms of technique and in terms of general medicalart culture. The diploma is one of very few art courses that still teaches and encourages detailed representational illustration in traditional techniques (including drawing

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Fig. 2: Illustration of neurosurgical operation, in carbon dust, by early MAA member Audrey Arnott


with carbon dust, which was developed for, and almost exclusively used in, medical illustration). I spent four years completing the course alongside full-time surgical training, and it surpassed my expectations. In addition to traditional methods of representation, it introduced me to 3D animation and digital media. I now draw commissions almost exclusively in digital format and regularly use my tablet to sketch operations I have performed, committing the steps to memory for future reference. While immersed in this ritual, I often realise things aren’t clear to me – certain anatomical relationships, perhaps, or the exact depth or placement of a suture. This stimulates cross-referencing and discussions with mentors, and I have gradually filled a pile of notebooks with detailed operational steps. In plastic surgery we operate all over the body, and each surgeon has their individual tips and preferences. Often these are nowhere to be found in books, and I frequently refer back to drawings I made years ago to remind myself of similar cases. The way I observe is different now. I pay attention to seemingly trivial details, knowing these are the things I will struggle to draw later because they are not represented in existing reference material. This mental rehearsal helps me when I operate too. Often when a surgeon is working alone for the first time, questions arise (‘Am I in the right tissue plane?’ ‘What should I do with this nerve that is in the way?’ ‘How far should I dissect this vessel?’). Working things through on paper beforehand can guide me later in theatre (Fig. 3).

Fig. 3: Sketches used to analyse operative problems, in this case biomechanics of septal cartilage harvest in rhinoplasty (Julia Ruston)

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MEDICINE AND HEALTH

Nicholas Nickleby’s Clinical Year Thomas Sherwood, Life Fellow, offers a Dickensian take on medical education

‘N Fig. 4: Methods of hand-fracture fixation for The Journal of Hand Surgery (Julia Ruston) ©The Journal of Hand Surgery, European Volume; Sage Publishing

While art benefits me enormously, it is the combination of artistic skill with my surgical knowledge that excites me. This year I am the cover artist for the European Journal of Hand Surgery (Fig. 4), and the editor scrutinises each artwork for accuracy before it is approved. This level of intricate hand anatomy and biomechanical knowledge is beyond what is found in standard textbooks, but fortunately I have the baseline knowledge to grasp what is required. Each medical artist develops their own style and many will specialise in certain fields. My freelance work has all been related to plastic surgery, and I hope to use my interdisciplinary knowledge to disseminate the more esoteric points to wider audiences. The separate ‘art’ and ‘science’ strands of my life have woven perfectly together at last. While at Girton, Julia Ruston took Part I of the Medical and Veterinary Science Tripos and Part II in History and Philosophy of Science. She is currently Specialist Registrar in Plastic Surgery at the Royal Free Hospital and a Member of the Medical Artists’ Association.

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ow then, where are the medical students?’ ‘Please sir, one’s cleaning Mrs Smith’s wound,’ said the locum, the temporary head of the teaching round. ‘So he is, to be sure,’ rejoined Squeers. ‘We go upon the practical mode of teaching, Nickleby – the regular education system. C-l-e-a-n, clean, verb active, to scour, to debride. W-o-u-n-d, wound, that’s applied pathology. When the boy knows this out of the book, he goes and does it. It’s just the same principle as the use of the sphygmomanometer. – Where’s the rest?’ ‘Please, sir, another is trying to arrange the admission of a patient in casualty.’ ‘To be sure,’ said Dr Squeers, the dean, by no means disconcerted, ‘so he is. Arrange, to manage, to administer. Admission, that’s clinical expertise, noun substantive, a knowledge of patients. When he has learned that admission means a knowledge of patients, he goes and knows ‘em. That’s our system, Nickleby; what do you think of it?’ ‘It’s a very useful one, at any rate,’ answered Nicholas. ‘I believe you,’ rejoined Squeers, not remarking the emphasis of his assistant. – ‘Now here’s a student. Boy, what’s a vein?’ ‘A channel for conducting blood,’ replied the student.


It needs only minor adjustment to move Dickens’s exposition of nineteenth-century educational techniques from Dotheboys Hall to the Medical School. See one, do one, teach one – that is how training doctors went for quite a while. Of course, a place like Cambridge could not go with that: if medicine had to be done, at least put it on a sound footing. For some 700 years medical education in Cambridge was severely clean stuff – anatomy, physiology, pathology. When it came to getting your hands dirty (patients, urine, ugh), students were sent off to, say, Pisa or Leyden. By the mid twentieth century, London had become the teaching centre for practical medicine; after clinical years there, students returned to take their Cambridge degree. All that changed in 1976 with the opening of the University’s Clinical School. The vote in the Regent House was tight: colleges had been perfectly content with the old arrangements. Now there was this new yellow-brick place

Cardozo Kindersley Workshop

‘As you’re perfect in that,’ resumed Squeers, ‘go and take some blood from Mrs Jenkins over there, or I’ll bleed you. The rest of the firm, go and help the nurses, till somebody tells you to leave off – we’re short of staff as it is.’

down the Hills Road, doing bedside medicine. How was this managed? With difficulty at first, we should admit. The newest, smallest, weakest medical school in the country was born during economic downturn, and its future looked perilous. Cambridge medical students, long geared to planning three years at the bedside in famous London hospitals, were reluctant to stay in the sticks for their clinical training – we struggled. But as newcomers we had carte blanche to devise something other than Dotheboys Hall. Everyone had long talked glibly about modern medicine needing to bring science to the bedside; we knew we had better do it. As a medical student I had been mesmerised when my clinical boss invited us to his laboratory one afternoon. There were diabetic patients sitting with one forearm in a water bath, an artery and a vein cannulated. That was revolutionary stuff in the 1950s in London: the real-life study of diabetic metabolism. And that boss was John Butterfield, who became the first Regius Professor of Physic of the 1976 Clinical School. He

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was succeeded by Keith Peters of Hammersmith Hospital where similar revolutionary stuff had long been in action. They made science at the bedside happen in Cambridge. There is a slate on the Clinical School’s staircase which says ’FIRE & CRITICAL EDGE’. That derives from Karl Popper’s view of science as ideas first, then critical experiments. It is balanced by a stone in the entrance of Addenbrooke’s Hospital saying ’It will pass whatever it is’. Medicine has to deal with human suffering. It is another

departure from Dotheboys Hall that Cambridge medical students are encouraged to delve into the arts, from writing to pictures to music, to understand what makes people tick. Learning what is important in human affairs: that is what the Clinical School is about. ’Fire and critical edge‘ indeed. Thomas Sherwood was elected the University’s first Professor of Radiology in 1978; he served as Clinical Dean from 1984 to 1996.

MEDICINE AND HEALTH

A Clear View of Cancer Evis Sala, Professorial Fellow, explains the University’s work at the forefront of cancer research

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ince January 2018, it has been my privilege to lead the Department of Radiology’s Radiogenomics and Quantitative Imaging Group. We are a multidisciplinary team of radiologists, physicists, oncologists and computational scientists, and one of the most active areas of our research is ovarian cancer. We focus on patients with ovarian cancer as this is the deadliest gynaecological cancer. It is typically diagnosed at an advanced stage, when metastasis within the abdominal cavity is already present. In addition, ovarian cancer shows high resistance to chemotherapy, which makes treatment challenging. The University’s Biomedical Campus provided an ideal environment for me to set up a multi-disciplinary team. By integrating knowledge from different disciplines we

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can combine the strengths of all the team members and work in a unique manner to improve outcomes for patients with ovarian cancer. The group, based in the University’s Department of Radiology at Addenbrooke’s Hospital, has developed novel computational methods which will allow us to integrate data more effectively and to predict patients’ response to treatment with greater accuracy. Patient stratification (i.e. the data-driven matching of patients to the treatment most suitable for them) is a challenge in many types of cancer including ovarian cancer, where high heterogeneity is found both within a patient and between patients. High genomic heterogeneity is associated with high resistance to chemotherapy and poor survival rates. Since tumour cells can be subtly or markedly different, traditional diagnostic methods, which


examine only a small fraction of the tumour, may miss important features of the disease. Our group aims to identify noninvasive ways of assessing and quantifying tumour heterogeneity in patients with ovarian cancer. In collaboration with CanonÂŽ Medical Systems, we have recently developed and are now piloting a new ultrasoundguided fusion biopsy technique that allows for selective tissue sampling of tumour areas already defined on other imaging systems. Ultrasound is routinely used to guide tissue sampling in patients with ovarian cancer. We use data from computed tomography images to identify tumour areas with different imaging characteristics, so-called tumour habitats. We then register this information in real time to the ultrasound images to target these different areas. This technique will enable biological profiling and longitudinal tracking of tumour habitats in a clinical setting. In the longer term it will allow us to target with the most appropriate treatment the most aggressive parts of the tumour, those that drive tumour resistance.

In addition, our group is applying hyperpolarised [1-13C]-pyruvate magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) to assess the heterogeneity of tumours and their response to neoadjuvant chemotherapy (where medicine is administered before surgery). A hallmark of tumour cells is that they produce energy using the relatively inefficient process of anaerobic glycolysis, even in the presence of oxygen. Hyperpolarised [1-13C]-pyruvate MRI is a novel, translational imaging technique that allows our group to investigate the core of these metabolic changes. Compared with techniques normally used in clinics, this kind of metabolic imaging may enable earlier assessment of how patients are responding to treatment. It may also help us detect cases of heterogeneous treatment response, which is often a cause of failures in treatment. Our team is also collaborating with the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center (New York) and the VU University Medical Centre (Amsterdam) to develop a novel molecular imaging agent for patients with ovarian cancer. Ovarian cancer cells over-express the cancer antigen 125 (CA125),

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MEDICINE AND HEALTH

My Weeks in Westminster a protein whose prevalence in the blood serum is used clinically as a tumour marker. However, recurrence of ovarian malignancy is not always paralleled by an increase in CA125, while low serum CA125 concentrations do not always indicate absence of recurrent ovarian malignancy. Our team is performing a study to assess CA125 expression and heterogeneity in patients with ovarian cancer.

Evis Sala acknowledges the help of Lucian Beer in preparing this article.

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I

t is a strange time to be alive, a strange time, in particular, to be a doctor. Just a few months ago, Brexit appeared to be the issue of the decade, animating conversations from Westminster to Brussels, from the Cambridge Union to High Table. In late 2019, we were focused on the ‘final’ Brexit deadline, and none of us was particularly bothered by a single-stranded RNA virus under 200 nanometres in diameter. Writing this in May 2020, I am almost ready to say ‘Come back, Brexit, all is forgiven’. But I think it’s probably still, just, too soon. I have always been interested in politics and, in particular, the use of evidence in decision-making. I remember the rather rose-tinted view

Charlie Bell

By improving the biological understanding of treatment resistance and selecting the right therapy for the right patient, our research should ultimately lead to improved survival rates in patients with ovarian cancer. In addition, we are pioneering novel ways of cancer imaging. Many of the methods, including the habitat-fusion ultrasoundguided biopsy technique developed by my group, can be applied in other cancer types, paving the way for integrating such novel research tools and methods in clinical trials and routine patient care beyond ovarian cancer.

Charlie Bell, John Marks Official Fellow in Medicine and Praelector, shares an insider’s view of the government’s Health and Social Care Committee


Rt Hon Jeremy Hunt MP leads a Zoom call of the Health and Social Care Committee

I had at school when asked who I would vote for: the people who used evidence to form policy, understood science, and thought the arts were worth something in their own right. How naĂŻve I was; that political party has yet to be founded. However, when I had the opportunity to spend a year wearing an analytical hat and using public research to inform major political and policy decisions, it seemed a natural fit. The scheme in question is run by the National

Medical Director and the Faculty of Medical Leadership and Management and is one I would highly recommend to any doctors relatively early in their career. It offers the opportunity to work, from the inside, with a host of organisations including NHS England and the Care Quality Commission, allowing access to decision makers and providing a genuine chance to mould and shape public policy. We doctors spend enough time moaning about the decisions that

are made about us: this seemed like a real opportunity to be part of those decisions. And so I found myself, in August 2019, a newly minted NHS secondee to the National Audit Office (NAO) and the Health and Social Care Committee of the House of Commons. The two organisations are similar but different. The NAO works in much longer timescales but produces extremely detailed and evidenced reports which,

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in my area of work, look at the value for money provided by different publicsector organisations. At the Commons, our role is much more about advising and briefing members of the HSC Committee to ask incisive questions at the right time; the aim is variously to develop policy thinking in a particular area, to hold the government to account, or to focus on single issues, such as the funding of the cystic fibrosis drug Orkambi. I hadn’t quite expected an unlawful prorogation of parliament, a general election, a government with a huge majority, a new Chair of the Committee, or indeed to have the WhatsApp of a former Foreign Secretary. So the beginning of the year was a bit stopstart, but the Committee continued to work, and at the NAO – and here is a plug – we produced some much-needed work on NHS dentistry, the Cinderella service of the NHS. Brexit, it appeared, did not in fact mean Brexit, so we spent much of the time on the edge of our seats watching the unedifying display in Parliament and enjoying the particular treat of being shouted at by protesters every time we tried to get into the House of Commons. The work of scrutiny continued nonetheless, and one thing I have certainly discovered this year is the quiet, sensible, evidenced, hard work of the parliamentary staff and the Civil Service, who have done an unbelievably impressive job, yet been the subject of many a columnist’s (or SpAd’s) ire.

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Fast forward a few months, and I was in the office of our new Chair, the former nemesis of junior doctors turned NHS hero, Jeremy Hunt, hearing from senior public-health figures about the likely effects of coronavirus on the UK. It was deeply sobering, and it became clear over the next few weeks exactly how bad this was going to be. With my (limited) extra knowledge of what was going on, I was in demand at High Table!

from senior doctors and nurses, and questioning the government’s Chief Scientific Adviser and Chief Medical Officer as well as the Secretary of State and the Chief Executive of NHS England, the Committee has brought to light many issues that the press simply couldn’t touch, and it has changed government policy. Briefing for this – bringing together data and policy from across different sectors and across the world, and engaging at the highest level with those making the decisions and those on the receiving end – has been an epic challenge. However, I can honestly report that the Committee’s priority, through all the noise and fury of these unprecedented times, has been the patient, and the public’s health.

When this whole saga is told in years to come, the work of the Health and Social Care Committee will, I think, form a very substantial part of the story. The Committee has a sensible, calm voice consistently pushing for, and in many cases achieving, realistic goals and appropriate changes in government strategy. I have had the great privilege of leading on most of the work relating to coronavirus, collaborating closely with Jeremy Hunt who, throughout, has been pretty much universally recognised as an evidence-based voice of reason. From raising concerns around testing strategy, to hearing about PPE

I will admit I’m looking forward to getting back to clinical practice this August, but my experience in the Commons has been truly remarkable. As clinicians and as academics, we might feel we are held at arm’s length from government decisions. Yet this year has shown me very clearly just how critical evidence is in the making of effective policy, the significance of effective and informed public research, and the importance of our universities and research centres in assisting the country – not only in times of crisis but in periods of stability, too. Any government, of any stripe, would do well to remember that.

For their sheer perseverance we owe both the Civil Service and the Commons an enormous debt of gratitude, and I am personally hugely grateful to my boss, Huw Yardley, Clerk of the Committee.


WOMEN IN HISTORY

The Rising Tide: Women at Cambridge since 1869 Ben Griffin, Official Fellow in History, describes the genesis of a landmark exhibition

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n 2019, the University marked 150 years since the establishment of its first college for women with a major exhibition at the University Library: The Rising Tide: Women at Cambridge. The exhibition used letters, photographs, costumes and other materials from across the University to illustrate the many battles that have been fought in the ongoing struggle for sexual equality. The exhibition was accompanied by a series of short films online and an extensive programme of talks and events. In this way, Girton’s anniversary became an occasion for the whole University to reflect on the experiences of women who lived and worked here. Over the course of six months, more than 53,000 people visited the exhibition, the films were viewed more than 28,000 times, and nearly 4,000 people attended some of our other events. But which stories should the exhibition tell? That was the challenge facing the two curators, Dr Lucy Delap and myself. We did not want to repeat the familiar stories of ‘great women’ at the expense of all the others, whose less celebrated achievements also deserve respect and attention. Long before the existence of Girton, women were working in large numbers in the University as cooks, cleaners, gardeners, porters and laundresses.

Former students agitate against reform

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Telling the stories of the women who have lived and worked here allows us to understand in greater depth how, over the last 150 years, Cambridge has transformed into a modern university. The scale of that transformation is

A propaganda poster brings Shakespeare onside

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startling: since 1869 what we teach and how we teach have been revolutionised, research has been placed at the heart of University life, the structures of the University have been altered fundamentally, and ideas about what universities and colleges are for have been subject to dramatic change. The opposition to sexual equality could not be rooted in ‘tradition’, because the University has been in a constant state of flux, and consequently patterns of inclusion and exclusion have been continually redrawn and remade. The Rising Tide celebrated women’s creativity in navigating this constantly shifting landscape. Cambridge in 1869 was quite unlike the university that we know today. One of the main functions of that university was to train Anglican clergymen: when Girton was founded around 40% of Cambridge graduates took holy orders. As late as 1856 only members of the Church of England could graduate, and most college fellowships were reserved for Anglican clergymen until 1882. The logic of excluding women from that kind of institution was substantially different from that found in twentieth-century discussions of university reform. Many of the nineteenth-century arguments used against admitting women had been well rehearsed by those who had opposed opening the University to religious dissenters. Like the dissenters, women were told that they would have to settle for taking exams without being eligible for degrees, or that they should create a university of their own rather than come to Cambridge. Established just as the old religious exclusions were lifted, the first two women’s colleges were founded in the midst


of a ferment of new thinking about what a university ought to be.

a co-educational college ‘would be like detonating a hydrogen bomb in the middle of the University’.

One consequence of this was to spark a debate about the nature and purpose of the colleges. In the 1850s most of the teaching in the University was done not by professors or lecturers but by coaches privately hired by the students. That is because most college fellowships came with no obligations to teach or to do research: they were prizes for intellectual distinction, not a profession. From the 1860s, efforts were made to improve the quality and quantity of college teaching, and to develop a model of a college that took greater responsibility for pastoral care of students. Girton and Newnham were quick to adopt this new vision, pioneering approaches later imitated by the men’s colleges. It was not until after the Second World War that a similar burst of fresh thinking took place about what a college should be, with the creation of graduate colleges, colleges for mature students (like Lucy Cavendish), and the creation of co-educational colleges in the 1970s. As late as 1958, when Winston Churchill expressed interest in the idea of admitting women to the college then being set up in his honour, he was told that proposing

Precisely because Girton and Newnham adopted a model that placed teaching and scholarship at the heart of college life, they created the very first university-level teaching jobs for women in the UK. The colleges could afford to employ only small numbers of academic staff; however, new opportunities opened up as the University began hiring its own lecturers in an attempt to take control of teaching back from the colleges. In 1926, under pressure from the government (which was demanding a raft of reforms in return for state funding), these jobs were opened to women: 22 years before women were granted degrees, eleven women were hired as University lecturers. They included familiar Girton names such as Bertha Phillpotts and Marjorie Hollond. Whether employed by the colleges or the University, Cambridge women helped to create the modern academic profession. Equality, however, remains some way off: the University still has a significant gender pay gap, and women are under-represented in academic jobs: in July 2018 only 37.1% of University lecturers and 19.6% of Cambridge professors were female.

One of the penny rocket fireworks set off in a street protest against degrees for women

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But what about the students? Both academically and socially their experience has also been transformed by wider changes in the University. The introduction of the PhD in 1919, for example, brought a large number of postgraduate students to Cambridge. (The first woman to be awarded a titular Cambridge doctorate was Katherine Wilson in 1924.) Perhaps most striking, however, is the reform of the curriculum. In 1850 the University offered only two honours degrees: Mathematics and Classics. Triposes in Natural Sciences and Moral Sciences followed in 1851, but when Girton was founded, degrees in all other subjects lay in the future. The creation of new subjects led to the creation of new spaces, such as laboratories and libraries, where women had to fight for admission: they did not enjoy the right to use the University Library or University laboratories until 1923. The ability to move around the University freely was further complicated by the requirement, well into the twentieth century, for a chaperone.

Confetti thrown by male students demonstrating against women’s right to graduate

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Today, student societies form an important part of student social life, but University-wide societies developed only in the decades after the creation of the women’s colleges. These societies could provide new ways of integrating women into the life of the University, but more often provided new ways of marginalising them. The Cambridge University Musical Club, for example, was founded in 1889 but did not admit women until 1936; the University Swimming Club did not admit women until 1970; and the first mixed-sex drama society was not founded until 1928. Footlights experimented with female performers in 1932, but it was not a success. The audience missed the comic frisson of seeing female roles played by male students, and the next revue was titled


No More Women. Female performers had to wait until the 1950s before they were once more allowed to appear in a Footlights show, and it was 1964 before they were allowed to join the group. Faced with these exclusions, the women’s colleges developed an astonishingly rich associational life of their own, with college societies catering to every possible interest. This is a tribute to the creativity of women in the face of obstacles, but not every such venture was successful: in 1886 the Girton society dedicated to reading Browning’s poetry voted to dissolve itself and spend its accumulated funds on chocolate instead. In this way, while women were driving change in the University, they were at the same time constrained by the shifting patterns of inclusion

and exclusion produced by the University’s rapid evolution. What this meant for individuals could be glimpsed through the displays in the Rising Tide exhibition: sometimes with vivid immediacy – as with a video interview with a 101-year-old woman who had been a cook at Newnham in the 1940s; and sometimes more distantly – visitors had to imagine the restricted range of movement allowed by a tennis dress from the 1880s. The message of the exhibition is a hopeful one, because it shows that institutions can change: indeed, they are changing all the time, and that creates opportunities to remake them for the better. With my fellow curator, I believe that a better understanding of the University’s history can offer a more secure foundation for understanding the struggles to come.

WOMEN IN HISTORY

Building a Better World Miri Rubin (Research Student 1983; Research Fellow 1984–89) considers the life and legacy of Eileen Power

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ileen Power (1889 –1940), like many intellectuals of her generation, was committed to internationalism and the promotion of peace and social justice after ‘the war to end all wars’. Support for the League of Nations was one way to express such sentiments.

1

It was hoped the League could bring about not only ‘formal agreement’, but also ‘informal social and cultural “understandings” formed on the basis of international cooperation’.1 At the League of Nations, women were represented not in national delegations, but through the

Daniel Gorman, The Emergence of International Society in the 1920s, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012, 55.

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International Council of Women whose concerns included the trafficking of women and children and the execution of prisoners. Power and many of her friends found a home in a citizens’ peace movement: the League of Nations Union. The British LNU was one of many organisations developed after World War I to create an ‘international society’; its declared aim was to generate ‘shared norms and values of states and non-state actors and the means by which they regulate and shape international relations’.2 More internationalist than pacifist, the LNU was aligned with another body (to which Power also belonged), the Federation of University Women. In 1932, she defined this assiduous ‘networking’ as political work. There was, she argued, no more powerful means of binding nations together than by the infinite multiplication of these tiny invisible threads of mutual contact and personal understanding.3 For women of Power’s generation higher education was only possible at a cost: preparation of girls at secondary level involved sacrifice by their families and dependence on charitable funding or well-disposed relatives. Acutely sensitive to the patriarchal framing of women’s well-being, Power felt déclassée, caught between the world of her respectable, even prosperous acquaintances and her own constraining circumstances.

2 3

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Gorman, The Emergence, 16. Maxine Berg, A Woman in History: Eileen Power, 1889–1940, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996, 135–36.


She channelled this sensibility into her historical work, developing a humane type of history bound up with progressive politics. She believed progress was founded in the study of history: comparative international history in universities, and education of peaceful citizens of the world in schools and the public sphere. A true internationalist, Power never refused an invitation to promote the work of non-British colleagues. In 1936 she wrote a preface for Peng-Chun Chang’s China at the Crossroads: The Chinese Situation in Perspective.4 As recipient of the Kahn Travelling Award in 1920, she had spent time in India, China and Japan. She was a foreigner, travelling with other Europeans, but she exhibited genuine openness. As an historian, she commented freely, as when visiting the great monastery at T’an Cho Ssu: [It] struck me as having much of the same atmosphere as a lax & worldly house towards the end of the 15th Century. I hear that the abbot is an opium fiend, which is another illustration of the almost invariable rule in the middle ages that a bad abbot meant a bad house.5 If China was her greatest foreign love, France – and in particular Paris, where she studied in 1910–11 – was another passion. Arriving in the midst of a French railwaymen’s strike, she wrote to a friend:

4 5 6

I could not help feeling wildly socialistic and revolutionary over this strike, partly because I think the men’s demands were moderate & partly because the method… of putting it down was one of the most disgraceful things.6 In Paris she studied at the Ecole des Chartes, a bastion of traditional historical training, with the great medievalist Charles-Victor Langlois, who encouraged her to work on a biography of Queen Isabelle of France. Just a few years before Power, Marc Bloch (1886–1944) had also studied with Langlois, and after fighting in the Great War, and writing perceptively about it, Bloch became the prophet of a new history. He spent the 1920s criss-crossing Europe to promote a history not of nations, but of people, a history that would be comparative and global in its reach. Bloch and his wife visited England, where he met Eileen Power and her husband, economic historian Michael Postan (1899–1981). They shared enthusiasm for the comparative method, disdain for national frames of inquiry, and belief in the convergence of the social sciences with economic and social history. Bloch, like Power, saw in history a craft of great moral force and they kept in touch – two brilliant historians, public intellectuals, visionaries of a capacious yet rigorous history. Peace activists believed the post-war world needed a ‘story of mankind’s evolution’, which

London: Evans Brothers, 1936. Berg, A Woman in History, 99–109 (101). Power to Margery Spring Rice, 17 October 1910; Berg, A Woman in History, 58.

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Americans who espoused the ‘New History’.8 Answers to civic, national and international challenges were to be found in the classroom:

the ‘ Surely teacher of history, looking round upon a troubled world, is driven to see more and more clearly that the great aim of history teaching must be to show mankind its common heritage in the past and its common hope for the future

would ‘instruct individuals in the ways of world citizenship’.7 Alongside the abolition of militarystyle drills in schools, internationalists such as Power envisaged a new curriculum. So she got to work. Before embarking on her travels in Asia, Power had, in 1921, published a bibliography for history teachers. She was inspired by other educational reformers,

7

8

9

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It seems clear that the history teacher who wishes her [sic] subject to foster that sense of world citizenship, without which a League of Nations will be like a machine lacking power to work it, will lay more stress than has hitherto been customary, on the social side of history and on the peaceful interdependence of nations, as well as upon the political and military side of the subject.9 H G Wells, another member of the League of Nations Union, with whom Power regularly dined, had launched in 1920 his own Outline of History: Being a Plain History of Life and Mankind. Power cites Wells’s introduction in her preface for schoolteachers: ‘There can be no common peace and prosperity, without common historical ideas’.10 Conveying common history did not mean dumbing down, but rather speaking clearly, intelligently, and in a manner suited to each audience. With 1,500 junior branches of the LNU in British schools, lines of communication were open. The School Broadcasting Council was founded in 1929 with a mission ‘to promote the international spirit’.11

Helen McCarthy, The British People and the League of Nations: Democracy, Citizenship and Internationalism, c. 1918–45, Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2011, 105–06. James Harvey Robinson, The New History, New York: Macmillan, 1912. See Ian Tyrrell, Historians in Public: The Practice of American History, 1890–1970, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2005, 116–21. Power, A Bibliography for School Teachers of History, 4.


Eileen Power’s sister Rhoda was already an established broadcaster and programme maker on children’s programmes.12 From writing for teachers, Eileen had already moved – in collaboration with Rhoda – to writing for boys and girls, with the charming Boys and Girls of History (1926), Cities and their Stories (1927), and More Boys and Girls of History (1928). When it came to radio, Rhoda was the story-teller and Eileen the historian. In the 1930s Power made twelve programmes per term for older children; in 1937, 200 schools tuned in to her series on world history.13 Her broadcasting manner was authoritative, elegant and entertaining (although she was once likened to ‘a headmistress on Prize Day’).14 She stoutly resisted attempts to dramatise her talks and continued to provide occasional broadcasts until her death, explaining in 1936: It seems an essential purpose of history teaching in schools to explain his wider as well as his narrower environment to the child, who is a future citizen of the world as well as of Britain. It is doubly essential today, when the front page of every newspaper is full of America, China, Japan and India.15

10

H G Wells, The Outline of History: Being a Plain History of Life and Mankind, London: George Newnes, 1920, ‘Introduction’.

11

McCarthy, The British People, 113. Asa Briggs, The History of Broadcasting in the United Kingdom, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995, vol. I, 182, 186.

12

Eileen Power’s sister Rhoda

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Alongside a brilliant career as an economic historian, inspiring teacher and academic administrator – she served as Secretary of the Economic History Society from its foundation in 1926 until her death – Power was a distinctive public intellectual. She knew that in order to fulfil this responsibility she had to become more than an historian of medieval Europe; she had to shed a narrow version of the medieval historian. So she read widely, learned languages, studied other disciplines, and opened herself to the world: to the politics – national and international – not of despair but of cautious hope. Eileen Power died too young: she was 51 when she suffered a fatal heart attack. She was indeed a glorious ‘Woman in History’, as her biographer called her. However, she remains an inspiration for historians who seek to use their expertise as responsible and active citizens. Miri Rubin is Professor of Medieval and Early Modern History at Queen Mary University of London. This feature is a version of the paper she gave at the symposium Medieval People, Modern Lives: The Legacy of Eileen Power. The event took place in Girton on 25 January to coincide with the Power Feast held in honour of Eileen Power, who studied and taught at Girton between 1907 and 1921. The other speakers were Professor Alexandra Walsham (Professor of Modern History, Cambridge; keynote speaker), Dr Ian Archer (Keble College, Oxford), Professor John Arnold (Professor of Medieval History, Cambridge), Professor Liesbeth van Houts (Emmanuel College, Cambridge) and Professor David Wallace (Judith Rodin Professor of English, University of Pennsylvania). Thanks are owed to Professors Rubin and Arnold and to Dr Simone Maghenzani (Fellow 2015) for organising the symposium. 13

14 15

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Hilda Matheson, ‘Broadcasting as a Means of Promoting International Understanding’, League of Nations Educational Survey 1:3 (July 1930), 15. Berg, A Woman in History, 232–34. Berg, A Woman in History, 233.


Foundation Day Susan J Smith, Mistress, recalls past triumphs and celebrates current excellence

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ne hundred and fifty years to the day after the College for Women first opened its doors, over 600 students, staff and Fellows assembled at Girton to celebrate that fact. To say that the foundation of our College was a bold step, that ‘the Great Scheme’, as George Eliot dubbed it, was a radical enterprise, or that 16 October 1869 was game-changing for higher education, barely scratches the surface. The sesquicentenary deserved a party, and it got one. It brought the whole College together for an event that, like the entire 150th-anniversary programme, was a heady mix of considered reflection and wild exuberance. In reflecting, we had help from the Time Will Tell Theatre Company whose specially commissioned play about the founding and flourishing of ‘That Infidel Place’ brought the house down. Likewise, our reprise of Andrea Cockerton’s Girton150 Festival ‘Kaleidoscope’: the story of Girton told through sound and light, combining original narrative, archive photographs, musical performance and birthday tributes. We also spent some time in the heritage orchard established by the remarkable Elizabeth Welsh (Mistress 1885–1903) and now, as an anniversary project, undergoing its second major restoration. It seemed fitting that my predecessor, Professor Dame Marilyn Strathern, and I should plant a tree, a Shropshire Prune, for Mistresses past, present and future – one of eight ceremonial trees planted in the course of the year.

At the heart of a thought-provoking day, and advancing a key project of the Education Board, we also held a showcase for subject societies with some fine displays and stunning presentations. Girton, having started its days as the only route for women into a Cambridge education, has always admitted students to practically every undergraduate degree in the University. Everyone who put their head round the door of the showcase enjoyed the full force of that variety, as vets, medics, engineers, geographers, historians, mathematicians, natural scientists, poets and modern linguists vied for the attention of our adjudicator, Marilyn Strathern. It was a challenging competition but, as it turned out, no one who heard Rachel Hill’s tongue-twisting rendition of the Girton College Music Society agenda, written and set to the tune of ‘Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious’ by Organ Scholar James Mitchell, was in doubt about the winning entry. As for exuberance, it was the order of the day. It must have been a stretch in 1869 to imagine that the College for Women would become fully instituted within, and integral to the workings of, the world-class University of Cambridge. Yet here we are, still inspired by excellence, still pressing the case for diversity, still underpinned by an ethic of care. Girton is not perfect – no institution is, and most get a great deal wrong. Nevertheless, 150 years on, there was much to celebrate, and it was the right moment to recognise that, as Emily Davies wrote to Barbara Bodichon in 1875, ‘it has taken all of us to get so far’. So there was an all-College photo, a Girton-themed macaroon

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mountain, and an opportunity to relax to the Ben Comeau Trio before stomping about to a stirring rendition of ‘The Girton Pioneers’ by the Chapel Choir. Afterwards, Girton’s home-grown

Girton’s senior officers lend a hand behind the bar

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talent took to the stage in the Social Hub, and the senior officers – in charge of the bar for one night only, their uniform inspired by our Visitor – got unaccountably carried away.


