College Report 2017-2018

SOMERVILLE COLLEGE REPORT

2017-2018

Somerville College Report 2017-18

Somerville College

Contents

Visitor, Principal, Fellows, Lecturers, Staff

5

The Year in Review Principal’s Report Fellows’ Activities Report on Junior Research Fellowships JCR Report MCR Report Library Report

9 12 17 18 19 20

Members’ Notes President’s Report Horsman Awards Somerville Senior Members’ Fund Life Before Somerville: Ruth Sillar (1972) Members’ News and Publications Marriages Births Deaths Obituaries

23 24 24 24 26 38 39 40 41

Academic Report Examination Results Prizes Students Entering College

58 60 63

Somerville Association Officers and Committee

65

Somerville Development Board Members

65

Notices Legacies Dates for the Diary

66 Back cover

This Report is edited by Liz Cooke (tel. 01865 270632; email elizabeth.cooke@some.ox.ac.uk)

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

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

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

Fellows (in order of seniority) Joanna Mary Innes, MA, (MA Cantab), Professor of Modern History, Winifred Holtby Fellow and Tutor in History

Daniel Anthony, MA, (PhD Lond), Professor of Experimental Neuropathology and Tutor in Medicine Michael Hayward, MA, DPhil, Professor of Inorganic Chemistry and Tutor in Chemistry

Almut Maria Vera Suerbaum, Beate Dignas, MA, DPhil, MA, (Dr Phil, Staatsexamen, (Staatsexamen Münster), Münster), Associate Professor of German and Tutor in German Associate Professor of Ancient History, Barbara Craig Fellow Fiona Stafford, MA, MPhil, and Tutor in Ancient History DPhil, (BA Leicester), FBA, Natalia Nowakowska, MA, FRSE, Professor of English Language and Literature, Tutor DPhil, Associate Professor of History and Tutor in History in English Literature Lois McNay, MA, (PhD Cantab), Professor of the Theory of Politics and Tutor in Politics

Jonathan Burton, MA, (PhD Cantab), Associate Professor of Organic Chemistry and Tutor in Chemistry

Roman Walczak, MA, (MSc Warsaw, Dr rer nat Heidelberg), Reader in Particle Physics, Associate Professor and Tutor in Physics

Luke Pitcher, MA, MSt, DPhil, (PGCert Durham), Associate Professor of Classics and Tutor in Classics

Benjamin John Thompson, MA, DPhil, (MA, PhD Cantab), FRHistS, Associate Professor of Medieval History and Tutor in History Charles Spence, MA, (PhD Cantab), Professor of Experimental Psychology and Tutor in Experimental Psychology

Simon Robert Kemp, BA, MPhil, (PhD Cantab), Associate Professor in French and Tutor in French Alex David Rogers, (BSc, PhD Liv), Professor of Conservation Biology and Tutor in Biology

Christopher Hare, BCL, (Dip. D’Etudes Jurid. Poitiers, MA Cantab, LLM Harvard), Associate Professor of Law and Jennifer Welsh, MA, DPhil, (BA Tutor in Law Saskatchewan), Professor of Bhaskar Choubey, DPhil, International Relations (BTech Warangal NIT), Associate Professor of Philip West, MA, (PhD Cantab), Associate Professor of Engineering Science and Tutor English, Times Fellow and Tutor in Engineering Science in English Charlotte Potts, DPhil, Julie Dickson, MA, DPhil, (LLB (BA Victoria University of Wellington, MA UCL), FSA, Glasgow), Associate Professor Sybille Haynes Associate of Law and Tutor in Law Professor of Etruscan and Early Annie Sutherland, MA, Italic Archaeology and Art, DPhil, (MA Cantab), Associate Katherine and Leonard Woolley Professor in Old and Middle Fellow in Classical Archaeology English, Rosemary Woolf Fellow and Tutor in Classical and Tutor in English Archaeology

Karen Nielsen, (Cand mag, Cand philol Trondheim, MA, PhD Cornell), Associate Professor of Philosophy and Tutor in Philosophy Jonathan Marchini, DPhil, (BSc Exeter), Professor of Statistical Genomics and Tutor in Statistics Julian Duxfield, MA, (MSc LSE), University Director of Human Resources Renier van der Hoorn, (BSc, MSc Leiden, PhD Wageningen), Associate Professor of Plant Sciences and Tutor in Plant Sciences Dan Ciubotaru, (BSc, MA Babes-Bolyai, PhD Cornell), Professor of Mathematics and Tutor in Mathematics Guido Ascari, (BA Pavia, MSc, PhD Warw), Professor of Economics and Tutor in Economics Damian Tyler, (MSci, PhD Nott), Professor of Physiological Metabolism and Tutor in Medicine Francesca Southerden, BA, MSt, DPhil, Associate Professor of Italian and Tutor in Italian Louise Mycock, (BA Durh, MA, PhD Manc), Associate Professor of Linguistics and Tutor in Linguistics Mari Mikkola, (PhD Sheffield), Associate Professor of Philosophy and Tutor in Philosophy Renaud Lambiotte, (PhD ULB Brussels), Associate Professor of Networks and Nonlinear Systems and Tutor in Mathematics Elena Seiradake, (PhD Heidelberg), Associate Professor of Biochemistry and Tutor in Biochemistry

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Professorial Fellows

Senior Research Fellows

Aditi Lahiri, (PhD Brown, MA, PhD Calcutta), Professor of Linguistics; Vice President (Humanities) British Academy

Tony Bell, (MA, PhD Cantab), FRS, FRAS, MinstP, CPhys

Stephen Roberts, MA, DPhil, FREng, FIET, FRSS, MIOP RAEng-Man, Professor of Machine Learning Rajesh Thakker, MA, DM, (MA, MD Cantab), FRS, FRCP, FRCPath, FMedSci, May Professor of Medicine Stephen Weatherill, MA, (MA Cantab, MSc Edinburgh), Jacques Delors Professor of European Law Steven Simon, MA, (PhD Harvard), Professor of Theoretical and Condensed Matter Physics

Amalia Coldea, (MA, PhD Cluj-Napoca) Colin Espie, (BSc, MAppSci, PhD, DSc(Med) Glas), FBPsS, CPsychol, Professor of Behavourial Sleep Medicine Sir Marc Feldmann, AC, (BSc(Med), MB BS, PhD, MD(Hon), DMSc(Hon)), FAA, FMedSci, FRCP, FRCPath, FRS, Professor of Cellular Immunology Alfred Gathorne-Hardy, (BSc Edin, MSc, PhD Imp Lond) Manuele Gragnolati, MA, (Laurea in Lettere Classiche, Pavia, PhD Columbia, DEA Paris)

Matthew John Andrew Sarah Gurr, MA, (BSc, PhD Wood, MA, DPhil, (MB, ChB London, ARCS, DIC), Professor Cape Town), Professor of Neuroscience and Keeper of the of Molecular Plant Pathology College Pictures John Ingram, (BSc KCL, MSc R'dg, PhD Wageningen NL)

Franklyn Prochaska, (PhD), FRHS Michael Proffitt, BA Tessa Rajak, MA, DPhil Owen Rees, MA, (PhD Cantab), ARCO, Professor of Music

Honorary Senior Research Fellow Stephanie Dalley, MA, (MA Cantab, Hon PhD London), FSA

Junior Research Fellows Naveed Akbar, (MSc Manc, PhD Dund), Fulford Junior Research Fellow, Medicine Mariano Beguerisse-Diaz, MSc, (PhD Imp Lond), Fulford Junior Research Fellow, Applied Mathematics

Administrative Fellows

Muhammad Kassim Javaid, (BMedSci, MBBS, PhD London), MRCP

Corinne Betts, DPhil, Fulford Junior Research Fellow, Medical Sciences

Anne Manuel, MA, (LLB Reading, MA, MSc, PhD Bristol), Librarian, Archivist and Head of Information Services

Patricia Kingori, (BA, MSc Royal Holloway, MSc UCL, PhD London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine (LSHTM)), Tropical Medicine, from June 2018

David Bowe, BA, MSt, DPhil,

Andrew Parker, MA, (BA Liverpool), ACMA, Treasurer Stephen Rayner, MA, (PhD Durham), FRAS, MInstP, Senior Tutor, Tutor for Graduates and Tutor for Admissions Sara Kalim, MA, Director of Development

Philip Kreager, DPhil Boris Motik, (MSc Zagreb, PhD Karlsruhe), Professor of Computer Science Catherine Mary MacRobert, MA, DPhil

Frans Plank, (Statsexamen

Munich, MLitt Edin, MA Regensburg, DPhil Hanover) Philip Poole, (BSc, PhD Murdoch)

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Mason Porter, MA, (BS Caltech, MS, PhD Cornell)

Abdul-Lateef Haji-Ali, (PhD KAUST Saudia Arabia), Fulford Junior Research Fellow, Mathematics Sarah Hemming, (BSc, BHSc, DPhil University of Adelaide, Fulford Junior Research Fellow, Medicine Anissa Kempf, (MSc, PhD Zurich), Fulford Junior Research Fellow, Medicine Linxin Li, DPhil, Fulford Junior Research Fellow, Medicine Hania Pavlou, Junior Research Fellow, DPhil, (BSc Toronto, MRes Glasgow), Fulford Junior Research Fellow, Neurogenetics Cayenna Ponchione-Bailey, MSt, DPhil, Fulford Junior Research Fellow, Music Laura Slater, (MA York, PhD Cantab), Fulford Junior Research Fellow, Music Rachel Tanner, BA, DPhil, Fulford Junior Research Fellow, Medicine Kerstin Timm, Junior Research Fellow, (PhD Cantab), Fulford Junior Research Fellow, Biomedical Sciences

Victoria Maltby, Junior Research Fellow, Medieval Italian Literature

Martin Walker, (BA Sc Waterloo, MA Sc Toronto, PhD Cantab), AFHEA), Mary Ewart Junior Research Fellow (from January 2018), Engineering Science

Ana Sofia Cerdeira, (MD, PhD Porto and Harvard), Fulford Junior Research Fellow, Medicine

Edmund Wareham, BA, MSt, DPhil, Fulford Junior Research Fellow, Medieval and Modern Langs.

