Music at Mansfield

Mansfield’s Principal and Governing Body were delighted to admit five new Bancroft Fellows to the Fellowship in Michaelmas term 2020, and we want to take this opportunity to celebrate all of our Bancroft Fellows, both new and long-standing.

The Bancroft Fellowship is named after the late Lord Bancroft, who was Chairman of Trustees of Mansfield before we were awarded our Royal Charter as a full College of the University of Oxford. It is the highest philanthropic honour the College can bestow. We would like to express our deep and sincere gratitude to all of our Bancroft Fellows for their exceptional support.

Antonio Bonchristiano is CEO and Managing Director of GP Investments, a private equity firm based in São Paulo. He joined GP Investments in 1993 and has been a Managing Director since 1995. Antonio gave generous support to Mansfield’s Love Lane campaign, enabling the creation of new student accommodation. He has also made gifts to encourage increased student performance in, and engagement with, sport at our College. A donor to the Weston Library within the University of Oxford, Antonio has funded the Patricia and Antonio Bonchristiano Room and supported other projects for the Bodleian Library. He sits on both Mansfield College’s and the Bodleian Library’s Development Boards, and is a member of the University’s Vice Chancellor’s Circle.

Charles Brock is an Emeritus Fellow and former Chaplain (1965-98) and Director of Ministerial Education at Mansfield, having taught at our College for 35 years. His late wife Carolyn was Director of Music at Mansfield, served as our organist for many years, and also conducted other Oxford choirs, especially the City of Oxford Choir. Charles is currently the Director of the Institute on the American Dream at Penn State Behrend in Pennsylvania, where he teaches for the Politics and Religion departments. He is acting minister of The First Unitarian Universalist Church of Girard, PA and a Founding Member of the Jefferson Educational Society of Erie (JES), a non-profit think tank. He also serves as the Director of the Brock Institute for Mega Issues Education at the JES. Charles’ exceptional philanthropic support to Mansfield has endowed the John Milton Fellow in Politics, held by Professor David Leopold; contributed to the Love Lane campaign to establish the Hands Building and Bonavero Institute of Human Rights; and helped with the upkeep of the Chapel and the restoration of the organ at Mansfield, as well as other College projects and initiatives.

‘Charles Brock [was] a colourful and liberal Chaplain [at Mansfield] who epitomised the atmosphere of change in his spiritual generosity and mischievous sense of humour. The ease of passage of the College into a new relationship with its religious origins was due in no small part to his vision.’ Professor Michael Freeden, in Mansfield: Portrait of an Oxford College.

Jan Fischer is Managing Director of Fischer Beteiligungsconsult, a venture capital firm in Munich. The firm typically invests in companies in the digital media, mobility and transport, and renewable-energy sectors and is a third-generation family business. Jan has given generous and flexible support to Mansfield through a multi-year gift that has enabled varied projects which champion and celebrate our academic community and benefit our students. He has also supported the new Kofi Annan Scholarships over five years, our new Refugee Scholarship, and the Adam von Trott Scholarships. Jan’s philanthropy is wide-ranging. He has established a new art foundation in Berlin, Light Art Space, which brings cuttingedge light-based art to Germany, and he also set up the Stiftung Grundeinkommen gGmbH (Basic Income Foundation) in Munich. He is on the Board of the Kuratorium Pinakothek der Moderne, Munich; the Advisory Board of the art funding institution Outset Deutschland / Schweiz gGmbH in Berlin; and the Board of Directors of ZADA eV the Center against Anti-Semitism, Discrimination and Exclusion in Hamburg. Jan is a member of the University’s Vice Chancellor’s Circle in recognition of his support of Mansfield College. He is based in Munich and has three daughters.

Julia Hands is an entrepreneur, hotelier and philanthropist. After studying Classics and Law at Cambridge, she joined Linklaters & Paines and qualified as a solicitor in 1986, remaining with the firm until 1996. Julia is Chair and CEO of Hand Picked Hotels, 19 unique country house hotels across the UK and Channel Islands. She won the Tourism & Leisure business sector in the First Women Awards in 2005, organised by the CBI and Real Business magazine. In 2008 Julia was awarded an MBE for services to the hospitality industry. Guy Hands is Chairman and Founder of Terra Firma, one of Europe’s leading private equity firms. He started his career with Goldman Sachs International where he went on to become Head of Eurobond Trading and then Head of Global Asset Structuring Group. Guy left Goldman Sachs in 1994 for Nomura International plc, where he established the Principal Finance Group (PFG). PFG went on to undertake groundbreaking deals involving trains, housing and pubs. In 2002, he led the spin-out of PFG to form Terra Firma. Guy was elected a Global Leader of Tomorrow by the World Economic Forum in 2000 in recognition of his achievements. In 2012, he was named the 20th most influential figure in Private Equity International’s ‘100 Most Influential of the Decade’.