Artistic Triumph Hannah Taylor, President of the Spring Ball Committee, remembers a spectacular College event

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n Friday 13 March, Girton was transformed by an explosion of art, marking the end of the College’s celebration of its 150th anniversary. The Spring Ball’s Arthouse theme was chosen to celebrate the diversity and dynamism evident in so many

aspects of Girton life, and the Ball Committee’s aesthetics team worked tirelessly to bring our vision to life. Guests had drinks in the Renaissancestyled Stanley Library, complete with statuary, fountains and Botticelli clouds, before enjoying a Starry Night dining experience in Hall and dancing

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The Stanley Library, artfully transformed

the night away at the main stage in Woodlands Court, which was decorated by sculptures inspired by Yayoi Kusama. In Cloisters Court, the glamorous crowd pouring through the archway was greeted by a Ferris wheel, swingboats and a helter-skelter, but this was just the start of an extensive entertainment programme that included wandering magicians, a casino, mirror-clad performance artists and

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crazy golf. An equally diverse music programme was crammed with contributions from current students and alumni; Rachel Hill, Jonathan Mayor, Capucine May and Cheap Date were just a few of the performers in a stellar line-up headlined by Tinchy Stryder. Alcoholic and non-alcoholic drinks flowed all night with a spectacular collection of bespoke Arthouseinspired cocktails designed by the Committee.


Food stalls lining Cloisters Court offered an array of treats including paella, Sicilian pizza, mac ‘n’ cheese and Jack’s Gelato. Arthouse 2020 was a night to remember, encapsulating so many elements at the heart of the College community. The night was an incredible way to see out the end of the anniversary celebrations and, for many students, the end of their time at Girton.

None of this would have been possible without the hard work, throughout the last twelve months, of our indefatigable Ball Committee. We would also like to say an enormous ‘thank you’ to the Fellows and Staff of the College. We are particularly grateful to Dr Stuart Scott, our Senior Treasurer, and to the Catering Office, Maintenance Department, housemen and porters for everything they did to make Arthouse 2020 a spring ball to remember.

From left to right: (back row) David O’Brien Moller, Juan Rodgers, Aoife Hay, Hannah Wetton, Tean Manser, Hannah Taylor, Emma Apthorp, Rebecca McNeil, Sophie Kean, Riva Kapoor, Imogen Gander; (front row) Nick Maier, Harriet Simmons, Rebecca Duffy, Chantelle Fard, Jessie Ingram-Johnson, Rachel Parry, Alice Kay, Fany Kuzmova, Tiffany Lee

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Tower of Strength Cevanne Horrocks-Hopayian (2004), Mary Amelia Cummins Harvey Visiting Fellow Commoner, reflects on a residency that turned out quieter than expected with only a few students and Fellows in residence. I am reminded of the tower’s function as a building for keeping people out, but also for keeping them in. I think of folklore, of clichés, of imprisoned heroines, and of artists and academics isolated in their ivory towers.

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keep looking at the tower of Girton College. From a distance, I see it as a defensive structure, the slim windows look like arrowslits. It’s a symbol of the resilience upon which the College was founded. Looking up, I see the tower’s height promises to reveal the world from another angle, a new perspective stretching behind and ahead. I think of the forwardlooking energy of our founders, and of the leaders seeing us through present challenges. At the time of writing, College is in lockdown in an attempt to reduce the spread of COVID-19,

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As a composer and performer, I have been considering what creativity means in a crisis. Especially now that tours and recordings and incomes have fallen away for the foreseeable future. We know the phrase ‘the show must go on’, and many performers really will push through all sorts of challenging circumstances to fulfil their contracts. Personally, however, I find it hard to create new work in the face of immediate concerns. Art created before the crisis is somehow easier to share. I’m happy to perform online, singing with my harp and ‘wearable electronics’ to entertain the Fellows. It can be soothing to be reminded of the past. Trapped in our ‘ongoing situation’, I’ve had time to face new fears, and the tragedies around me. I’ve been able to ‘climb the tower’ and view my situation from a wider perspective. And so I’ve been inspired to create a new composition, which is taking the shape of Girton College’s tower. For now, I’m calling it Red Tower Music, after the Mistress informed me of a centuries-old tradition known as Turmmusik. Music was played from towers to report events in the distance, or to mark a moment in the present.


Traditionally, this music would be played by loud instruments such as brass, bells, pipes or drums. I am sketching this piece for keyboard, as it is thanks to Director of Music and professional organist Dr Martin Ennis that I was invited to return to Girton as a Visiting Fellow Commoner. That said, I am making the music simple enough that a beginner could enjoy playing it. While I compose, I’m imagining the sounds that surround the tower – birds and cars in the new, strange absence of voices. These sounds will become the Turmmusik ‘instruments’ broadcasting from the heights.

realised at the Spring Ball. In the Chapel, Luke projected images of light cast through the building’s stained glass. Simultaneously, speakers played a collage of sounds from Girton: a time-stretched recording of the chapel organ played by Organ Scholar James Mitchell, along with Girton’s birdsong and the drone of the nearby motorway. A recording of the melodic laughter of Delia Derbyshire, an Old Girtonian herself, provided the tonality.

When I say it’s based on the structure of the tower, I mean that I have drawn the building on manuscript paper (architects, look away now) to influence the shape and duration of the piece. It’s a form of modern Augenmusik, where I create visual structures that constrain and construct my writing. I was able to share some examples earlier in the year for one of the Fellows’ Research Evenings.

I would not usually commit my intentions for a work-in-progress to print; even writing for programme notes, I would rarely be so prescriptive. But I am motivated by the thought of creating something that might be useful in future. The piece might begin as a short sketch we can play on a keyboard at home in isolation. Later, when we can all be together again, it could be arranged for the Girton brass ensemble and played from the Girton tower itself (health and safety warning: I have not researched the logistics).

I already have some footage of Girton to consult for this piece: I made audio recordings of the College at the end of Lent Term in collaboration with Luke Burton, Girton’s Artist in Residence, for a digital video-and-sound installation

I don’t want to be stuck in an ‘ivory tower’, detached from the world. I don’t fancy myself a Lady of Shalott, either, reflecting on my surroundings but unable to take part. But, while I am no use ‘on the ground’ in the current crisis – composers are not

Graphic sketch for Red Tower Music

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considered ‘key workers’ – I will seek a vantage point from which I can see and broadcast what I see, in the hope that someone will be helped by hearing it. I like the image of art keeping watch from a red brick tower. Cevanne Horrocks-Hopayian is a composer and performer. She received a British Composer Award for her residency with the London Symphony

Orchestra and National Trust at 575 Wandsworth Road. Recently, she has created new work for the Birmingham Royal Ballet, the Royal Opera House and Snape Maltings. In 2019, she released BRACE with ‘Crewdson’ on Accidental Records, an electro-acoustic album performed on handmade midi-controllers and featured at the BBC Proms. https://www.cevanne.org

A Sense of Scale Luke Burton, Artist in Residence, explores time and space in the College grounds

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s I write, I have been Artist in Residence at Girton for seven months. Throughout this time I have been thinking a great deal about scale. Like many institutions in which you live and work, Girton feels simultaneously very large and very small. The College is a world in itself. It has provided me with all my meals; a library where I can lose myself in images and text; a studio where I make my work, potter, procrastinate; a ‘boutique’ museum collapsing vast periods of time; concerts and research evenings to expand intellectual horizons; and extensive grounds to explore. Then there is the imposing scale of the architecture itself, high Victoriana, the main College buildings with their unending corridors, grand drawing rooms and, of course, the Great Hall. In contrast, when I think about the life I knew in London – crowded streets and transport, the density of the built environment, hours of travel every day – Girton suddenly shrinks and feels like a perfectly formed village. Lockdown changes this sense of shifting scale in a more subtle and complex manner. As most people’s physical world has been reduced to their house and (if they are fortunate)

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their garden, my partner and I are able to roam around the ever-changing theatre of spring in College. Walking the same paths three times in an hour has allowed me to see very slight changes from day to day, getting to know particular patches of ground through repeated viewings, registering the appearance of bluebells and narcissi, the slow opening of the orchard’s blossoms, tree by tree. Alternately grand and intimate, my perception of Girton is an aperture opening and shutting in the light. Time spent online in this period of social distancing has a similar function, collapsing vast spatial distances into a single frame. Worlds expanding and contracting exponentially; the bigger the crowd on conference calls, the smaller the frame. I had already been thinking a lot about the question of scale in relation to painting and art in general and, in my first five months here, I made a series of miniatures – small-scale paintings using vitreous enamels. These works have many direct and indirect historical forebears: Nicholas Hilliard’s and Isaac Oliver’s perfect tiny portraits; Roman cameos; Coptic textile fragments. I was attracted


to the brilliant colour detail you can achieve in enamels, and the way light behaves on the surfaces of small things, particularly those with reflective surfaces (the intensity and glittering light is lost when stretched out on larger objects).

Quite quickly, I amassed around fifty new enamels. Some of them suggest the collapsing of distance in time or space; lenticular portraits of ambiguously historical faces, for example, are part Roman mummy portrait, part Coptic face,

Untitled (orchard view from memory II), acrylic and oil on canvas, 2020

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part mid-modern Matisse. Then there was anthropomorphising of faraway things, a process of bringing down celestial objects to earthly bodies – the sun as a sunburnt figure, a huge wolf moon in quiet, comic shock. The portable and discrete nature of these paintings allowed me to think about Girton’s entire site as my gallery space. I could reflect on placement and context in a very particular way. I could make work to be placed on a particular object or in a particular nook in College, or displayed within existing clusters or collections such as in the Lawrence Room or the group of Russian icons next to Chapel. In addition, the hardy nature of enamel allowed me to think about the gallery space in a truly expanded sense, using external architectural features or particular trees within the grounds to house works. Gene, vitreous enamel on copper, 2020

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After lockdown started, the production of my enamels paused as I realised that part of my creative process was thinking about how people moved through Girton, interacting with the site and with each other. Now I am thinking more about the landscape, devoid of people. I have started a series of large paintings of a particular view of College, encompassing the orchard, tennis courts, and car headlights on the nearby motorway system – all under an impossibly starry night sky. These new works, liberal with perspective and dream-like, take a profoundly anti-pastoral but still Romantic subject in the form of motorways. In a time when physical movement is so

restricted, the roads express dynamism, swirls of interlacing expressionistic brush marks, an index of the hands’ movement and touch. In contrast, the tiny cars seem toylike and static. I see headlights signalling to each other as a kind of binary, on/off interaction, suggesting the digital platforms on which we are now so dependent – stationary, mundane, yet oddly magical light boxes for communication. Reflecting on the paused life of College and the outside world, I am reminded of William Hazlitt’s meditation on ideal landscapes: Where the landscape fades from the dull sight, we fill the thin, viewless space with shapes of unknown good, and tinge the hazy prospect with hopes and wishes and more charming fears. (‘Why Distant Objects Please’, Table Talk) At a time of unprecedentedly hazy prospects, Girton continues to be a changing aperture, a place of shifting scales, a sanctuary for hopes and wishes and more charming fears. Luke Burton studied painting at the Chelsea College of Art (2005) and sculpture at the Royal College of Art (2011). He has shown his work internationally; venues include ICA, London; National Gallery of Modern Art, Edinburgh; Kinokino Kunstsal, Sandnes, Norway; Technopolis Museum, Athens; Yarat Centre, Baku; Manoir de la Ville de Martigny, Switzerland; PADA, Lisbon. His work is in various private and institutional collections.


Integrity in Science, Past and Present Ella Henry, second-year undergraduate in Natural Sciences (Biological), argues for a fresh perspective on scientific history

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The Presentation of Scientific History We’ve all been to natural history museums. It is not immediately obvious when we enter these institutions that they are inherently racist, but this is undoubtedly the case. Historically, they were used to showcase treasures collected by Western powers as they seized control of other countries. One significant figure is Sir Hans Sloane, an Irish physician and naturalist. His collection of over 71,000 items played an important part in the foundation of the Natural History Museum of London, the British Museum and the British Library. But let’s consider the context in which these collections were amassed. Sloane began collecting towards the end of the seventeenth century, at the peak of the transatlantic slave trade. He worked as a doctor on slave plantations while also recording plant specimens collected for him by enslaved Ghanaian men and women. He went on to marry Elizabeth Langley Rose, who

Wellcome Collection

he recent eruption in the global conversation on systemic racism has led many of us to question why Black people are so under-represented in certain spaces. As an aspiring academic, I believe science will never be a truly inclusive field until we approach its historical and current presentation with integrity. To improve representation in science, we need to relearn its past; examine the political and social context within which its discoveries lie; highlight the problems within the scientific community today; and give a platform to current Black scientists to inspire and retain the next generation coming through the pipeline.

had inherited a Jamaican sugar plantation from her father (profits from the plantation would later fund his collecting). After Sloane’s death in 1753, his extensive herbarium, a collection spanning

Sir Ronald Ross on the steps of his laboratory in Calcutta, 1898

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Frances Benjamin Johnston/ WIkimedia Commons, 1906

George Washington Carver, 1906

continents, from Jamaica to North America, western Africa to southern Asia, was used as a founding collection for the Natural History Museum. We shouldn’t detach ourselves from the suffering that led to such items being displayed in the name of Western education. Samples from this period are still very much used in evolutionary and ecological research today. But are the slaves who collected them given sufficient credit? The Natural History Museum’s ‘History and Architecture’ webpage describes Sloane as a ‘high society physician’ who ‘travelled the world’, collecting ‘natural history specimens and cultural

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artefacts along the way’. Although slaves are often mentioned, such articles tend to avoid explicitly stating the fact that his natural-history expertise and resulting wealth was a direct result of the slave trade. The tone used to present this information is not accidental, and this should not come as a surprise. Museums were created to serve the middle and upper classes, to provide a culturally enriching and educational experience for those who could afford it. In some respects, this has changed today. In many, it hasn’t. Numerous studies show that museum visitors are drawn largely from the White professional classes and tend to be more affluent and better educated than the average person. Is this why such institutions seem reluctant to engage with their exploitative past? In addition, we are often ignorant about the role science has played throughout history in the expansion of British control. Ronald Ross was a surgeon in the British Empire’s army in India. In a lecture to the Liverpool Chamber of Commerce in 1899 Ross argued that ‘the success of imperialism will depend largely upon success with the microscope’; he was making the point that technological advance, and its role in the treatment of malaria, not only helped to protect the health of British troops and officials but was used as support for the idea that the Empire was ‘saving’ its subjects. Although Ross’s findings were important and should not be disregarded, this example highlights how science was used as moral justification for imperialism – it went hand in hand with the idea that Britain was introducing modernity and civilised governance to places such as India. Science and medicine were used to discipline the routines, diets and movements


of individuals to strengthen British influence, a theme with uncomfortable echoes in today’s scientific ‘voluntourism’. While parts of history are selectively removed from science education, Black scientists and their contributions are also ignored. I doubt many of us are aware of George Washington Carver. Carver was born into slavery in Diamond, Missouri in the early 1860s. Despite many severe setbacks in his education, including being turned away from his closest school and, later, from the first university where he gained a place, Carver went on to attend university at Iowa State, complete his Master’s, and head the agricultural department of the Tuskegee Institute. His work there contributed significantly to agricultural development; for example, he spearheaded the rollout of alternative cash crops – most famously peanuts – for farmers with nutrient-depleted soil, a legacy of cotton production. He set up a mobile classroom to bring this information to farmers, his research improved the quality of life for farming families, and he became an icon for Black and White Americans alike. But his face is nowhere to be seen in the curriculum. The Scientific Community Today This lack of recognition of people of colour is also seen in research and academia today. A recent paper found that contributions from students from under-represented groups were routinely disregarded and were less likely to bring about career benefits, despite the fact that these students innovated more; see Hofstra et al., ‘The DiversityInnovation Paradox in Science’, PNAS 117 (2020). This may help explain why we see unequal representation in higher positions in science. The legacy of science’s problematic past is reflected in the make-up of the staff and students here at Cambridge. In 2019, Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic (BAME) individuals made up 13.8% of staff at the University. Although

improving, this figure is consistently lower than the average across Russell Group universities each year. However, these numbers do not show the whole picture. Institutions often present generalised BAME figures as opposed to breakdowns for individual ethnicities, hiding differences in representation between ethnic groups. For example, as of 2019, Black or Black British African individuals represented 0.6% and Black or Black British Caribbean individuals represented 0.2% of the staff at the University. Statistics are important, but what cannot be put into numbers is the everyday experience of students from Black and other under-represented backgrounds. Many of you will not Ethnicity count of Cambridge University staff, 2018–19 Ethnicity

Count

Percentage*

Arab

40

0.4%

Asian or Asian British – Bangladeshi

24

0.2%

323

3.0%

Asian or Asian British – Pakistani

36

0.3%

Black or Black British African

61

0.6%

Black or Black British Caribbean

20

0.2%

Chinese

426

3.9%

Mixed ethnicity

256

2.4%

1

0.0%

Other Asian background

224

2.1%

Other Black background

19

0.2%

Asian or Asian British – Indian

Gypsy – Traveller

72

0.7%

White – British

6,343

58.3%

White – Other

3,042

27.9%

Unknown

1,619

* % of total, excluding unknowns

Other ethnic backgound

Total

12,506

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understand the feeling of being one of the only people of colour in your lecture. Or the impact of not having a single non-White lecturer in two years at Cambridge. Or feeling like you’re sticking out in a space, whether it be in interviews, supervisions or internships. Before coming to Cambridge, I was lucky enough to be ignorant of these feelings. At my school, teachers were from all ethnicities, backgrounds and cultures. I was warned it would be different here, but this is not what I expected. In my year, there are three Black students studying Natural Sciences out of the 433 Home acceptances. (Undergraduate Admissions Statistics give a total acceptance figure of 611 for the 2018 cycle, but do not disclose data on ethnicity breakdown.) This is not only the reality for current Black undergraduates, it is the image being presented to young Black people everywhere.

Moving Forward As individuals, educate yourselves. Educate yourselves on why we learn about who we learn about, why we are taught by who we are taught by and why we shouldn’t simply wait for young Black people to start choosing science but instead actively promote and provide a platform for those already in academia so that they can act as role models. Access work, however, doesn’t change the history of science, and addressing these problems requires accountability from museums and institutions such as Cambridge. Without having integrity with regard to its past and to present issues, science will never truly be accessible to all or progress to its full potential. An earlier version of this article shared the Audience Prize in the 2020 Hammond Science Communication Prize.

Boat Race Blues Phil Horton (2016) on the race that never was, with contributions from Arthur Doyle (2019)

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his year, Arthur Doyle and I had the honour of being selected for the Cambridge University Boat Race Crew. I am a fourth-year undergraduate studying Chemical Engineering, and Arthur is studying for an MPhil in Management following an undergraduate degree at Harvard University, where he was a four-time First Varsity Oarsman and won two medals at the U23 World Rowing Championships.

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Boat Race crews are defined by one of two words: ‘Won’ or ‘Lost’. Alongside details of crew members, this binary description is the only information recorded on the walls of the Goldie Boathouse Captain’s Room, where commemorative plaques list the fate of every Cambridge crew since 1829. The cancellation of this year’s race leaves the 2020 crew in limbo for posterity. Not being able to measure ourselves against Oxford is singularly frustrating, but that is absolutely not to say this season has


AllMarkOne

been a ‘waste’ or a ‘write-off’. In fact – and I am sure Arthur feels the same on this point – it has been one of the most fulfilling experiences of my student life. The satisfaction of being able to test yourself daily against some of the best university oarsmen in the country, the camaraderie built by spending so much time, sweat and, occasionally, tears together, and the excitement of being selected to represent a club with such prestige and history – these will never be forgotten, race or no race. Throughout the season, the schedule of a Girtonian Cambridge University rower is actionpacked, to say the least, and tends to involve a lot of cycling. The average day might look something like this: 05.45 – Wake up, small breakfast 06.15 – Cycle down the hill to the Goldie Boathouse 06.30 – Land training (circuits/rowing machine/ weights) 08.00 – Large breakfast 09.00 – Lectures, labs and supervisions 13.00 – Lunch 13.30 – Minibus to Ely for water training 17.30 – Return to Cambridge, cycle back up the hill to Girton 18.00 – Dinner 19.00 – Study 21.30 – Bed From this, you can see the importance that Arthur and I place on sleep and mealtimes. That being said, the first part of being a studentathlete is being a student. We take our studies seriously, and it is impossible to focus on training

effectively if you are stressed about being behind on work. It has been a privilege for Arthur and me to represent the College at University level alongside Girtonians Clay Roberts (CUBC), Teague Smith and Jack Reid (CULRC), and Yfke van der Heijden (CUWBC). As a last word, I would like to give my thanks to everyone at Girton College Boat Club, where I learnt to row as a lanky, not-particularlyathletic fresher. Without the dedication and generosity of the coaches and senior rowers, I would never have had the opportunity to pursue this Boat Race dream.

The crew modelling their race kit (Phil Horton fourth from left, Arthur Doyle second from right)

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Crossword To mark the beginning of the next 150 years of the College’s history, the Editors present the first of a series of crosswords with a Girton theme.

Up to Date by Lex 1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12 13

14

15

16 17

20

21

18

19 23

22 24

27

25 29

28

26 30

31

32 33 35

34

Name .................................................................................................................................................. Address ............................................................................................................................................. ..................................................................................................... Postcode .................................... Email .......................................................................... Year of Matriculation ...................... Entries must arrive by 4 December 2020, and should be sent either by post to The Editors, The Year, Girton College, Cambridge, CB3 0JG (a photocopy is acceptable), or in scanned form to theyearcrosswordsolution@cam.ac.uk. Senders of the first two correct entries drawn will receive £50. Details of the solution and winners will be given in The Year 2020/21. Some of the clues are so last year, and must have outdated thematic material removed. In each of the remaining clues, the wordplay omits up to three letters of the answer (which is, however, to be entered in full); the 21 squares concerned must be shaded, preserving the grid’s symmetry, to reveal the updated figure. The Chambers Dictionary (2016) is the primary reference.

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Across 1. Our river class finds American bulb (6) 6. Deadly clash upset Egyptian peasants (7) 12. Confidential informant trod path artfully when entertaining (clearly English) (10, two words) 13. In recession, tree harbours clover for small burrowing animal (4) 14. CIA’s forerunner has clamp for bones (4) 15. Warhol, perhaps, is bland (7) 16. Badly made, thematically depleted, with much that’s decomposed (6) 17. Leftover food men tackled to some extent (7) 20. Indian gardener finds apple nymph (6) 23. Irish girl’s contrary ostrich (6) 24. ‘More stealthy’ describes me (7) 27. Secure backing with prayer of supplication (6) 29. Wild asses in tattered rags (7) 31. Cluttered, out of date? Dare renovation (4) 32. Perhaps cloak is found in street (4) 33. Butcher rested, then climbed in front seeing area where venison may be found (10, two words) 34. Lower part of River Tay? User positioned arc-light (7) 35. One of several particles split by current, at last unusually excitable (6) Down 2. For clever Greek, Scottish one replacing Roman one (7) 3. Honey fruit (5) 4. Cliffy? Yes, edge of coast is steep! (4) 5. Female reproach that’s old-fashioned (5) 6. Instinctive understanding and sympathy for extremism seen routinely at the fringes (11) 7. Deportee oddly removed from the east once (6) 8. Clerk absorbed by moth with 250 cavities (7) 9. Scientific workplaces lacking luminance? That’s ridiculous (6) 10. Sound made by clasp, perhaps, is detected in High School (4) 11. Keep relaxed, fluid style as limiting clackers (not loud!) (9, two words) 13. Preserve badly alarmed clam (9) 18. Venus flytrap, in short, would clinch, holding on to aged aphid to begin with (7) 19. Most sullen recluse detours (7) 21. Eventually, sauce needs replacement? Worcestershire’s most convenient (6) 22. Abnormal gerenuk could provide gen on this antelope (6) 25. Unfortunate snooker stroke from frame’s opening (5) 26. Old mates make good when rent’s lacking (5) 28. Telegraphs losing weight, making clangers (4) 30. Jock’s love seen beneath clone tree (4)


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James Anderson Bursar When, in January this year, I took up the reins as Bursar of Girton, I arranged meetings with bursars of a number of other colleges in order to introduce myself and obtain some advice. Among several useful tips, an emerging theme was that it would take me at least a year, possibly longer, to get fully on top of the job. What no one, least of all I, could foresee was that after four months in post I would have helped close down the College (temporarily, of course) and that I would be dealing with one of the greatest operational and financial crises in the history of the University and the College. I am therefore writing this article not in my Girton office under the painted gaze of my illustrious predecessor Marjorie Hollond, but at my dining table in London which, during the COVID-19 lockdown, has become the unlikely centre of the College’s financial operations. Every Cambridge bursar has a different story about how they came to occupy that position. My own background is largely in the world of investment banking, and specifically in providing advice to companies looking to raise money on the London Stock Exchange. Having read Classics at Magdalen College, Oxford, and taught Latin and Greek for a year or two in schools, I was taken on as a trainee by Schroders,

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one of the last UK merchant banks and thankfully open-minded about hiring someone who, at the time, had no formal financial education. I initially worked in its Securities division (led at the time by one Philip Augar), where I analysed listed chemicals

companies and built up a list of fundmanager clients whom I would advise on which stocks to buy, which to hold, and which to sell. After a year or so I moved to the firm’s Corporate Finance division where, instead of advising fund managers, I started to advise businesses across a wide range of industries on


how to go about raising money and also how to deal with their shareholders. I found the life of a generalist corporate financier more stimulating than that of a sector specialist, and so this was where I stayed.

included working with the German government on a privatisation project (where my language skills were tested!) and supporting entrepreneurs with genuinely innovative technologies who were looking to grow fast.

Throughout my financial career I witnessed the transition from Like many at Girton, I have stayed close to academe. the last days of what Philip I was the first in I remained an active alumnus of Augar described as ’gentlemanly my family to Magdalen, and over the years capitalism‘ to the universal go to university have got to know successive adoption of the more energetic development directors and and certainly more ruthless US bursars, contributing where model. Schroders was taken I could to strategic initiatives. I have also over by the US behemoth Citigroup in 2000. maintained my interest in Classics, where I am Out went the culture of written memos, Friday afternoon meetings in the Vino Veritas bar, and Bruno Schroder walking the floors; in came the world of giant trading floors, an office in Canary Wharf, and regular trips to New York.

Crackers, the bursarial pug

After about ten years I made a brief move to an Australian-owned manager of ‘alternative assets’ – in our case, fleets of planes and ships – and then returned to banking, this time to Goldman Sachs. During this period I advised companies as diverse as Anglo American, Intercontinental Hotels and a range of Cambridge technology success stories, including ARM Holdings and Cambridge Silicon Radio. Five years before starting at Girton, I moved from Goldman Sachs to PriceWaterhouseCoopers. There I worked as a Partner, starting a group focused on providing more independent and objective advice to companies than could be offered by the banks who, by their nature, are serving both sellers of shares and buyers at the same time. The work there proved fascinating; it

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in my family to go to university, and I well remember my mother’s great apprehension of being ’found out‘ as somehow inadequate when she came to visit me at Oxford. It is hugely stimulating, therefore, to be responsible for ensuring that future generations will be able to continue to benefit from, and make their own contribution to, Girton’s pioneering tradition. I am thankful to be building on foundations which were greatly strengthened by the work of my predecessor, Debbie Lowther. There is, nonetheless, much to do. As I write, we are still dealing with the financial impact of COVID-19 and ensuring that Girton can return to nearnormal operations as soon as possible, with students back in residence and able to experience the broad educational benefit of living within a community of ideas. Looking further out, we will need to repair our financial strength and secure our vision for the future. How can we continue to attract world-leading scholars to Girton and retain them? How can we better support our students, and create future generations of Girton success stories? How should we develop our estate?

James with wife Fiona and daughter Clemmie

quietly – and slowly! – working on a project about the nature and role of expertise in the Athenian democracy. The opportunity to move to Girton, coming at a time when I was looking for a change in direction, was therefore completely irresistible to me. Girton’s mission and ethos – championing inclusion and making a Cambridge education possible for those who may not have even considered it – was one of the main attractions for me. Like many at Girton, I was the first

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One characteristic of Girton has stood out for me very clearly in the current crisis, and that is the resilience and spirit of its people: Fellows, staff and students. I am very confident both that Girton will be back, stronger than ever, and that we will continue to be a source of people and ideas to challenge and shape the world. While the present crisis has had its testing moments, there is much to look forward to, and it would be hard to find a working environment more stimulating than Girton!


Malcolm Guite Chaplain I was born in Nigeria, and spent the first ten years of my life in Africa, but my ex-pat parents still referred to England as ‘home’. My father spoke of Cambridge in particular with a special emphasis and awe, so that it acquired for me, in my early years, an almost mythical aura: an entirely imagined place, an impossible paradise floating in my mind somewhere between Narnia and Middle Earth.

And then, quite suddenly (from my ten-year-old perspective), myth became reality when we fled to Cambridge in 1967 as political refugees! We had been living in Zimbabwe (Rhodesia as it was then) and after UDI my father, resisting the institutional racism there, fell foul of the Smith regime and was expelled from the country. Happily his old College, St Catharine’s, stepped up and found us temporary accommodation in a house just opposite Jesus Green until we could sort ourselves out. I have vivid memories of those months in a new place, of

And then, quite suddenly (from my ten-yearold perspective), myth became reality when we

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the green and the river, the lovely old colleges where my father would take me and tell stories of his student days, and I began to get a glimpse of why it had meant so much to him.

It was also while I was at Pembroke that Girton first swam into my view, in the person of Gwyneth Lewis, already a fine poet, even as an undergraduate. I got to know her, and became her friend, though I was always (and still am) rather in awe of her prodigious talent.

Then we were off to Canada, and a new adventure, and I forgot all about it until, eight It was not Gwyneth, but another OG, Margaret years later, when I had been sent to school in Hutchison, who really brought Girton into the UK, my English teacher sat me down and focus. She was a Tutor at Westcott House, and said ‘You should apply to Cambridge!’ And so when I was visiting her there, I happened to see it was that in the Michaelmas Term of 1977 I on her shelves a book called That Infidel Place. I came up on a scholarship to Pembroke. The was intrigued that a tutor in Christian Doctrine next three years were, in every sense, lifehad a book with the word changing. I confirmed and ‘Infidel’ so boldly on the deepened my love of poetry My work, on Lancelot cover, and asked about it, and and my longing, somehow, Andrewes, John Donne of course she told me, with to be a poet. The English and T S Eliot, deepened some pride, that it was all Tripos gave me a grounding, my faith and led me to about Girton! which serves me still, in the discern a vocation great classics of my language Maggie and I fell in love and culture, but it did more and were married in 1984, than that. C S Lewis says and have lived in or near Cambridge ever since. in his autobiography Surprised by Joy that I was a school teacher when we married, but somehow his imagination was baptised before Maggie, in true Girtonian style, encouraged me he was, and that the rest of him just took a to spread my wings a little and to do a PhD. My little longer to catch up, and the same is true work, on Lancelot Andrewes, John Donne and for me. The poetry of Spenser, Herbert, Donne T S Eliot, deepened my faith further and led me and Milton moved and challenged me to give to discern a vocation, so in 1988 I became a the faith I had abandoned at school a new student in Cambridge again, this time at Ridley and serious consideration, and in this I was Hall. I was ordained in 1990, and after nearly a helped enormously by my college chaplain, decade in parish ministry and a spell as chaplain Warren Tanghe, and by a chance encounter at Anglia Ruskin, I came to Girton, and it felt like with a brilliant young academic named a homecoming. Rowan Williams! I became a Christian in the Michaelmas Term of my final year and was I was ‘Acting Chaplain’ at first, covering for my confirmed at a University service in February predecessor’s maternity leave. This title meant 1980, for which Rowan had prepared us and at more than I realised. In my very first term I was which he preached.