Fernando de Juan Sanz, (DPhil Madrid), Fulford Junior Research Fellow, Condensed Matter Physics

Lauren Watson, (BSc, BSc (Med), MSc (Med), PhD Cape Town), Fulford Junior Research Fellow, Neuroscience

Christopher Durr, (PhD Ohio State University), Fulford Junior Research Fellow, Chemistry

Nahid Zokaei, (BSc, PhD UCL) Fulford Junior Research Fellow, Experimental Psychology

César Giraldo Herrera, (BSc Magister de los Andes Bogota, DC Colombia, PhD Aberd), Victoria Maltby Junior Research Fellow, Anthropology

British Academy Fellows

Judith Heyer, MA, (PhD London)

Pippa Byrne, BA, MSt, DPhil, British Academy Post-doctoral Fellow

Carole Jordan, DBE, MA, (PhD London), FRS

Nelson Goering, MPhil, DPhil, British Academy Post-doctoral Fellow Holly Kennard, BA, MPhil, DPhil, British Academy Postdoctoral Fellow

Early Career Fellows

Joyce Maire Reynolds, MA, (Hon DLitt Newcastle-uponTyne), FBA

Julianne Mott Jack, MA

Norma MacManaway, MA, (MA, MPhil Dublin, DEA Paris) Helen Morton, MA, (MSc Boston, MA Cantab) Hilary Ockendon, MA, DPhil, (Hon DSc Southampton)

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

Adrianne Tooke, MA, (BA London, PhD Cantab) Angela Vincent, MA, MB, BS, (MSc London), FRS, FMedSci

Margaret Adams, MA, DPhil Pauline Adams, MA, BLitt, (Dipl Lib Lond) Lesley Brown, BPhil, MA Marian Ellina Stamp Dawkins, CBE, MA, DPhil, FRS Katherine Duncan-Jones, MA, BLitt, FRSL Karin Erdmann, MA, (Dr rer nat Giessen) Miriam Tamara Griffin, MA, DPhil (D. 16 May 2018) Mary Jane Hands, MA Barbara Fitzgerald Harvey, CBE, MA, BLitt, FBA, FRHistS

Antonia Byatt, DBE, CBE, FRSL, BA Anna Laura Momigliano Lepschy, MA, BLitt Rosalind Mary Marsden, DCMG, MA, DPhil Sarah Broadie, MA, BPhil, (PhD Edinburgh), FBA Harriet Maunsell, OBE, MA Mary Midgley, MA Hilary Spurling, CBE, BA Catherine Jane Royle de Camprubi, MA

Irangani Manel Abeysekera, MA

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

Paula Pimlott Brownlee, MA, DPhil

Baroness Shriti Vadera, PC, BA

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

Elizabeth Mary Keegan, DBE, MA

Doreen Elizabeth Boyce, MA, (PhD Pittsburgh)

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

Ruth Hilary Finnegan, OBE, MA, BLitt, DPhil, FBA

Angela McLean, DBE, BA, (MA Berkeley, PhD Lond), FRS

Robert Ng

Janet Margaret Bately, CBE, MA, FBA

Lord Powell of Bayswater, KCMG, OBE

Michele Moody-Adams, BA, (BA Wellesley, PhD Harvard)

Margaret Kenyon (Mrs), MA

Judith Parker, DBE, QC, MA

Mr Gavin Ralston, MA

Clara Elizabeth Mary Freeman, OBE, MA

Esther Rantzen, DBE, CBE, MA

Jenny Glusker, MA, DPhil

Caroline Barron, MA, (PhD London), FRHistS

Lady Margaret Elliott, MBE, MA Sir Geoffrey Leigh

Emeritus Fellows

Baroness O’Neill of Bengarve, CH, CBE, MA, (PhD Harvard), Hon DCL, FBA, Hon FRS, FMedSci

Baroness Jay of Paddington, PC, BA

Career

Development Fellow Foundation Fellows Isabelle Roland, (MSc, PhD LSE), Economics

Averil Millicent Cameron, DBE, MA, DLitt, (PhD London), FBA, FSA

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

Josephine Peach, BSc, MA, DPhil

Siddharth Arora DPhil, (BTech DA-IICT), Parkinsons UK Frances Julia Stewart, MA, DPhil Early Career Fellow Maan Barua, MSc, DPhil, (BSc Dibrugarh), British Academy Early Career Fellow

Hazel Mary Fox (Lady Fox), CMG, QC, MA

Nicola Ralston, BA

Mr Wafic Said

Honorary Fellows

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

Baroness Williams of Crosby, Theresa Joyce Stewart, MA CH, PC, MA

Fiona Caldicott, DBE, BM, BCh, MA, MD (Hon), DSc (Hon), FRCPsych, FRCP, FRCPI, FRCGP, FMedSci

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

Baroness Lucy Neville-Rolfe, DBE, CMG, MA

Emma Rothschild, CMG, MA

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

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

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

Victoria Glendinning, CBE, MA

Tessa Ross, CBE, BA

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Joanna Haigh, CBE, MA, DPhil, FRS, FRMetS Akua Kuenyehia, BCL, (LLB University of Ghana) Baroness Wolf of Dulwich, CBE, BA, MPhil

Quentin Miller, DPhil, (BMath Waterloo, Canada), Computer Science Gabriel Moise, MChem, Chemistry Ain Neuhaus, DPhil, Medicine

Lorna Margaret Hutson, BA, DPhil, FBA

Miles Pattenden, DPhil, (BA Cantab, MA Toronto), History

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

Anca Popescu, (BSc Politehnica University Bucharest, PhD Cantab), Engineering

Sacha Romanovitch, BA

Stipendiary Lecturers Nicola Byrom, DPhil, (BSc Nott), Psychology Joseph Camm, MEng, DPhil, Engineering David Clifton, DPhil, (MEng Brist), Engineering Yvonne Couch, MSc, DPhil, Medicine Xon de Ros, DPhil, (Fellow of LMH), Spanish Hanne Eckhoff, (Cand. Mag. Cand. Philol. Doctor artium Oslo), Russian Kamel El Omari, (Maitrise Université Denis Diderot, Paris, DEA Pierre and Marie Curie University, Paris), Biochemistry Sarah Gouldesbrough, BA, MSt, Classics

Nisha Singh, MSc, DPhil, Medicine Graeme Smith, MPhys, DPhil, Physics Stephen Smith, BA, MPhil, (MA Open), Classical Archaeology Nicola Thomas, (MA Edin, MA, PhD Nott), German Kerstin Timm, (PhD Cantab), Medicine Sridhar Vasudevan, MSc, DPhil, Medicine Zachary Vermeer, BCL, MSt, (BA Sydney), Law Timothy Walker, MA, Plant Sciences Toby Young, MA, DPhil, (MPhil Cantab), Music

Marco Scutari, (MSc, PhD Padua), Statistics Shaina Western, (BA Whitworth, PhD California at Davis), International Relations

Helen Ashdown, BM, BCh, (MA Cantab), MRCP, MRCPG, DCH, PGDip, Janet Vaughan Tutor in Clinical Medicine

Academic Office Joanne Ockwell, (BA, MA University of Gloucester), Academic Registrar Claire Cockcroft, MA, (PhD Cantab), FRSB Programme Director, Margaret Thatcher Scholarship Trust

Oxford India Centre

Liz Cooke, MA Lisa Gygax, MA

Conferences & Catering Dave Simpson

Treasury Elaine Boorman, College Accountant

IT Chris Bamber, Systems Manager

Dr Vivek Nanda, Executive Director Dr Radhika Khosla, Research Director

Library Matthew Roper, MA, (MA Durham)

Daniel Harkin, BA, MSt, DPhil, (MA, MPhilSt Lond), Philosophy Richard Ashdowne MA, DPhil, Linguistics Development Francesco Hautmann, Office (Dottore in Fisica Florence), Vilma de Gasperin, DPhil, Physics (Laurea Padua), Modern Brett de Gaynesford, (BA, Languages Christian Kerpal, (PhD), College of William & Mary, Chemistry USA), Deputy Development Director Departmental Alison Lutton, DPhil, (MA Edin, MA Liv), English Heather Weightman, (BA Lecturers London), Annual Fund Officer Tobias Lutzi, MJur, MPhil, Law Oren Margolis, DPhil, (MA KCL), History

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Jeevan Vasagar, (BA Manchester), Communications Manager

Lecturer in Medicine Alumni Relations

Susan Elizabeth Purver, MA

Retaining Fee Lectures

Communications

Porters’ Lodge Mark Ealey, Lodge Manager

Chapel Brian McMahon, MA, MSt, (MA Essex), Director

Music Will Dawes, (PGDip RAM, BMus (Hons) Edinburgh), Director of Chapel Music Hilary Davan Wetton, MA, Senior Music Associate

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

Principal’s Report It has been my privilege to be Principal of Somerville for a year now. I still cannot quite believe my good fortune. It is such a pleasure to be surrounded by the curiosity and energy of our students, to interact with Fellows and early career academics who are doing ground-breaking research and to work with support staff who ensure the smooth running of the college.