Guy and Julia have been important supporters of our College for many years. Guy was the President and lead benefactor of ‘Access to Excellence’, Mansfield’s initiative to promote the broadest possible access to higher education in the UK. More recently, Guy and Julia’s lead gift founded the Hands Building, our beautiful new student accommodation building and home to the Bonavero Institute of Human Rights, opened in 2018. The couple also initiated Mansfield’s prestigious annual Hands Lecture. Guy and Julia are members of the University of Oxford Chancellor’s Court of Benefactors as well as Fellows of the Duke of Edinburgh’s Award Scheme. They have four children.

Joseph Hotung is a successful businessman, philanthropist, and knowledgeable collector of Chinese art. Born in China, schooled in Shanghai and Tianjin, he completed his education in the USA and UK. He subsequently received an LLB from the University of London. Having initially taken up employment in Marine Midland Bank, Joseph started his own business in Hong Kong and later became a Director of HSBC and HSBC Holdings. Throughout his career, Joseph has actively participated in public and community affairs in Hong Kong and in London. Among his many and varied positions, he has acted as Council Member at the University of Hong Kong and served as Chairman of the Arts Development Council, Hong Kong and as a member of the SOAS Governing Body. Joseph has served on boards or committees of several major international museums, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York where he is now Trustee Emeritus and a Life Fellow; and the British Museum where he made possible the construction of a number of new galleries, including the Sir Joseph Hotung Gallery of China and South Asia opened by Her Majesty the Queen in 2017. In Hong Kong Joseph served as a member of the Judicial Services Commission and on the Inland Revenue Board of Review. He funded the Sir Joseph Hotung Programme for Law, Human Rights and Peace Building in the Middle East at SOAS, University of London. At Mansfield, Joseph’s superlative support has founded the College’s new lecture theatre, opened in 2018 and named in his honour.

Harry Leventis has been involved, throughout his career, in the management of a number of companies in the AG Leventis group based in Nigeria and in the United Kingdom. He is a Trustee of the AG Leventis Foundation. Harry personally supported Mansfield College’s Love Lane capital campaign, establishing the Gilly Leventis Room within the new Hands Building. The AG Leventis Foundation’s generous grants to the University of Oxford include support for the Ashmolean Museum, where they have funded the AG Leventis Gallery for Cyprus, a curatorial post for the Cypriot collections, an exhibition on Heracles, and the Department of Antiquities. The Foundation has also supported the Theology Faculty, the Faculty of History, Merton College, Balliol College, St Peter’s College, St Antony’s College, and Oxford Philomusica (now the Oxford Philharmonic). As well as being a Bancroft Fellow of Mansfield College, Harry represents the AG Leventis Foundation on the University of Oxford’s Chancellor’s Court of Benefactors and he is a Fellow of the Ashmolean Museum.

Paul Ruddock is Chair of Oxford University Endowment Management and Chair of the Oxford University Investment Committee. A leading philanthropist to the arts and education in the UK and internationally, he is closely involved with numerous major museums and galleries, as well as education and charitable institutions. He was knighted in 2012 for Services to the Arts and Philanthropy. Paul is co-founder of Lansdowne Partners from which he retired as CEO in 2013. He is now Director of the international arm of the company and a limited partner of Lansdowne Partners LLP. Paul was Chairman of the Victoria & Albert Museum (V&A) for two terms. He is a Trustee of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, and Co-Chair of its International Council, as well as holding numerous other trusteeships for UK arts and heritage organisations and ambassadorships for charities. His philanthropy includes major support for the V&A; the British Museum; the Courtauld Institute; the Metropolitan Museum, New York; and King Edward’s School, Birmingham. He has also supported the Ashmolean Museum; Bowdoin College, Maine (with his wife, Lady Ruddock); the Ethiopian Heritage Fund; the Donmar Warehouse and the Almeida Theatre. Paul’s generous donations to Mansfield College have helped create the Garden Building, supported our 125th Anniversary campaign, and include gifts of works of art. In 2019, he established the Mansfield Ruddock Prize for the Arts, for a student at Oxford’s Ruskin School of Art. One of our earliest recipients of the honour, Paul was made a Bancroft Fellow at Mansfield in 2008.