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accosted in the corridor by an undergraduate who said ‘You are the Acting Chaplain, aren’t you?’ I said yes, and she replied, ‘Good. I am the president of GADS and we are looking for an old man to play the part of Adam in As You Like It’. ’. Asked if I had any acting experience, I said I’d once played the part of Puck in a school production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream. ‘Great,’ she said, ‘you’re in!’ Leaving me to reflect wryly that such is the arc of one’s life: to begin as a young Puck and end up as an old Adam! I began officially at Girton in 2003, but if we count my time as Acting Chaplain, I’ve been here for nearly 20 years. It’s been a rich couple of decades. I have had the privilege of listening and ministering to members of College at crucial moments in their lives: times of personal struggle, times of great joy, times of inconsolable sorrow. I have had the pleasure of marrying several of the students I knew as undergraduates, indeed marrying some former chapel wardens (to one another). When Facebook was still a new thing, I discovered there was a Facebook group called ‘People Malcolm Has Married Or Will Marry Soon’. Almost everybody seemed to be in it except my wife. I have also had the challenge, and privilege, of helping the College meet with tragedy and cope with grief and loss. From the death of Tom Mansfield, early in my time here, to the more recent tragedies, of Giulio Regeni’s brutal murder and Tom Millward’s tragic accident, I have invited members of the College, of any faith or none, to gather together in their chapel, to light candles, to lament, to make memorial, and to find in one another, and in that Mystery from which

On the path to enlightenment

we all come and to which we return, strength, consolation and new hope. That has been an unforgettable experience and has shaped who I am.

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Malcolm with Seamus Heaney

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As well as offering me the privilege of ministry, Girton has allowed, and indeed encouraged, me to flourish in my other life as a writer, and especially as a poet. In my time here I have published eleven books, including four volumes of my own poetry, some of it written for Girton’s wonderful poetry group. I have travelled the world giving talks, lectures and readings, and in most places I’ve visited, someone has come up, said ‘I’m an OG!’, and given me a special welcome. Indeed, the writing side of my life has

grown so much that I feel the time has come, in my sixties, to do what I longed to do as an undergraduate, and become a full-time poet. It is Girton that has made this possible, and it was a great joy to learn that this goodbye will not be as final as I had feared, when the College did me the honour of electing me to a Life Fellowship. So, in one sense I let my Girton life go, only to receive it back, as Eliot says, ‘renewed, transfigured, in another pattern’ (‘Little Gidding’, Part III).


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Alumni and Supporters

Education gala in Singapore hosted by Nelson and Terence Loh

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As the year began, we were still very much in 150th-anniversary celebratory mood. Over the summer of 2019, we were able to gather data on our highly successful Girton150 Festival. This was the highlight of our sesquicentennial celebrations: over 1,300 people from 19 countries attended an extravaganza of 89 events (you can read about these in the Festival Programme: girton150.com/ wp-content/uploads/2019/06/Girton150FestivalFinalProgramme.pdf). We were very grateful to more than 114 performers and hosts, who gave their skills, expertise and time to create this

wonderful programme, and to the 33 volunteers who helped operational and development staff with behind-the-scenes management. Nearly 4,000 people have viewed the ‘Girton College 150 years on’ film on YouTube, and an archive of films, news stories and photos has been uploaded to the College website; we hope it will be a treasure trove of happy memories for years to come. The Girton150 celebrations continued throughout September with year reunions and the Alumni Weekend. These were followed by our first-ever


Giving Week, which took place over the week of the foundation of the College (14 –18 October); at the time, this was the most successful Giving Week across all Oxbridge Colleges, thanks to 550 alumni from 24 countries around the world who gave over £150,000 towards student support. The Giving Week was launched with our firstever Girton College Community Apple Day, when we were able to offer pressed apple juice from seven varieties of apples in Girton’s heritage orchard. Profits from Apple Day went to the Student Hardship and Wellbeing Fund. Girton’s first Apple Day

In November, the fifth of our regional Girton150 anniversary events, a musical evening hosted by our visitor, Lady Hale, took place in London. The evening was also in honour of Lady Hale’s distinguished legal career and, appropriately, it was held at Gray’s Inn where, 50 years ago, she was called to the Bar. This splendid, sellout concert also celebrated 30 wonderful years at Girton of our Director of Music, Dr Martin Ennis, and showcased the winners of the London Girton Association music award, now in its 20th anniversary year. The anniversary celebrations also included a special thank-you concert for 1869 Society members (those who have notified us that the College has been included in their will) and for our generous supporters and helpful volunteers. Guests were treated to a stunning performance by internationally acclaimed soloist Nicholas Mulroy – one of Girton’s esteemed Musicians in Residence – and we enjoyed the world premiere of Tim Watts’s setting of Psalm 150, commissioned by the Chapel Choir to mark the 150th anniversary of the College.

The Mistress and I travelled to Hong Kong and Singapore in December. We met around 30 alumni in individual meetings, allowing us to thank the new Girton Hong Kong Committee both for their help in arranging an alumni gathering at the Hong Kong Pacific Club, and for leading fund-raising for a new postgraduate award that will allow a resident of Hong Kong from a low-income background to attend Girton. Chadwick Mok (Chair), Kevin Chan (Secretary) and Franklin Heng (Treasurer) are founder members of the Committee, and we welcomed new members Richard Mun and James Wong. Franklin hosted an excellent sailing trip around Repulse Bay, near the border with mainland China; this gave the Committee and their partners the opportunity to get to know one another better. In Singapore, we were very grateful to Suet Fern Lee and Karen Fawcett for hosting the Mistress and myself. Marian Sng generously hosted 30 or so alumni from Singapore and Malaysia at her wonderful home, while Nelson Loh hosted two tables for Girtonians at his gala event in support

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of education (the latter featured former US President Barack Obama as keynote speaker). The Development Office continued to be a hub of activity in the early months of 2020: we ran our usual events and subject reunions, including the biennial Geography event (in a new afternoon-tea format) and a ‘Come and Sing’ for alumni with an interest in music. This occasion provided an opportunity for further acknowledgement of Dr Martin Ennis’s huge contribution to Girton music over the last 30 years. Our final event of the 150th-anniversary season, which ran from December 2018 through to March 2020, was Girton’s Arthouse Spring Ball on Friday 13 March. The College was transformed by decorations reflecting the history of art, and some 800 students, alumni and guests enjoyed stellar musicians, comedians and other entertainments. The Arthouse Ball took place just before COVID-19 cast its long shadow. Within two weeks, we were all in lockdown, and many College staff were soon working from home. (Most operational staff, apart from those providing essential support services for the 150 or so residents unable to go home, were furloughed.) We were obliged by socialdistancing requirements to cancel our Easter 2020 Telethon on the very day student callers were due to start contacting alumni. All other events either have been held online or have been postponed. An active programme of weekly communications has been introduced, so please do check out our e-newsletter for upcoming events. Articles have included ‘#WeAreGirton’, where students, alumni, staff and Fellows were pictured in Girton stash to mark the beginning of Easter Term, while several fascinating alumni speakers talked to student members of their subject societies; our thanks go to Belinda Bell, Ann Fullick and Nikhil Shah, as well as to Lady Hale and Professor Adam Winkler of UCLA who debated ‘Judicial Independence and the Rule of Law’ at a joint UCLA–LGA

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event. Other virtual events that involved alumni participation included the Girton Feast, the May Week Concert, the Girton Garden Party and the virtual Alumni Weekend, as well as two virtual ‘graduation ceremonies’ to honour our students, undergraduate and postgraduate. The pandemic has had a huge impact on our lives, our loved ones, and the College’s financial health. Girton students have faced challenges working from home, and the need for bursaries and hardship funds has increased, while College finances have been seriously affected through the loss of rental income, conference trade and the summer-schools programme. However, our focus on growing the permanent endowment through A Great Campaign has proved its worth. Thanks to your donations and investment returns over recent years, the endowment has grown from £22 million to £55 million, generating more investment income in perpetuity, which will benefit future generations of College members. This has proved vital in the current crisis. We are very excited to be approaching the completion of A Great Campaign, the largest campaign that Girton has ever undertaken. The target is to raise £50 million as a mix of donations and future gifts in wills, and as at 30 June 2020 – in our 150th anniversary year – over 90% of the target sum has been reached. Our aim is to endow at least 20 undergraduate bursaries, five postgraduate awards and 12 fellowships and, again, 90% of the funds required for these individual campaign goals has now been raised. I cannot thank you all enough for your support; this has taken many forms – everything from volunteering to hosting events to financial gifts. In particular, we send heartfelt thanks to all those who have continued to support Girton during this difficult time. Everyone at College is very grateful to you. Deborah Easlick, Development Director


Admissions and Widening Participation In October 2019 we welcomed 145 new undergraduate students to Girton, a small increase on the year before. Of these, 51% are studying a science subject and 37% are female; of the Home students 74% are from maintained schools. Of our new students, 52 (36%) came to us through the Winter Pool, 16 (11%) through the Summer Pool and five (3%) through the new Adjustment scheme for previously rejected applicants from underrepresented backgrounds who perform well in their A-level examinations. We were also joined by three Erasmus exchange students. Our regular outreach activities continued during much of the year, although plans for many face-to-face activities have been curtailed by the COVID-19 crisis. In the earlier part of the academic year, our enthusiastic Schools Liaison Officers Annie Hoyle and Chloe Richardson (who replaced Anna McGlinchey, whom we were sad to see go) continued with their vital work providing talks and activities for young people in schools, ranging from Year 7 (those aged 11–12) through to A-level students preparing university applications in Year 13. The presentations and talks, appropriately tailored for the audience, are delivered in many of our link schools in the West Midlands and

Camden and to school groups that travel to College, where they get a chance to meet current students, who are our best ambassadors! We also ran three Taster Days for GCSE students in Modern Languages, Geography, and Theology, Religion and Philosophy of Religion, and hosted a College Open Day in September. The COVID-19 crisis, while lamentably preventing inperson contact with schools and prospective applicants, has prompted us to reconsider our online presence and provision for schools and prospective applicants. Following Annie’s departure in April, Chloe has been busy developing an exciting range of adapted presentations and audio-visual materials for the University’s 2020 Virtual Open Days and our own future outreach activities. As always, we thank the Head of Tutorial and Admissions, Angela Stratford, and her staff for their sterling work and their continued energy and goodhumoured dedication. Stuart Davis and Julia Riley, Admissions Tutors

Bursaries and Grants Bursaries Twenty-seven holders of Emily Davies Bursaries (worth up to £3,500 per year) were in residence in 2019–20. The subjects read by the bursary-holders were: Biological Sciences; Chemical Engineering; Engineering; English; Geography; Human, Social and Political Sciences; Land Economy; Law; Mathematics; Modern and Medieval Languages; Philosophy; and Veterinary Medicine.

Three Margaret Barton Bursaries for Undergraduate Medicine and one Elma Wyatt Bursary for Clinical Medicine were held by students in residence in 2019–20. The Paresh Patel Bursary, the Class of 1958 Bursary and the Class of 1985 Bursary were awarded to students reading Engineering, Mathematics and Biological Sciences respectively. Two new bursaries were awarded for the first time this year, made possible by generous alumni

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donations: the Class of 1990 Bursary was awarded to a student reading Biological Sciences, and the Christine McKie Bursary was awarded to a student reading Physical Sciences. All nine of these awards are worth up to £3,500 per year. Seventy-seven Cambridge Bursaries (worth up to £3,500 per year) were given to Girton undergraduates in 2019–20. There were seven holders of Ellen McArthur Bursaries (worth £1,000 in the first year and £1,500 in subsequent years) and one holder of a Sybil Lewis Bursary (worth £500) in residence in 2019–20, all reading either History, History and Politics, or Human, Social and Political Sciences. Two Jean Lindsay Memorial Bursaries for History (worth £800) were also held by students in residence. Seven Rose Awards (totalling £8,500) were made to nonfirst-year students who were in receipt of a full Cambridge Bursary and who demonstrated the intention to benefit society and serve the community in a practical way. Five Girton Pioneer Awards (totalling £500) were awarded to students who had contributed to College life through participation in student societies, forums or welfare initiatives.

Grants Seventeen undergraduate students received hardship grants from the Buss Fund totalling £3,862. Thirteen graduate students received grants amounting to £7,752 from the Pillman Hardship Fund. Grants for academic purposes totalling £6,426 were made from the Student Academic Resources Fund to 31 undergraduates. Eight graduate students received grants amounting to £1,150 from the Pillman Academic Fund. Four students received grants totalling £725 from the Mary Beatrice Thomas Fund for Physical Sciences students. We remain extremely grateful to alumni for their generous financial support which allows students not only to take up their place at Girton, but also to participate in all that a Cambridge education has to offer. Angela Stratford, Head of Tutorial and Admissions Office

Postgraduate Affairs Girton’s 2019–20 postgraduate intake consisted of 147 new students. This figure included five Girton undergraduates who progressed to postgraduate studies. (Vets and Medics moving on to clinical studies are now classed as undergraduates, so are not included here.) In addition, there were five postgraduate students who went on to higher degrees such as the PhD. With this combination of new postgraduates and students returning to study, we had an overall total of 152 for the 2019–20

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cohort. The number of new postgraduates for this year meant that we exceeded our target figure. The 147 new postgraduates were made up as follows: 107 were men and 40 women; 32 were PhD students, 93 were studying a Master’s course and the rest were on other oneyear courses; 65 were Overseas students and 82 Home/ EU. The statistics for either full or part funding for these students give a useful indication of the sources available:


Research body / Department Trust Gates College External bodies (Business / Government) Loans Self-funding

23 16 2 5 3 22 76

The total number of Girton postgraduates now stands at 281 and they represent a truly international community. We are happy to have students from the following places: Armenia, Australia, Austria, Bangladesh, Belarus, Belgium, Bolivia, Brazil, Bulgaria, Canada, Chile, China, China (Taiwan), Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Ecuador, Egypt, Ethiopia, Finland, France, Germany, Ghana, Greece, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Iran, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Netherlands, Nigeria, Norway, Pakistan, Peru, Poland, Portugal, Qatar, Romania, Singapore, Slovakia, Slovenia, South Africa, South Korea, Spain, Sri Lanka, Sweden, Syria, Thailand, Turkey, UK, USA, Venezuela and Yemen. Swirles Court Following the first couple of years of operation and occupancy, Swirles Court is establishing its identity as an important but separate part of Girton. The postgraduate community continues to develop new ways of using the building and exploring its potential as a social, work and meeting space. Its occupancy levels have increased in line with the growth in postgraduate numbers. The themed ‘pop-up’ suppers offered by the Catering service remain very popular and the facilities at Swirles Court are now factored into Girton’s Open Day provision. Postgraduate Student Achievements Girton postgraduate students are conducting research on a wide range of topics, and in both Michaelmas and Lent Terms the talks at the Pecha Kucha evenings

gave a good glimpse of the breadth and depth of the work undertaken. The COVID-19 pandemic has been a challenge for our postgraduate students, with many having to return to their home cities or countries in haste, and others staying socially distanced in Cambridge, in College or private accommodation. All have been affected in some way by the enforced restrictions on their lives and research, but they have risen to the challenge with impressive levels of strength and adaptability. Those finishing their courses will graduate in absentia in July 2020, but they will have a chance to return to Cambridge at some time in the future to take part in a ‘proper’ Senate House ceremony. Graduate Administrator Jenny Griffths continues to work part-time as the Graduate Administrator, and Paula Harper assists with all aspects of postgraduate administration. Graduate Tutors The four Graduate Tutors are: Dr Liliana Janik, who is Assistant Director of Research in Archaeology and Director of Studies in Archaeology; Dr Sophia Shellard, who is College Lecturer in Medical Sciences; Dr James Riley, who is Lecturer and Director of Studies in English with research specialisms in modern and contemporary literature; and Dr Hilary Marlow, who is Director of Studies in Theology and teaches in the Faculty of Divinity. They continue to uphold our strong tradition of postgraduate support, offering assistance to postgraduate students on personal, academic and financial matters. They meet their postgraduate students individually and socially throughout the year and in normal times enjoy their company at Formal Hall each week. Liliana Janik, Sophia Shellard, James Riley and Hilary Marlow, Graduate Tutors

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Library We started the summer vacation of 2019, tired but happy after the 150th anniversary Festival weekend. The summer saw the culmination of a project on which I had worked with colleagues from other libraries in the University, producing an introduction for pre-arrival undergraduates to the information skills they will need as students: https://camguides.lib.cam. ac.uk/. Unfortunately, it also saw our farewells to longstanding Senior Library Assistant Helen Shearing, who retired over the summer; she will be much missed. We are grateful to Gosia Drozdowska, who has taken on Helen’s role in addition to her existing work in the Library. The academic year also started promisingly. We trialled tours of the College’s main site for new postgraduate students, many of whom are based at Swirles Court and for whom the swimming pool and gym can assume almost mythical status. We rehoused the bust of Muriel Bradbrook, formerly in the entrance of Wolfson Court, on a new plinth carefully made by the College’s carpenters, near the entrance of the Library. We were approached by Kettle’s Yard with a request to borrow a book for a display about Jim Ede in India to accompany their big ‘Homelands’ exhibition; it was pleasing to see our small copy of Our Indian Empire... hints for the use of soldiers displayed alongside an accompanying, much larger, map in a way that put its 1912 content into a proper context. Yet I write this, in the early summer of 2020, from my dining table at home. In some ways, the Library is closed. In other ways, it remains very much open. We have continued to offer drop-in sessions to our users (albeit virtually), helped them find electronic versions of the books they need and explored new technologies alongside them. By the time you read this, I very much hope that the Library will be open physically as well as virtually, although this is likely to be on a restricted basis. For the time being, I would urge you not to visit without making a prior arrangement. If, in the meantime, you are missing us, I recommend the photography

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The Upper Library before lockdown

of Sara Rawlinson. Shortlisted in both 2018 and 2019 for the award of Historic Photographer of the Year, Sara has now completed her project to photograph libraries in all of the Cambridge colleges. You can see her pictures at: https:// www.sararawlinson.com/libraries/. Jenny Blackhurst, Librarian


Archive Michaelmas Term started on a high note with the opening of The Rising Tide: Women at Cambridge. This Cambridge University Library exhibition explored the lived experience of women at Cambridge, the fight for equal educational rights, and the careers of some of the women who shaped the University and the wider world. Manuscripts and artefacts from the Archive, together with items from other colleges, University departments and faculties, helped tell this important story. Items we loaned included: the Memorial from the London Association of Schoolmistresses to the Royal Schools Inquiry Commissioners (1864); Emily Davies’s writing desk; some of Alfred Waterhouse’s plans for the College; and items from the Cambridge Women’s Liberation Archive. It was gratifying to see these items highlighted in their own right, as well as for their contribution to the wider history of women at Cambridge. Another exciting project this year has been the replacement of our old Archive catalogue with ArchivesSpace, a specialised archives-management system. Led by Cambridge University Library, this project will see over 25 Cambridge archives migrate to the new system that will eventually also replace Janus, the web-based version of the catalogue used by researchers. Our catalogue data will be transferred this summer. Many of this year’s accessions were additions to existing collections, such as the personal papers of Barbara Wootton (Honorary Fellow 1969), Queenie Leavis (Research Fellow 1929), and Eileen Power (Teaching Staff 1913). Other accessions included biographies and recollections of early Girtonians, articles based on archival research, and some new collections of personal papers,

Girton household regulations, 1912 (Archive reference: GCAC 2/5/13pt)

including those of Marjorie Chibnall (Fellow 1953), Judith Fitzsimmons (1947) and Christina Macqueen (1943). I am particularly grateful to Joan Bullock-Anderson, our Consultant Cataloguer, who worked hard to catalogue these new

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accessions, as well as addressing the backlog of accessions that had built up as a result of preparations for the Girton150 festival. However, with the unprecedented events that overtook us in March, work in the Archive moved to my dining-room table, where I continued to tidy up our catalogue data, to catalogue digital accessions and, where possible, to answer remote enquiries. I would like to take this opportunity to thank our

Archive volunteers, Hilary Goy (Corke 1968), Cherry Hopkins (Busbridge 1959) and Anne Cobby (1971), and donors of archival material, as well as all our enquirers, for their patience and understanding during this period. By the time you read this, I very much hope the Archive will be open again for remote enquiries, even if it is a while before we can welcome visiting researchers again. Hannah Westall, Archivist and Curator

Alfred Waterhouse’s sketch for a ‘College for Women’, south elevation, c. 1871 (Archive reference: GCAR 2/3a/1/6/1/1pt)

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Culture and Heritage The College’s 150th anniversary last year was hugely successful in showcasing our culture and heritage collections, and this continued at the 2019 Alumni Weekend. The People’s Portraits reception saw the unveiling of a portrait of Dr Victoria Bateman by Anthony Connolly. Victoria, a Fellow of Gonville and Caius College, spoke about how she uses her body in art and protest, and there was a lively discussion about the female nude and the male gaze. The Lawrence Room talk by Dr Tim Pestell (1987), Senior Curator of Archaeology at Norwich Castle Museum, looked at new evidence relating to the Viking Age in East Anglia.

However, with the advent of the coronavirus and the closure of our collections, many of our plans had to go on hold. The celebration of the 20th anniversary of the People’s Portraits, as well as planned conservation for certain items in the collection, had to be postponed, and new accessions could not be received. Despite this, the Humanities Writing Competition for Year 12 students, based on objects in the Lawrence Room, went ahead successfully. With great

At the Library talk, Dr Ben Griffin (Fellow 2003) spoke about co-curating The Rising Tide: Women at Cambridge. This Cambridge University Library exhibition was accompanied by a lecture series and associated events, including a display of 26 portraits of women. We were pleased to loan our portraits of Agnata Frances Ramsay by Ida Baumann and the Right Honourable Baroness Hale of Richmond by Benjamin Sullivan to this display. The women in and behind the Lawrence Room collections also provided the subject for one of the Rising Tide lectures, given by Dr Hazel Mills (Fellow 1998), Imogen Gunn (Lawrence Room Consultant) and Dr Dorothy Thompson (Walbank 1958). We also loaned ‘Flowers’ by Winifred Nicholson, ‘Iris Table’ by Kate Nicholson and ‘For Body, Soul and Spirit: a Tapestry for Girton College’ by Yelena Popova (Artist in Residence, 2016–17) to the Heong Gallery, Downing College, for their exhibition We Are Here: Women in Art at Cambridge Colleges.

Dr Victoria Bateman, Economist by Anthony Connolly (oil on board), 2019 (Archive reference: GCPH 11/23/44)

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events via social media under the heading of ‘Girton College Art Club’.

dedication, our Maintenance team has been monitoring our collections environment, including the newly installed air-conditioning unit in the Lawrence Room. Luke Burton, our 2019–2020 Artist in Residence, has also been busy in lockdown, not only creating his own works – these include some beautiful enamels produced using a kiln in the studio at Grange Cottage – but also hosting virtual

I very much hope we can invite you to enjoy our collections again soon, at least virtually, if not in person. Hannah Westall, Archivist and Curator

Music

The first anniversary concert of the year, a piano recital by Matthew Schellhorn (1995), took place in September 2019 as part of the Roll Weekend. Beethoven’s ‘Pathétique’ Sonata was coupled with delicious miniatures by Maurice Emmanuel and Herbert Howells, some of which Matthew subsequently released on a chart-topping CD. This was followed in October, on Foundation Day, by a visit from Musician in Residence and former Director of Chapel Music Nicholas Mulroy, accompanied on this occasion by the Director of Music. In fact, Nick gave two inspiring recitals, a private event for the 1869 Society and a public concert, the latter built round Beethoven’s An die ferne Geliebte (To the Distant Beloved) – a concept that, for many, would all too soon turn into reality. A special concert was given in Gray’s Inn in November to mark no fewer than five anniversaries: the 150th anniversary of the

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founding of the College, the 100th anniversary of Women in Law, the 50th anniversary of Baroness Hale’s being called to the Bar (we were delighted that she gave an introductory address), the 40th anniversary of the admission of men, and the 20th anniversary of the founding of the London Girton Jeremy West

When it comes to anniversary specials, you can’t have enough of a good thing. In the last issue of The Year, I reported on a series of concerts that showcased the talents of several generations of Girtonians. However, the anniversary celebrations, paying scant regard to the calendar, carried on through much of the 2019–20 academic year; indeed, our main anniversary series will keep on giving, perhaps even into 2021.

The Ben Comeau Trio entertains lunch guests on Foundation Day


After the concert at Gray’s Inn. From left to right: Ben Comeau, Mateusz Borowiak, Marianne Schönle, Martin Ennis, the Visitor, Chris Hedges, Charlie Siem, the Mistress

Association Music Award. The combined forces of six former holders of the LGA award – Marc Finer (2001), Charlie Siem (2005), Mateusz Borowiak (2006), Ben Comeau (2011), Marianne Schönle (2014) and Chris Hedges (2015) – were testament to the extraordinary richness of Girton’s musical talent. Thanks are owed to the LGA, and to Catherine Bailey (Crick 1978) in particular. They helped the Development Office stage the concert; more importantly, they continue to provide invaluable support for some of Girton’s most gifted musicians. Mateusz Borowiak appeared again, only a few weeks later, in a solo recital at Girton. His programme of interwoven

Chopin studies and Brahms intermezzos, presented as it were in one breath, was truly world-class. One regular described it as the best concert ever heard at Girton. Ben Comeau, who contributed generously to the Girton150 programme, gave the penultimate concert of the series in January; together with the singer Alice McCarthy, he offered a programme of jazz standards, French chansons and original compositions. The final concert should have taken place in June. We hope that Charlie Siem will be able to return to Girton during the coming year to give his COVID-delayed, much anticipated violin recital.

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Oh Brother Creative

Chris Hedges at Gray’s Inn

Of course, normal concert life continued through the earlier part of the year. The schedule included return visits from the South African Peter Martens, who performed the two minor-mode cello suites of J S Bach to mark Remembrance Day, and from Junior Prime Brass, a highly talented ensemble based in Cambridge. We also enjoyed a first appearance in Girton by Olivia Jarvis and Josef Laming, two rising stars of

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the early-music world. Perhaps most memorable was a cameo appearance in two of the Sea Pictures by special guest Catherine Wyn-Rogers, who joined students and Fellows in a programme of works by Elgar. This event was devised by Bye-Fellow Maggie Faultless, who kindly deputised for me as Director of Studies in Music during a term’s academic leave. Student concerts were given in the usual College venues during the first two terms, but they migrated online after Easter. A series of short weekly videos led to a virtual May Week Concert that featured a programme as ambitious as any real concert – though strawberries and cream remained, unfortunately, the responsibility of domestic catering departments. I should like to express thanks to my colleagues, junior and senior, but especially to Jeremy West and Gareth Wilson, who spent days grappling with the technologies needed for socially distanced, sequential recordings of a ten-piece brass ensemble, GirTen, and the College choir. Four undergraduates also stand out. Three are among the cohort of finalists whom COVID-19 robbed of a real May Week. James Mitchell has provided three years of outstanding service as Organ Scholar – and as an instrumental jack-of-all-trades, seen one week on organ, the next on cello, sackbut or trombone. Rachel Hill, whose debut EP Through Rain or Snow was released in February, contributed enormously to both Music Society and choir. She and James were awarded Tom Mansfield Prizes in recognition of their services to College music. Nicholas Maier enjoyed the rare distinction of coming top of the Music Tripos’s piano recital exams in each of his three years at Girton. The fourth student, Kevin Loh, though only a fresher, shared first prize in the CUMS 2020 Concerto Competition. We very much hope that circumstances allow him to perform with orchestra next year. There is one further anniversary event to report. In February the College hosted its second Music Reunion. This brought together Music students and others who had been involved with the Music Society or choir. Remarkably, the matriculation years of those attending spanned almost half the life of the


College. Guests came from far and wide; one, Konrad Bucher, demonstrated skills honed on the Huntingdon Road by opting to return to Berlin by bicycle. Among those assembled were no fewer than ten former organ scholars – surely a record in the history of the College. The main event was a celebratory meal, but singers were encouraged to take part in a massed evensong built round music from the year of Girton’s founding, 1869. The service began with Bruckner’s Locus iste, written for the dedication of the votive chapel of Linz

Cathedral, but the highlight, for me at least, was ‘Wie lieblich sind deine Wohnungen’. This celebrated movement from Brahms’s Ein deutsches Requiem was accompanied, using a new piano-duet arrangement, by John Longstaff (1979) and Valerie Langfield (1969). How lovely indeed, and may we all return to our academic dwelling-places before long. Martin Ennis, Austin and Hope Pilkington Fellow in Music, and Director of Music

Generations of Organ Scholars at the Music Reunion. From left to right: Chad Kelly (2008), Richards Sands (2005), Katherine Hambridge (2004), John Longstaff (1979), Jacqueline Pott (Parr 1978), Hilary Weiland (Elliott 1975), Marilyn Harper (Flemming 1974), Susan Bain (Stanley 1961), Elizabeth Werry (1955), Martin Ennis

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Choir It is hard to select favourite moments from the past academic year. Even though our activities were curtailed by COVID-19, it was an exceptional year for the choir. Within two weeks of the start of Michaelmas Term, we premiered a fantastic setting of Psalm 150 (to celebrate Girton’s 150th birthday), written

The choir in Gloucester Cathedral

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by Tim Watts (1997) for the Commemoration of Benefactors service. Only one week later, the choristers were whisked off for a weekend at Gloucester Cathedral before joining forces with Music staff members Maggie Faultless and Martin Ennis in Girton’s annual single-composer concert, this time focusing


on Edward Elgar. The highlight of the first term, however, was surely recording for BBC Radio 4’s Sunday Worship; this brought students, Fellows and supporters together for a thrilling afternoon of music and readings which was broadcast on 29 December. In January we welcomed Musica Academica, from Hereford Sixth Form College, for a joint evensong, before combining with the chapel choirs of St Catharine’s, Corpus Christi and Fitzwilliam Colleges for a performance of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony with the City of Cambridge Symphony Orchestra at West Road Concert Hall on 1 February. We were also delighted to welcome back around sixty Old Girtonians for an evensong to celebrate Martin Ennis’s thirty years as Director of Music; this featured a new set of Preces and Responses written for the choir by former Music student and choral scholar Rhiannon Randle (2011). Our Friends’ Service the following weekend featured an evensong of music entirely written by Girtonians Milly Atkinson (2016), Rhiannon Randle and Tim Watts, as well as by the Director of Chapel Music. Our next milestone was the release of a CD of music by Marc’Antonio Ingegneri, recorded immediately after our tour

to Lombardy last summer and featuring Musician in Residence Jeremy West with historic-brass students from the Guildhall School and the Royal Welsh College of Music & Drama. A product of original research, this CD brought to light forgotten music by a composer whose contribution to the development of music history goes beyond his fame as Claudio Monteverdi’s teacher. The CD garnered highly complimentary reviews, and we were particularly pleased to feature on BBC Radio 3’s Record Review and Record Review Extra, which no doubt contributed to the success of the CD, which reached No. 9 in the worldwide Classical Charts. We have also learned from our record label, Toccata Classics, that the CD has sold out and is being reprinted – quite an extraordinary achievement for a recording of hitherto unknown music. Our new-found isolation has not prevented our singing together. The wonders of technology have enabled us to produce ‘virtual choir’ videos which allowed us to mount a performance for the May Week Concert. We will doubtless produce more of these but look forward to regaining some semblance of normality in October. Gareth Wilson, Director of Chapel Music

Chapel It would be an understatement to say that this academic year has been eventful, for chaplaincy and indeed for all of us! We began Michaelmas in good form, and with the choir in wonderful voice. Our theme for the term was the Gospels; I explored the different emphasis of each Gospel and, as so often, accompanied the sermons with poetry.

But perhaps the most memorable service of the term came at the very end when, having already done our Advent Carol Service, we reassembled two days later to record a service, titled ‘Christmas on the Edge’, which was broadcast on Radio 4 at the end of December as part of the Sunday Worship series. The service included a wonderful reflective contribution from the College Visitor.