This has been a year in which Somerville’s academics have won wider recognition for their work, and in which our students have won university prizes for their brilliance. The achievements of our alumni have made us proud.

My predecessor, Alice Prochaska, left the college in great shape. For the past year, we have built on our strengths. But we must do more.

We must do more to reach the most talented young people, from every walk of life, and encourage them to apply to Somerville. I am determined to ensure that every bright young person regardless of their background can aspire to and apply for the wonderful education and experience that Somerville offers.

We must do more to support our academics. The increasingly global nature of academia combined with uncompetitive remuneration and Oxford’s exorbitant housing costs mean that for many, a Fellowship is no longer a life-long position.

JAN ROYALL

We must do more to break down some of the barriers that still exist between town and gown. I have been delighted to welcome our neighbours in Jericho and the wider Oxford community – including refugees – to events in college.

This year we mourned the passing of Miriam Griffin, whose intellectual brilliance and personal warmth are remembered fondly by so many of us (see obituary at page 39).

This year, we have agreed the framework for a new strategic plan. This will have wider participation and academic excellence at its core. We will also focus on support for Fellows, junior academics and staff. By this time next year I will have progress to report.

We have a terrific Governing Body and throughout the year I have been impressed by the consummate juggling of our Fellows who manage to combine teaching and lecturing, world-class research, departmental and college obligations and ceaseless applications for grants.

This year we are saying goodbye to our Fellows Bhaskar Choubey, Joanna Innes, Jonathan Marchini, Alex Rogers and Jennifer Welsh. Whilst we will miss them greatly we have some terrific new Tutorial Fellows – Faridah Zaman in History and Samantha Dieckmann in Music.

I am delighted that our Fellows continue to be honoured for their work. Professor Fiona Stafford was recently elected as a Fellow of the British Academy and Damian Tyler has had the title of Professor of Physiological Metabolism conferred on him by the university.

Somerville has been flourishing in terms of its financial management, philanthropic support and academic achievement.

In the capable hands of our Treasurer Andrew Parker and his team, I have learned that Somerville's endowment has grown in size by 83% over the last five years alone.

Our students have had very good results this year, which is a tribute to their hard work and excellent teaching of our academics. 35 of our finalists achieved First Class degrees, 64 achieved a 2:1, 6 were awarded a 2:2 and none received a Third.

Twelve Somerville students won university prizes, recognising outstanding achievement in their subject, and eleven won Principal’s prizes. I am extremely proud of our students for their diligence and their determination, and also the way in which so many combine their studies with sport, music, drama, volunteering and much more. Students like Aaron Henry, from a state school in Northern Ireland, who has just graduated with a First in Medicine, but has also found time to play Blues rugby and captain the college team.

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AARON HENRY

AYLA BUSCH

In my first year I have taken the opportunity to meet as many alumni as possible both at home and overseas. I’ve loved every minute of it. The breadth of Somervillians’ life experience, both professional and personal, is astonishing. It has been wonderful to hear accounts of their college days and then of life after Somerville across all generations. We have held alumni gatherings, lectures and events in Oxford, London, Edinburgh, New York, San Francisco, Rome, Singapore and Basel. The warmth of the welcome I have received at each one is equalled only by the warmth of feeling alumni hold for Somerville. The Basel weekend was particularly special as it was sponsored and designed by a Somervillian, Ayla Busch (1989), who created an unforgettable cultural experience of museum and walking tours followed by dinner for our entire alumni group at her beautiful home. We are incredibly lucky to have such generous support and due to popular demand we are already planning Basel 2020.

I am pleased that at Somerville we offer a strong system of pastoral support which now includes a college nurse, a counsellor in college once a week and a full time welfare officer as well as Junior Deans, JCR and MCR officers, and student peer supporters. Through the Development Programme we also provide academic support, especially for freshers, and our intention is to make this even more comprehensive.

Students at Oxford have always had to work extremely hard, but in the 21st century – with many facing significant debt after graduation – the pressures are even greater. One of the ways in which the pressure will be eased is by enabling all students to live in college for the whole of their undergraduate studies.

Work on the Catherine Hughes building is now well underway and soon we will see the building itself take shape. It’s a relief that our students will no longer have to spend a night sleeping outside a letting agent in order to secure a house for which they have to pay a ridiculous rent.

It also adds to the attraction of Somerville for prospective students. At this year’s open days we strove to be more visible and we welcomed a record number of young people into college for tours by our brilliant student ambassadors. My hope now is that many will make Somerville their first choice.

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Having been a sort of fresher myself last year, I am very aware of the culture shock on arrival at Oxford and I am truly grateful to my colleagues for their patience and guidance, especially Richard Stone, Vice-Principal, our senior management team – Andrew Parker, Sara Kalim, Steve Rayner and Anne Manuel – and Jo Innes who has been my mentor. I have benefited greatly from Almut Suerbaum’s wisdom.

Sara Kalim's Development team have, with the loyal and generous support of our donor community, raised significant funding for the students, for teaching and for special projects such as the ongoing work to preserve the John Stuart Mill Library and the Dorothy Hodgkin career development Fellowship to support women scientists.

A highlight of our development work was the successful closure of the Law Appeal which law alumni supported in significant numbers in order to create a new law lecturer post, named for my predecessor’s distinguished grandparents, Lord and Lady McNair. This vital funding will support our teaching of first year Law undergraduates in college and gives precious and rare job security to an early career academic.

We continue to raise funds for outstanding undergraduate and graduate students from across the world through the Margaret Thatcher Scholarships and the Oxford India Centre for Sustainable Development.

THATCHER SCHOLARS

THE CHOIR

The India Centre, which commemorates our history of pioneering Indian women from Cornelia Sorabji to Indira Gandhi, now has an Executive Director, Dr Vivek Nanda; and a Research Director, Dr Radhika Khosla; while the Rt Hon Patricia Hewitt has recently become chair of our Advisory Council.

They are a powerful trio who will lead the Centre to new prominence. This year we will have fourteen scholars based at the India Centre, who are exceptional students working on sustainable development challenges which will be critical to India and the world. In July at the House of Lords we had a wonderful celebration of the relationship between Somerville and India with our Chancellor, Lord Patten, and the Indian High Commissioner as our chief guests.

magnificent and there have been numerous concerts as well as performances at dinners and glorious music in our chapel every Sunday evening. Plans are now being made for a choir tour to India in December.

We also held a terrific reception at the Lords for the Margaret Thatcher Scholarship Trust to which we invited former Ministers who served in the Thatcher government, but it was our Thatcher scholars who were the real stars.

I celebrate the fact that we are now a mixed college with wonderful young men as well as wonderful young women.

Like our students I am immensely proud of our heritage and of the extraordinary women who have been students, Fellows and Principals. I am constantly aware that I am standing on the shoulders of giants, of pioneers who made a difference, some in their communities, some in their country, others in the world.

It has been moving to see how legacy gifts left by Somervillians are one of the single most transformational sources of income.

They often provide the vehicle through which a donor can make their most significant gift. All those who have provided for the college in their will become automatic members of our legacy society, Somerville Will Power, are recognised in the annual Donor Report, and are invited to a special annual event.

As ever we are enormously grateful for the generosity of alumni and friends. If you would like to find out more about our development work, and how you can support us, please contact Sara at: sara.kalim@some.ox.ac.uk. She and her team are always happy to answer your questions.

One of the joys of the last year has been the choir, which is superb. I confess that I did not know of its reputation. I was astounded the first time I heard them sing. They have given us huge pleasure throughout the year. The St John Passion was

One of our important appointments this year was a Director of Communications, Jeevan Vasagar, who will shortly be joined by an assistant. It is vital for us to communicate our strengths.

We need more people to know about Somerville, that it is a fantastic college in which to study and thrive, that it has so much to offer including our amazing academics with their extraordinary research and that we have a strong and diverse community in which everyone is welcome.

Next year we will celebrate the 140th anniversary of our founding, and will do so in various ways, but whilst there have been extraordinary advances over that period, our values remain constant. It is now my task to ensure that as we nurture a new generation of students who must make a difference in this complex world, as we adapt and modernise to meet the challenges of the 21st century, from data sharing to Brexit, we do not forget that Somerville was founded to include the excluded and its reputation has always been one of excellence.

JAN ROYALL, Baroness Royall of Blaisdon, Principal of Somerville 11

Fellows’ and Lecturers’ Activities Biochemistry Elena Seiradake is the newly appointed Tutorial Fellow in Biochemistry, and the year has been a wonderful start to her career at Somerville, in part thanks to an excellent mentoring scheme for new Fellows. She is pleased that the graduating Somerville Biochemistry students produced excellent Finals results (all achieved upper seconds or firsts). They are now embarking on exciting careers in research, art and consulting. Elena also leads a highly successful research team at the Oxford Department of Biochemistry. She is interested in how relatively few cell surface proteins guide the development of complex tissues, such as the brain.