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After the dinner for chapel wardens. From left to right: Jillian Wilkinson (former Library Assistant), Diana Stretton (Marshall 2001), Joanna Lewis (2003), Rachel Morris (Bowes 1999), Dominic Smith (2000), Malcolm Guite, Hedwig Owl (n.d.), Sarah Reynolds (2002), Benedict Coffin (1999)

In Lent Term we made our own contribution to the Girton150 celebrations by having a term of entirely Girtonian preachers. The sequence began with a fine sermon from Will LyonTupman (2014), a recent graduate and now an ordinand, and highlights included an excellent sermon from Angela Tilby (1969), familiar to many from Radio 4’s Thought for the Day. Angela had once been a chapel warden at Girton, and that same Sunday we had a wonderful reunion dinner for chapel wardens past and present. This made me reflect on how fortunate I have been over the years to have such helpful assistants. I’ve been reminiscing a great deal as this has been my final year as Chaplain, and looking back I have nothing but gratitude for the way the College as a whole, and the Chapel community in particular, have welcomed and encouraged me in my time here. I was delighted to see the appointment of the Revd Dr Tim Boniface, and I think that, with all his energy,

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insight and, of course, musical gifts, he will make an excellent new Chaplain. It has been strange that my final term has had to be conducted in absentia, and yet there has been opportunity there too. I enjoyed working with our Director of Chapel Music, Gareth Wilson, to produce our online services on the theme of the Lord’s Prayer. I would rather have been in Chapel, but it did mean we were able to have an online congregation many times the size of our usual Sunday attendance. I will miss being Chaplain immensely, and I want to take this opportunity to thank all those who, over the years, have done so much to make Chapel the flourishing institution that it is. Malcolm Guite, Chaplain


Fellows’ Research Evenings A glass of wine. A warm fire. Outstanding scholars with interesting things to say. A Fellows’ Research Evening at Girton is something to savour. Michaelmas Term began with Dr Diana Fusco, Fellow and University Lecturer, sharing her research expertise on biological physics. This was followed by an excellent event in November, where we welcomed both Fellows and PhD students. Dr Sinéad Moylett presented her research into the predictors and outcomes of dementia with Lewy bodies; she was joined by PhD student Joanne Green who discussed the intersection of death, emotions and gender in entomology. As nights grew longer, the topics got smaller, with the first evening of Lent Term featuring Dr Lisa-Maria Needham’s wonderfully titled talk, ‘Adventures in Nanoland’. Dr Needham, Tucker-Price Research Fellow in Chemistry, was paired with PhD student Torkel Loman, who shared fascinating insights into the behaviour of bacteria in response to environmental ‘noise’. February saw Artist in Residence Luke Burton examine attitudes of ambivalence in contemporary art with a wonderful tour through some of his work. Later in the term, the research evening embraced innovation in the form of a joint MCR/SCR Pecha Kucha-style event, with four presenters offering snapshots of their research within strict time limits. Composer and performer Cevanne Horrocks-Hopayian, the 2020 Mary Amelia Cummins Harvey Visiting Fellow Commoner, introduced us to ‘eye music’; this was followed by

MPhil student Eddy Pandey sharing insights on Plato. Myles Zhang unpacked the architecture of incarceration by laying bare Benthamite prison designs, and I offered some thoughts on the changing role of civil servants. The final event of Lent Term was an occasion for reflection, as the Mistress hosted an evening of conversation with the Revd Dr Malcolm Guite, celebrating his many years as College Chaplain. There was wisdom and wit in equal measure – and that was just from the Mistress! Malcolm will be sorely missed. Easter Term evenings shifted online in the face of the COVID-19 lockdown. Music provided a welcome balm, with the Director of Chapel Music, Gareth Wilson, presenting on the composer Marc’Antonio Ingegneri. And the magic continued with a live concert two weeks later by Cevanne Horrocks-Hopayian. In May, Dr Carolina Alves, Joan Robinson Research Fellow in Heterodox Economics, provided a fascinating presentation on the way in which central banks use ‘dollar swap lines’ to maintain liquidity in the face of crises. We then rounded off the year with something of a spy thriller as our Helen Cam Visiting Fellow Commoner, Professor Jonathan Schneer, beamed in from the USA to share insights into his book on the Lockhart Plot. A fitting end to a marvellous year of research evenings, showcasing just some of the wonderful talent that Girton brings together. Dennis Grube, Official Fellow for Postdoctoral Affairs

Hail and Farewell During the year the Fellowship sadly lost Honorary Fellow Professor Margaret Burbidge and Life Fellow Professor Richard Himsworth, both of whom are commemorated elsewhere in this issue of The Year. On a happier note, Colin Tyler was

elected to a Barbara Bodichon Foundation Fellowship; as reported last year, he endowed the Margaret Tyler Research Fellowship in Geography with a generous benefaction in memory of his wife (Margaret Hughes, 1953 Geography) to

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mark the College’s 150th anniversary. Dr Frances Brill will hold the first Margaret Tyler Research Fellowship from October 2020, and another early-career researcher, Dr Emma Brownlee, will join us at the same time as Ottilie Hancock Research Fellow in Archaeology.

Research Fellow in the History and Philosophy of Science, moved on to the Ptolemaeus Arabus et Latinus project at the Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften. Finally, Dr Sinéad Moylett, ByeFellow for Study Skills, became an Erskine Visiting Fellow at the University of Canterbury, New Zealand.

Mr James Anderson became our new Bursar, and an Official Fellow, in January 2020. Two of our English Fellows, Dr James Riley and Dr James Wade, were elected to named fellowships during the year, as Muriel Bradbrook Official Fellow and Jane Elizabeth Martin Official Fellow respectively. Dr Wade stepped into the shoes of Dr Sinéad Garrigan Mattar to whom we said farewell this year after many years at Girton. Dr Ben Griffin remains a Fellow, but on his appointment to a University lectureship, the title of Marilyn Strathern Official Fellow in History passed to Dr Simone Maghenzani. Our scholarly community welcomed Dr Christian Keime as Eugénie Strong Research Fellow in Classics; Mark Smith of the Judge Business School became a Bye-Fellow to support the career-transition aspects of our Thrive Programme for students; and we were joined by three further Bye-Fellows, all directing studies in their subjects: Dr Stephen Cummins (Computer Science), Dr Marie-Aude Genain (Veterinary Medicine), and Dr Eleonora Po (Veterinary Medicine). Sofia Singler was our Director of Studies in Architecture during 2019–20.

We also said farewell to several staff members. Brian Buncombe, Deputy Head Porter for many years, retired during Easter Term; Tom Smith became Acting Deputy in his place. Andra Hoole, HR Manager, moved to Homerton, and we welcomed her replacement Sandra Airewele. Head Chef Nick O’Mahoney left, with Simon Turner stepping into his whites. Dr Liesl Conradie, Accommodation Manager, completed her maternity cover for Emma Salmon. Kuba Kubiszyn, Depak Hathiramani, Scott Johnson and Odean Davids also left the Catering team. We said goodbye too to Dave Papala, Electrician and Deputy Maintenance Manager. Other leavers during the year were Lisa Jones, College Nurse; Anna McGlinchey and Annie Hoyle, Schools Liaison Officers; Patrick Lambert, Gardener; Michelle O’Brien, Lodge Porter; Paul Daniels, Plumber; Helen Shearing, Senior Library Assistant; Mary Richmond, Summer Programmes Administrator; Nikki Donald, Cleaner and Relief Porter; and Jane Loom, Front of House Operator.

New to the Life Fellowship this year were Debbie Lowther, who retired in December 2019 after 25 years as Bursar, and the Revd Dr Malcolm Guite, who retired as Chaplain at the end of September 2020. Our new chaplain will be the Revd Dr Tim Boniface. A number of Fellows left us this year for pastures new. Dr Kamiar Mohaddes, Official Fellow in Economics, became a University Senior Lecturer at the Judge Business School and a Fellow of King’s College. Dr Sean Collins, Henslow Research Fellow in Materials Science and Metallurgy, took up a University Academic Fellowship at the Bragg Centre for Materials Research at the University of Leeds, while Dr Seb Falk, Rosamund Chambers

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It was all change in the Development Office as Susie Bromwich, Anna Greenwood and Emily Robb moved on. Tamsin ElbournOnslow was promoted to Development Manager (Major Gifts); and Amy Cudmore joined as Development Officer (Annual Funds and Events). Robert Kiss was new to the kitchens, and we took on three new porters, Wayne Newton, Paul Thornton and Stephen Whybrow. We also welcomed Chloe Richardson, Schools Liaison Officer; Karen Dalton, Summer Programmes Administrator; Richard Reeve, Plumber; Ian Littlechild, Electrician/Deputy Maintenance Manager; Cleaners Marius Varlan and Cass Whitman; and Artur Myszka was promoted to Senior Sous Chef. Caroline Shenton, Secretary to Council


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JCR With the impact of COVID-19, this academic year has been dramatic and unprecedented for the College. The JCR Committee has continued to demonstrate that it is a key part of College, providing support to all its student members throughout the crisis. However, the pandemic

JCR Committee, 2019–20

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should not overshadow the rest of the JCR’s incredible work over the past year. As always, the year began with Freshers’ Week, which saw an exciting array of inclusive and accessible events. Returning

events, such as the infamous ‘Hunt’, were as successful as ever, while new events, such as the Superbop, proved equally popular. The Freshers’ Committee is to be thanked for their hard work and dedication in making the week so enjoyable for everyone.


There was further success throughout the year. Girton remains proud of its continued sporting prowess, with notable achievements in skiing, football, rugby and lacrosse. We are steadily progressing to the top of the leagues in all sports, and numerous College members have been awarded Blues. The introduction of the new role of JCR Sports Officer should ensure Girton’s sporting achievements continue and are recognised in years to come. Equally, music has remained an important part of the College, with numerous individual successes, a growing orchestral scene, and the introduction of open-mic nights which allow musicians of varying levels of experience across the College to get involved. There have been other exciting changes and events in the College over the past year. These include the introduction of the new Social Hub, the recently renovated Porters’ Lodge, the LGBTQ+ formal which welcomed back alumna Sandi Toksvig, numerous events celebrating Girton’s 150th anniversary, and the incredible Girton Spring Ball, with its Arthouse theme, which transformed the College with a vibrant display of diverse artists and artistic styles.

Freshers’ Week Committee, 2019

I would like to thank the students, staff and Fellows for all the enthusiasm and determination they have displayed this year. We did not have the end of year that we were anticipating, but the efforts of the JCR, and of the College as a whole, remind us that even though we might not be there physically, we will always remain a part of Girton. Nicole Brocksom, President

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MCR MCR spirits were high last summer, with a very successful Girton–Robinson Garden Party. We expanded Freshers’ Orientation at the beginning of the academic year, when new graduate students were welcomed to two and a half weeks of events, including movie and pub evenings, international food and ice-cream socials, and punting trips and explorations of the city. The College, JCR and MCR joined forces to celebrate the orchard legacy on Apple Day, which we hope will carry on as a College tradition.

The highlight of October was the highly anticipated Foundation Day, celebrating 150 years of higher education for women in Cambridge. Along with the social activities, academic events showcased the diversity of research in College. Termly Pecha Kucha nights and MCR–SCR research evenings featured topics including the philosophy of prison design, the mathematics of bacterial environmental

Afif Akmal Photography

MCR members at the Spring Ball

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The MCR Committee, 2019–2020

adaptation, and the life and thoughts of the Victorian lepidopterist Margaret Fountaine. Starting this year, we have initiated closer associations with the College’s postdoc community and hope to build on this in the years ahead. Another highlight was the ‘superformal’ with Clare Hall and King’s College, which revived the glitz and glam of the 1920s, reminiscent of The Great Gatsby. After a wonderful themed dinner prepared by the College’s dedicated kitchen staff, members and their guests enjoyed a night full of jazz and dancing. This event, along with other swap socials, presented a great opportunity to bring together different graduate communities, including those from Queens’, Darwin and Christ’s Colleges.

As Lent Term closed with the emergence of the COVID-19 pandemic, the MCR remains hopeful for the time that lies ahead. Many MCR members were unable to return home, and we are grateful for the support provided by the College in keeping us safe. Biweekly tea and cake events have been replaced by coffee breaks with the Mistress over Zoom as graduate students scattered round the world prepare for their exams. Despite these uncertain times, we are determined to keep our spirits high to prevent the tragedy of the pandemic from overshadowing this year’s good memories. On behalf of the MCR, we would like to give the porters, staff, tutors, Fellows and the Mistress a heartfelt thankyou. Jennifer Jia and Torkel Loman, President and VicePresident

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Badminton (Men’s) The Girton badminton team found itself in a difficult position at the beginning of Michaelmas Term. Four key players had just graduated, leaving us in a high division and without the core of the team that had performed so well. This, coupled with a smaller intake of first-years, led to the decision to merge the first and second teams. We hoped to find enough people committed to playing competitive matches, but times when everyone was free were few and far between. Despite these difficulties, we played one match against Trinity

2. It was a close affair, with hardfought games against a strong team that finished fourth in a very competitive division. We were unfortunate to come out with a 7-2 loss which did not reflect the efforts of the team. Two forfeits from Anglia Ruskin and Churchill 2 were just enough for us to avoid relegation. Unfortunately, during Lent Term we were unable to play any matches in the league, although our weekly casual sessions went from strength to strength. We started, in week 1, with a modestly sized group which swiftly swelled until, in week 5, we

had the largest gathering of keen badminton players I have seen in my time at Girton. In fact, so many people turned up that we ran out of rackets, forcing me to make a trip into town to buy a few more. Many thanks go to Henry Waugh who helped immeasurably by booking courts, securing funding and captaining the team during Michaelmas Term. It was wonderful to see so many new people playing badminton this year, and I hope that they all continue to enjoy playing for many years to come. Jamie MacDonald, Co-Captain

Boat Club (Men’s and Women’s) The 2019–20 academic year has seen membership of the Girton College Boat Club soar, with a novice intake of undergraduates and postgraduates large enough to fill both Men’s and Women’s Novice boats. Michaelmas saw opportunities for crews to experience racing: Novice Women’s and Novice Men’s Eights enjoyed a taste of victory in the knockout head-to-head Emma Sprints Regatta, before all crews (Novice and Senior Eights) ended the

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term racing in the Fairbairn Cup, displaying outstanding effort and commitment to the sport in what is the longest race of the year. Unfortunately, storms Ciara and Dennis brought such high winds that, for a large part of Lent Term, only the Women’s and Men’s I were able to train consistently, with Robinson and Newnham Heads giving crews much-needed race experience as Bumps drew ever closer.

Girton entered three crews in the Lent Bumps 2020: Women’s I, Men’s I and Men’s II, with Women’s II recording the fastest Getting on Race time of all non-Bumps Women’s crews. The weather for the week provided just as much drama as the races themselves, throwing snow, wind, rain and sunshine at our indomitable Girton rowers. In an outstanding display of resilience and strength, Men’s I rowed the full course all four days. Men’s II, on the other hand, did


First Women’s Crew after Day 3 of the Bumps

little racing, bumping on their first three days within minutes of the starting cannon; a row-over on the last day deprived them of blades, but three days’ worth of foliage helped soften the blow. The grins radiating from the crew on the row-back each day concealed the fact that it was ‘Spoons’ for Women’s I, and they, along with the Men’s crews, hope to improve on their performance at next year’s Lent Bumps.

Second Men’s Crew celebrating their first bump

Girton is well represented at University level, with six rowers in the open and lightweight crews and more training hard to trial in the future. Yfke van der Heijden rowed the Cambridge women to victory in the Lightweight Boat Race, while Teague Smith captained the unsuccessful men’s side. GCBC rowers seem to spend as much time together off the water as

on it, coming together for Sunday circuit training, Boat Club curries, impromptu nights out and our termly Boat Club dinners. The club provides a wonderful atmosphere for students from all years and subjects to come together over a shared passion and form the friendships that make those pre-dawn traffic jams on the Cam a little less painful. Harry McMullan, President

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Cartwright Mathematics Society Our year started with the return of two recent Girton graduates, Ryan Jenkinson and Sophie Sadler, who gave us an insight into Machine Learning and how they use it in their careers. Together they did a fantastic job of providing a talk accessible to those who dropped Mathematics after their GCSEs – no doubt they regret it now – while still engrossing for those about to start their journeys towards a PhD in Computing. The timing could not have been better, since Machine Learning is now offered as a Part II course. As ever, our termly pub crawls have been popular; these are our main method of bringing in new members at the start of the year, attracting even Humanities students to our evenings of alcohol and (limited) mathematics. Our relations

with Girton’s Board Games Society remain strong, no doubt affected by their strong STEM numbers, but they have provided competition when we have events on the same nights. Our weekly meet-ups have sustained healthy numbers, doubtless due to the unhealthy snacks provided. While many attended with noble intentions of doing some work, we realised as others arrived with their home-baked cakes that there are better ways to spend an evening than toiling over example sheets due in a week’s time, and the night usually unwound into entertainment and conversation. The coronavirus pandemic certainly hasn’t affected our strong spirit. Group work sessions and games

nights have already been held over various video-call apps, and many more are yet to come. We hope that holding our first online talk might bring in even more Mathmos at other colleges; for many, the lack of free food and wine pales in comparison with no longer having to make the arduous (to their mind) trek up Huntingdon Road. Indeed, connections with other colleges are stronger than ever, with our first-years holding joint end-of-term celebrations with their Gonville and Caius counterparts. I am sure we will all miss having a final pub crawl as one cohort, but of course we look forward to inviting those about to graduate back for a well-deserved celebration once the world has calmed down a little! Henry Colbert, President

Christian Union There’s a tranquillity over Girton when the morning is icy. You can hear it before you even set out across the Emily Davies Court lawn to the bike sheds. Everything is slower to stir, the black squirrels

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have yet to make their mark on the grass, the cool red bricks have yet to soak up the fresh morning sun. It is at exactly this time of year that the Cambridge Inter-Collegiate Christian Union holds its annual

Events Week. The mornings are cold, the days are short, but the conversations are rich. It is February 2020, and across Cambridge, black and white


jumpers emblazoned with ‘LIFE’ start to pop up around the city. A ‘prism board’ with questions such as ‘Can we ever be truly satisfied?’ appears at the Sidgwick and Downing Sites overnight. Events Week, this year entitled ‘LIFE: Is there Meaning in the Mess?’, is the highlight of the Christian Union’s calendar. J R R Tolkien once reasoned with the atheist C S Lewis that certain stories are shadows and fragments of a ‘true myth’, an overarching story of God’s relationship with mankind. It was the ‘true myth’ we explored over the course of this week, with lunchtime and evening talks unpacking the relevance of compelling claims made 2,000 years ago.

bushy-tailed freshers, giving them an opportunity to test out the array of different churches in Cambridge. The term culminated with a heartwarming carol service at Great St Mary’s, students’ voices lifted in age-old carols under the wooden, candlelit beams of the church. Amid this whirlwind of events, we meet regularly in an oasis of calm to pray for the University, read the Bible, and plan other term-time events.

We’re thrilled to be handing over our role as College Representatives to Emily Moore and Ben Pymer, who will continue to lead the group in the year to come. While Easter Term has not involved the familiar trudge across the lawn to the bike sheds, we find ourselves meeting online, and look forward to the icy mornings of Michaelmas 2020. Natasha Leake, Representative for the Christian Union

Events Week may be the highlight of our calendar, but it does not stand alone. In Easter Term 2019, the Girton Christian Union held the much loved ‘Text-a-Toastie’ event in College, exchanging free toasties for discussions about life, history and faith. Tracing a solution for the spirit of our age seems more important than ever to us, and events such as these attempt to initiate these explorations. In Michaelmas Term 2019, we hosted ‘Church-Search Breakfasts’ for a new influx of bright-eyed and

Christian Union Zoom meeting. From top left to bottom right: Emily Moore, Ben Pymer, Timothy Lee, Francesca Anker, Natasha Leake, Ryan McMahon, Elisha Roberts, David de Oliviera

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Engineering Society It has been two years since the founding of Girton Engineering Society, and it is going from strength to strength. The society was founded in the hope of providing a forum for engineers of all disciplines (Manufacturing, Chemical or Electrical) and all levels of study (from freshers to Fellows) to socialise, support

and advise one another, and discuss developments in industry. We hope we have continued to build the strong Engineering community here at Girton through our varied programme of events this year. The year began with a social in Michaelmas Term to welcome the Freshers and provide some hard-earned nuggets of advice for tackling the famed Engineering workload. Michaelmas Term also saw the society attend the Foundation Day Societies Fair to promote our activities and ultimately come home with the prize for best display table and presentation; this was put towards the organisation of a speaker event in College. Lent Term saw the long-awaited arrival of society ‘stash’ in the form of hoodies and T-shirts proudly emblazoned with our ‘black squirrel with a spanner’ logo, which were handed out at yet another well-attended social. My personal highlight of the year came in the form of the aforementioned speaker event, which took place on 26 February 2020. Nick Sartain, a Girton Engineering alumnus and head of geotechnical engineering on the HS2 project, provided a fascinating presentation on his career and the role of civil engineering in constructing a better world. The event was exceptionally well attended by the College community, and we would like to give special thanks to Nick for taking time out of his schedule to tell us all about his work and answer our many questions. Although Easter Term will be somewhat unusual in its delivery, we aspire to keep the support network for engineers going by running virtual events such as pub quizzes and post-examination celebratory socials to lift everyone’s spirits.

Members of the Engineering Society show off their new hoodies. From left to right: Francisco Estaca, Andrew Lam, Dimitris Alexandridis

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Hannah Jenkinson, President


Football (Men’s First Team) The Men’s First Team had a competitive, hard-fought season. Following last year’s demotion to Division II, the team launched a bid to get back into the top flight. An influx of keen and talented freshers, along with a few experienced players returning from a year out of Cambridge, bolstered our ranks for the season and gave us tremendous squad depth. The traditional preseason friendly against Fitzwilliam College was promising, as a team made up of mostly new players pushed them until the final whistle. Our Cuppers run was sadly cut short in the first round against Caius. However, we were entered into the Shield competition which put us in a great position to secure some silverware. After a walkover and brushing off Christ’s in the semi-final, we faced St Catharine’s in the final. This was a thrilling game: Oliver Tapper scored an early goal to put us ahead, and Luca Scrase doubled our lead just before half-time. However, St Catharine’s clawed a goal back and the last five minutes saw them produce an equaliser to take the game to extra time. Girton dominated extra time and hit the woodwork on several occasions, but 120 minutes couldn’t separate the two teams. A penalty shootout followed, and unfortunately St Catharine’s came away with the victory.

At the Old Boys game

Our season in the league was up and down. There were a few resounding wins including a 7–3 thriller against Christ’s, but also a handful of narrow losses. The tune was the same as last season – one-or-two-goal defeats that could have easily gone our way if we had been more consistent in front of the goal. We were spoiled for

choice this year with our selection of players; everyone was keen to play, and having at least two or three substitutes at every game made a big difference. This was summed up in our draw against Trinity Hall, a gutsy and resilient performance as the hail and wind made the match almost unplayable; however, we braved the conditions and came

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away with a crucial point. After a nail-biting conclusion to the season, we finished one point above the relegation zone to stay up. The annual Old Boys game saw the

alumni football team retain the Fran Malarée Mug for the fourth year in a row after a resounding 5–1 victory. The traditional curry and drinks afterwards were the highlight of the day and everyone

was in high spirits. Overall, it has been a great season and we are looking forward to another campaign next year.

At the beginning of Michaelmas Term, we were thrilled to host the first French apéro of the year and meet new members. During these apéros we gather to share French bread, wine and cheese. Most of the members bake homemade French food, such as quiche lorraine, tartes de Provence and some delicious French pâtisseries! We have lots of fun initiating nonnative speakers in classic French songs and games. At the end of

Michaelmas Term we also have a French Christmas Party, which is always a great success.

Juan Rodgers, Captain

French Society The Girton French Society focuses on promoting French culture, providing opportunities for students to improve their language skills while becoming more familiar with French traditions at informal events. Throughout the year we organise events such as apéros, dinners and cultural outings. All events are open to everyone, and we are always very keen to ensure that non-native speakers feel comfortable and are fully involved in our conversations.

We organise swaps with French societies in other colleges (Trinity, Murray Edwards, Darwin and Newnham this year): it is really nice to meet new people from all over the University who share the same interests. This year, we organised three French formals in Darwin, Selwyn and Murray Edwards. Some members also attend film-screening sessions organised by the Cambridge University French Society. It is a pleasure to see that the members of the Girton French Society have been staying in touch since the creation of the society, and that old members often come back to Girton to meet up.

From left to right: Amélie Loubens, Louise Aumont, Capucine May, Livia Benini, Blanche Comolli, Marine Schimel, Borane Gille Gacha and Rose Borel

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Blanche Comolli and Amélie Loubens, President and VicePresident


Joan Robinson Society The Joan Robinson Society (JRS) is Girton’s student-run Economics Society. It is named after Joan Robinson, a Girtonian and one of the most prominent female economists of all time, best known for her pioneering work on imperfect competition and post-Keynesian economics. The society continues to operate in the same spirit of academic curiosity today, using its platform to host speakers from an array of disciplines who provide insight into economics beyond the Tripos curriculum, demonstrating the importance of the subject in the context of real-world issues. Our first speaker event was a talk called ‘Brexit: the outlook for 2019 and beyond’ delivered by Sonali Punhani, Senior Economist and in-house expert on Brexit at Credit Suisse, where she has a team of Cambridge alumni. It was an enthralling opportunity to learn about the firm’s multiple predictions for how Brexit would unfold and what they envisaged for the future UK–EU commercial relationship. Sonali provided absorbing information about what the firm believed would be the ramifications of Brexit for its business divisions and the UK financial sector as a whole. We gained an insight into the meticulous planning being undertaken by a global firm

in preparing for the multitude of possible Brexit outcomes. This talk was the Society’s most popular and best attended to date. Michaelmas Term concluded with the annual Christmas dinner at Al Casbah. This was a chance for all involved with Economics at Girton to unwind in an informal setting after a hectic term and to celebrate the completion of the first term of the academic year. In Lent Term, the society opened its events with the third-year dissertation presentations. This was the opportunity for finalyear undergraduates to detail

their motivation and contribution to the existing literature, and to explain the underlying theory and models they were planning to use in their dissertations. This year saw students present on topics including corruption, public debt, abortion laws, and environmental and behavioural economics. The society has put on a unique and engaging set of events this year which has been extremely well received, and we look forward to welcoming the freshers in October for the host of exciting events that are planned. Ayush Salgia, President Annual JRS Christmas dinner

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Lacrosse (Mixed) The 2019–20 season has been incredible for Girton’s mixed lacrosse team (the Cloud Leopards). After a particularly strong fresher intake, the team has excelled

in the inter-college leagues. This intake consisted of many players who were new to the sport but keen to learn, as well as some stronger players including Sam Allen, who holds a half-Blue in men’s lacrosse. After many years of struggling to avoid relegation from Division Two, we finally had a chance to win promotion. In Michaelmas Term the team went from strength to strength, winning six of our seven matches with some impressive scores, including 6–0 against both Emmanuel College and the Vet School. We finished the term sitting comfortably at the top of Division Two, and consequently were promoted to Division One.

At the Cloud Leopards dinner. From left to right: Jeffrey Tan, Tom Lee and Henry Waugh

Cloud Leopards fresh from victory over St John’s. Clockwise from top left: George Cowperthwaite, Henry Waugh, Tean Manser, Matthew Davies, Sam Allen, Elys Healy, Scarlet Sinclair, Jeffrey Tan, Mia Reisser-Weston

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The awful weather during Lent Term led to the cancellation of many matches and of Cuppers, but it was no reflection of the team’s mood; despite suffering two losses we continued to thrive. We finished the season in the middle of the league table following some respectable results, so will remain in Division One for the start of the 2020–21 season. The team has maintained a strong social element, with evening get-togethers and a dinner in town. Now more than ever, the team feels cohesive and there is a great bond between players, which must in part account for our success this year. A special mention must go to Tom Lee who is graduating after four years as one of the team’s strongest and most committed players, setting up countless goals and teaching essential skills to many freshers. Jeffrey Tan and I are confident in handing over the captaincy to George Jackson and Mia Reisser-Weston who, we know, will dedicate themselves to keeping the Cloud Leopards in the top league next year. Elys Healy, Co-Captain


LGBTQ+

I am proud of two new initiatives that I have promoted during my time as LGBTQ+ officer: the setting up of the Girton LGBTQ+ subcommittee, and the introduction of the Gender Expression Fund. The subcommittee is a group of LGBTQ+ individuals with representatives from specific identities within the community: lesbian, bisexual/biromantic, asexual/ aromantic/demisexual representative, gay, trans/non-binary, no labels and questioning. We did not have a trans/non-binary rep this time around, but we are hoping that someone will come forward soon.

Ximena Barker Huesca

The LGBTQ+ community of Girton is strong and supportive, and I was delighted to start my term of office as JCR LGBTQ+ Officer with an LGBTQ+ formal hall at which Sandi Toksvig was the guest of honour. Following the success of this event, we have continued to connect with other colleges and have held a number of joint socials including coffee-shop, brunch and bar socials. We hosted a Rainbow Ent during Pride Month in the new Social Hub and underground bar. This was a celebration of the College and the wider LGBTQ+ community. There have been many Girton-exclusive LGBTQ+ events within College this year, which have provided a safe space for the community to get together. LGBTQ+ subcommittee. From left to right: Elizabeth Dearden-Williams, Tiffany Lee, Sarah Merrick, Annabelle York, Ella Pound, Laura Elcock, Max Leadbetter

This subcommittee ensures that the JCR takes into account the needs of the whole community by providing friendly faces for people to go to if they have identity-specific questions or concerns. It has been a great success so far. The Gender Expression Fund is a fund which allows the JCR LGBTQ+ Officer to reimburse students who purchase items to make them more comfortable with their gender presentation, including but not limited to binders, packers, concealing underwear,

wigs and breast forms. I hope that this fund allows all students to feel comfortable and at home at Girton College. It has been an honour to represent the Girton JCR LGBTQ+ community over the past year. I am excited to see what my successor, Max Leadbetter, will bring to the Girton LGBTQ+ community. Sarah Merrick, JCR LGBTQ+ Officer

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Medical and Veterinary Society The Girton Medical and Veterinary Society (GMVS) has had an active year, hosting several academic and social events for our members. Starting off the year with the Foundation Day Societies Fair as part of Girton’s 150th-anniversary celebrations, GMVS sought creative ways to present medical topics such as using uniquely shaped grapes to mimic the appearance of grampositive rod-shaped bacteria at our showcase. Following this, our annual initiation ceremony and curry night gave the freshers a warm welcome into the GMVS family. Aside from social events, we saw a great turnout for subject-related talks. The first talk, presented by Dr Claudia Maizen on the applications of artificial intelligence (AI) in medicine, left students and Fellows pondering the tremendous potential

Invitation for the Jubilee Vets’ Supper Party

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of AI technologies to transform the practice of medicine in the future. In Lent Term, Dr Ali Abdaal, a wellknown YouTuber and Foundation Year 2 doctor, spoke about time management, side projects and enjoying life as a medical student. During his talk, he conveyed advice that not only was inspiring, but also calmed the nerves and anxieties of students. In October 2019, the vets held a special Jubilee Vets’ Supper Party for all current Girton vets and friends to meet and network. In order to celebrate 150 years of Girton, recently graduated Girton vets were invited as speakers to give a very contemporary outlook on a career in veterinary medicine. It was inspiring to hear Dr Maheeka Seneviratne speaking about practising in a busy small animal clinic in Sri Lanka and the challenges she faced when securing her current training position in Small Animal Surgery at the Royal Veterinary College. Dr Brian Man-Yin Leung, who works in Small Animal Practice as a general practitioner and has an interest in diagnostic imaging, engaged us with his openness about struggles with and ways of overcoming loneliness, low-grade depression and exam anxiety. His reflections on how to deal proactively with

struggles early on were not only incredibly useful; they were also presented in an entertaining way. Easter Term brought ‘Tremendous Thursdays’, an initiative that was hosted on Zoom by Dr Fiona Cooke, bringing together both students and medical Fellows. These weekly sessions comprised a 20-minute talk on a pathology topic presented by Dr Suzy Lishman, followed by quizzes on a range of subjects from art in medicine to medical-related food trivia. While students were able to gain a deeper insight into pathology as a profession, the medical Fellows were able to appreciate the similarities between their own specialties and pathology. Amid the stresses of the COVID-19 pandemic, these weekly online gatherings were invaluable in strengthening the Girton medical community. Our heartfelt gratitude goes to the Fellows who made these sessions possible. Overall, GMVS saw a very fruitful year, with enthusiastic participation at events and heightened camaraderie among students. Madhumitha Pandiaraja, VicePresident, Shehani Kumarasiri, Secretary, with contributions from Dr Heidi Radke, Fellow in Veterinary Medicine


MML Society Laurie Favarato

Foundation Day in October saw the official launch of the Girton College MML Society. The society aims to promote foreign languages and cultures and is open to MML students and non-linguists alike. We have hosted several social events throughout the year; our ‘Wine and Cheese Evening’ proved a popular and enjoyable welcome event (nonalcoholic drinks were, of course, also provided). We thank Dr Stuart Davis for his support during the year. It has been a great pleasure to be involved with the society and we look forward to seeing it grow in the terms to come. Laurie Favorato, President

Decorations at the Wine and Cheese Evening in the Stanley Library

Poetry Group The College Poetry Group has formed an essential part of our experience at Girton, and we were excited to have the opportunity to lead the sessions this year. The group provides a supportive and welcoming environment for new and established poets and is one of the few societies in Cambridge where students, Fellows, alumni and staff can discuss the wonders of poetry. We aimed to bring our enthusiasm for the Poetry Group to this year’s meetings, and have been delighted to welcome new members who contributed some excellent poetry. It has been a joy to see the creativity and ingenuity with which people have

responded to our prompts, often exploring certain poetic forms for the first time. We have done our best to maintain the encouraging atmosphere of the Poetry Group. This has led to absorbing conversations, ranging from explorations of climate change to anecdotes about using a halfuncle’s socks as Christmas stockings. We’ve had a poem which parodied a scam email, poems inspired by works of art, minimalist masterpieces, meta-poetry and fairy-tale poems.