This year’s scientific highlight was understanding the three-dimensional structure of the curiously shaped brain protein, teneurin, which evolved from bacterial ancestors when multicellular organisms first appeared. The work is now published in the journal Nature Communications (V. Jackson et al.

2018). This year Elena received £1.8 million funding from the Wellcome Trust to pursue this research and related questions. In October, she was invited to join the EMBO Young Investigator programme, which is a hub for Europe’s most talented life scientists and provides access to further funding and key networks. EMBO also contributed 37,000 Euros to the running of a conference on Molecular Neurobiology that Elena organised on Crete in May. At this exciting meeting (the first such event, with 120 participants) Dr Verity Jackson, the first DPhil student to graduate from Elena’s lab in December, gave an outstanding talk – Elena’s proudest moment of the year.

Biological Sciences Renier van der Hoorn achieved the distinction of being appointed full Professor in Plant Sciences and was again a Highly Cited Researcher declared by Clarivate.

Meanwhile he published his 100th scientific publication and organised

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the International Conference on Chemical Proteomics at Somerville in March 2018 for 104 scientists.

This year he also received a second grant from the EU, this time as part of a European training network to study diseases caused by oomycete pathogens. He also received two BBSRC grants to study how a protease increases immunity against the potato blight disease, and how a glycosidase facilitates the detection of bacterial pathogens in plants. His research team consists of 12-15 members and is international and interdisciplinary; it investigates the role of extracellular hydrolases in plant immunity using chemical tools.

Classics Luke Pitcher has published four chapters in a recent collaborative study of characterisation in Greek literature: his contributions covered the depiction of character in the Greek chronicler of Rome, Polybius, and the Greek Imperial historians Appian, Cassius Dio, and Herodian. He also produced a chapter on Julius Caesar’s relationship to the Greek historians in the new Cambridge Companion to the writings of that multi-talented politician, and a study of an essay on ancient history which Oscar Wilde (no mean classicist) wrote shortly after the future playwright went down from Oxford, demonstrating that Wilde was more up-to-date with his reading in ancient history than earlier scholarship has supposed.

Engineering The engineering undergraduates continue to do well, with four Firsts from the five engineers graduating this year. There are also some strong results in the earlier years, and this includes a student ranked fifth in Prelims. There are also engineers playing for University teams, and at the moment we are very strong in Lacrosse. Richard Stone gave an invited paper at the SAE ICE2017 – 13th International conference on engines, and this was an opportunity to

review work undertaken with the Jaguar GDI engine with optical access over the last fifteen years. Bhaskar Choubey has resigned his Tutorial Fellowship after five all too short years, and he will be a Professor at the University of Siegen.

He will be greatly missed as a tutor and colleague. Bhaskar had been a JRF at Somerville prior to his lectureship at Glasgow, but we do now have another JRF in Engineering – Martin Walker completed his PhD at Cambridge and his speciality is how textured surfaces can modify the structural properties of sheet material. We are very fortunate that he is a willing contributor to the tutorial teaching.

Stephen Roberts is RAEng/Man Group Professor of Machine Learning and Director of the Oxford-Man Institute of Quantitative Finance. Stephen’s interests lie in methods for machine learning, data analysis and AI in complex problems, especially those in which noise and uncertainty abound. His current major interests include the application of machine learning to huge astrophysical data sets (for discovering exoplanets, pulsars and cosmological models), biodiversity monitoring (for detecting changes in ecology and spread of disease), smart networks (for reducing energy consumption and impact), sensor networks (to better acquire and model complex events) and finance (to provide better insight into timeseries and aggregate large numbers of unstructured information streams). In the past year he has published some 25 papers, ranging from AI theory to applications of machine learning in astronomy, protein function and quantum computing.

English This has been a year of trees for Fiona Stafford, who was working with the Woodland Trust on the new Charter for Trees, which was launched on 6 November at Lincoln Cathedral. She has given many talks on trees, including a BBC Conversation at Mount Stewart in Northern Ireland, a panel at the British Library, the Somerville Literary Lunch

and a very wet walk through a wood at the Hay Festival. She also contributed to the new Radio 3 series on Forests and the BBC Natural Histories series, and delivered a new series of the Essay for Radio 3, on ‘The Meaning of Beaches’.

Fiona has also lectured at the Higgins Art Gallery, Leeds University, the National Archives, Southampton University, the Keats symposium at St Andrews, and the Wordsworth Summer Conference, and she was part of a round table on the Isle of Skye. In Oxford, she has been an MSt convenor, as well as enjoying undergraduate teaching. She was awarded an honorary degree by the University of Leicester and has been elected to the Fellowship of the British Academy.

This year, Annie Sutherland has been kept very busy by chairing the Board of Examiners in English Prelims, a role which has taught her a lot about the administrative aspect of university life. She was a plenary speaker at the international Gender and Medieval Studies Conference in January, speaking about the visual iconography of Margaret Atwood’s handmaids in comparison with that of medieval religious women. This surprising juxtaposition has encouraged her to begin pursuing the resonances of the medieval in the modern in a more systematic way. She has also written three articles on aspects of Middle English devotional literature, has continued to work on her editorial project for Liverpool University Press, and has begun to outline her new project, a study of time and place in medieval religious theory and practice.

Philip West finished his stint as Dean in Hilary Term, and has since been focussing on completing commentary on all 110 of the poems of James Shirley, his edition of which will be published by OUP in 2019. He has also contributed a chapter on Ben Jonson’s Epigrams and The Forest to The Oxford Handbook of Ben Jonson (2018). He will be taking over as Chair of the English Faculty meetings from next term.

Experimental Psychology Professor Charles Spence has continued to work on expanding his research in the field of gastrophysics.

His latest book, Gastrophysics: The New Science of Eating, has now been published in fifteen different languages, and interest from chefs, mixologists, designers, composers, and food and beverage companies around the world continues to grow. He was shortlisted for the Fortnum & Mason Food Book of the Year award, but sadly lost out to a much more traditional offering!

History This year marks the 36th and last year of Joanna Innes’s tenure of a History Tutorship at Somerville. But there has been no let-up in the intensity of her activities. With the forthcoming publication of the second volume in her international collaborative ‘Reimagining Democracy’ project, on the Mediterranean 1780-1860 (OUP in the autumn), the group is moving on to Latin America and the Caribbean. In the spring she gave three talks to the Taiwanese Global History Society (which focusses on European history); she also spoke at conferences at Notre Dame, USA, on ‘Changing Histories of the State’, at Sheffield on ‘Anglo-French Keywords’ and at Durham on ‘What is a Petition?’.

She has completed a five-year term as History Delegate for Oxford University Press, and as a member of its Finance and Audit Committees. She has now taken over the chair of the Editorial Board of the journal Past and Present.

After a highly distinguished career as tutor and also academic administrator, she will be able to focus more intensively on research, as well as both academic and non-academic travel.

Natalia Nowakowska’s second monograph, King Sigismund of Poland and Martin Luther: the Reformation before Confessionalisation, was published by OUP in January 2018.

She has also given two lectures in Cambridge, conducted fieldwork in Scandinavia, and organised a small exhibition at the Bodleian to mark the 500th anniversary of the royal wedding of King Sigismund of Poland with the Italian princess Bona Sforza (1518), and gave a public lecture to accompany the display (available on Oxford Univeristy podcasts). This was all part of her five year ERC Jagiellonians Project, now closed; she will remain busy writing up the fruits of the research.

During that time she has been replaced part- or (latterly) full-time by Oren Margolis, whose research this past year led him (as usual) in two different directions: to Italy, namely Rome, Venice and Sarzana, piecing together the history of the papal title pontifex maximus from medieval churches, Renaissance sylloges, and, in one case, the tomb of a pope’s mum; and into the world of humanism and art north of the Alps, to write an article on Erasmus’s Italian influences and their traces in the art of Hans Holbein. He is co-editing a volume on Latinity in the post-Classical world, from late antique Egypt to late Habsburg Hungary. To commemorate the 2000th anniversary of the death of the Roman poet Ovid, he coorganised an interdisciplinary symposium with an accompanying exhibition of Ovidian manuscripts and printed material at the Bodleian, and curated the Ovid Trail at the Ashmolean. After five years at Somerville, Oren is leaving for Florence, where he will be Deborah Loeb Brice Fellow at Villa I Tatti (The Harvard University Center for Italian Renaissance Studies). He will be continuing his current book project on Aldus Manutius, the influential Venetian Renaissance printer.

Benjamin Thompson completes his three-year stint as Director of Undergraduate Studies in the History Faculty, which he has spent overseeing the introduction of reforms to the curriculum that reach full implementation in the autumn. Given the range of views in the Faculty about the desirability of many different sorts of change, this has proved to be a diplomatic post as much as an academic one, with Brexit resonances that can’t be ignored. At the time of writing the Faculty is holding together and calls for a second vote on the reforms are minimal. One of the directions of reform is globalisation, and Somerville has made its contribution by replacing Joanna Innes with a History tutor, Faridah Zaman, whose interests are based in the Indian subcontinent, its relations with Britain, and in pan-Islamic thought in the early twentieth century.

The team of History tutors will therefore be rather different next year, as Natalia returns from her Jagiellonians leave and we say farewell to Joanna and Oren.

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Law Dr Julie Dickson has had a busy but enjoyable year teaching Jurisprudence, and European Union Law, at both undergraduate and postgraduate level.