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We’re so grateful to everyone who has submitted their verse or turned up to meetings – their ideas and conversations are what make the group such a rewarding experience. We’re especially grateful to Stephen Robertson for keeping up the website with its repository of past poems, and to Peter Sparks for providing plentiful wine, pastoral support and gentle nudges of encouragement, without which Poetry Group would not run nearly as smoothly.

Drawing of Poetry Group meeting by Peter Sparks

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As we write this, amid the coronavirus pandemic, we are in the process of organising a virtual version of Poetry Group as we will not be able to meet physically at Girton this term. Even in these strange times, we hope that Poetry Group will continue to bring people together. Francesca Weekes and Giorgio Ragozzino, Co-Leaders


Natural Sciences Society The ever-changing world of science is fascinating, and as we find ourselves in the midst of a pandemic we are reminded of the many different applications of science. This year, the Natural Sciences Society has brought together a range of people with varying backgrounds, from Materials Science to Virology, all with a shared interest in understanding the way in which our world works. While many of the members study for the Natural Sciences Tripos, covering over 20 different subjects, over the past academic year we have seen increasing interest from others in the College community wishing to get involved. Throughout the two terms spent in Cambridge this year we have been very active as a society, focusing on communication and strengthening interdisciplinary connections. The year started with the Girton 150th-anniversary celebrations, and the Foundation Day Societies Fair, where we showcased some of the many ways in which students engage with science beyond their lectures and labs. This included scientific illustrations, conservation reports, and computer programs written to model the behaviour of bacteria. There was a great level of engagement, with members of our

scientific community delighted to share their interests with others. We have held regular social events throughout the year, with the traditional NatSci drinks at the beginning and middle of each term. An addition to the Natural Sciences Society calendar has been the introduction of a termly David Attenborough Night, which has had a high turnout, allowing people to take a break from example sheets and learn more about the environment we live in. Additionally, there have been formal-hall swaps with Fitzwilliam College, and at the end of Lent Term a black-tie event was held at Selwyn College with Murray Edwards and Homerton Colleges. By means of these events we have established relationships as a scientific college community, and we have built upon the intercollegiate relationships formed in the last academic year. In preparation for the coming term, we are organising virtual alternatives to our usual events to keep the scientific community at Girton thriving. These include information events to help students choose their options and pathways in later years, as well as career events. Usually we end the year with a NatSci garden party to celebrate everyone’s hard work and

Illustration by Kristina Calver, showcased at Foundation Day Societies Fair

the end of a difficult Easter term. This year we hope to celebrate together via a video call, marking the navigation of a Cambridge term quite unlike any we have experienced before. Eloise Christie, President

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Rugby (Girton and Hills Colleges Women’s Team) Leigh Chatten Photography

CURUFC Women’s Blues celebrate their Varsity win

Following a restructuring of the women’s college system, all rugby at Cambridge is centrally based, with new players benefiting from access to the same coaching as the University teams. Yet again, Girton was well represented at the Varsity Match, with three players selected to play at the ‘Home of English Rugby’ on 12 December 2019. Hannah Samuel (wing) and Laura

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Bleehen (prop) each won their first rugby Blue (Laura converted from football only in September). First team stalwart Alice Elgar (Blue 2015, 2016, 2017 and 2018) had struggled for fitness following concussion early in the season, and was named on the bench, but came on at half-time to help Cambridge secure a hard-fought 8–5 win. All three players were key members of

the Blues Squad and played regularly as Cambridge finished second on their return to the BUCS Premiership South. Due to the rapid growth of women’s rugby at Cambridge, CURUFC was able to run training for three women’s squads ranging from experienced Blues to brand-new players. The Tigers (Second Team)


were therefore joined for the first time by the Jaguars (Third Team) for their trip to Iffley Road, Oxford, for their Varsity Matches in March. Hannah Taylor started at tighthead prop for the Jaguars, who won

20–10, while Aude Mulard started on the wing for the Tigers, who fought bravely but ultimately went down 10–34 to a strong Oxford side. This strength bodes well for the future of women’s rugby, and

there will undoubtedly continue to be Girtonians representing the University at all levels of the game.

forward to October having returned to its proper place in Division 1. This season saw us continue to pair

with Pembroke College as ‘Pirton’, with Pembroke’s troops under Will Melling adding much to the

Alice Elgar, CURUFC Women’s Team Secretary

Rugby (Men’s) Having begun the season languishing in Division 4, Girton Rugby Football Club now looks

Pirton after match with Queens’ A. From left to right: (back row) Tom Allen, Ed Davies, Will Melling, Dan Smith, Kit Livsey, Archie Arran, Cory Freeman, Josh Tyler; (front row) Jamie Morley, Cameron McKie, Joseph O’Donnell, Gareth Morgan, Ed Plaut, David de Oliviera

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side. Thanks to the thrice-yearly promotion cycle of the league, this season saw us take two pieces of silverware in back-to-back Division 3 and 2 titles. The season started well, with a strong cohort of freshers joining the team. A winning run quickly ensued, resulting in promotion to Division 3 during Michaelmas Term, and to Division 2 at Christmas. A 22–12 win over CCK (Clare, Corpus and King’s), and a 22–14 win over Selwyn were highlights, only offset by a loss to Queens’, which unfortunately sidelined winger George Nishimura for the rest of the season. We also enjoyed a gripping 19–19 Varsity draw in the pouring rain, as we headed to Oxford to take on Pembroke, Oxford.

Pirton lineout at match with Jesus. From left to right: Ed Davies, Will Melling, James Dark (back to camera)

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January saw the team storm Division 2, with new forwards James Dark and James Thorn adding ballast up front in a string of victories. However, a sloppy display against Homerton left promotion and the title in the balance, with Pirton requiring a bonus point win from the final game against Jesus to come top. Pirton took the game 57–17 in a display of free-flowing, crowdpleasing, Barbarian-style rugby. An exciting rematch in the Cuppers

Plate semi-final loomed before COVID-19 intervened. The season’s end sees us saying goodbye to those leaving Girton, including ever-present enforcer Dan Smith, ball-carrying centre Raife Copp-Barton, and tight-five stalwarts Thorn and Dark. Unerring goalkicker Cameron McKie also departs, as does fleet-footed winger David de Oliviera, captain emeritus Henry Broomfield, and University flanker Ali Broughton. We also lose Chris Bell, Jordan Eriksen and Callum Slatter, who have been crucial members of many Girton and University sides. All three have been great players and leaders for both institutions: December’s Varsity was Chris’s fourth, fittingly finished with a try and a win. The club is grateful for all our leavers’ contributions and we look forward to next year’s Old Boys game. It was a great season for Girton rugby, and we look forward to welcoming more to our number next season under new captain Tom Allen and secretary Josh Tyler. We are, as ever, grateful to Head Groundsman Steve Whiting for his world-class pitches throughout the season. Ed Plaut, Captain


Kezzie Florin-Sefton

SocAnth Society During a supervision, I was surprised to find out that Marilyn Strathern, the anthropologist we were talking about, whose work had consistently cropped up throughout the year, was a former Mistress of Girton College. Oblivious to this fact, I had grown accustomed to eating my dinner in front of her portrait. Responding to my excitement, Dr Linda Layne explained how deeply embedded the discipline is within the College. She also put forward the possibility of reviving this spirit through creating a Social Anthropology society for all the year groups. We were enthusiastic at the prospect but didn’t initially do anything about it. When it became clear that we wouldn’t be returning to Girton for the Easter Term, Dr Layne began to fill our inboxes with articles and ethnographies by anthropologists who focused on the anthropology of contagious diseases, pandemics and public health. These authors offered us perspectives and concepts with which to begin conceptualising our surroundings in an anthropological framework. How does stigma relate to contagion? How is responsibility for individual health delineated across society? These authors assumed a new personal relevance; understanding their contributions seemed politically urgent. As young anthropologists still learning about the birth of our subject, we were suddenly learning how our discipline could make unique contributions to a major global emergency. Nonetheless, I admit that it was receiving an email from The Year, asking after the progress of the society, that provided us with the impetus to get moving. We immediately started writing emails to the authors of the pieces we had been reading, inviting them to speak to Girton students on an online forum. To our surprise, they replied quickly and the majority keenly and generously expressed enthusiasm for our project.

Cover image for the online group

Dr Veena Das, an anthropologist whose writings have cropped up everywhere, has now agreed to do a Zoom conference with the whole year group! The Society has three Zoom meetings lined up: one with a six-person panel, one in a small supervision-style format, and one as a large lecture. With academic anthropologists from around the world willing to offer their personal insights, we will achieve a true sense of global interconnectedness. Kezzie Florin-Sefton, Co-President

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Women and Non-Binary Zine Society Reword magazine is a platform for women and non-binary identifying individuals to create, share and discuss their experiences and artwork in a safe space. We are a relatively new committee, working closely alongside Girton’s FemSoc. This year we were due to publish our second issue, with a theme of ‘Resist’, in Easter Term; however, we have moved our publishing date to Michaelmas Term 2020.

Manager (3rd Year, English), Ximena Barker Huesca, Designer and Editor (4th Year, Geography) and Maddy Morris, Logistics Officer (2nd Year, Music). We have dedicated much time to ensuring that every issue of our magazine is accessible to everyone, whether they identify as female/non-binary or not. Our magazine is not just about giving marginalised groups a voice: it is about social mobility, global justice, communication and

Our small team is made up of three Girtonians: Emily Porro, Product

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Madeleine Morris and Ximena Barker Huesca, Logistics Officer, and Designer and Editor Ximena Barker Huesca

Among the highlights of this year was our ‘Draw and Chill’ event held in the Stanley Library. Those who attended created beautiful artwork, and we all benefited from insightful and heartfelt discussion of politics, feminism and equality. Further inspiration came from Sandi Toksvig’s visit to Girton College. Her stimulating words inspired us to write a piece about her in our 2020 issue. At the formal hall on 9 May 2019, she shared her personal stories and experiences from her time as an undergraduate at Girton. Although a lot has changed in the College since then, her speech resonated with many of us. For us at Reword, her story was particularly fitting with our theme ‘Resist’, and we have dedicated a double-page spread to her interview.

empowerment. We hope that as our team grows and changes each year these core values will be embraced by all those who are involved in the creation of each issue. We are proud to be members of a college that champions a legacy of inclusivity and diversity in all sectors of society. Long may this continue.

Screenshot of editing and design process


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2021 – Calendar of Events Hosting events is an important way for the College to stay connected with alumni and supporters, and we look forward to resuming our regular activities as soon as is advisable. Our provisional schedule for 2021 is set out below. If you plan to attend an event, or simply wish to visit the College, please check our Visitor Policy for the latest guidance and up-to-date details about events. This information is available by emailing development@girton.cam.ac.uk. All events take place in College, unless otherwise stated. February

July

12th: Mountford Arts and Humanities Communication Prize

3rd–4th: The Great Celebration

22nd: Hammond Science Communication Prize

A series of events to mark the end of the Great Campaign

March

September

13th: Girton Alumni Sports Association Sports Matches and Dinner

11th: Alumni Reunion Dinner for 2003, 2004, 2005 and 2010

Law and Finance Networking Reception (date TBC)

18th: Alumni Reunion Dinner for 2011, 1989, 1990 and 1991 Roll of Alumni Weekend: 25th: Library Talk (all welcome)

April

25th: Lawrence Room Talk (all welcome) MA Dinner (date TBC)

25th: People’s Portraits Talk (all welcome)

MA Congregation (date TBC)

25th: Concert for the Roll (all welcome)

30th: Spring Gardens Walk May 6th:

Jane Martin Poetry Prize

8th:

Medical and Veterinary Society Dinner

27th: Alumni Formal Hall Celebrating 20 years of the People’s Portraits Collection (date TBC)

25th: Roll of Alumni Dinner (all welcome, especially matriculation years 1960, 1961, 1970, 1971, 1980 and 1981) 26th: Gardens Talk (all welcome) October 16th: Commemoration of Benefactors and Foundation Dinner 28th: Alumni Formal Hall Autumn Gardens Walk (date TBC)

June 19th: May Bumps and Boat Club Dinner 22nd: May Week Concert

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Bookings for the Roll of Alumni Weekend and Dinner can be made using the form on page 166. Details of other events in the calendar can be found in due course on our website at www.girton.cam.ac.uk.


Regional Associations An overview of the activities of regional associations at home and abroad Cambridge Local Girton Association Thanks to the help of committee members and other well-disposed individuals, the CLGA has enjoyed a variety of thoughtful and informative talks this year. We are warmly appreciative of Hilary Goy’s generosity in hosting meetings at her home. Recent events have been well supported by members, of whom we have 49 at present, and their guests. Recent CLGA events: • We enjoyed a talk by Clare Mulley on ‘Eglantyne Jebb, Founder of the Save the Children Fund’. Clare, who has published a biography of Jebb, described her work in the context of the period immediately following World War I. • The talk at our AGM was given by the Hon Dr Jocelynne Scutt, human rights lawyer, Senior Fellow at the University of Buckingham and member for Arbury on Cambridgeshire County Council. Her title was ‘Law, Rights and Women: Can Women’s Rights be Affirmed in Patriarchal Law?’, and the lecture led to a wide-ranging discussion. Professor Robin Franklin, Professor of Stem Cell Medicine at the Wellcome– MRC Cambridge Stem Cell Institute spoke in February on ‘The Brain, Stem Cells and Ageing’, bringing members up to date on one of the most intriguing aspects of current medical research. • Dr Ben Griffin, Official Fellow in History at Girton and co-curator of The Rising Tide: Women at Cambridge, led a visit to this exhibition at the University Library and gave a fascinating talk. This event was arranged by Catherine Ansorge (Broadbelt 1964).

Current circumstances dictated the disappointing postponement of Peter Sparks’s talk on ‘Between Two Cricket Tables – Learning Girton through Architecture and Artefacts’. However, the CLGA looks forward to two events provisionally scheduled for the autumn: • In October Martin Rose will speak on ‘Baghdad under Saddam’. Martin worked for the British Council, in a variety of postings, for 30 years, including a period in Baghdad during the 1989–90 Gulf War when he was held hostage. • At the AGM in November Ursula Hartley, recently retired from her position as Strategic Planning Adviser with a major oil company, will give a talk entitled ‘The Energy Transition – the gradual transformation of the energy sector to limit its greenhouse gas emissions to net zero’. Email: clga@girton.cam.ac.uk Website: www.sites.google.com/site/cambridgelga London Girton Association Once again, the LGA has held a number of enjoyable events: • In September we visited the Temperate House at Kew. • November saw our third wine-tasting evening at the offices of Grant Thornton; thanks to Paul Cook (1984) for providing the venue. This time, Master of Wine Sarah Jane Evans (Phillips 1972) talked guests through a selection of wines for holiday drinking. • Our first event of the new year was a visit to the Foundling Museum to explore the exhibition Portraying Pregnancy from Holbein to Social Media. • February saw another of our popular pub-quiz evenings at the Rugby Tavern in Bloomsbury.

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The LGA also lent their support at the Girton150 anniversary concert, which took place at Gray’s Inn on 21 November. As well as celebrating this milestone anniversary of the College, the concert marked the 20th anniversary of the LGA Music Award. Fittingly, all the performers were previous LGA Music Award winners. The coronavirus lockdown has obliged the LGA to put our events programme on hold for the foreseeable future. However, we continue to send out regular newsletters and update our Facebook page. We welcome contributions and suggestions from members, particularly on the subject of surviving lockdown. Email:lga@girton.cam.ac.uk Website: www.girton.cam.ac.uk/london-girtonassociation

Facebook: www.facebook.com/ LondonGirtonAssociation Oxford Region Girtonians With much regret, the ORG took the decision in September 2019 to cease formal operations. Our membership was decreasing, and many loyal but ageing supporters were finding it increasingly difficult to attend talks and outings. The format for our activities had served us well for 26 years, but was not attracting new members, so it seemed better to close the organisation in the hope that it can be reborn in a new form for a younger generation. Our final meeting, when the decision was formally taken, included agreement to donate all remaining funds to Girton, specifically for the Juliet Campbell Fellowship Fund, in recognition of all Juliet has

The farewell meeting of the Oxford Region Girtonians. From left to right: Meg Day (1967), Juliet Campbell (Mistress, 1992–98), Margaret Pinsent (1944), Oonah Elliott (1945), Judith Atkinson (1963) and Diana Sichel (1969)

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contributed to the ORG. This was evident to the last: our final meeting was held in Juliet’s house and followed by a delightful lunch, which was much appreciated by all. We do, however, keep in contact informally, continuing the friendships developed over the years; so, anyone in the Oxford area wishing to have contact with fellow OGs is very welcome to get in touch. Contact: Meg Day (1967) Email: org@girton.cam.ac.uk Tel: 01865 375916 Website: www.oxfordregiongirtonians.org.uk Manchester Association of Cambridge University Women There has been a Cambridge women’s group in Manchester for as long as women have been attending the University. We were refounded as The Girton and Newnham Association of Old Students in 1946, but have, for some time now, accepted members from all colleges. The cumbersome title above has assumed the acronym MACUW, and men are welcomed as guests. As usual, our events have been varied and fascinating: • On 12 October, the AGM was held again at Withington Girls’ School, with which we have strong ties. It was friendly and lively, attended by 16 members (rather fewer than usual). After the business of the meeting we had an entertaining talk by Valerie Langfield (1969 Music), one of our members, on the frustrations of producing CDs for Retrospect Opera. This was followed by a lively lunch-and-chat session. This year’s AGM is scheduled for 10 October 2020. • Ad hoc events are now arranged through our WhatsApp group: these have included the RHS

Show at Tatton, a talk by Margaret Drabble and, just as the pandemic was breaking, a visit to the theatre in Chester for Bluestockings, which was most enjoyable. • Our summer meeting, scheduled for 20 June, was to be a tour of Southern Cemetery, with an emphasis on interesting women. One for next year! • Although MACUW no longer runs the Cambridge Manchester Freshers’ Event, we offer support, both financial and by way of help at the venue. This event is held in late September. If you live within reach of Manchester (we are generally in the range of Bolton to Chester) and would like to join, please email the Secretary at georgebankes@ btinternet.com. Membership is £5 per annum to cover expenses. Our WhatsApp is organised by Helen Brown (St John’s), and you can be included by contacting her at helenbrown070@gmail.com. All new members of whatever age are warmly welcomed. Come and join us! Email: Macuw@cantab.net Wales and the West Girtonian Association The Association has just over a hundred members, spread across a wide area bounded by Snowdonia, Worcestershire, Hampshire and Cornwall. We welcome any Girtonians living in our region who would like to join us. • In October 2019 Malcolm Kelsall, Professor Emeritus of English at Cardiff University, spoke to us about Byron’s role in European and domestic politics in a talk entitled ‘“Mad, bad and dangerous to know”; Lord Byron and postNapoleonic Europe’. • For our first meeting of 2020, we were looking forward to hearing Dr Josephine Flood (Scarr 1955) deliver a talk, ‘From the heights to the depths: Himalayan mountaineering and Australian Ice

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Age archaeology’. This was to be a pleasure postponed from 2019, when Dr Flood was at the other side of the world to be invested as a Member of the Order of Australia; unfortunately, the talk had to be postponed once more for a much less happy reason, the onslaught of COVID-19. We look forward all the more to hearing Dr Flood at some future date. Information about future events, and about joining the Association, will be posted on the College website. Email: wwga@girton.cam.ac.uk Website: www.girton.cam.ac.uk/wwga New York Girton Association The New York Girton Association meeting on 15 October 2019 was kindly hosted by Girton alumna Dr Shivani Nayyar (2000 Economics), Research Specialist at the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). She gave an illuminating talk about the UNDP’s flagship Human Development Reports, of which she is co-author. An animated question-andanswer discussion followed the presentation. Twenty-five alumni from Girton, Oxford, Cambridge and Princeton attended the event, including Sarah Papineau (King’s 1974), a former Director of Resource Partnerships at the UNDP’s Bureau of External Relations and Advocacy. We met again informally for lunch at an Italian restaurant on 15 November to discuss possible events for 2020. Unfortunately, however, all events are on hold on account of the coronavirus pandemic. At the time of writing, New York City is still in lockdown and large events are not possible for the foreseeable

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future. We hope to be able to meet again informally before the end of 2020. Please contact us to be included in our emailing list. Email: newyorkga@girton.cam.ac.uk Hong Kong Committee For Girtonians based in Hong Kong we are pleased to announce that the Hong Kong Committee has set up a Facebook page to enhance connectivity among alumni in the area. To keep up to date with the latest news and events, join the group here: https://facebook. com/groups/539478213416164?view=group

Meeting of the New York Girton Association. From left to right: Esuna Dugarova (Churchill), Shivani Nayyar (2000), Sarah Papineau (King’s)


Births, Marriages and Deaths The Year

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Births Ainsworth-Patrick. On 7 May 2019, to Chris Patrick (2007) and Danielle Ainsworth, a boy, James Thomas.

Mutter Jocelyn. On 21 June 2020, to Natasha Jocelyn (2005) and Simon Mutter (2005), a boy, Arlo John Inniss.

Latter. On 27 July 2019, to Henrik (Fellow 2012) and Julia, a girl, Rebecca.

Rawlings. On 14 December 2019, to Graham (Staff) and Laura, a boy, Benjamin Samuel, a brother to Emily.

James Thomas Ainsworth-Patrick

Rebecca Latter

Rosoman. On 13 April 2020, to Claire White (Fellow 2017) and Tom, a boy, Joshua Jack.

Arlo John Inniss Mutter Jocelyn

Joshua Jack Rosoman

Marriages and Civil Partnerships Levenston – Sharma. On 1 September 2018, Matthew Levenston (2006) and Anisha Sharma (2006). Patrick – Ainsworth. On 19 August 2017, Chris Patrick (2007) and Danielle Ainsworth (Fitzwilliam 2007).

Matthew Levenston and Anisha Sharma

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Chris Patrick and Danielle Ainsworth


In Memoriam ABDUL HAMID OF JORDAN. On 21 August 2019, Princess Dina Mey MA (1947 English) Princess Dina was born into the Hashemite dynasty in Cairo. After Girton and a postgraduate diploma at Bedford College, London, she lectured in English at Cairo University until her marriage to King Hussein of Jordan, with whom she had a daughter. Later she married Asaad Abdel Raham, known as Salah Ta’amari, and moved to Lebanon. She worked energetically for prisoners of war, refugee children and medical aid. ABRAHAMS. On 9 December 2019, Olga (Rutherford) MA (1943 Natural Sciences) Olga’s main Girton memories were the relief and rejoicing of VE Day (which enabled her to continue to her third year), and her conversion from atheism to Christianity. She taught, then trained as a missionary, and with her husband Doug served for many years in Japan, as described in her autobiography A Geordie in Japan. They had three children. BASS. On 22 November 2019, Timothy Mark MA (1983 Economics) Tim’s days at Girton were some of his happiest, and he relished playing an active role in the life of the College, where he was an inspiration to many. After graduation he pursued a career in financial markets, including stints in Geneva and Singapore. He had two daughters. BEHULL. In November or December 2019, Matthew MPhil (2010 Environmental Policy) Matthew came to Girton from McGill University in Montreal. While at Girton he was a member of the University Boat Club.

BELL. On 29 July 2019, Audrey MA (1970 Classics) After Girton, Audrey was a social worker, and then a self-employed stress-management consultant. She always retained her interest in and support of Girton. BIEDERMANN. On 19 July 2019, Beryl May BA (1942 English) After her second year at Girton, Beryl did war work at the Admiralty. She returned to finish her degree once the war ended, and was subsequently secretary to the Managing Director of Fine Art Engravers Ltd. She kept in touch with Girton and was a Friend of the Gardens.

Dina Mey Abdul Hamid

BURBIDGE. On 5 April 2020, Eleanor Margaret (1970 Honorary Fellow) Obituary on p. 134 CHORLEY. In early 2020, Rosemary Joan Macdonald (More) MA (1955 Geography) After studying under Jean Grove, Rosemary developed her interest in hydrology and waterresources management. In 1965 she married Dick Chorley and they had a son and a daughter. Rosemary supervised and lectured in the Department of Geography at Cambridge and helped her husband publish many books on quantitative geography.

Timothy Mark Bass

COLE. On 29 November 2018, Rachel (Turner) MA (1999 Law) Rachel felt a strong affinity with Girton. She found her three years there transformative both personally and professionally, and made lifelong friends, some of whom visited her from Canada, Singapore and all over Britain before her tragically early death. She and her husband Graham had a son and daughter.

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Julian Anthony Creighton

CRAWFORD. On 5 April 2020, Rosalie Erica (Duckitt) MA LLB (1949 Economics; 1950 Law) Rosalie had an eventful early life: as a child in Shanghai she was interned by the Japanese and vividly recalled being released by American GIs at the age of 14. She became the first woman partner in Cartmell, Mawson and Main, solicitors in Carlisle, where she practised throughout her career. A lifelong supporter of the National Trust, she maintained her passions for gardening and travel in her retirement. CREIGHTON. On 2 May 2019, Julian Anthony MA (1991 Law) Julian (Jules) took a postgraduate diploma in legal practice at the College of Law in Canada. He specialised in company and commercial law and was Senior Legal Counsel at Invesco in London. He was proud and fond of his membership of Girton and returned for many College events.

Prudence Ann Dauris

DAURIS. On 25 July 2019, Prudence Ann (Butterworth) MA (1958 Law) Prudence qualified as a barrister before working in industry. With Blues in squash and lacrosse, she maintained her love of sports, music and nature throughout her life. Granddaughter, daughter (of Sylvia Hardy, Girton 1935), sister, mother and grandmother of members of the University, she always had a special affection for Cambridge. She married Colin and had two sons. DE COURCY IRELAND. On 19 December 2018, Samuel (2016 Mathematics) Obituary on p. 136

Margery Elliott

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EBBEN. On 4 August 2019, Marion Helena MA (1945 Natural Sciences)

At Girton Marion, a rowing Blue, appreciated films and theatre, and the chance to follow ‘interesting courses in useless topics such as the sex life of seaweeds’. Her whole career was spent at the Agricultural Research Council, as a Scientific Officer in a number of its institutes. She published articles on horticulture and loved gardening. ELLIOTT. On 28 November 2019, Margery MA (1938 Natural Sciences) Margery became a research chemist and then studied at the Royal College of Music. She taught music, played flute and viola in the Birmingham Philharmonic Orchestra and sang with the City of Birmingham Choir. She participated in several TV and radio quizzes including Mastermind. Shortly before her 100th birthday she published a book, Rotton Park, on local and family history. ERASMUS. On 1 May 2020, Gwendolen Ruth Hughes (Jones) MA (1941 History) Gwendolen qualified for her BA under Wartime Emergency Regulations, and after two years at Girton trained in labour management at the London School of Economics. She then worked at the Ministry of Supply, and later as a Personnel Officer at the jam company James Robertson and Sons. She had one daughter. EVANS. In early 2020, Christine Margaret BA (1948 Modern and Medieval Languages) Christine trained as a secretary and worked for many years for the Dead Sea Works Group, latterly as Office Manager. She enjoyed travel and remained interested in College, attending events in Cambridge and in London, where she belonged to the London Girton Association.


FOAT. On 11 January 2020, Ann (Goldup) BA (1959 Geography) After marrying Graham, Ann taught at local grammar schools, with a break to raise three daughters before returning as head of Geography. On retiring she grew and sold fruit with Graham. She served on Ash PCC for over 50 years, on Church synods and the Archbishop’s Council for Canterbury. She inspired the creation of a thriving heritage centre for Ash. GASKELL. On 18 August 2019, Margaret (Bennett) (1973 Librarian and Fellow) Obituary on p. 137 GLENNY. On 15 January 2020, Audrey Ivy (Sparks) BA (1947 English) As well as raising four children with her husband Tom, Audrey was deeply committed to addressing issues of social need. She worked variously as a magistrate and JP, a school governor, and a prison social worker and prison visitor, and was involved with the local familyplanning clinic, marriage-guidance counselling and Abbeyfield Society. Audrey loved swimming, reading, theatre and the arts. GREEVES. On 30 September 2019, Nancy Alice (Morgans) MA (1939 English) Nancy relished the English Tripos, the friendships made at Girton and her lacrosse half-Blue. She shared her husband Derrick’s Methodist ministry and brought up four children including Bridget (Girton 1965). She hosted the first meetings of the Natural Childbirth Trust, and later became Parish Clerk and a Methodist local preacher; she wrote a dozen pantomimes for her village.

HIMMELFARB. On 20 December 2019, Gertrude (Mrs Kristol) (1946 History) Obituary on p. 138 HIMSWORTH. On 17 February 2020, Richard Lawrence (1995 Professorial Fellow and Director of Studies; 2002 Life Fellow) Obituary on p. 140 HOCKADAY. In May 2019, Judith Mary (Fitzsimons) MA MB BChir MD (1947 Natural Sciences) Judith completed her clinical training in London and Oxford. Her medical career had three particular strengths: influential early publications, developing a department of Paediatric Neurology in Oxford, and mentoring (especially female clinical students and doctors). Here she was an obvious role model, having achieved professional distinction while also being a successful wife to Derek, mother of three and homemaker. HOLT. On 8 November 2017, Avis Grace MA (1945 Economics) Born in London, Avis taught at Park Modern Secondary School for Girls, Barking, and worked for Unilever as a secretary. In retirement she lived in Chard. JACKSON. On 16 March 2019, Carol Ann MA (1974 Economics) Carol qualified as an accountant and went on to a varied career in finance, notably at John Lewis, the Refugee Council and the RSA. She married Andrew Wilks, with whom she shared interests in theatre, hillwalking and feminism; they had a daughter and a son.