She was absolutely delighted with the Somerville law students’ results in Finals examinations in Trinity Term 2018: two of the eight undergraduate finalists attained First Class degrees and the others excellent 2:1s, and three of the BCL/MJur students attained Distinctions, including two subject prizes for topping the year in particular postgraduate subjects. Dr Dickson also published a new article on methodology in legal philosophy, and continues to work on her forthcoming book, which is also on this topic.

Professor Stephen Weatherill continues to teach European Union law at undergraduate and postgraduate levels while also supervising seven research students.

His two principal publications during the year were ‘The several internal markets’, published in the 2017 Yearbook of European Law, and ‘A new horizon in European sports law: the application of the EU state aid rules meets the specific nature of sport’, a paper co-written with Borja Garcia and An Vermeersch and published in the European Competition Journal. Plainly, Brexit looms over everything, like a monstrous beast impervious to reason. If one notion captures what is at stake, it is that what is currently delivered multilaterally cannot be delivered unilaterally. Whether it is keeping the Irish border invisible, securing frictionless cross-border trade, tackling climate change or managing migration, the UK cannot do it alone.

Taking back control is in truth an exercise in surrendering control.

Linguistics Aside from a busy programme of talks and lectures, Professor Aditi Lahiri has taken on the role of the Vice-President (Humanities) of the British Academy.

On 12 July, she was the winner of the Vice-Chancellor’s Innovation Award for ‘Inspiring Leadership’, for developing a flexible approach to speech recognition.

Louise Mycock has instituted a termly Linguists’ Tea for undergraduates, postgraduates and post-doctoral

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researchers at Somerville, with the aim of strengthening the bonds between this growing community in college. She has spoken about Linguistics to school pupils visiting Somerville, and in February 2018 ran a session at the Somerville Study Day, and was a panel member at the Somerville Supporters event. She was nominated for an OUSU Teaching Award by students in the spring. In the autumn, Louise was awarded a British Academy/ Leverhulme Small Research Grant for her project ‘Lone Pronoun Tags in Early Modern English: the dramas of Marlowe, Shakespeare, and Jonson’, which will run until February 2019. She presented the results of this ongoing research at the International Society for the Linguistics of English Conference in July 2018, at a Somerville Symposium session, at a Symposium on Non-Canonical Syntax of English at Technische Universität Dresden, and at an invited talk at Université Toulouse – Jean Jaurès. She also co-presented on the structure of echo questions in Japanese at the Second International Conference ‘Prominence in Language’ at the University of Cologne in July 2018. She has begun a four-year term as External Examiner at the University of Essex and is in the second and final year as Chair of the Executive Committee of the International Lexical Functional Grammar Association.

Mathematics and Statistics In the past year Dan Ciubotaru has continued his research in representation theory, a branch of mathematics that studies the symmetries of various mathematical and physical structures.

He published four journal papers, including a single-authored paper on the study of unitary representations in Inventiones Mathematicae, one of the top three best mathematical journals.

The original motivation for the study of unitary representations comes from abstract harmonic analysis (Gelfand’s programme), a vast generalisation of Fourier analysis, and from quantum mechanics (Wigner’s work on the Lorentz group). The modern motivation is linked with the Langlands programme, a set of very influential conjectures that encompasses significant areas of number theory, algebra and geometry.

His research is supported by a four-

year EPSRC grant ‘Dirac operators in representation theory’ for which he is the principal investigator. He gave talks at international conferences in Manchester, Oxford, Hangzhou (China), and Zagreb (Croatia). He spent two weeks as an invited professor at the Weizmann Institute (Israel), and two weeks at Aix-Marseille Université (France). Since autumn 2017, he has been editor for algebra for Oxford’s Quarterly Journal of Mathematics. In summer 2017, he received an Oxford MPLS Teaching Award and was awarded the title of Professor of Mathematics in the ‘recognition of distinction’ exercise.

During his first year at Somerville Renaud Lambiotte has put a lot of energy into the preparation of his new courses and to finding his way in Oxford, but he still found the time for research.

During Michaelmas, he finalised in collaboration with Mason Porter an overview paper on the concept of random walks on networks. In a nutshell, the paper is about the mathematics and algorithms to understand how diffusion takes place in a network, e.g. rumour on Facebook or impulses in neuronal networks. In Hilary, he worked on a paper published in PNAS on the notion of mixing in large-scale social networks, thus considering the question: do birds of a similar feather all flock together. You can read more about it here: https://www.maths.ox.ac.uk/ node/28281. Running projects include research projects on defining functional roles in networks, extending network tools to non-binary interactions, understanding cascades in social media and some more mathematical work on random walks. He ran this site https:// scimeter.org/clouds/ to get a word cloud of his research. The redder, the more recent. He has also been elected associate editor of the journal Science Advances.

Medicine May Professor of Medicine, Raj Thakker, heads a group which investigates the genetic, molecular and physiological basis of endocrine disorders that affect calcium homeostasis, and endocrine tumour development. By identifying and understanding the underlying mechanisms, they aim to establish better diagnostic methods and develop

novel targeted therapies for these disorders to improve patient care. Their research activities encompass finding novel genetic causes and developing novel therapies. In 2017 Professor Thakker was awarded the European Neuroendocrine Tumours Society Hakan Ahlman Award for translational medicine; became an honorary life fellow and trustee of the Galton Institute; Co-President of the 3rd International Symposium on the CaSR, Florence, Italy; a member of the Committee of Scientific Advisors for the International Osteoporosis Foundation; and has been Editorial Advisory Board member for the Japan Medical Association Journal.

Professor Thakker has published numerous peer reviewed papers, reviews, book chapters/books (list available).

Helen Ashdown continues her work on the role of blood eosinophils in targeting inhaled steroid medication in chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD).

She is working on several projects using the Clinical Practice Research Database which collects routine data from primary care consultations, and she has almost completed recruitment to the COMET study (near-patient testing to guide COPD maintenance treatment in primary care: observational study to determine variability and accuracy of inflammatory biomarkers in stable state). She is Research Lead for the Primary Care Respiratory Society. Her daughter Lizzie has become the youngest member of Somerville this year, joining the excellent college nursery.

Damian Tyler has become Professor of Physiological Metabolism.

Emeritus Fellow Professor Angela Vincent is the joint winner of this year’s K.J.Zülch Prize: Autoimmunity in neurological diseases : https://www. mpg.de/12279839/zuelch-price2018?c=2249

Modern Languages Almut Suerbaum reports that after heavy administrative duties as chair of the FHS in Modern German, a term of sabbatical leave and one of collegefunded Carlisle leave were a welcome opportunity to make progress with the research project on medieval religious song. Being appointed as the Wolfgang Stammler Visiting Professor at the

University of Fribourg in Switzerland was a great honour, as was the period as Mercator Visiting Professor at the University of Tübingen in Germany. ‘It is these kinds of international exchanges with colleagues and students which enrich research, but also teaching. Like many colleagues, I am desperately worried about the effects which growing isolation would have on a profession which thrives on openness and internationalism.’

Following the publication of his monograph, Writing the Mind: Representing Consciousness from Proust to the Present, with Routledge last summer, Simon Kemp has embarked on a round of conferences and other speaking engagements in France and the UK on topics related to the book.

Among other things, this will result in three academic articles, two in French, one in English, on the work of the contemporary French novelist, Marie Darrieussecq, who has a particular interest in the workings of the mind and the nature of human and non-human consciousness. He is also working on two chapters for survey volumes on French literature, one on inter-war literature for The Cambridge History of Literature in French, and one on more recent literature for Contemporary Fiction in French, also forthcoming with Cambridge University Press. Outside of research, he has continued to enjoy teaching our wonderful students at Somerville, and has continued to be heavily involved in outreach work, both for the college and in his role as Schools Liaison Officer for the French subfaculty. The Modern Languages Faculty now increasingly looks to extend the reach of its access and outreach through online activities, such as its schools blog and virtual book club, or by hitting the road and taking its message across the UK via ‘hub school’ events bringing together modern languages students from all the schools in a local area. Simon is also looking forward to becoming Somerville’s Dean next year, and the particular challenges that might bring his way.

This academic year, Francesca Southerden has presented her research on medieval Italian poetry at the University of Cambridge, at the ICI Berlin Institute for Cultural Enquiry, and at a meeting of the Oxford Dante Society.

She has been working on several articles

on temporality and desire in Petrarch, in collaboration with Manuele Gragnolati (Senior Research Fellow in Italian), and on completing the manuscript of her second book, Dante and Petrarch in the Garden of Language. Together with her Oxford colleagues in medieval Italian she co-organised the February meeting of the itinerant workshop series Re-Reading Dante’s Vita Nova: A Collaborative Research Project, and has been delighted to participate in this year’s meetings of the Somerville Medievalist Research Group (SMRG). In Trinity Term, Francesca was shortlisted for a student-led teaching award for ‘Most acclaimed lecturer’ in the Humanities and, in her role as access and outreach representative for Italian, has recently coordinated and taught sessions for the UNIQ summer school for beginners’ languages.

Philosophy Mari Mikkola came to Somerville and Oxford in October 2017 as an Associate Professor of Philosophy. As she wasn’t able to leave her previous post until the end of September, Mari had very much to hit the ground running: she arrived just one day before the start of the new academic year and within two days of arrival was involved in induction meetings for the new students. For much of Michaelmas Term, which included her first round of Admissions interviews, Mari was finding her bearings. In Hilary and Trinity Terms, she served as the Faculty of Philosophy’s PG Women’s Officer as well as being involved in examining Philosophy Finals papers.