Ann Foat

Audrey Ivy Glenny

Nancy Alice Greeves

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JAMES. On 9 February 2020, Dinah Mary (Visiting Fellow 1975) Dinah spent a year at Girton as Clothworkers’ Visiting Fellow, on leave from the University of Ibadan in Nigeria. She qualified in Pharmacology at the Welsh National School of Medicine in 1942, and taught there before moving to Ibadan where she spent most of her career, becoming the first Professor of Pharmacology. She was appointed OBE in 1980 for services to medicine and research. Lorna King

Brenda Mahoney

KIMBLE. In 2020, Helen (Rankin) BA (1943 English) Obituary on p. 141 KING. On 26 October 2019, Lorna (Bugler) MA (1951 Mathematics) After Girton, Lorna (Nell) worked as a statistician in Oxford and in Cambridge. After marrying Brian she moved to Minnesota, and remained in the USA, spending the last fifty years of her life in Wisconsin. Lorna was an accomplished pianist and an erudite historian. She had three sons and six grandchildren. LLOYD-THOMAS. On 20 April 2020, Joyce Foulds (Baron) MA MB BChir (1949 Natural Sciences) Joyce did her clinical training at the London Hospital before spending the rest of her career in general practice. She married John, a fellow doctor, and had two daughters including Anne (Girton 1978) and two sons. McDONALD. On 1 May 2019, Joan Edna (Bedale) MA (1940 History) Joan tutored at the Universities of Nottingham and Manchester, then did a PhD at University College London (her thesis Rousseau and the

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French Revolution was recently republished). After fifteen years teaching in Africa, she became a lecturer at Wolverhampton and Birmingham universities, and a researcher at the Department of Education. She married Stanley and had three children. MACKWORTH. On 19 February 2020, Rosalind Jean (Walters) BA (1950 Law) At Girton, Rosalind was renowned for her acting. She was both the first female employee and first female partner of the law firm Gregory Rowcliffe. She was also the first Social Fund Commissioner, was appointed CBE, and saved her ancestral home, Buntingsdale House, from collapse. She married Dick, a mechanical engineer, and had two daughters. MAHONEY. On 28 February 2020, Brenda (Staff) Brenda worked for Girton for many years, first in the kitchen and then as a gyp. She was proud to describe herself as the College’s ‘longest-serving lady’, and was delighted to cut the ribbon to open the new kitchen. In retirement she enjoyed the Mistress’s party for staff and pensioners. MARTIN. On 17 September 2014, Margaret Helena (Sherwood) MA (1942 Modern and Medieval Languages) Margaret married Graham, and they had a son. MERRITT. On 11 February 2019, Andrew John BA (1986 Mathematics; 1987 Computer Science) Andy was a founding member of the IT company ARM. He was well known in the gaming world and owned a huge collection of second-hand board games which he sold from an ‘Aladdin’s cave’ near Cambridge, often below market value,


as a way of sharing his enthusiasm. He was married first to Juliet, then to Sara, and had a daughter. NORMAN. On 29 December 2019, Gillian Elizabeth MA (1956 Geography) Gill taught Geography in England, the Netherlands and Canada, before joining the University of Portsmouth as a lecturer in Geography and Student Careers Advice Tutor. She acted at Girton, and all her life loved travel. She is memorialised at Girton on the 1956 Geographers’ bench in the Orchard. POSKITT. On 2 April 2020, Alison Richers Stevenson (Fenton) BA (1949 English) Alison did a PGCE in London, then taught for the Colonial Service in Nigeria. She married Peter and had five children; later, in Yorkshire, she taught English as a foreign language. Her memories of Girton were of ‘freedom and independence with like-minded people’, choral singing and dancing. RADICE. On 26 October 2019, Lois MA (1962 Economics; 1963 History) After graduating, Lois gained an MSc from Bedford College, University of London. She followed both her mother (Joan Keeling, 1929) and grandmother (Alice Murray, 1897) to Girton, and was the greatgranddaughter of Emily Gibson, one of the Girton Pioneers. Lois married Martin Chanock and had a daughter. RICH. On 11 September 2019, Audrey Nadine Margaret MA (1949 Classics; 1959 Fellow) Audrey first came to Girton as a research student after studying at Reading and at Newnham where she was an affiliated student. She returned to Girton between 1959 and 1961 as Fellow, Tutor and College Lecturer in Classics. In the course of

her career she taught at several other universities and was a school headmistress. She co-edited The Good Church Guide: A Church-goer’s Companion. RICHARDSON. On 22 March 2020, Janet Frances (Aynsley) MA (1948 Modern and Medieval Languages) Janet taught English in Spain with the British Council, then lectured for many years in Spanish and French at Luton College of Further Education. She married Derek and had two daughters. A rowing Blue at Girton, she was interested in culture and politics and loved outdoor pursuits and gardening. RUTHERFORD. On 9 September 2019, Agnes Marie (Boyle) MA (1954 Classics; 1955 Archaeology and Anthropology) Agnes came to Girton as an honours graduate of the University of Glasgow. On graduation, she taught in Lanarkshire and then worked in Glasgow University Library until her marriage to Michael (Jesus). They moved to Leeds with their two daughters. Agnes taught Librarianship at the then Leeds Polytechnic and co-authored a book entitled Leeds Old and New.

Gillian Elizabeth Norman

Agnes Marie Rutherford

SANGSTER. On 10 December 2019, Mary Louise Fitz-Alan (Stuart) BA (1943 Modern and Medieval Languages) Mary worked in Germany as a translator, which developed her gift for listening and remembering. She met and married John (Emmanuel) in Switzerland and, once their two sons were at school, taught first art and crafts, then French. She enjoyed travelling, first with John, then in Africa with one of her sons. She was a proud Scot who believed strongly in the value of education.

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STRONG. On 30 October 2019, Felicity (Ranger) MA (1954 History) Felicity trained as an archivist and spent most of her career working on the National Register of Archives at the Historical Manuscripts Commission. The daughter of Barbara Mitchell (Girton 1927), she remained in touch with the College all her life. She married Patrick and loved music, reading and gardening. Corrine Joy Swain

SUDBURY. On 13 May 2019, Margaret (Walker) MA (1949 Natural Sciences) Obituary on p. 143 SWAIN. On 30 December 2019, Corinne Joy MA (1969 Geography) Corinne was a director of Arup and the first non-engineer Arup Fellow. As senior sponsor for Arup’s partnership with the Social Mobility Foundation she was immensely proud that one of those she mentored obtained a place at Cambridge to read Architecture. Corinne was appointed OBE in 2000 for services to planning.

Nancy Gwendoline Avril Townshend

Jennifer Jane Mary Walton

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TIFFEN. On 23 April 2020, Mary Gladys (SteelePerkins) MA (1949 History) Obituary on p. 145 TOWNSHEND. In October 2019, Nancy Gwendoline Avril (Harley) MA (1952 Mechanical Sciences) Avril was one of the first female Cambridge graduates in Engineering. She forged lifelong friendships with seven Girton contemporaries who met regularly at alumni weekends. She worked for Shell before marrying Richard (Pembroke), and had a daughter (Heather, Girton 1981) and a son. Throughout her life

she did voluntary work, particularly in consumer affairs, and became Secretary of the National Federation of Consumer Groups. WALTON. On 15 December 2019, Jennifer Jane Mary (Mrs Bachmann) MA (2000 Modern and Medieval Languages) Jennie is remembered as a firm friend, who shared not only reading lists but also afternoons in the sunshine by the river and evenings putting the world to rights over cocktails. Hard-working – she was always first to hand in her essays – and funny, she enjoyed a good debate. She had one son. WEST DUAH. On 24 March 2020, Caroline Frances Rebecca (West) MA (1960 English) Obituary on p. 147 WESTWOOD. On 7 January 2020, Joyce May (Murrant) MA (1935 Modern and Medieval Languages) Joyce spent the War teaching in London, and for several summers afterwards conducted courses in Germany for the Foreign Office. She was also an oral examiner in French and German for London University. In 1967 she and her husband Neville (King’s) moved to the British Virgin Islands where Joyce took over the administration of Neville’s law firm as well as teaching singing at the local Anglican school. WHITE. In late May 2019, Patricia Ann (Eardley) MA (1957 Geography) Pat loved Geography, especially its political aspects, and had strong political views all her life (Ken Livingstone was a close friend). She worked for the London County Council, was Director


of the National Institute for Careers Guidance and finished her career in charge of Bridget’s, Cambridge University’s hostel for disabled students. WHITTINGTON-SMITH. On 21 August 2019, Marianne Christine (Lutz) MA (1941 History) Marianne was a teacher all her working life, becoming Head of History at South Hampstead High School and then Headmistress of Sheffield High School for Girls. Born in Germany, she was a member of the Historical Textbooks Panel for West Germany (under the Foreign Office and UNESCO), and published in collaboration with UNESCO and the Historical Association. In 1981 she married Alexander.

WIENER. On 23 December 2019, Irene Naomi (Pollak) BA (1952 Law) Irene came to Girton as an affiliated student with a degree from Rhodes University, Grahamstown, South Africa, and later became a Special Needs teacher. She had a daughter and two sons with her husband Hans, and loved opera, theatre and ballet. WROBEL. In 2019, Jane Margaret (Wakefield) MA (1973 Classics; 1975 Anglo-Saxon, Norse and Celtic) After qualifying as a solicitor and practising for many years, Jane took a degree in Contemporary Applied Arts at the Cumbria Institute of the Arts, and became a self-employed textile designer and maker. She married Paul and had three sons.

Joyce May Westwood

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Obituaries MARGARET BURBIDGE (1919–2020) Eleanor Margaret Burbidge (née Peachey) showed an early zest for calculation. Informed of the facts of life by her mother, she worked out she must have been conceived on Armistice Day; her mother, she recalled, acknowledged the fact

without ‘enthusiasm [or] further explanation’. Many decades later, in 1974, Margaret’s calculations, based on careful spectroscopic observations, would lead to the discovery of the then most distant known object, quasar QSO B1442+101. This, together with her work on the rotational curves of spiral galaxies, secured her reputation as one of the leading astronomers and astrophysicists of the twentieth century. Margaret was born near Manchester and brought up in London where her father was a chemistry lecturer and inventor whose ‘cold vulcanisation’ process revolutionised industrial rubber production. Her mother was a distant relative of the astronomer Sir James Jeans, whose popular science book The Mysterious Universe was revelatory for the young Margaret. Her scientific interests were encouraged with gifts of a telescope and chemistry set, and after secondary education at Francis Holland School, Margaret studied astronomy, physics and mathematics at University College London. In 1942 she completed a PhD based on a study of Gamma Cassiopeiae, an eruptive variable star that features prominently in O Henry’s The Skylight Room. During the War she was employed as caretaker at the University of London’s Observatory (ULO) in Mill Hill, a job normally reserved for men. Despite interruptions caused by V1 flying bombs and the need to recalibrate the instruments after explosions, she was able to pursue important observational research, taking full advantage of the wartime blackout. Margaret gained her first experience of teaching at ULO – her pupils included an assertive exRAF officer by the name of Arthur C Clarke

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– but academic advancement came slowly. An application to use the Mount Wilson telescope in California in the late 1940s was turned down on the grounds that ‘the wives of the astronomers would not like the thought of their men working with women “during the night”’. Some years later she gained access to Mount Wilson, but only after pretending she was the assistant of Geoffrey Burbidge, a younger scientist whom she married in 1948, and with whom she would collaborate on numerous papers. In 1951 she took up a post at the University of Chicago’s Yerkes Observatory. This was the first of several academic affiliations on both sides of the Atlantic. The most longlasting was at the University of California San Diego (UCSD), which she joined in 1962. A decade later, she became Director of the Royal Greenwich Observatory, on secondment from UCSD. This post had always been held by the Astronomer Royal, but when Margaret was appointed to the Observatory in 1972, the Astronomer Royal appointment went to Martin Ryle. Margaret mentioned sexism as a possible reason for this break with tradition; in any case, she returned to the US after little more than a year. Over the course of her long career Margaret received distinctions too numerous to list. These included the National Medal of Science, presented by President Reagan in 1985, and the Gold Medal of the Royal Astronomical Society (2005). In 1972, she caused a stir by refusing to accept the Annie Jump Cannon Award, intended for female astronomers, on the grounds of gender discrimination. ‘It is high time,’ she argued, ‘that discrimination in favor of, as well as against, women in professional life be removed.’ She demonstrated the same campaigning spirit as first

female President of the American Astronomical Society (AAS), persuading fellow members to ban AAS meetings in states that refused to ratify the Equal Rights Amendment to the US Constitution. Soft-spoken and non-confrontational, Margaret usually responded to discrimination by proposing solutions. In 1994 she explained the ‘guiding operational principle’ of her life: ‘If frustrated in one’s endeavour by a stone wall or any kind of blockage, one must find a way around it – another route towards one’s goal. This is advice I have given to many women facing similar situations.’ Margaret authored or contributed to over 350 publications. Without question, the most influential was ‘Synthesis of the Elements in Stars’, a 100page paper published in 1957 in collaboration with her husband Geoffrey, the nuclear physicist William Fowler and astronomer Fred Hoyle. Here the authors argued that while the Big Bang gave rise to the three lightest elements, all others, including the carbon that makes up our DNA, were created in the stars through nuclear fusion. As Fowler put it, ‘all of us are truly and literally a little bit of stardust’ – a comment that probably spawned Margaret’s nickname, ‘Lady Stardust’. The paper was so often cited that colleagues and students started referring to it as B2FH; astrophysicists quipped that if the early universe created hydrogen, helium and lithium, everything else was made by Burbidge, Burbidge, Fowler and Hoyle. Burbidge was elected an Honorary Fellow of Girton in 1970. She is survived by her only child, Sarah, and a grandson, Conner. The Editors

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for his inquisitive approach to his studies, using beautiful sketches to share his mathematical insights, especially in algebraic topology, a topic he loved.’ The creativity he demonstrated mathematically was also a feature of his recreational activities: ‘He will also be remembered for his inimitable juggling skills, which entertained many of us over the last two years.’ Sam could often be found juggling somewhere around the College site, and he inspired some of his friends to try their skills, too. He was a very loyal friend, combining creativity with a great sense of humour. I served as Sam’s Tutor, and always enjoyed talking to him. He was thoughtful and interesting, and had a lot of insight. In his tragically short life, he had a significant impact on those around him. The Chaplain held Sam in the same warm regard:

SAMUEL DE COURCY IRELAND (1998–2018) Sam was originally from Belgium, but came to Cambridge from the French International School in Hong Kong, where he lived with his family. He arrived in Girton in October 2016 to take up a place to read Mathematics. An extremely gifted mathematician who achieved high marks in exams, Sam was much praised by his supervisors throughout his time in Cambridge. He greatly enjoyed his studies, particularly in the third year, when he was able to specialise. One of his supervision partners writes: ‘Sam was a talented student and he will be greatly missed by many of us at Girton. He will be remembered in particular

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‘As the College began to respond to the shock of Sam’s sudden death, I became aware of just how strong an impression he had made on his friends, and what an intense, free and independent spirit he had been. The JCR organised an evening of remembrance for Sam, a deeply moving celebration of his life. His adventurous spirit, his courage and his daredevil life was conjured by a sequence of projected images: Sam mountain-climbing and swimming; Sam working, teaching and having fun with friends. The soundtrack was chosen by his friends to express a sense of the person Sam was, the music he loved, and their own deep sense of loss. The montage finished with a poignant series of images accompanied by a full – and loud – rendition of Pink Floyd’s Shine on You Crazy Diamond. No one present will ever forget


the powerful blend of grief and affection as we listened to the last words of that song: Come on you raver, you seer of visions, Come on you painter, you piper, you prisoner, and shine.’ Amy Donovan, Official Fellow and Tutor, with contributions from Malcolm Guite, Chaplain, and Sandra Fulton, Senior Tutor

MARGARET GASKELL (1924–2019)

that for many decades the Girton Library had no internal staircase. To go from the Upper Library to the ground-floor Stack Room, readers had to go out of the Library and down the stairs at the corner of New Wing, then along the corridor to the double doors (no longer in use) leading into the Stack Room. The card catalogue was in the Upper Library, which must have been extremely inconvenient for readers needing books from those subjects located in the Stack Room. Marg managed to persuade the College that an internal staircase was needed, and a handsome wooden staircase was ingeniously fitted into the corner of the building. She also realised that something must Photo credit: Luke Gaskell. Archive reference: GCPH 6/2/93

Marg Gaskell was born in Cambridge, the second of Joan and Stanley Bennett’s four children. Joan Bennett was a distinguished Fellow of Girton, and also a graduate of Girton, as were Marg’s two sisters Elizabeth and Katherine. Marg received her secondary schooling at Dartington Hall, the well-known progressive school in Devon, and then did teacher training at Homerton College. In 1948 she married Philip (Pip) Gaskell, who was a bibliographer, and Fellow and Librarian at Trinity College from 1967 (the marriage ended in divorce). Marg was appointed Librarian at Girton in 1973. Although she had no formal qualifications in librarianship, she had some years of experience, having first catalogued a private academic library in Cambridge and then been Librarian of Sidney Sussex College. The Girton Library had changed very little since the reign of Helen McMorran, and Marg made two important innovations. The first was architectural, the second organisational. It would probably surprise present-day undergraduates to learn

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be done about the excessive loss of books from the library stock, and initiated the ‘tagging’ of books and a better system of checking them out. Marg had many interests and skills outside the library. She was an accomplished rider and had her own horse. She was an artist, and practised crafts including beekeeping, spinning and weaving. She regularly took leave during the lambing season to assist on her son Luke’s farm in the Scottish Borders near Melrose. After her retirement in 1987 she moved to a cottage on the farm and continued to work in libraries, undertaking the cataloguing of the library of Bowhill House, one of the properties of the Duke of Buccleuch. She and her team then catalogued the library of Paxton House, near Berwick-upon-Tweed. After the completion of this project, Marg was invited back to Bowhill and continued to work on the Buccleuch libraries until a few months before her death. She is survived by two of her three children, Luke and Roger. Her daughter Tilda died in 2005. Gillian Jondorf, Life Fellow

GERTRUDE HIMMELFARB (1922–2019) Gertrude Himmelfarb was a distinguished and long-lived American historian of ideas who specialised in nineteenth-century Britain. She was attached to Girton College as a graduate student during the academic year 1946–47, when she was collecting material for an edition of the essays of Lord Acton, who remained one of her heroes. Following her return to the United States, she emerged as one of the leading public intellectuals

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in a movement labelled ‘neo-conservatism’. But this can be as misleading a label as ‘neoliberalism’ has been for other ideas in recent years. Indeed, the two labels could easily be switched. For neo-liberalism’s free-market individualism is really a conservative defence of large corporations, while Himmelfarb’s neoconservatism was really an attempt to revive the moral and intellectual outlook of classical liberalism. It was therefore less paradoxical than it seemed for Gordon Brown, a New Labour politician, to come out as a high-profile champion of her work in 2008 when he was British Prime Minister. Gertrude Himmelfarb was born in Brooklyn, New York, on 8 August 1922, to Bertha (née Lerner) and Max Himmelfarb, both Yiddish-speaking Jewish immigrants from Russia without any formal education. Although the family lived more or less on the poverty line, they supported her academic study of history, economics and philosophy – a telling combination. She took her undergraduate degree from Brooklyn College in 1942 and went on to complete a doctorate on Lord Acton in 1950 at the University of Chicago, where she was supervised by Louis Gottschalk, also from Brooklyn but Polish Jewish. Himmelfarb spent the next 15 years as an independent researcher: she had been warned she would find it hard to get an academic job as a young woman bringing up two small children. But by the early 1960s she had published two significant monographs, as well as editions of nineteenth-century classics, which secured her professorships, first back at Brooklyn College in 1965, then at the graduate school of the City University of New York in 1978.


Her historical work revolved around the recovery and indeed celebration of the Victorian qualities of self-improvement: hard work, thrift, temperance and personal responsibility. Critics on the left dismissed these as merely middleclass values, but more recent historiography has recognised that they were widely spread among the working classes, became the basis of popular assertiveness and, consequently, were particularly strongly held by the founders of British trade unions and the Labour Party. This central moral theme led to a flood of historical studies by Himmelfarb on the theory and practice of public policy, particularly in relation to poverty and the family; these tended to confirm the impression that she had been fundamentally shaped by her own experience as a child of poor but hardworking immigrant parents. Her critics on the left often overlooked the equally powerful impact on a young woman from a Russian Jewish family of the Holocaust and Stalinism. This fuelled her concern to reconsider the core values of European civilisation and then take her conclusions out into the public sphere as a matter of some urgency. Her first political involvement was with Trotskyism, and it was in those circles that she met Irving Kristol, who became her husband in 1942. Their partnership was very strong and, as they moved away from the far left, it became the basis of their central role in the emergence of what became known as neo-conservatism. This label was attached by a left-wing critic and, though they accepted it, it gave a misleading impression of their views: they were anti-communist, but on the basis of human rights; they were in favour of capitalism, but only when modified

by the approach of F D Roosevelt’s New Deal. As Kristol liked to quip, they were ‘liberals who had been mugged by reality’, and by the 1980s they were generally seen as two of the most influential public intellectuals in the United States. By this time they were living in Washington DC and mixing socially with the political elite, while Himmelfarb was taking on her left-wing critics increasingly directly in a series of books attacking Marxism, psychoanalysis and postmodernism, and championing a more traditional approach to history which left plenty of room for political ideas and political agency.

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Gertrude Himmelfarb’s views attracted a lot of hostility: she was, after all, one of the most highprofile historians of her time. Perhaps, when the dust has settled, we will think afresh about the full implications of the positions taken in this culture war. Alastair J Reid, Life Fellow

RICHARD HIMSWORTH (1937–2020) Richard Himsworth was born two years before the outbreak of war in 1939, the year in which his father took up his post as Professor of Medicine at University College Hospital. His mother was also a doctor and the family lived in London, where bombs were falling. The decision was made to evacuate four-year-old Richard and his brother John, 7, to the United States where, for several years, they were brought up by the family of Dr Francis Moore, a professor of surgery at Harvard. This had a lasting effect on Richard’s life and outlook, and the families remained in close touch right up to a couple of years before Richard’s death. On his return to the United Kingdom, Richard continued his education at Westminster School, going on to Trinity College, Cambridge, where he qualified MB BChir in 1961, undertaking his clinical training at University College Hospital. Ten years later he was awarded Cambridge University’s Raymond Horton Smith Prize for his MD. This was followed by a cluster of other professional qualifications: FRCP 1977; FRCPE 1988; FRCPGlas 1990; FFPH 2002. In retirement he added to these an Honorary DSc (2000) from Anglia Ruskin

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University, where he held a teaching appointment, and a Distinction in his MA on the history of medicine at University College London (2005). After the usual junior doctor appointments, Richard became a Lecturer in Medicine at UCH Medical School, 1967–71, and a Medical Research Council (MRC) Travelling Fellow to New York, 1969–70; he was on the MRC Scientific Staff of the Clinical Research Centre, 1971–85, serving as: Assistant Director, 1978–82; Head of the Endocrinology Research Group, 1979–85 and Consultant Physician at Northwick Park Hospital, 1972–85. During this period, he had a portfolio of research in endocrinology, most notably on thyroid metabolism, insulin and Cushing’s syndrome.


Richard was appointed to the Regius Chair of Medicine at the University of Aberdeen in 1985, with a brief to increase research-grant income in the face of a financial deficit. He ran an endocrinology clinic but did not establish his own research base; he believed he had a wider role to attract and support younger colleagues with innovative ideas and research ability, an approach influenced by his time in the United States. His department produced notable research on nitric oxide, bone molecular genetics and renal disease. He lobbied passionately and successfully for cardiac surgery to be established in Aberdeen. This experience in medical management resulted in his return to Cambridge in 1993 as Professor of Health Research and Development. He was also Regional Director of Research for the Department of Health and in 1999 added the Directorship of the University Institute of Public Health to his portfolio. In the years leading up to his retirement in 2002 the focus of his research was the impact of an ageing population on health services. Richard was made a Professorial Fellow of Girton College on his return to Cambridge. He was for five years the Director of Studies for Clinical Medicine, and continued to participate in the selection of medical students until retirement, when he was made a Life Fellow of the College. His medical experience and sound opinions continued to benefit younger medical Fellows, and his wider retirement experiences made him a genial neighbour at High Table. He was highly supportive of the Girton Medical Society and its activities. His retirement gave opportunities for broader interests and responsibilities. He studied for an

MA on the history of health services and the organisation of medical research in the twentieth century, and was active in a City of London livery company, the Goldsmiths, serving as its Prime Warden in 2007–8. During this year he helped organise and hosted a concert at Goldsmiths’ Hall to mark the appointment of Professor Susan Smith as Mistress of Girton. Richard had some years of diminishing health leading up to his death in February 2020. His final study, published jointly with Dr Fiona Cooke, was a case report describing his experience of outpatient antibiotic therapy for his endocarditis (infection of a heart valve) for the Annual Report 2018–19 of the Royal College of Pathologists. He is survived by his wife Sara, his daughter Emma who is a QC, and two sons, Guy, a management consultant, and Hal, an engineer working in Rotterdam, and by his three grandsons. Ruth Warren, Life Fellow, with help from Fiona Cooke, Official Fellow, Graeme Catto (Aberdeen) and Alison McCleod (Aberdeen)

HELEN KIMBLE (1925–2019) Helen Kimble has been described as one of the first generation of British scholars who took the study of Africa seriously. Accompanying her new husband, David Kimble, to the Gold Coast (now Ghana), she began a lifelong love affair with that country and remained engaged in teaching, researching and publishing about Africa for nearly four decades. The two threads through her academic life were African Studies and Adult Education. She was remarkable for her intellectual

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talent, her loving care of her four daughters and her deep passion for social justice. The daughter of a Scottish doctor, Thomas Rankin, and his wife Kathleen, née McClelland, Helen was born in Boxmoor, Hertfordshire, and educated

at Queenswood School. In 1943, she went up to Girton with a College scholarship, reading English and Economics, and achieving first-class honours in Part I and an upper second in her finals. On 16 June 1945, she recorded in a diary: ‘Results came. Got a First!! Celebrated in pub.’ Two of those pocket diaries have survived, and while they mention her academic work sporadically – there are occasional frantic notes in capital letters: ‘ESSAY’ – they also show that she took to Cambridge life with zest. She was Secretary of both the University English Club and the Labour Club and a committee member of the National Union of Students; she took part in several sports, grasping the opportunity to learn to swim; and there are many references to ‘socials’, parties, dances and the occasional river picnic (on one occasion, she records that a friend fell in). All these activities took place against a background of wartime privation. The European war ended in May 1945 and Helen celebrated with friends by dancing on Parker’s Piece. The subsequent national election saw her meticulously noting she had stuffed 487 envelopes for the Labour Party. After Girton, Helen was selected for the Oxford Extra-Mural Department’s training in Adult Education – an experience that shaped much of her future. She was greatly influenced by her tutor, Thomas Hodgkin, who started as an Arabist but became involved with North and West African countries on the cusp of regaining independence. She went on to work at the Bureau of Current Affairs, which published material for public education, and became skilled in many aspects of publishing. She had already met a goodlooking, lively ex-naval officer, David Kimble, who

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was nominated by Oxford to set up and direct university extramural studies in the Gold Coast. Married in 1949, Helen and David went together to the new University College of the Gold Coast, where they worked for the next eleven years and where Helen undertook a steady programme of teaching, both within the college and extramurally. They also started a family there; Jane, their first daughter, was born in David’s car on the road to the hospital. At the same time, Helen worked loyally with David on a number of imaginative projects, including three bold adventures in publishing: Penguin Africa books; an African Current Affairs series; and, later, the Journal of Modern African Studies, which they co-edited till 1972, and which is now in its 59th year. The journal, which offers an annual David and Helen Kimble prize, continues the policy, laid down by Helen, that contributing authors must demonstrate on-the-ground commitment to Africa. Their partnership and Helen’s teaching and research continued when David moved to Dar es Salaam, as professor of public administration. Here Helen had the chance to conduct a study on markets and carry out important policy research for the Tanganyika price-control advisory body. The generation of students whom she taught included a number who moved on to leadership positions in East Africa. Back in Britain and divorced from David, Helen moved to Oxford. Her sense of justice led her to work for the rest of her life with the anti-apartheid movement – she was a monitor in the election that brought Nelson Mandela to power – and for the cause of refugees in Britain. With Terence

and Sheilagh Ranger, she founded the charity Asylum Welcome which, among other activities, mobilised volunteers to support detainees held at Campsfield House outside Oxford, and crusaded against the detention policy. Helen’s drive, sincerity and persistence did not endear her to the authorities in Campsfield – on one visit her umbrella was taken away as ‘an offensive weapon’. Helen is survived by two of her daughters, Joy and Jenny, and five grandchildren. Lalage Bown

MARGARET SUDBURY (1930–2019) Margaret was born in Salford, Lancashire, the only child of Harold and Amy Walker. When she was three, the family moved to Timperley in Cheshire, a suburb of Manchester. With encouragement from a perceptive primaryschool teacher, Margaret won a scholarship to Manchester High School for Girls in 1942. There, too, teachers recognised her potential, and they encouraged Margaret to sit the entrance exams for Cambridge in 1948. She did well, and was awarded a scholarship to read Natural Sciences at Girton from October 1949. Margaret always acknowledged her debt to those teachers who had helped and encouraged her. At Girton, Margaret had the luck to have the eminent crystallographer Helen Megaw (1907– 2002) as a Director of Studies. It was Helen who encouraged Margaret to add Geology to her choice of Chemistry and Zoology in her first

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year. Fieldwork was and still is an essential part of Cambridge geological training and this was the part of the course that Margaret said she most enjoyed. The first-year Easter field trip was to Arran, a tradition that continues to this day. Margaret was one of very few women reading Geology at the time. On the following year’s Easter field trip to Skye, she was the only female student, but that did not bother her; she often recalled the remark of mineralogist Stuart Agrell (1913–96): ‘You may wear purple trousers, but you’re no bluestocking!’ Her preference for geology over chemistry led Margaret to choose Geology with Palaeontology in Part II of the Natural Sciences Tripos, even though Helen Megaw had warned her she might find it difficult to get a geological job as ‘women would not be allowed to work on oil rigs’. Nevertheless Margaret persisted with Geology. As she neared her final exams in 1952, Margaret had already decided that, if she got a favourable result, she would like to stay on in Cambridge to do research. She did, and, with a Department of Scientific and Industrial Research grant and a Tucker-Price Studentship from Girton, Margaret went on to a PhD, investigating the fossil graptolites exposed in the Rheidol Gorge near Aberystwyth in mid Wales (graptolites are very small marine animals that lived in tube-like colonies many millions of years ago). Over two field seasons she collected an impressive suite of graptolites, many of which needed careful preparation in the lab. The rest of the year was spent identifying the specimens, researching their taxonomy and working out how they changed over time. Margaret completed her thesis and was awarded her PhD in 1956.

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Meanwhile, through her musical activities, she had, in 1953, met and become engaged to John Sudbury. They married in September 1955. Living in London with her husband, Margaret managed to get a palaeontological job in late 1956 working for R G S Hudson at the Iraq Petroleum Company. The birth of a daughter, Frances, in 1959, and a move to Terrington in North Yorkshire in 1960, inevitably took Margaret’s attention and energies away from palaeontology. Her son Roger was born in 1961 and her second daughter, Susan, in 1964. In subsequent years she taught science in various


preparatory schools where her husband John was employed. It was still fairly early days for science in prep schools and so she was involved in the planning and building of several school science labs. From Yorkshire, the family moved to Canterbury, where John was Headmaster of the Cathedral Choir School, and then to Northwood in Middlesex. After her children had begun to leave home, Margaret managed to return to her interest in graptolite research through involvement with the British and Irish Graptolite Group, otherwise known as ‘BIG G’. Accompanied by her husband, who referred to himself as her ‘bag handler’, she attended a succession of international conferences in Cambridge, Denmark, China, Spain and the USA. After their retirement, John and Margaret moved back to North Yorkshire, where they were very happy. The Church and its community in Thornton Dale were a huge part of their lives; John was a Reader and Margaret served as Churchwarden for a number of years. They continued to travel extensively, to many parts of the globe including India, Canada, Russia, New Zealand and South America. John and Margaret were able to celebrate their golden wedding anniversary in 2005, but sadly John died in 2006. After his death, Margaret continued to be involved in the Mothers’ Union and York Musical Society. One of the last things she did was to make plans to attend Girton’s 150th-anniversary celebrations. Roger Sudbury with help from Douglas Palmer (Sedgwick Museum, Cambridge)

MARY TIFFEN (1931–2020) Mary Tiffen, the distinguished economic historian, died from COVID-19 on 23 April 2020. She is best remembered for her ground-breaking research on African drylands, conducted over three decades from the 1970s to 2000. This demonstrated how farmers’ skills and their capacity to innovate had been consistently undervalued. Mary, whose father was in the Air Force, spent a childhood travelling the world. She lived in Hong Kong, Australia and India before eventually settling with her mother in post-war Britain. A bright student despite the disrupted start to her education, she gained a prestigious state scholarship to read History at Girton, starting in 1949. She was one of eight historians admitted into the care of Girton’s kind but demanding Director of Studies in History, Dr Jean Lindsay. Mary was a supporter of Girton throughout her life. In fact, one of her last social engagements in London, where she had recently moved to be closer to her daughter, was a pub quiz night with Old Girtonians. It was an unexpected choice of evening entertainment – she was not a habitual quizzer – and her determination to attend on her own surprised and impressed younger teammates. But it showed much of Mary’s character: her independence of thought and mind, and her genuine, endless curiosity about what the world had to offer. In her half-finished memoirs she wrote fondly of Girton, explaining that the ‘amount of economic history included in the course proved invaluable

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in my unplanned later career, when I came to work in economic and social change in Africa’. Girton also brought lifelong friendships. Indeed, Mary’s final social engagement before lockdown was lunch and a walk along the Thames with her dearest friend Pauline Perry, whom she had known for more than 70 years. After Girton, Mary was variously an au pair in Baghdad, a History teacher at Enfield County School for Girls, the Executive Secretary for the UK committee of UNICEF and a member of the PR team at Dunlop. She married Brian Tiffen in London in 1960. Brian worked for the British Council, and Mary‘s research career flourished as she accompanied him to Nigeria, Malawi, Iraq, Germany and Italy. In each country she added to her professional credentials. She wrote

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English-language schoolbooks in Nigeria, as well as conducting research for her PhD on the economic history of Gombe in Northern Nigeria (she received her doctorate from the London School of Economics in 1974). During this period she was an Economics Lecturer at Ahmadu Bello University in Nigeria, Lecturer in Development Studies in Malawi, and a Lecturer in English History at Baghdad University. This was followed by a spell working in Iraq’s Ministry of Planning in the early years of Saddam Hussein’s regime. Later, she became a freelance consultant on irrigation and dam resettlement to British, German and UN organisations working in Sudan and Yemen. After Brian retired, Mary set out on a new career at the Overseas Development Institute in London. Her ‘retirement’ involved setting up a company, Drylands Research, in Crewkerne, Somerset.