Over the past year, Mari has given two keynote addresses at conferences in the UK and Finland, as well as various talks at conferences and workshops in the UK, Germany, the Netherlands and Spain. A book workshop on her recent monograph The Wrong of Injustice: Dehumanization and its Role in Feminist Philosophy (NY: OUP, 2016) took place in April at the University of Amsterdam. In terms of research, Mari has completed her second book-length project. She has finished a manuscript currently in production titled Pornography: A Philosophical Introduction (OUP, forthcoming 2018).

In addition, she has written three book chapters: ‘The Function of Gender as a

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Historical Kind’ in Hufendiek, R., James, D. and van Riel, R. (eds.) Social Functions in Philosophy: Metaphysical, Normative, and Methodological Perspectives (NY: Routledge, forthcoming 2019); ‘Self-Trust and Discriminatory Speech’ in Dormandy, K. (ed.) Epistemology of Trust (NY: Routledge, forthcoming 2018); and ‘Metaphysics’ in Hall, Kim and Ásta (eds.) Oxford Handbook on Feminist Philosophy (NY: OUP, forthcoming 2018). Three further book chapters published in the past year were written before Mari’s arrival in Oxford.

Physics Most of Steve Simon’s research is directed towards topological quantum physics and topological quantum matter. (He is working on a new book introducing this exciting field at the undergraduate level.) In addition, he has recently become interested in issues of thermodynamic equilibration and lack thereof. Imagine an experiment where heat is added to a substance at one point – thermodynamics says that the heat will diffuse away from that point. It turns out that this is not always true. There are cases where due to the effects of disorder and quantum mechanics, heat is unable to diffuse.

To some extent this has required a complete rethinking of some of the basic tenets of thermal physics.

Honorary Senior Research Fellow Stephanie Dalley played a lead part in a BLINK documentary for television on a remarkable discovery beneath a bombed mosque in Mosul, Northern Iraq, which will be shown in 2018. Also a minor role in an educational documentary for Lucerne University, on the development of early alphabets, arising from her publication of new texts in 2009. She contributed to an exhibition on Nineveh in Leiden in 2017, and lectured to St Andrews University archaeological society, and to Enstone historical society. Meanwhile she is making steady progress on the history of Babylon (CUP forthcoming).

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Report on Junior Research Fellowships As usual, Somerville hosts a vibrant community of Junior Research Fellows (JRFs), exploring a very wide range of research fields. What follows is a sample of the variety of ground-breaking work being undertaken, distilled from some of their annual reports.

Nahid Zokaei works in the Department of Experimental Psychology. Her research focuses on understanding the behavioural and neurobiological factors associated with working memory in health and its impairments associated with aging and various neurodegenerative disorders.

Kerstin Timm works as a British Heart Foundation Immediate Postdoctoral Basic Science Research Fellow in the Department of Physiology, Anatomy and Genetics in the research group of our own Professor Damian Tyler, Tutorial Fellow in Medicine at Somerville. Kerstin is helping to develop a new magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) technique that will have significantly better signal-to-noise characteristics than current methods for tracing heart metabolites. This will allow more effective and detailed diagnosis and eventually therapy in heart disease. In addition to her research, Kerstin has been teaching Somerville’s first years as a Stipendiary Lecturer in Medicine and giving third year tutorials in cancer biology and cancer metabolism.

Sarah Hemming works in the Department of Physiology, Anatomy and Genetics as part of the team focusing on Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy. Sarah focuses on clinical trials for a drug (‘Ezutromid’) that, early indications show, improves muscle function, aiming to elucidate the mechanism by which the drug up-regulates a key protein, Utrophin, to achieve a positive therapeutic outcome.

Fernando de Juan is a Marie Curie Research Fellow in the Physics Department. Fernando’s work focuses on how the laws of quantum mechanics, when applied to large ensembles of particles such as those forming any material, can give rise to exotic phases of matter with surprising and potentially useful properties. Fernando was awarded the ‘Young Researcher in Theoretical Physics’ Prize by the Spanish Royal Society of Physics in December 2017.

Laura Slater is a postdoctoral researcher on a European Research Council-funded project in the Faculty of Music, entitled ‘Music and Late Medieval European Courtly Cultures’, an interdisciplinary collaboration between musicology, history, art history and literature. Laura specifically studies cultural patronage and the courtly roles of Queen Philippa of Hainault, wife of Edward III of England. In October 2018, Laura’s first monograph, entitled Art and Political Thought in Medieval England c. 1150-1350 will be published.

Martin Walker started a three-year post as Mary Ewart JRF in January 2018, after being selected from a very high quality field of early career researchers working in a range of Physical and Life Sciences. Martin works in the Engineering Department investigating how ‘kinks’ form when a folded sheet is wrapped around a cylindrical drum. The problem is of relevance in the design of deployable space structures, such as solar sails, which are folded and wrapped for launch and then unwrapped once in space.

David (‘Dai’) Bowe is reaching the end of a three-year term as Victoria Maltby JRF. David is a scholar of the Italian poet Dante. Amongst other things, Dai has been thinking and writing about the role and representation of women in Dante’s work and that of other medieval Italian writers. Dai’s monograph manuscript has been submitted to the Oxford University Press.

Following his time at Somerville, Dai has secured a research fellowship at University College, Cork.

Linxin Li is a postdoctoral clinical research fellow in the Centre for Stroke and Dementia. Linxin’s work has identified that a hole in the heart, previously thought only to be a risk factor in younger stroke patients, is also a potential risk factor in older stroke patients. Linxin’s other main research project has led to a change in local clinical policy in the treatment of stroke in older patients.

Lauren Watson works in the Department of Physiology, Anatomy and Genetics, using stem cells to investigate spinocerebellar ataxias, a varied group of inherited movement disorders for which there is currently no known cure. Lauren and her colleagues have been able to develop a technique that allows them to turn stem cells into cerebellar neurons. This will then allow them to model the disorders and, through a greater understanding of what is going wrong, eventually lead to therapies.

Rachel Tanner works in the Jenner Institute, part of the Nuffield Department of Medicine. Rachel’s research focuses on improving methods for testing the effectiveness of tuberculosis (TB) vaccines. TB remains a serious global health threat and vaccines are crucial in the struggle to reduce the harm that the disease causes. It is currently difficult to determine whether a candidate TB vaccine is effective since there are few good proxies for determining whether the vaccinated individual has achieved immunity. Rachel’s research aims to significantly improve the evaluation process for new vaccines and thus help to bring forward new, more effective vaccines more quickly.

Naveed Akbar works in the Radcliffe Department of Medicine investigating how enveloped messages within the body called extracellular vesicles promote disease communication.

Christopher Durr works in Organic Chemistry, investigating alternative materials to poly(ethylene). PE is one of the most widely used plastics on the planet. Produced almost exclusively from fossil fuels, it consists of long chains of carbon and hydrogen, making it highly resistant to chemical degradation.

Chemical resistance is an excellent material property to possess in certain niche applications, but is a major problem when you take into account one of PE’s largest applications:

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packaging. A PE shopping bag, often used once and thrown away, will not degrade naturally in the environment, but remain in landfills and waterways. Christopher’s research looks into tackling this problem by making new plastic materials that look and act like PE, but degrade into benign by-products after use.

Cayenna Ponchione-Bailey works on the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC)-funded project ‘Transforming 19th Century Historically Informed Practices’ in the Faculty of Music. In order to investigate the contribution and interaction of individual performers in an ensemble, Cayenna uses a large number of modified contact microphones which each record only the sound from the instrument to which they are attached. The information from the microphones can then be analysed to determine how the individual contributions vary with different environmental factors. In addition to this work, Cayenna is an accomplished conductor and has contributed to the Conducting Studies Conference held by the Oxford Conducting Institute in June 2018.

Cesar E. Geraldo Herrera is reaching the end of his three years as Victoria Maltby JRF. His monograph Microbes and Other Shamanic Beings was published in April 2018. Cesar has been using ethnographic research techniques to explore shamanic practices and identified links between ritual practice

and genuine positive health benefits through identifiable microbial action. In addition, Cesar has worked with the other Vitoria Maltby JRF, David Bowe, to organise a conference on ‘Shipwrecks and how to avoid them’, which looked at the role of seafaring and shipwrecks in written and oral compositions in medieval and early modern cultures. The proceedings of the conference are due to be published in the Maritime History series of Amsterdam University Press. Cesar is now preparing for his next research project ‘Systems of Health and ambient management SHAMans’ which explores ways to incorporate traditional medical practices into the surveillance and control of emerging infectious diseases.

Abdul-Lateef Haji-Ali works in the Mathematical Institute, developing numerical methods for determining the uncertainties in mathematical models. Scientists often aim to derive a mathematical description of a relationship between two or more experimentally measured quantities and this ‘model’ is crucial in determining what process is driving the relationship. In order for the model to be properly useful, it is critical to know the uncertainty (or error) on the model’s parameters. This is a tough challenge and Abdul-Lateef’s work has the potential to improve the effectiveness of mathematical modelling across a very wide range of sciences.