She enjoyed great critical success with her 1976 monograph on Northern Nigeria, The Enterprising Peasant, with the 1994 volume, More People, Less Erosion, based on work she led in Kenya, and with the studies she undertook around 2000 comparing dryland areas of Kenya, Senegal, Nigeria and Niger. All focused on the ingenuity of farmers who made a living from difficult environments. Her research challenged, and continues to challenge, careless assumptions about the causes of desertification and appropriate policy responses (she made an impeccable case for government interventions that remove barriers to trade and trust the responses of local resource managers).

CAROLINE WEST DUAH (1941–2020)

Mary’s arguments were always derived from the analysis of many decades’ worth of data. In the Kenyan study, photographs spanning the period from the 1930s to 1990 show the same locations turning from arid, degraded landscapes into fertile, tree-covered, terraced farms. She also demonstrated conclusively the extent to which wealth generation depends on improved road networks and market access. Her work continues to influence academics today.

Caroline and Osei met in the late 1960s in London, where Osei was a student at the London School of Economics. Both were active in the Anti-Vietnam War campaign and the Anti-Apartheid movement. They

Caroline Frances West studied English at Girton from 1960 to 1963. She won a College poetry prize in her first year and published her Cambridge poetry in student magazines such as Granta and Pawn and in Universities Poetry (1963), an Arts Council publication. Caroline was born in Ecchinswell, Hampshire, in October 1941. She was the daughter of Katherine (‘Kitty’) West, well known as the painter Katherine Church, and Anthony West, son of Rebecca West and H G Wells. Caroline’s godfather was John Betjeman, who attended her marriage in 1971 to Osei Duah, a prominent agronomist from Ghana.

In retirement she produced two self-published family histories, Friends of Sir Robert Hart and Testimony to Love. Brian died in 2014. Mary is survived by their children, Martin and Jenny, grandchildren, Lucy, Hannah, Rachel, Finlay and Jake, and by her half-brother, Chris, and sister, Susan. Gill Shepherd and Jenny Gee, with help from Baroness Perry (1949)

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travelled to Ghana where Caroline worked as an English teacher until the tragic death of her infant son, Barnabus. She then returned to live with her mother in Dorset and subsequently found work in London. Caroline was a profoundly private person who perhaps felt most comfortable and at home in the world of nature. Her brilliant observations were recorded in the course of a Goldsmiths degree in Botanical Drawing. In her writing, Caroline excelled as an innovator. In 1960, she won the Granta Freshman’s Competition, and a year later wrote her remarkable long poem, ‘In the Same Night’, published in Granta in 1961 (the poem was printed alongside one of her botanical drawings). Professor Muriel Bradbrook, her English tutor, is recorded as saying at a Granta party that summer, ‘Of course, Caroline’s working on the threshold of a precocious genius… And I’ll never again say the word “no”’. (This in reference to Caroline’s satirical use of the word ‘no’ in her long poem.) A loose circle of University writers looked up to Caroline as their most daring and imaginative contemporary. But, unfailingly modest and disarmingly unfashionable, Caroline refused to conform to anything like the role of leader and pursued her development in privacy. On her return to the UK from Ghana, Caroline took a number of non-academic jobs, most prominently as a Braille specialist at the Royal National Institute for the Blind. She settled, with her husband, in a house in Lewisham, and Osei divided his time between Africa and London until his death in 2013. Caroline became increasingly disabled but was well cared for by a team from the Borough

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of Lewisham social services. She divided her time between reading and listening to classical music on the radio. In the 1970s, Caroline again started to write, but her poems of that time have been lost. However, she did later write a number of courageously honest poems about her disability. One of these is ‘The Fiery Spirit’, in which she bravely describes physical pain, isolation and disability. This late and very directly expressed poem reads as follows: The thing that walks about and falls, That takes up space and waits for meals, Whose eyes are dim, whose voice a croak, Whose mind confuses day with night – Bereaved, unloving, full of fears – Sleep fitful, Thirst perpetual, Deafness imminent. ‘Old thing’, ‘Poor thing’ – Have none of it. The fiery spirit is victorious. The final months of Caroline’s life were spent in Castlebar Care Home in Sydenham, South London. She was cremated at Honor Oak Crematorium in April 2020. The private re-publication of Caroline’s poems in 2016 gave her pleasure and a realistic sense of her great achievement as a younger woman; it also brought her work to a wide and appreciative audience. Caroline is remembered as a brilliant and original writer, and her contemporaries count it a privilege to have known her. Tom Lowenstein


Lists The Year

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Visitor: The Rt Hon Baroness Hale of Richmond, PC, DBE, MA, Hon FBA, Hon LLD, Hon FRCPsych Mistress: Professor Susan J Smith, BA, MA, DPhil (Oxon), PhD, AcSS, FBA, FRSE

Fellows and Officers of the College, June 2020 Honorary Fellows Professor Anita Desai, CBE, BA (Delhi), FRSL The Rt Hon the Lord Mackay of Clashfern, KT, PC, Hon LLD, FRSE HM Queen Margrethe II of Denmark, Hon LLD Miss E Llewellyn-Smith, CB, MA Dame Bridget Ogilvie, DBE, AC, PhD, ScD, FIBiol, FRCPath, FMedSci, FRS, Hon DSc (Nottingham, Glasgow, Bristol, Dublin, Durham, Kent, ICL, Leicester, Manchester, St Andrews) Professor Dame Gillian Beer, DBE, MA, LittD, BLitt (Oxon), Hon DLitt (Liverpool, Leicester, London, Sorbonne, Queen’s Univ Belfast, Oxford, Harvard, St Andrews), FBA, FRSL The Rt Revd David Conner, KCVO, MA The Rt Hon Lady Arden, PC, DBE, MA, LLM, Hon LLD (Liverpool, Warwick, Royal Holloway, Nottingham, UCL) The Rt Hon Baroness Perry of Southwark, MA, Hon LLD (Bath, Aberdeen), Hon DLitt (Sussex, South Bank, City), Hon DEd (Wolverhampton), Hon DUniv (Surrey), Hon DLitt Hum (Mercy College NY), FRSA Dame Rosalyn Higgins, GBE, QC, LLB, MA, Hon LLD, Hon DCL (Oxon), Hon LLD (LSE), FBA

Dr Margaret H Bent, CBE, MA, MusB, PhD, Hon DMus (Glasgow), Hon DFA (Notre Dame), Dr hon c (Montreal), FBA, FSA, FRHistS Dame Elizabeth L A Forgan, DBE, BA (Oxon), Hon FBA Professor Dame Frances M Ashcroft, DBE, MA, PhD, ScD, FRS Professor Dame Athene Donald, DBE, MA, PhD, FRS The Rt Hon Dame Elizabeth Gloster, PC, DBE, MA Professor Dame Madeleine J Atkins DBE, MA, PGCE, PhD Professor Sarah M Springman, CBE, MA, PhD, FREng, FICE Ms Daphne Todd, OBE, Hon PhD (De Montfort) HIH Hisako, The Princess Takamado of Japan, MA, PhD, Hon LLD (Alberta, Prince Edward Island), Hon EdD (Hannam), Hon PhD (Josai) Professor Dame Pratibha Gai, DBE, BSc, MSc, PhD, FRS, HonFRMS, FRSC, FREng Ms Sandra Birgitte Toksvig, OBE, MA, Hon DLitt (Portsmouth, York St John, Surrey, Westminster, Leicester) HE Dame Karen Elizabeth Pierce, DCMG, MA, MSc Dr Suzannah Claire Lishman, CBE, MA, BChir, MB, Hon FRCPI, Hon DSc (Swansea)

Dame Ann Bowtell, DCB, MA, PhD (London) Professor Dusa McDuff, BSc (Edinburgh), PhD, FRS, Hon DSc (Edinburgh, York, Strasbourg)

Barbara Bodichon Foundation Fellows

Viscountess Runciman of Doxford, DBE, BA

Mrs Sally Alderson, MA

The Rt Hon Baroness Symons of Vernham Dean, PC, MA

Mrs Margaret Llewellyn, OBE, MA

Lady English, MA, MB, BChir, MRCP, FRCPsych

Mrs Veronica Wootten, MBE, MA

Ms J Rachel Lomax, MA, MSc (London)

Miss C Anne Wilson, MA, ALA

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Mrs Barbara Wrigley, MA


Dr Margaret A Branthwaite, BA, MD, FFARCS, FRCP

S Frank Wilkinson, MA, PhD, Life Fellow

Dr Ruth Whaley BA, MA, PhD (Harvard)

Roland E Randall, MA, MSc (McGill), PhD, Life Fellow

Sir Laurence W Martin, DL, MA, PhD, DCL (Hon)

Martin D Brand, MA, BSc (Manchester), PhD (Bristol), Life Fellow

Miss Sarah C Holt, MA

John E Davies, MA, BSc, PhD (Monash), Life Fellow

Mr Colin S Grassie, MA

David N Dumville, MA, PhD (Edinburgh), Life Fellow

Mr Leif O Høegh, MA, MBA

1

Ms Gladys Li, MA Mr Colin D Tyler, MA

Abigail L Fowden, MA, PhD, ScD, Professorial Fellow (Biological Sciences) Juliet A S Dusinberre, MA, PhD (Warwick), Life Fellow Thomas Sherwood, MA, MB, BS (London), FRCR, FRCP, Life Fellow

Fellows Enid A C MacRobbie, MA, PhD (Edinburgh), ScD, FRS, Life Fellow Dorothy J Thompson, MA, PhD, Hon DLitt (Liverpool), FBA, Life Fellow Melveena C McKendrick, MA, PhD, LittD, FBA, Life Fellow Nancy J Lane Perham, OBE, MA, PhD, ScD, MSc (Dalhousie), DPhil (Oxon), Hon LLD (Dalhousie), Hon ScD (Salford, Sheffield Hallam, Oxford Brookes, Surrey, Heriot Watt), Life Fellow Joan Oates, BA (Syracuse), PhD, FBA, Life Fellow Gillian Jondorf, MA, PhD, Life Fellow Betty C Wood, MA, PhD (Pennsylvania), Life Fellow Jill Mann, MA, PhD, FBA, Life Fellow Ruth M Williams, MA, PhD (London), ScD, Life Fellow Julia M Riley, MA, PhD, Life Fellow, Tutor for Admissions and Director of Studies in Astrophysics A Marilyn Strathern, DBE, MA, PhD, Hon DLitt (Oxford, St Andrews), Hon ScD (Edinburgh, Copenhagen, Helsinki, Durham), Hon Doctorate (Panteion), Hon DPhil (Papua New Guinea), Hon DSocSci (Queen’s Univ Belfast, Yale), FBA, Life Fellow and Former Mistress

Richard J Evans, MA, PhD, MRCVS, Life Fellow Alastair J Reid, MA, PhD, Life Fellow Sarah Kay, MA, DPhil (Oxon), LittD, FBA, Life Fellow Howard P Hodson, MA, PhD, FREng, Life Fellow Peter C J Sparks, MA, DipArch, RIBA, Life Fellow Stephanie Palmer, LLB (Adelaide), SJD (Harvard), LLM (Harvard), Official Fellow and Director of Studies in Law

3

Frances Gandy, MA, MCLIP, Life Fellow 1

Christopher J B Ford, MA, PhD, Professorial Fellow (Physics)

Charity A Hopkins, OBE, MA, LLB, Life Fellow W James Simpson, BA (Melbourne), MPhil (Oxon), PhD, Life Fellow Anne Fernihough, MA, PhD, Life Fellow Angela C Roberts, PhD, Professorial Fellow (Behavioural Neurosciences)

1

Hugh R Shercliff, MA, PhD, Official Fellow and Director of Studies in Engineering

3

Martin W Ennis, MA, PhD, FRCO, KRP (Organ; Köln), KRP (Harpsichord; Köln), Austin and Hope Pilkington Official Fellow, Director of Studies in Music and Director of College Music

3

John L Hendry, MA, PhD, Life Fellow

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1

Jochen H Runde, MPhil, PhD, Professorial Fellow (Economics)

Dennis Barden, MA, PhD, Life Fellow Andrew R Jefferies, MA, VetMB, FRCPath, MRCVS, Life Fellow Juliet J D’A Campbell, CMG, MA, Life Fellow and Former Mistress Peter H Abrahams, MBBS, FRCS (Edinburgh), FRCR, DO (Hon), Life Fellow Deborah Lowther, MA, ACA, Life Fellow Clive Lawson, MA, PhD, Frank Wilkinson Official Fellow and Director of Studies in Economics Julian D Slater, PhD, BVMS (Edinburgh), Supernumerary Fellow (Veterinary Science) A Mark Savill, MA, PhD, FRAeS, Life Fellow Per-Olof H Wikström, BA, PhD (Stockholm), FBA, Professorial Fellow (Criminology)

Edward J Briscoe, BA (Lancaster), MPhil, PhD, Professorial Fellow (Computer Science)

1

K M Veronica Bennett, MA, BSc (Leicester), PhD (CNAA), Life Fellow Harriet D Allen, MSc (Calgary), MA, PhD, Official Fellow, Tutor and Director of Studies in Geography and Education

3

Shaun D Fitzgerald, MA, PhD, FREng, Supernumerary Fellow (Engineering) Stephen Robertson, MA, MSc (City), PhD (London), Life Fellow The Revd A Malcolm Guite, MA, PhD (Durham), Supernumerary Fellow and Chaplain *8 Stuart Davis, BA, PhD (Birmingham), Jean Sybil Dannatt Official Fellow, Tutor for Admissions and Director of Studies in Modern and Medieval Languages

1

4

S-P Gopal Madabhushi, PhD, Professorial Fellow and Director of Studies in Engineering

3

*7 Fiona J Cooke, MA, BM, BCh (Oxon), PhD (London), MRCP, Official Fellow, Dean of Discipline and Director of Studies in Medicine

Neil Wright, MA, PhD, Official Fellow (Classics)

Ross Lawther, MA, PhD, Olga Taussky Official Fellow and Director of Studies in Mathematics

Ruth M L Warren, MA, MD, FRCP, FRCR, Life Fellow

*Karen L Lee, MA, Vice-Mistress and Official Fellow (Law)

*Alexandra M Fulton, BSc, PhD (Edinburgh), Official Fellow, Senior Tutor and Director of Studies in Biological Sciences

2

Maureen J Hackett, BA, MA (Southampton), Official Fellow, Tutor and Junior Bursar

4

1

Crispin H W Barnes, BSc, PhD (London), Professorial Fellow (Physics)

5

9

Judith A Drinkwater, MA, Official Fellow, Tutor and Director of Studies in Linguistics and Modern and Medieval Languages

2

Colm Durkan, BA, PhD (TCD), FRIET, Official Fellow, Tutor and Director of Studies in Engineering

3

1

P Mia Gray, BA (San Diego), MRCP (Berkeley), PhD (Rutgers), Supernumerary Fellow (Geography)

2

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Benjamin J Griffin, MA, PhD, Official Fellow and Director of Studies in History

Stuart A Scott, MA, PhD, Official Fellow and Director of Studies in Chemical Engineering Stelios Tofaris, MA, PhD, Brenda Hale Official Fellow and Director of Studies in Law Liliana Janik, MPhil (Toruń), PhD, Official Fellow, Tutor for Graduates and Director of Studies in Archaeology Samantha K Williams, BA (Lancaster), MSc, PhD, Official Fellow and Director of Studies in History Nik Cunniffe, MA, MPhil, MSc (Bath), PhD, Official Fellow (Biological Sciences)


Katherine Hughes, BSc, BVSc (Liverpool), MRCVS, PhD, Dip ACVP, Official Fellow and Director of Studies in Veterinary Medicine

3

Helen A Van Noorden, BA, PhD, Wrigley Official Fellow in Classics Morag A Hunter, MA, PhD, Official Fellow, Tutor and Director of Studies in Physical Sciences

7

Heidi Radke, DVM (Ludwig Maximilian University), DrVetMed (Zurich), Official Fellow, Tutor and Director of Studies in Veterinary Medicine

3

*Emma J L Weisblatt, BA, MB, BCh, MRCP, MRCPsych, PhD, Official Fellow, Tutor and Director of Studies in Psychology, and Psychological and Behavioural Sciences Sophia M I Shellard von Weikersthal, BSc, PhD (Freiburg), Tutor for Graduates and Official Fellow (Pharmacology) Henrik Latter, BA, BSc, MSc (Sydney), PhD, Official Fellow (Mathematics)

4

Matthew J Allen, MA, VetMB, PhD, Professorial Fellow (Veterinary Medicine)

1

*James Wade, BA (Boise State), MA (York), PhD, Jane Elizabeth Martin Official Fellow and Director of Studies in English R James E Riley, BA (Lancaster), MA (Lancaster), PhD, Muriel Bradbrook Official Fellow, Tutor for Graduates and Director of Studies in English Simone Maghenzani, BA (Turin), MA (Turin), PhD (Turin), Marilyn Strathern Official Fellow, Director of Studies in History and Praelector

8

Samuel D Grimshaw, MEng, PhD, Mitsubishi Senior Research Fellow and Director of Studies in Engineering *Amy R Donovan, BA, MPhil, MSc (UCL), PhD, Official Fellow, Tutor and Director of Studies in Geography

Arik Kershenbaum, MA, PhD (Haifa), Official Fellow, Director of Studies in Biological Sciences and Tutor Teng Cao, BEng (BUAA, Beijing), PhD, Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Senior Research Fellow in Turbomachinery Deborah J Easlick, BA (Bristol), Official Fellow and Development Director Andrew Irvine, BSc, PhD (Sussex), Official Fellow and Director of Studies in Physics

6

Alexander G S C Liu, MA, MEarthSci (Oxon), DPhil (Oxon), Official Fellow (Earth Sciences)

4

Aaron Hornkohl, BA (Biola), MA, PhD (Hebrew University of Jerusalem), Official Fellow, Director of Studies in Asian and Middle Eastern Studies and Tutor Claire E White, BA, PhD, Brenda Stacey Official Fellow and Director of Studies in Modern and Medieval Languages

4

John W Wills, BSc, PhD (Swansea), Hertha Ayrton Research Fellow in Biological Sciences

10

Shona Wilson Stark, LLB, LLM (Aberdeen), PhD, Official Fellow (Law)

4

Jenny K Blackhurst, MA (St Andrews), MA (UCL), MCLIP, Official Fellow for Life Skills and Librarian *Carolina C Alves, BSc (UNESP), MSc (UNICAMP), PhD (SOAS), Joan Robinson Research Fellow in Heterodox Economics and Director of Studies in Economics *Hilary F Marlow, BA (Manchester), BA (KCL), PhD, Official Fellow, Tutor for Graduates and Director of Studies in Theology, Religion and Philosophy of Religion Evis Sala, MD (Tirana), PhD, FRCR, Professorial Fellow (Medicine)

1

Diana Fusco, BPhys (Milan), MPhys (Milan), PhD (Duke), Official Fellow (Physics)

4

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153


Thomas J Roulet, MSc (Audencia, Nantes), MPhil (Sciences Po, Paris), PhD (HEC, Paris), Official Fellow and Director of Studies in Management Studies

Marie-Aude A C Genain, DVetMed (ENVA), MSc (Université Paris-Est), Director of Studies in Veterinary Medicine

3

14

Charles J M Bell, MA, PhD, MB, BChir, John Marks Official Fellow, Director of Studies in Medicine and Praelector

John Lawson, BA, PhD, Director of Studies in Politics, International Relations and Sociology, and Psychological and Behavioural Sciences

11

Lisa-Maria Needham, MChem (Leicester), PhD, Tucker-Price Research Fellow in Chemistry

Linda L Layne, BA (USC), MPhil, PhD (Princeton), Director of Studies in Social Anthropology

Dennis C Grube BA (Tasmania), LLB (Tasmania), PhD (Tasmania), Grad Dip Ed (Canberra), Official Fellow for Postdoctoral Affairs

Ian Lewis, BSc (London), PhD (Computer Science)

4

Alexander J W Thom, MA, MSci, PhD, Official Fellow in Chemistry

4

Anna J Nickerson, MA, PhD, Katherine Jex-Blake Research Fellow in English David Arvidsson-Shukur, BSc (Durham), MASt, PhD, Sarah Woodhead Research Fellow in Physics Christian Keime, BA (Sorbonne), MPhil (Strasbourg), PhD, Eugénie Strong Research Fellow and Director of Studies in Classics *James S Anderson, MA (Oxon), Official Fellow and Bursar Bye-Fellows Caroline J A Brett, MA, PhD, Director of Studies in AngloSaxon, Norse and Celtic

Eleonora Po, DVM (Bologna), MS (Illinois), Director of Studies in Veterinary Medicine Mark Smith, LLB (Reading), LPC (Law), MBA (Henley), MSc (Henley), Bye-Fellow for Workplace Transition Gareth F Wilson, BMus, MA, PGCert, DipPGPerfRAM, DipRAM, Director of Chapel Music and Assistant Director of Music External Teaching Officers Richard Jennings, PhD, Director of Studies in Philosophy and History and Philosophy of Science John S McCombie, MA, PhD, Director of Studies in Land Economy

1

Sofia Singler MA, MArch (Yale), Director of Studies in Architecture

4

Stephen A Cummins, BSc (Durham), PhD (Durham), Director of Studies in Computer Science Claudia Domenici, BA (Pisa), MA (Lancaster), Director of Studies in Modern and Medieval Languages

12

Margaret Faultless, MA, Hon FBC, FTCL, ARCM, Hon RAM (Music)

13

Sarah L Fawcett, BA, BM, BCh (Oxon), MRCS, FRCR, PhD (Medical and Veterinary Sciences)

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Musicians in Residence Andrew Kennedy, MA, PGDip (RCM) Nicholas Mulroy, MA, PGDip (RAM), ARAM Jeremy West, BA (Durham), Hon FRWCMD


Visiting Fellows 2019–20

Notes

Luke Burton, Artist in Residence

* Member of Council 1

University Professor

2

University Reader

3

University Senior Lecturer

4

University Lecturer

5

University Assistant Director of Research

6

University Senior Research Associate

7

University Teaching Associate/Associate Lecturer

8

Faculty Affiliated Lecturer

Archivist Emerita

9

Secretary A, Department of Veterinary Medicine

Kate Perry, Cert Ed (Froebel)

10

University Herchel Smith Research Fellow

11

EPSRC Doctoral Prize Postdoctoral Research Associate, Department of Chemistry

12

University Senior Language Teaching Officer

13

Director of Performance, Faculty of Music

14

Clinical Radiologist, Department of Veterinary Medicine

Cevanne Horrocks-Hopayian, Mary Amelia Cummins Harvey Visiting Fellow Commoner Jonathan Schneer, Helen Cam Visiting Fellow Commoner Lectrice Maya Rousseaux (Ecole Normale Supérieure de Lyon)

Secretary to Council Caroline Shenton, MA (St Andrews), DPhil (Oxon), PGDipARM (UCL)

University and College Awards Cambridge University Further Degrees and Awards

LLM: F Velli MRes: A C Williamson

University Higher Degrees PhD: A Athar, C Capsaskis, X Chang, P J Conaghan, J R Dobrin, T K Garala, J Gardner, J Grinfeld, C I Hernández Armenta, A Inaba, M Kuscu, S Liang, B Provost, B V Reddy, A Rubino, A J Whitehouse

MPhil: O Akinmoladun, S Alabed, L M Atmore, E E Becirovic, A Bilal, E Blake, D Bonetti, E Brichtová, H Cao, C G Cordeiro Pimentel, H Curry, L M Daly, R Debnath, A Doble, Z Dong, R M Forrest, A Gogloza, O S Goldman, E J Green,

A Halilovic, P R Heathcote, R R Helfand, E C Heyn, T Hong, F Hrncirík, E Kamar, M Kaminski, D Lai, Z Liu, G C Lucci, Y T Lye, T J Manz, N N Nagle, T O’Brien, H Ohki, D A Ostry, C E H Papadopoulo, J C Pinson, A L Place, D Praticò, N Ravoisin, J N Rubel, C Selvaggi, F S Sener, N H Shoup, P Struski, O Taylor, J J Thompson, C Tien, C Yang, K M Yildirim, J Zapletal, T Zhu

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MMus: T J Vaughn, T L Watts MASt: D W Collison, S De, F M B Duque, G V Kehris, K Konstantinou, A Sheinkman, T Sternberg, H L Tang MB: Q Cheah, K R Teh VetMB: J S Burdett, J A L Farley, J Harding, T Hordle, K R Lang, C F Milne, R T A Scrace, M Steele

Jane Martin Poetry Prize: Annie Forbes (First Prize) and Aayusi Jain (Second Prize) Mountford Arts and Humanities Communication Prize: S Rosell (First Judges’ Prize), P W Durman (Second Judges’ Prize), K FlorinSefton (Audience Prize and Lawrence Room Prize), O Gill (Abstract Prize) Ridding Reading Prize: W Hale

University Prizes for Academic Excellence These were not awarded this year because of the effect of COVID-19 on examinations. College Awards College Competition Prizes

Graduate Research Awards

Barbara Wrigley Prize: J A Hawkes

Joyce Biddle Scholarship, G M Gardner Award, Diane Worzala Award: H J Mace Bryce-Tebb Scholarship: K A Stevenson, J Wang Chan and Mok Scholarship: K S Lau Ida and Isidore Cohen Scholarship: I Rosen M M Dunlop Scholarship: M Ini’, R Jamieson Amelia Gurney Scholarship: J Wang Irene Hallinan Scholarship: M Ini’ M T Meyer Scholarship: L Liu

Humanities Writing Prize: First place: Polly Shorrock; Second place (joint): Nora Besley and Isabel Minty; Highly commended: Susanna Freudenheim and Cal Gorvy

The Year

Postgraduate Scholarships College Scholarships

Tom Mansfield Memorial Prizes: R Hill and J H Mitchell

Hammond Science Communication Prize: A McGairy (Judges’ Prize), S Verma (Abstract Prize), G Cowperthwaite (Audience Prize), E G Henry (Runner-up: Audience Prize), B N Ryan (Pathology Prize)

156

Rima Alamuddin Prize: T A Williamson (for a composition for chamber ensemble)

Old Girtonians Award: M M Kalenak Pfeiffer Scholarship: J Mullan Lipman, F Zheng Doris Russell Scholarship: D Carver, R Jamieson Maria Luisa de Sanchez Scholarship: S D C Orellana Aguirre, F A Vargas Stribling Award: R Jamieson, B W Sadler Ruth Whaley Scholarship: F Zheng Doris Woodall Studentship: I Ahlers, L Ballerini

Sir Arthur Arnold: B Gurdon (Natural Sciences, Physical), G V Kehris (Natural Sciences, Physical), K Konstantinou (Natural Sciences, Physical) Mary Sparke: F Velli (Law) Medicine and Veterinary Medicine John Bowyer Buckley: J A CoryWright, K R Lang, S Saji, R Shah, M Steele Postgraduate Prizes Economics, History and Law Lilian Knowles: F Velli (Law) Medicine and Veterinary Medicine Leslie Hall: K R Lang, M Steele


Thomas and Elizabeth Walton: J A Cory-Wright, S Saji, R Shah Natural Sciences (Physical) Ida Freund: B Gurdon, G V Kehris, K Konstantinou Undergraduate Scholarships College Scholarships Sir Arthur Arnold: S W Allen (Geography) Lilias Sophia Ashworth Hallett: R J Bogle (HSPS) Barbara Bodichon: S A E Borasio (HSPS), I M Fraser (English), O Gill (HSPS), S L Kean (English), N N S Leake (English), E F Shaxson (HSPS) Rosalind, Lady Carlisle: L Evans (Law), O Tapper (Geography), B E Thurlow (Geography) Emily Davies: C Gao (Engineering), W Hale (English), B Hasna (English), C H Y Lau (Engineering), E Porro (English), J S Rodgers (Engineering) Angela Dunn-Gardner: I M Branford (Law), N I Brocksom (Law), N C Chia (Law), Y L Kim (Land Economy), T L Lee (Computer Science), D Ng (Law), J H G Tan (Law), P Tonkaboni (Law) Sir Francis Goldsmid: P D Dimitrov (Natural Sciences, Physical), S Dodgson (Natural Sciences, Physical), G Glasby (Land Economy), G J Kaufmann (Land

Economy), D A H Lindebaum (Natural Sciences, Physical), S B Shiers (Natural Sciences, Physical), J Smith (Natural Sciences, Physical), T A Williamson (Natural Sciences, Physical), J G Wong (Natural Sciences, Physical) Mary Graham: S J Davidson (Theology, Religion and Philosophy of Religion), M R Ground (Archaeology), H M Khodabocus (HSPS), S C Liebana Garcia (Engineering), T Lowe (Natural Sciences, Physical), M McEveley (Engineering), E McMullan (Natural Sciences, Physical) Mary Higgins: B Comolli (Economics), V C Echefu (Economics), A Gkolanta (Chemical Engineering), K C O’Mara (Economics), H J S Waugh (Chemical Engineering), M Yang (Economics), E Zorova (Economics) Alice Violet Jenkinson: S Nasser (Chemical Engineering), R Thornton (Chemical Engineering), T Virgo (Chemical Engineering) Mary Ann Leighton: E Crawley (Theology, Religion and Philosophy of Religion), R Marques Monteiro (Engineering), E Prager (Engineering), E Suresh (Engineering), M Wang Almeida E Silva (Engineering) Mary Sparke: S T Jones (Natural Sciences, Physical), A McGairy

(Natural Sciences, Physical) Henry Tomkinson: S Abu Al Haj (PBS), D Alexandridis (Engineering), D Begaj (PBS), H G Jenkinson (Engineering), E Saunders (Engineering) Classics Jane Agnes Chessar: I M Gander Amelia Gurney: J S D Lush, L Stabile William Menzies: M A Hardy History Russell Gurney: A R E Cooper, W Emmrich (History and Politics), J T T Gasson, V McCarron Florence Ethel Gwyn: A J Breare, J E Lee, E Young Mathematics M T Meyer: G Cowperthwaite, J Hiley, M Mrugala, A Thornton Medicine and Veterinary Medicine Edith Lydia Johns: E L Bedborough, T A Cooney, A Malik, M Pandiaraja, P Patel, R T Rashid Modern and Medieval Languages Jean Hunter: G E Roper, N Schmittzehe, R Skillen, H Woodland Todd Memorial: I Yerassimou (History and Modern Languages) Music Sophia Turle: R Jones, N L A Maier, L F McIver, J H Mitchell, J Wardhaugh

The Year

157


Natural Sciences (Biological) John Bowyer Buckley: O Fleming, J D Friege, Z M Hopkins, K J Kettnaker, T Page, N Y Schwartz, L Whittaker Undergraduate Prizes Senior College Prizes These have yet to be awarded because some examinations were delayed as a result of COVID-19. College Prizes Christina Barnard: S A E Borasio (HSPS), O Gill (HSPS), E F Shaxson (HSPS) Isabella Crawshaw: S Nasser (Chemical Engineering), R Thornton (Chemical Engineering), T Virgo (Chemical Engineering) Jane Catherine Gamble: S C Liebana Garcia (Engineering), R Marques Monteiro (Engineering), M McEveley (Engineering), E Prager (Engineering), E Suresh (Engineering), M Wang Almeida E Silva (Engineering) Beatrice Mills: S Abu Al Haj (PBS), D Begaj (PBS), R J Bogle (HSPS), L F McIver (Music) Raemakers: A Gkolanta (Chemical Engineering), R Jones (Music), H M Khodabocus (HSPS), Y L Kim (Land Economy), T L Lee (Computer Science), N L A Maier (Music), J H Mitchell (Music), J Wardhaugh (Music), H J S Waugh (Chemical

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The Year

Engineering) Phyllis Tillyard: D Alexandridis (Engineering), M R Ground (Archaeology), H G Jenkinson (Engineering), E Saunders (Engineering) C B West: G Glasby (Land Economy), G J Kaufmann (Land Economy), C H Y Lau (Engineering), J S Rodgers (Engineering)

English Charity Reeves: I M Fraser, W Hale, B Hasna, S L Kean, N N S Leake, E Porro Charlton Award: S L Kean

Classics Mary Bennett: I M Gander Ethel Gavin: J S D Lush, L Stabile Hilda Richardson: M A Hardy

Mathematics Gertrude Mather Jackson: G Cowperthwaite, A Thornton May Smithells: J Hiley, M Mrugala

Economics, History and Law Mary Arden: I M Branford (Law) Margaret Hastings: A J Breare (History), N I Brocksom (Law), N C Chia (Law), J E Lee (History), D Ng (Law), J H G Tan (Law), P Tonkaboni (Law), E Young (History) Eileen Power: A R E Cooper (History), W Emmrich (History and Politics), J T T Gasson (History), V McCarron (History) J V Robinson: B Comolli (Economics), V C Echefu (Economics), K C O’Mara (Economics), M Yang (Economics), E Zorova (Economics) Thomas and Elizabeth Walton: L Evans (Law)

Medicine and Veterinary Medicine Leslie Hall: E L Bedborough Ming Yang Lee: T A Cooney, A Malik, M Pandiaraja, P Patel, R T Rashid

Engineering Satyanarayana Madabhushi: C Gao

Natural Sciences (Physical) Layla Adib: P D Dimitrov, S Dodgson, T A Williamson

Geography Margaret Anderson: S W Allen, O Tapper, B E Thurlow Janet Chamberlain: B E Thurlow

Modern and Medieval Languages Fanny Metcalf: G E Roper Mary Ponsonby: N Schmittzehe, R Skillen, H Woodland Lilian Amanda Thomas: I Yerassimou (History and Modern Languages) Natural Sciences (Biological) Marion Bidder: J D Friege, K J Kettnaker Ellen Delf-Smith: Z M Hopkins, T Page, N Y Schwartz, L Whittaker Edith Neal: O Fleming


Gwendolen Crewdson: S T Jones, D A H Lindebaum, S B Shiers, J Smith, J G Wong Ida Freund: T Lowe, A McGairy, E McMullan Theology J Y Gibson: E Crawley, S J Davidson

Travel Awards Undergraduate No competition was held this year because of the restrictions on travel imposed as a result of COVID-19. Graduate

Music Awards College Music Scholarship: K K W Loh (guitar) London Girton Association Award: L A Hampton (flute) Organ Scholarship: J H Mitchell Daphne Braggins Organ Award: T A Williamson University Instrumental Awards: C J Howdle (violin), R Jones (viola), M Morris (clarinet) Daphne Bird Instrumental Awards: A Critten (trumpet), N L A Maier (piano), L F McIver (piano), M Morris (clarinet), S O’Neal (piano), J R Starling (piano) University Choral Awards: C J Howdle, J Newbold, B Pymer, H B Samuel Siem Prize: J Wardhaugh

Sidney and Marguerite Cody Travelling Studentship: S M Weppel Kythé Waldram: J F Y Tsang Sports Awards Sport-specific Awards Acrobatic rock and roll team: M A Margetts, A Veronese Alpine skiing: E Augustaityte Amateur boxing: V Yip American football: C W Ashling, S J Gadomski, C J Runyan Australian rules football: E M C Plaut Basketball: A M G Loubens, J Wu Boxing: H M Khodabocus Clay pigeon shooting: J A Thorn Cross country: J S G Dempsey Cycling: E H Grace, F E James Dance competition: A R Nicholson Eton fives: S L Yuen

Field hockey: T A Fairhurst Full-bore rifle (target/match): L Nagy Hockey: M Hoult Ice hockey: F Hrncirík, S J Kennedy, L Nagy Kick boxing: J M Tuffnell Korfball: M P Gaiser-Porter Lightweight rowing: J A Reid, T J L Smith Men’s lacrosse: S W Allen Olympic weightlifting: K A Ciazynska Polo: J A Thorn Powerlifting: S J Gadomski, M McEveley, S Sarantellis-Komninellis Rowing: A Doyle Rugby: A E Elgar Rugby league: E Chatfield, E M C Plaut, W Scrivens Rugby union: A Broughton, A Mulard Swimming: A H J Collins, K A Romain Triathlon: E G Henry Volleyball: M L Labrunie Water polo: B W Z Tan Named Sports Awards Diana Lees-Jones Award: E Augustaityte (Alpine skiing) Joan M McGrath Sports Award: S J Kennedy (ice hockey) Robin Sports Award: J S G Dempsey (cross country), A Doyle (rowing), E H Grace (cycling), F E James (cycling)

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Appointments of Fellows and Alumni 1978 PIERCE, K (Honorary Fellow) appointed Her Majesty’s Ambassador to the United States of America, with effect from February 2020, the first woman to hold this post. 1983 TILLEY, C (Thomson) appointed Lecturer in Business Ethics and Sustainability at King’s College, London, with effect from September 2019. 1988 KEBBELL, S appointed Member of the Law Society Money Laundering Task Force, with effect from February 2019. 1995 SCHELLHORN, M appointed to the International Advisory Board of Naxos Musicology International (NMI), a new online platform for music scholarship. 2009 HUGHES, K (Fellow) elected President of the British Society of Veterinary Pathology, with effect from January 2019, for the next year.