Dr Steve Rayner, Senior Tutor

JCR Report Somerville has once again enjoyed a great year and it has been a joy to be part of it, witnessing success in multiple fields from what is a vibrant student body. Somerville has had a very successful year in the sporting arena with both the Squash and Rugby teams winning cuppers, demonstrating a great level of achievement. For the Rugby team, victory in the Plate final brought the team’s first silverware so huge congratulations to them! The women’s Netball team were runners-up in their cuppers competition and have done themselves and the college proud. Finally I would like to add that we have also seen many individuals represent the university in sports such as rowing and rugby to name a couple and represent the college brilliantly.

Beyond the realm of sport, there has been much change in the JCR Committee and a number of projects have been undertaken successfully. The JCR ran the last ballot for students in their second year needing to live out as the Catherine Hughes building will be completed in time for October 2019, providing accommodation for all. The JCR held its annual Arts Week in Hilary Term which was well attended and engaging. Special thanks must go to our Arts Officer, Alyssa Crabb, and the Arts Committee who put a lot

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of effort into achieving this success. I am also pleased to say that after discussions with the college, the Vaughan Common Room will be renovated to adapt it for the JCR’s needs after the move from Park at the start of the 2017/18 year. The JCR has again demonstrated a commitment to charitable work with thousands donated to good causes ranging from support for refugees to the empowerment of vulnerable women. Following the release of the Admissions statistics, it is clear there is work to do, but I would like to congratulate the JCR Access Officer, Emily Louise, who has worked tirelessly to show Somerville as the college of inclusivity. Her efforts in fundraising and running the access roadshow were a clear demonstration of her hard work and that of our ambassadors to show that there is a place for anyone, regardless of background.

I would like to end by thanking Jan and congratulating her on a successful first year at the helm. Jan has brought great energy to her role whilst also being very accessible and approachable to the student body. I wish her and my successor, Emmanuel Amissah-Eshun, all the best for the future.

NIALL MACKLIN, JCR President

MCR Report The Middle Common Room has continued to provide comfort and support to all the fantastic students who call Somerville their home. This last year has seen a surge in associate memberships of the MCR, highlighting the desire to be part of our flourishing graduate community. These members are typically fourth-year undergraduates, mature undergraduates or alumni of the college who apply for membership to get involved in our events, dine with students and generally provide an additional welcome flavour to the MCR. We continue to encourage the academic prowess of our members; to supplement the college’s bi-termly symposia, we have established ‘Academic Teas’ which allow students to give a layman’s presentation to other graduates concerning their research/studies; this naturally evolves into pleasant academic discussion and the occasional debate, albeit with a glass of wine and some delicious snacks.

Speaking of wine, Somerville MCR is causing a bit of a stir among other MCRs due to our ever expanding and popular social scene. We constantly receive positive comments from members of other Common Rooms whom we invite to dinners, food receptions and the occasional bar exchange; we are quite sought after for intercollegiate events! Guests are often surprised to find how many students get involved in MCR life and are especially complimentary towards our communal spaces.

As always, we take pride in our graduate living, working and shared spaces. The ‘Dungeon’ continues to be used as dedicated study space whereas ‘The Productivity Room’ – now named ‘The Fergus Cooper Room of Requirement’ to honour the continuous excellence of one of my predecessors – has been treated to a new piece of art from J. M. W. Turner depicting an historical Oxford High Street. The ‘Coop’ as it is now collectively referred to contains many of its original furnishings and still remains a light-hearted space to study, cook and enjoy the view of college from Margery Fry House.

The main MCR has also been gifted with a beautiful upright piano along with a new fridge, black-out blinds for the TV room and a dishwasher – to everyone’s delight!

We are sad to say goodbye to many of the members who have shaped the MCR and added to its culture during their time here. We wish them the best in their chosen careers in which they will inevitably excel and although we are unhappy to see them leave I am reminded of the famous saying ‘Once a Somervillian …’ and will welcome them back to Somerville and the MCR whenever they choose to visit.

Finally, I want to thank everyone in college especially Jan Royall for listening to our concerns and helping us improve the MCR for everyone’s benefit. Here’s to next year, which I am sure will be even better.

CONNOR SCOTT, MCR President

MEMBERS OF THE MCR

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Library Report 2017-18 2017-18 has been a year of expanding the boundaries of the library. The library staff have been involved in a number of talks, tours and outreach events with members of the public as well as staff and students of the college. Amongst other things we have been involved in the Margaret Thatcher Scholarship Trust Development programme, delivering seminars on Reference Management Software and Information Literacy in the Digital Age; we have conducted several historical and art tours of the college for a number of local groups, we have lectured to school groups, history students and even provided an interview for the BBC on alumna Helen Waddell. One of the most enjoyable and interesting outreach activities for us was the series of oral history interviews conducted with several alumnae, for deposit in the archives. Anyone who would like to follow in their footsteps and share memories of their Somerville days is invited to contact the Librarian: librarian@some.ox.ac.uk

LIBRARY STAFF

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In other outreach activities we have provided the text and pictures for the hoardings on Walton Street which hide the site works for the new Catherine Hughes Building, produced an exhibition to commemorate the centenary of women’s suffrage, and worked with graduate student Rebecca Bowen and Junior Research Fellow Dai Bowe on a major exhibition of the college’s connections with Dante’s Divine Comedy. This was particularly inspiring to Rebecca who then launched a very successful crowd-funding campaign to raise funds to repair some of our antiquarian books and to digitise some unique hand-written and painted books in the special collections. We hope to be able to bring the digitised books to a worldwide audience for the first time, through the college website over the coming months.

Aside from all these exciting activities, the normal business of the library of course goes on with 1964 acquisitions (382 of which were gifts), 19 DVDs and 21 pamphlets. We have created

two new sections at the request of academic staff and students: Nature Writing and an LBGQT+ section.

We look forward to adding to these collections over the coming months and years. In other library innovations, we have started allowing hot drinks into the library in Bodleian-style spillproof containers (no disasters so far), we have replaced many of the library chairs on the ground floor with what are termed ‘indestructible chairs’ (we’ll see) and we have also introduced two standing desks to try to discourage hours of shoulder huddling. Major book donations this year have been received from the bequests of Betty Williams (1947), and Anna Morpurgo Davies.

We have also received numerous other gifts of books from dozens of generous donors (listed at the end of this report) for which we are, as ever, extremely grateful.

In the archives and special collections we continue to receive both email enquiries (142) and visiting researchers (43). Our most popular collection this

LIBRARY POSTER BOARDS

year was Amelia Edwards with Vera Brittain and Vernon Lee tying for third place. We were delighted to receive this year: Marjorie Boulton’s Somerville Days Diaries; Barbara Harvey’s papers on Westminster Abbey; and additional manuscripts in the Margaret Kennedy collection from her family.

Finally there were great strides forward with the John Stuart Mill collection thanks to a grant from the National Manuscripts Conservation Trust and generous donations from Christopher and Margaret Kenyon along with other friends of the John Stuart Mill library. The Oxford Conservation Consortium repaired and in some cases boxed more than 60 volumes with some dramatic results. As at July 2018, all books containing significant amounts of marginalia are now stable and may be consulted by researchers with the usual care. Moreover, in April, our partners at the University of Alabama launched their database containing the marginalia that have been digitised to date, allowing users to search for marginalia by type, author of the book that contains it or by its title. Millmarginaliaonline.org is freely available to anyone interested in learning more about James and John Stuart Mill’s reactions to the texts in their library. Events this year in the

THE LONG, LONG LIFE OF TREES

BY FIONA STAFFORD

JSM library included two conservation days when visitors could watch conservators working on the books and ask questions, a seminar on current research into the library and progress on the project and of course the annual John Stuart Mill lecture given this year by Sir Adam Roberts. The annual newsletter for Friends of the library will be distributed towards the end of August and this year for the first time we will be putting it on the website.

Now that the preservation of the books is substantially complete, we are looking

at improving access to the collection and enabling it to be visited by a wider range of people. We are also looking at expanding the collection to bring in books that belonged to John Stuart Mill and letters written by him. Our first step in this direction took place in June when we acquired two books that were in his French library and two letters. If you would like to support the project or become a Friend of the library as we move into the exciting next phase, please contact the Librarian.