2009 VAN NOORDEN, H (Fellow) appointed Associate Professor/AIAS-COFUND Fellow at Aarhus Institute of Advanced Studies, with effect from October 2020, for the next two years. 2017 WHITE, C (Fellow) appointed General Editor and French Editor of the Modern Humanities Research Association’s Critical Texts book series; appointed Associate Editor of the North American journal Nineteenth-Century French Studies. 2018 BELL, C (Fellow) appointed Academic Clinical Fellow in Psychiatry at King’s College, London. 2018 SALA, E (Fellow) appointed Senior Consulting Editor for Radiology: Artificial Intelligence, with effect from February 2020.

Awards and Distinctions ALLEN, H (Fellow) awarded a Pilkington Prize by the University of Cambridge, in recognition of teaching excellence in Geography, April 2020. BOND, D A (1945 Avery) awarded an Honorary Fellowship at the Royal School of Church Music, October 2019. HAYWARD, S L (1988) appointed Member of the Order of the British Empire in the 2019 Queen’s Birthday Honours List, for services to Transport and Policing. KHATANA, M (2014) awarded the RGS Economic Geography Research Group Dissertation Prize, for her PhD on ‘Navigating

160

The Year

gendered space: The social construction of labour markets in Pakistan’, May 2020. LOH, K (2019) shared first prize in the Cambridge University Musical Society Concerto Competition, February 2020. SCOTT, S (Fellow) awarded a Pilkington Prize by the University of Cambridge, in recognition of teaching excellence in Engineering, April 2020. VAN NOORDEN, H (Fellow) received an award under the Newton Trust College Teaching Officer Research Leave scheme, March 2019.


Fellows’ Publications Recent publications by Fellows and Officers of the College include: P ABRAHAMS. (All joint) ‘Scan and learn: quick response code enabled museum for mobile learning of anatomy and pathology’, Anatomical Sciences Education 12(6) (2019); ‘Learning anatomy of the foot and ankle using sagittal plastinates: a prospective randomized educational trial’, The Foot 38 (2019); ‘Predictive factors of success at the French National Ranking Examination (NRE): a retrospective study of the student performance from a French medical school’, BMC Medical Education 19(469) (2019). H D ALLEN. ‘Mediterranean forests, woods and shrublands’, Geography in Britain after World War II: Nature, Climate, and the Etchings of Time, ed. M Martin, V Damodaran and R D’Souza (Palgrave Macmillan, 2019). D ARVIDSSON-SHUKUR. (Joint) ‘Entanglement generation via power-of-SWAP operations between dynamic electron-spin qubits’, Physical Review A 101 (2020). C J M BELL. ‘The Eucharistic Feast: participation, representation and sacramental integrity in the time of social distancing’, Anglicanism.org (2020); ‘Towards a Trinitarian understanding of marriage: how might the unity of persons in communion help rediscover the principles of Christian marriage?’, Anglicanism. org (2020). F COOKE. (Joint) ‘Microbiology: managing endocarditis’, The Royal College of Pathologists Annual Report 2018–2019 (2019). N J CUNNIFFE. (All joint) ‘Coinfections by noninteracting pathogens are not independent and require new tests of interaction’, PLoS Biology 17(12) (2019); ‘Applying optimal control theory to complex epidemiological models to inform real-world disease management’, Phil. Trans. R Soc. B 374

(2019); ‘Applying optimal control theory to a spatial simulation model of sudden oak death: ongoing surveillance protects tanoak while conserving biodiversity’, J R Soc. Interface 17 (2020); ‘Spatiotemporal dynamics and modelling support the case for area-wide management of citrus greasy spot in a Brazilian smallholder farming region’, Plant Pathology 3(69) (2020). S DAVIS. ‘The Golden Age in the Hispanic Studies classroom: the changing shape of what we teach our undergraduates in the UK’, Spanish Golden Age Texts in the Twenty-First Century: Teaching the Old through the New, ed. I Puig and K McLaughlin (Peter Lang, 2019); ‘The time of the (orphan) child: viewing Carla Simón’s Estiu 1993/Summer 1993 (2017) with Carlos Saura’s Cría cuervos/Raise Ravens (1976)’, Studies in Spanish and Latin American Cinemas 17(1) (2020). A DONOVAN. (Joint) ‘Changing the paradigm in risk communication’, Global Assessment Report 2019 (United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction, 2019); (joint) ‘Risk and reward: explosive eruptions and obsidian lithic resource at Nabro volcano (Eritrea)’, Quaternary Science Reviews 226 (2019); (joint) ‘Communicating complex forecasts: an analysis of the approach in Nepal’s flood early warning system’, Geosci. Commun. 3 (2020); ‘When the vertical becomes horizontal: experiencing exploding mountains in borderlands’, Annals of the American Association of Geographers 110(4) (2020). M W ENNIS. ‘Beethoven’s nine symphonies: from alpha to omega’, Scottish Chamber Orchestra Publications (2019); ‘Brahms, autodidacticism, and the curious case of the gavotte’, Current Musicology 104 (2019); ‘Tumbling in the godless deep: Brahms and the sense of an ending’, Musicologica Austriaca (2020). M GRAY. (Joint) ‘When machines think for us: the consequences for work and place’, Cambridge J of Regions, Economy and Society 13 (2020).

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B GRIFFIN. ‘Paternal rights, child welfare and the law in nineteenth-century Britain and Ireland’, Past and Present 246 (2020). S D GRIMSHAW. (Joint) ‘Super aggressive S-ducts for airbreathing rocket engines’, Proceedings of ASME Turbo Expo 2020 (2020). D C GRUBE. Megaphone Bureaucracy: Speaking Truth to Power in the Age of the New Normal (Princeton UP, 2019). M GUITE. After Prayer: New Sonnets and other Poems (Canterbury Press, 2019); ‘Christ and the poetic imagination’, Christ Unabridged: Knowing and Loving the Son of Man, ed. G Westhaver, R Vince and R Williams (SCM, 2020). J HENDRY. ‘Truth, knowledge and religious belief’, Think 54 (2020). K HUGHES. ‘Abdominal ectopic pregnancy and impaired postnatal mammary gland development, consistent with physiologic agalactia, in a wild European rabbit, Oryctolagus cuniculus’, Frontiers in Veterinary Science 6 (2019); (joint) ‘Developmental stage-specific distribution of macrophages in mouse mammary gland’, Frontiers in Cell and Developmental Biology 7 (2019); (joint) ‘Size of supernumerary teats in sheep correlates with complexity of the anatomy and microenvironment’, J of Anatomy 236 (2020); (joint) ‘Dynamic architectural interplay between leucocytes and mammary epithelial cells’, The FEBS Journal 287 (2020). L JANIK. ‘The ontology of praxis: hard memory and the rock art of the White Sea’, Time and Mind 12(3) (2019); The Archaeology of Seeing. Science and Interpretation, the Past and Contemporary Visual Art (Routledge, 2020). L LAYNE. ‘How things have changed: adoption memoirs of second-generation American and British gay dads’,

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Reproductive Biomedicine and Society 9 (2020); (editor) Selfishness and Selflessness: New Approaches to Understanding Morality, Wyse Series in Social Anthropology (Berghahn Press, 2020). K L LEE. (Joint editor) International Law Reports: Volumes 185 to 190 (CUP, 2020). A G LIU. (All joint) ‘The importance of neutral over niche processes in structuring Ediacaran early animal communities’, Ecology Letters 22(12) (2019); ‘Filamentous connections between Ediacaran fronds’, Current Biology 30 (2020); ‘Evolutionary synchrony of Earth’s biosphere and sedimentarystratigraphic record’, Earth Science Reviews 201 (2020). L-M NEEDHAM. (Joint) ‘ThX – a next-generation probe for the early detection of amyloid aggregates’, Chemical Science 18 (2020). S PALMER. (Joint) ‘Who gets the ventilator? Important legal rights’, J of Medical Ethics 46(7) (2020). J M RILEY. (Joint) ‘The faint radio source population at 15.7 GHz – IV: the dominance of core emission in faint radio galaxies’, MNRAS 493 (2020). R J E RILEY. The Bad Trip: Dark Omens, New Worlds and the End of the Sixties (Icon Books, 2019); ‘Voices from the ether’, Urban Wyrd: Spirits of Place, ed. A Paciorek and D Charles (Wyrd Harvest Press, 2019); ‘Deep thinking: Arthur Conan Doyle, Dennis Wheatley and the fiction of Atlantis’, Wormwood 33 (2019); (joint) Territories (Contraband Books, 2020). T ROULET. The Power of Being Divisive: Understanding Negative Social Evaluations (Stanford UP, 2020); (joint) ‘Making space for art: a spatial perspective of disruptive and defensive institutional work in Venezuela’s art world’,


Academy of Management J (2020); ‘Why “de-growth” should not scare businesses’, Harvard Business Review (2020). J RUNDE. (Both joint) ‘Reminiscences of Ludwig M. Lachmann’, Research in the History of Economic Thought and Methodology: Including a Symposium on Ludwig Lachmann, Vol. 37B, ed. S L Fiorito, S Scheall and C E Suprinyak (Emerald Publishing, 2019); ‘Financialisation and the new capitalism?’, Cambridge J of Economics 43(4) (2019). E SALA. (All joint) ‘Radiogenomics analysis of intratumor heterogeneity in a patient with high-grade serous ovarian cancer’, JCO PO 3 (2019); ‘Computed tomography-derived radiomic metrics can identify responders to immunotherapy in ovarian cancer’, JCO PO 3 (2019); ‘Radiomics of computed tomography and magnetic resonance imaging in renal cell carcinoma – a systematic review and meta-analysis’, Eur. Radiol. 30(6) (2020); ‘Unraveling tumor-immune heterogeneity in advanced ovarian cancer uncovers immunogenic effect of chemotherapy’, Nature Genetics 52 (2020). J SIMPSON. Permanent Revolution: The Reformation and the Illiberal Roots of Liberalism (The Belknap Press, 2019); ‘Trans-Reformation English literary history’, Early Modern Histories of Time: The Periodizations of Sixteenth- and Seventeenth-Century England, ed. K Poole and O Williams (U of Pennsylvania Press, 2019); ‘Working, across the very long Reformation: four models’, Reformation 24(2) (2019); ‘Anti-Virgilianism in late medieval Troy narratives’, Troianalexandrina 19 (2019). D J THOMPSON. ‘The family in Graeco-Roman Egypt’, Facing Eternity: From the Fayum Portraits to the Early Christian Icons, ed. E Doxiadis and R Tzanaki (Heraklion, Vikelaia Municipal Library, 2019). C WHITE. ‘Patrie, peuple, amitié: George Sand and Jules

Michelet on the politics of friendship’, Romanic Review 110 (2019); ‘Zola et Gissing: le Demos des deux côtés de la Manche’, Les Cahiers naturalistes 94 (2020). R M WILLIAMS. (Joint) ‘Tullio Regge’s legacy: Regge calculus and discrete (quantum) gravity’, Tullio Regge: An Eclectic Genius. From Quantum Gravity to Computer Play, ed. L Castellani, A Ceresole, R D’Aurio and P Fré (World Scientific, 2020). J W WILLS. (All joint) ‘A murine oral-exposure model for nanoand micro-particulates: demonstrating human relevance with food-grade titanium dioxide’, Small 16(21) (2020); ‘Infection with the sheep gastrointestinal nematode Teladorsagia circumcincta increases luminal pathobionts’, Microbiome 8(60) (2020); ‘Application of automated electron microscopy imaging and machine learning to characterise and quantify nanoparticle dispersion in aqueous media’, J of Microscopy (2020); ‘Copper nanoparticles have negligible direct antibacterial impact’, NanoImpact 17 (2020). G WILSON. ‘Music, atheism, and modernity: aesthetics, morality, and the theological construction of the self’, God’s Song and Music’s Meanings, ed. J Hawkey, B Quash and V White (Routledge, 2020). Music C HORROCKS-HOPAYIAN. ‘A Dancing Place (scherzo)’, London Symphony Orchestra Panufnik Legacies III, conducted by François-Xavier Roth (LSO Live, 2020). J WEST and G WILSON. (Joint) Marc’Antonio Ingegneri, Missa Laudate Pueri Dominum and motets, Girton College Chapel Choir and Historic Brass of the Guildhall School and Royal Welsh College of Music & Drama (Toccata Classics, 2020). G WILSON. ‘Qui sine peccato est’, Gate of Heaven, Choir of St James’ Cathedral, Toronto, Robert Busiakiewicz (2019).

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Alumni Publications Recent publications by alumni of the College include: ABDALLAHI, J (1960 Lunnon). Awful, Thrilling, Topping (Jean Abdallahi, 2019).

KEBBELL, S (1988). ‘The Law Commission: anti-money laundering and counter-terrorism financing – reform of the suspicious activity reporting regimes’, Criminal Law Review (11) (2018).

BROOKS, M M (1977). ‘Conservation’, Textile History 50(1) (2019); (joint) ‘Respectful and responsible stewardship: maintaining and renewing the cultural relevance of museum collections’, Preventive Conservation: Collection Storage, ed. L Elkin and C A Norris (New York: Society for the Preservation of Natural History/American Institute for Conservation of Historic and Artistic Works; Smithsonian Institution/The George Washington University Museum Studies Program, 2019); (joint) ‘Forgotten histories and possible futures: learning from twentieth-century fibres and films made from waste regenerated protein sources’, The Plastics Heritage Congress 2019 Proceedings, ed. M E Callapez (Ludus, 2020).

KILEY-WORTHINGTON, M (2002 Brenda Ryman Visiting Fellow). Family are the Friends You Choose (TSL Publications, 2020).

CHALLIS, R A H (1957 Wood). ‘Letter to Proust’, Magma 70 (2018).

POLLARD, L (1962). Margery Spring Rice: Pioneer of Women’s Health in the Early Twentieth Century (Open Book Publishers, 2020).

CROTHERS, A (2002). The Culture of My Stuff (Carcanet Press, 2020). GERLEIGNER, G S (2007). (Both joint) ‘Roma punica? Sprachwissenschaftliche und archäologische Anmerkungen zu einem etymologischen Vorschlag’, Münchener Studien zur Sprachwissenschaft 71 (2017–18); ‘ Mélanges de linguistique, de philologie et d’histoire ancienne offerts à Rudolf Wachter, ed. M Aberson, F Dell’Oro, M de Vaan and A Viredaz (Université de Lausanne, 2020). HAWKEY, J (1998). (Joint editor) God’s Song and Music’s Meanings (Routledge, 2020). HOWELL, R (1949 Griffin). Splendid Fun: The Story of One Hundred Years of Devon Girl Guides (Stockwell’s, 2019).

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KING, N (1977). A-level Geography Topic Master: Glaciated Landscapes (Hachette UK, 2019); WJEC/Eduqas A-level Geography Student Guide 6: Contemporary Themes in Geography (Hachette UK, 2020). MOOD, C E (1976). O Man of Clay (Stairwell Books, 2019). NZELU, O (2007). The Private Joys of Nnenna Maloney (Dialogue Books, 2019).

RICHES, M (1990 Stanton). Tightrope (Orion, 2019); Backlash (Orion, 2020). RODDEN, J (1955 Wilkins). ‘Thunderstones: Bolts from the Blue?’, Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings (2018). Music SCHELLHORN, M (1995). Herbert Howells: Piano Music, Vol. 1, produced by Rachel Smith (1989) (Naxos, 2020).


Update your details Please complete both sides of this form and return to: The Alumni Officer, The Development Office, Girton College, Cambridge CB3 0JG. Alternatively, you can update your details online at: https://www.girton.cam.ac.uk/alumnisupporters/alumni/update-your-details/ or email them to alumni@girton.cam.ac.uk

Awards, degrees and honours, with dates ..................................................................................................................................................... ..................................................................................................................................................... .....................................................................................................................................................

Career news If you have changed your job or started training in the past year, please provide details here. New position/training, with date of commencement

Personal details

.....................................................................................................................................................

Full name ...............................................................................................................................

Name of new employer/institution

Former name (if applicable) ......................................................................................

.....................................................................................................................................................

Year of matriculation .....................................................................................................

New appointments to commitees, directorships etc. in industry, public or voluntary sectors, with starting date

Have we used your correct, full postal address to send this copy of The Year? If not, please notify us of any changes to your contact details:

..................................................................................................................................................... .....................................................................................................................................................

Address ...................................................................................................................................

New or unreported publications

.....................................................................................................................................................

Books Title...........................................................................................................................

.....................................................................................................................................................

Publisher ..................................................... Date of publication

.......................................................................... Postcode ...................................................

Telephone number(s) ..................................................................................................... Email .........................................................................................................................................

........ /........ /........

Chapter in book Chapter title .............................................................................. Book title ............................................................................................................................... Publisher ..................................................... Date of publication

........ /........ /........

Article Title .........................................................................................................................

News and Life Events (2020/21 or unreported earlier)

Journal ....................................................................................................................................

These will be recorded in next year’s edition of The Year. We would welcome a photograph of these events – please send to alumni@girton.cam.ac.uk.

Number ............................... Year ........................ Page numbers

Marriages/Civil Partnerships Marriage/partnership date

........ /........ /........

Partner name ...................................................................................................................... If your partner is a Girtonian, please give us their year of matriculation ........................................................ Children born within the year Name of child ..................................................................................................................... DOB

........ /........ /........

M/F

Name of child ..................................................................................................................... DOB

........ /........ /........

M/F

............................

Other personal information not already recorded ..................................................................................................................................................... ..................................................................................................................................................... .....................................................................................................................................................

We are interested to hear about any of your personal and career news that has not already been reported elsewhere on this form. Even if, for lack of space, we cannot publish it in The Year it will be recorded and retained. Please let us have your new information before the end of May 2021 for inclusion in the next edition of The Year. Girton College likes to keep in touch with all alumni and supporters, and data held by the College will be used for alumni relations and fundraising purposes. For more details about how we use this information, please visit https://www.girton.cam.ac.uk/gdpr.

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Alumni Events

Roll of Alumni Dinner and Weekend Booking Form

Roll of Alumni Dinner and Weekend

Dinner ticket(s) @ £55 per person

£ ...........................................

The Roll of Alumni Dinner is open to all Girtonians and their guests.

Rooms @ £67.50 per person per night for the night(s) of: Friday / Saturday / Sunday (circle)

£ ...........................................

Total:

£ ...........................................

If you would like to help to organise a reunion for your year or for any special group such as a particular subject or society, please get in touch with Dr Emma Cornwall, the Alumni Officer, for assistance. Draft Programme of Events 25 September 2021 Library Talk There will be a talk for Girtonians and their guests at 11.00 (details TBC later in the year). Lawrence Room Talk There will be a talk for Girtonians and their guests at 14.00 (details TBC later in the year). People’s Portraits Talk There will be a talk for Girtonians and their guests at 16.00. In addition, a new portrait for the Girton People’s Portraits exhibition will be unveiled (details TBC later in the year). Afternoon Tea From 15.30. Concert A musical performance will follow afternoon tea at 18.00 (details TBC later in the year). Dinner in the Hall 19.00 for 19.45 We are particularly pleased to be hosting reunion tables for those who matriculated in 1960, 1961, 1970, 1971, 1980 and 1981.

I wish to purchase:

I wish to reserve: Lunch in the Cafeteria (cash till)

Quantity:...........................................

Library Talk (free)

Quantity:...........................................

Lawrence Room Talk (free)

Quantity:...........................................

People’s Portraits Talk (free)

Quantity:...........................................

Concert (retiring collection)

Quantity:...........................................

Gardens Talk (free) (Sunday)

Quantity:...........................................

Title ................................ Preferred first name

.................................................................

Surname ................................................................................................................................... Previous name (if applicable) ........................................................................................... Address ..................................................................................................................................... ..................................................................................................................................................... ..........................................................................

Postcode

.....................................................

Telephone number(s) .......................................................................................................... Email .......................................................................................................................................... Name of Guest (if applicable) Title ................................ Preferred first name

.................................................................

Surname ................................................................................................................................... Special Dietary Requirements (e.g. vegetarian, food allergy etc)

26 September 2021

Your Name ..............................................................................................................................

Garden Talk There will be a talk for Girtonians and their guests at 10.30 (details TBC later in the year).

Dietary requirement ............................................................................................................ I / we would like to be seated near (if this is possible) .....................................................................................................................................................

I enclose my cheque for £ .............................. made payable to Girton College Please return by 10 September 2021 to: Emma Cornwall, Alumni Officer, The Development Office, Girton College, Cambridge CB3 0JG

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The Year

Payment by credit/debit card: Card payments can be taken over the phone. Please call +44 (0)1223 764 935.


A Great Campaign Thanks to the generosity of 3,800 alumni and friends, this academic year saw A Great Campaign reach 90% of the £50 million it aims to raise in permanent endowment, significantly helping to secure the future of the College. This is testament to the tremendous affection and goodwill of our wider community, and we send our warmest thanks to everyone who has supported the College. The impact of your support for A Great Campaign is already evident at Girton. The spendable annual investment income generated from gifts totalling £23.5 million under the College’s current total-return spending rule is available in perpetuity to support Girton’s strategic planning. The growth of the endowment not only protects the College in the long term but also provides an invaluable financial safety net that helps the College cope with emergencies such as the COVID-19 pandemic.

commitment to the Cambridge Bursaries Scheme. Thanks to your support, seventeen of these bursaries have already been endowed, ensuring that excellence in diversity will continue to thrive at Girton. • Our Graduates, whose next-generation research helps solve the problems of our complex and ever-changing world. The superb new accommodation at Swirles Court in the North West Cambridge development at Eddington presents an opportunity for Girton to grow its graduate school which, we hope, will eventually achieve parity with undergraduate numbers. To this end, we need to attract the best applicants from around the world, and we are working to endow five graduate scholarships. Three of these awards have already been endowed. With your help, original thought will continue to thrive at Girton.

Ten fellowships with responsibilities in teaching and research have been permanently endowed in English, Modern and Medieval Languages, History, Law, Economics, Mathematics, Clinical Medicine, Physical Sciences, Biological Sciences and French. Donations have also supported widening participation and enhanced the quality and breadth of the student experience at Girton. Your contributions have helped fund bursaries and scholarships, provided hardship grants, and supported students’ all-round educational experience through initiatives such as artist-in-residence masterclasses, Nature Club, garden improvements and the ‘Thrive’ programme which includes study skills, career skills and life skills.

• Our Fellowship, which brings inspiration, encouragement, knowledge and wisdom to students each day of their educational journey. The Cambridge collegiate system, with its emphasis on smallgroup teaching and supervisions, is widely acknowledged as worldleading, and the ability to attract and invest in the world’s most talented academics is key to its continued success. To ensure that the highest educational offer is maintained at Girton, we need to endow two further teaching fellowships. We have already partly completed the funding for both of these – a Fellowship in Applied Mathematics named after Bertha Jeffreys and a Fellowship with an internationalstudies focus named after former Mistress Juliet Campbell. With your help, inspirational teaching will continue to thrive at Girton.

We hope, with your help, to reach our Campaign target of £50 million through a combination of donations and legacy pledges. By the end of the Campaign, Girton will be well on the way to the financial flexibility and stability it requires to determine its own destiny.

If you have benefited from your studies at Girton and have not yet joined A Great Campaign, please consider doing so now; this will help us complete this game-changing campaign and enable future generations of Girton students, educators and researchers to flourish.

The Campaign’s core aim is still to build enough permanent endowment capital to ensure financial sustainability. However, the 150th-anniversary phase focuses on the people who are at the heart of Girton’s unique and transformative educational adventure:

We shall be very grateful for your gift, at whatever level suits your circumstances. Gifts may take the form of cash, shares or financial instruments; alternatively, you could remember Girton in your will. Please note that the College is a registered charity; giving can therefore be tax-efficient. Those living in the UK, USA, Canada, Hong Kong and certain European countries can find information on tax-efficient giving at www.girton.cam.ac.uk/supporters/giving/tax-matters.

• Our Undergraduates, who represent many nationalities, cultures and backgrounds. They are here on academic merit and because they want to learn. Girton’s fundamental commitment to diversity and inclusiveness means we must be able to support the many bright young applicants who could not otherwise afford to take up the offer of a place at the College. Undergraduate bursaries help with living costs for around one in four students each year. One of our Campaign goals, however, was to secure endowment for a further twenty full undergraduate bursaries as part of our

Donations can be made using the form overleaf or online at: www.girton.cam.ac.uk/giving. For more information about A Great Campaign, or to talk to us about a specific fund or gift, please contact the Development Office on +44 (0)1223 766672; alternatively, please email us at development@girton.cam.ac.uk.

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Giving to Girton

Card number (16-digit number on card) ....................................................................

I wish my donation to support A Great Campaign Unrestricted Permanent Endowment Capital Undergraduate Bursaries

Expiry date

........ /........ /........

Valid from date

........ /........ /........

Issue no. (Maestro/Switch)................................................................................................ Security number (last three digits on reverse of card) ...........................................

Graduate Research Scholarships

Signed ................................................................................................ Date ........ /........ /........

Juliet Campbell Fellowship (with a focus on International Relations)

Donors to A Great Campaign will be listed in a College publication.

Bertha Jeffreys Fellowship (Applied Mathematics) Other (please specify)................................................................................................... Leave a Legacy I would like to receive more information about leaving a gift to Girton College in my will. I have already included a gift to Girton College in my will. Regular Gift By Standing Order (PLEASE DO NOT RETURN THIS FORM TO YOUR BANK; RETURN TO THE COLLEGE) To the Manager, (insert name of bank) .............................................................Bank Bank Address .........................................................................................................................

If you do not wish your name to appear, please tick this box. IMPORTANT: Please also sign the Gift Aid form if you are a UK taxpayer. Gift Aid Declaration Boost your donation by 25p of Gift Aid for every £1 you donate Gift Aid is reclaimed by Girton from the tax you pay for the current tax year. Your address is needed to identify you as a current UK taxpayer. In order to Gift Aid your donation you must tick the box below. Please check all information is correct before signing and dating. I want to Gift Aid my donation of £ .....................................................and any donations I make in the future or have made in the past 4 years to Girton College (Registered Charity Number 1137541) I am a UK taxpayer and understand that if I pay less Income Tax and/or Capital Gains Tax than the amount of Gift Aid claimed on all my donations in that tax year it is my responsibility to pay any difference.

.....................................................................................................................................................

Signed ................................................................................................ Date ........ /........ /........

Account number ................................................................ Sort Code ............................

Please note that HMRC require charities to have the donor’s home address on the Gift Aid declaration. Please notify the Girton College Development Office if you want to cancel this declaration, if you change your name or home address, or if you no longer pay sufficient tax on your income and/or capital gains.

Please pay the

Monthly

Quarterly

Annual sum of £.........................

commencing on ............................................... ending on ............................................... To Girton College, Cambridge, Account number 40207322 at Barclays Bank PLC, St Andrew’s Street, Cambridge CB2 3AA (sort code 20 -17-68) Signed ................................................................................................ Date ........ /........ /........ Regular Gift – Direct Debit You can set up a direct debit online by visiting www.girton.cam.ac.uk /giving One-off or Regular Gift – Bank Transfer To donate via bank transfer, please add your last name and first name (space permitting) to the payment reference and transfer to the following: Account Number: 40207322 Sort Code: 20 -17- 68 Barclays Bank PLC, St Andrew’s Street, Cambridge CB2 3AA SWIFTBIC:BARCGB22 / IBAN: GB53 BARC 2017 1940 207322 Please notify the College when you have made your donation. One-off Gift I enclose a cheque for ....................................... made payable to Girton College, Cambridge Or I wish to make a donation by credit /debit card: Please debit the sum of .......................................... from my account. Card type (Visa, MasterCard etc) ...................................................................................

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Name .............................................................. Year of matriculation

.............................

Address ..................................................................................................................................... ..................................................................................................................................................... ..........................................................................

Postcode

.....................................................

Telephone ................................................................................................................................ Email .......................................................................................................................................... If you are a higher-rate taxpayer please contact us for more information on tax-efficient giving. Please return the completed donation form and Gift Aid declaration (if appropriate) to The Development Office, Girton College, Cambridge CB3 0JG. Alternatively you can email the form to development@girton.cam.ac.uk. Girton College likes to keep in touch with all our alumni and supporters and data held by the College will be used for alumni relations and fundraising purposes. For more details about how we use this information please visit www.girton.cam.ac.uk/gdpr.


www.girton.cam.ac.uk

Girton College Cambridge

01223 338999

2019/20

The Year 2019/20

Girton College Huntingdon Road Cambridge CB3 0JG

The Year

The Annual Review of Girton College Cambridge


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