MILLMARGINALIAONLINE.ORG

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List of Library Donors 2017-18: Elizabeth Bingham (Loxley, History, 1957) Alan Boyle Nadine Brummer (Classics, 1953)* Tara Isabella Burton* Marieke Clarke (History, 1959)* Liz Cooke Corpus Christi College Library Caroline Cracraft (Pinder, History, 1961) Sarah Dixon (History, 1982) Lady Margaret Elliot (Whale, Classics, 1945)

Fiona Stafford*

Alastair Matthews (JRF 2007-10)

Anne Stoye (bequest of John Stoye books)

Kate McLoughlin (English, 1988)* Brian McMahon* Elaine A. Moore (Chemistry, 1967)* The Museum of the History of Science Library Beatrice Musgrave (Falkenstein, English, 1945)* New College Library Nuffield College Library, ex libris Nancy Bermeo

Annie Sutherland Daria Svistunova (DPhil, 2015) Madhura Swaminathan (Economics, 1982)* Ann Swinfen (Pettit, Maths, 1956)* Philippe Syz (MSc Computer Science, 2016) Judith Taylor (Mundlak, Nat Sci, 1952)* Taylor Institution Library

Ann Oakley (Titmuss, PPE, 1962)*

Jenny Uglow*

Susan Owens (English, 1990)*

Jo Vellacott (History, 1940)*

Jennifer Fitzgerald*

Rosalind Page (Pollard, French, 1935) (books from the bequest of)

Watts, J. S. (English, 1979)*

Forbes Gibb

Frans Plank*

Malcolm Graham*

The Principal

Hilary Greaves

Joanna Raisbeck (DPhil Medieval and Modern Languages, 2013)

Betty (Elizabeth) Williams (Rollason, Modern Languages, 1947) (books from the bequest of)

Peggy Rimmer (Mary Ewart RF, 1964)

Laura Wilson (English, 1982)*

Michèle Roberts (English, 1967)*

Jonathan (Zeyang) Wu (Law, 2014)

Jane Robinson (English, 1978)*

Sr Jane Khin Zaw (PPE, 1956)*

Justin G. Schiller*

Sofija Zovko (MSt, 2017)

Miranda Seymour*

* Indicates donor’s own publication

Alistair Fair (History, 2000)* Ruth Finnegan (Classics, 1952)*

Helen Hughes Brock (Classics, 1956) Joanna Innes* The JCR Simon Kemp Racha Kirakosian (DPhil, Medieval and Modern Languages, 2010)* Philip Kreager Katherine Lack (Taylor, DPhil Agriculture and Forestry Science, 1977) Leanda de Lisle (Dormer, History, 1979)* Anne Logan* Shruthi Manivannan (History, 2015)

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Oren Margolis

Liz MacRae Shaw (Masters, History, 1966)* Irene Sibille (PPE, 2016) Eric Sidebottom* Herward Sieberg* Martin Ferguson Smith*

Stephen Weatherill* Jennifer Welsh

The Somerville Association President’s Report 2017/18 We were very sorry to lose Susan Scholefield as our President in the autumn of 2017 for reasons of ill health. After a short interregnum, Baroness Alison Wolf (Potter, 1967, PPE) was elected at our AGM on 10 March and we are delighted to welcome her as our new President.

Susan Scholefield writes: We were delighted that one of Baroness Royall’s first engagements with our Association was to join us in college on 17 September for the annual Year Representatives’ symposium. We are developing this network to encourage all our alumni to come to events in college and in London and also to reach out to those who cannot easily join in these activities but enjoy getting together informally closer to where they live or on-line. We are also steadily developing e-mentoring, our support to current students and recent graduates entering into the world of work and to alumni at every stage of their professional and personal lives.

‘Almost everyone we were commemorating had been, happily, from an earlier Somervillian year than mine. I hope my generation can live up to them; but also am confident that the Somervillian ethos of service is as strong as ever – witness the pages of this Report. I also hope that more and more of us will strengthen our contacts with the College. It’s the same but different; it needs our support; and if you haven’t seen the gardens recently - well, they are wonderful.’

I have greatly valued this support over the past year (and given thanks for the National Health Service) while passing the Presidency on to Baroness Wolf. It has been such a privilege to work with you all and to hand over to such a distinguished Somervillian as Alison. I have learned, sooner and in a more direct way than I expected, what a joy such support can be!

Dame Kiri Te Kanawa (Honorary Fellow) Companion of Honour for services to Music.

Family and friends joined Alison in June for lunch and the annual Commemoration Service. Alison Wolf writes: ‘I could not have started my term of office in a more inspiring or enjoyable way.

The Commemoration day brought home to me, as I’m sure it did to all present, just how much Somervillians contribute to society over their lifetimes, whether at national or indeed international level or, and equally importantly, locally and through individual acts of kindness and support.

Finally, we record with great pleasure the remarkable Somervillians recognised in the Queen’s Birthday Honours List this year:

Professor Angela McLean (Maths, 1979; Honorary Fellow) DBE for services to Mathematical Biology and Scientific Advice for Government.

Professor Carole Hillenbrand (Arabic, 1968; Honorary Fellow) CBE for services to the Understanding of Islamic History.

Dr Margaret Casely-Hayford (Law, 1980) CBE for charitable services in the UK and abroad.

Our warmest congratulations to them all.

SUSAN SCHOLEFIELD and ALISON WOLF There is an article by Alison Wolf in the Somerville Magazine 2018 at page 10.

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Horsman Awards The Alice Horsman Scholarship was established in 1953. Alice Horsman (1908, Classics) was a great traveller who wished to provide opportunities for former Somerville students to experience other countries and peoples, whether through travel, research or further study. The Alice Horsman Scholarship is open to all Somerville undergraduate and graduate alumni with the exception of students who are studying for the Second BM at another college. Applicants should be in need of financial support for a project involving travel, research or further study that is intended to enhance career prospects. Priority will be given to applicants who have not received previous awards. Applications from Somerville alumni who have secured a place on the Teach First, Police Now or Step up to Social Work schemes will be looked on favourably. For information about the application process please email academic.office@some.ox.ac.uk or visit www.some.ox.ac.uk/studying-here/feesfunding/student-awards. Applications are accepted at the start of each term. Applications for Hilary Term will close on 21 January 2019; for Trinity Term on 3 June 2019.

The Somerville Senior Members’ Fund 2017-2018 This Fund has been available to provide small sums to help alumni with unforeseen expenses and hardship. We are also able to subsidize the cost of individuals attending College events which would otherwise have been unaffordable for them.

We hope that people who find themselves in need will not hesitate to call upon the Fund. We are glad to hear from third parties who think that help would be appreciated. We are always grateful for donations to this Fund.

Applications for grants should be made to elizabeth.cooke@some.ox.ac.uk or lesley.brown@some.ox.ac.uk

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Life before Somerville When I was born in rural Northumberland in 1954 with missing ribs and a severe curvature of the spine (scoliosis) my future prospects seemed rather bleak. Doctors wondered whether I would survive more than a few days and suggested I might never walk and was probably mentally incapacitated. Eighteen years later, I went up to Somerville to read English.

I have no memories of my first two years living at the Vicarage in Haltwhistle, a small town close to Hadrian’s Wall, but my cousin has recently unearthed a letter sent to family and friends three weeks after my birth. It asks for prayers at 6pm on 15 July when ‘A Service of Anointing and Laying On of Hands is to be held for our daughter Ruth’. Already I am being identified in two significant ways: a child of the vicarage and a child with disabilities.

My medical condition required frequent hospital appointments and it seemed sensible to move away from the countryside. The parish of St Bartholomew’s, Armley, a large working-class district in Leeds, could not have been more different. The main features of the area were the church, Armley Gaol, and Armley Mills, once the world’s largest woollen mill. Fans of Alan Bennett will have read his accounts of Armley life in the 40s and 50s and I share similar memories of visiting the children’s library, where I could choose my own storybooks for the first time.

This was before the days of ‘smokeless zones’ and every building was blackened with soot. My hair and clothes would have a sulphurous smell after a short time playing outside. Most homes were traditional back-to-backs but we had a large garden surrounded by a high stone wall with wrought iron gates. It was the venue for Church Fêtes and Mothers’ Union teas – and the place where I walked for the first time, on my second birthday.

We had many callers at the vicarage, some asking for tea and sandwiches. My father called them ‘road scholars’ (a joke I never understood until I arrived in Oxford!). One old man kept his belongings in a battered pram that he pushed around the back streets. Every morning he sat at our front door and sang to me, before holding out a chipped enamel mug: ‘Just hot water, love. I’ve got a screw of tea.’

I have spent countless hours in waiting rooms and cubicles at Leeds General Infirmary. Some of the first words I learned to read were: orthopaedic, paediatric and out-

Ruth Sillar came up to Somerville in 1972 to read English. After graduating, she went to St John’s College, York, to do a PGCE. She taught full-time for 22 years in two North Yorkshire comprehensive schools, mainly at Selby High School, where she was Head of RE. For the next 11 years, Ruth was a part-time member of the RE department at Bootham School. She is now retired – and still lives in York!

patients department. (I was very annoyed by an early visit to the dentist: ‘That was a waste of time; he only looked at my teeth!’) Treatments could be painful and frightening for a small child and there are experiences that I do not wish to revisit as I write this memoir. I wore a ‘Milwaukee Brace’ every day until I was 17. It was a corset made of stiffened leather and included a neck ring held in place by vertical metal bars attached to the body of the brace. My mother had to strap and screw me into this each morning. I had a built-up shoe for my shorter leg. Once, I was asked whether I would like to be a nurse and replied that I would rather be the Matron. I had spotted that even the consultants treated her with respect and that here was a lady with authority!

The City of Leeds opened a school for ‘crippled and delicate children’ in 1929. By 1959, it had become ‘Potternewton Mansion School’: a neoclassical house first built for a woollen merchant, surrounded by its own park.

I liked the idea of being at a ‘Special’ school and going there by taxi with other ‘handicapped children’. We were encouraged to be as independent as possible and to focus on what we could do rather than our limitations. I told my mother that I must be on time for school because I held the sticks of one child while she took off her coat and then she would bend down to help me with my shoes. Some children were in wheelchairs and others wore splints or callipers. The ratio of adults to children was high, the school was well resourced and I had an excellent start to my academic career.

I went into mainstream education when ‘inclusion’ was not as common as it is today. My father was now Rector of Richmond (North Yorkshire) and I

spent three happy years as a pupil at the ‘National School’. There were 48 children in my class, stone staircases to the classrooms and outside toilets. My new friends and I were soon preparing for the dreaded 11-plus exam but girls easily outnumbered boys in the ‘top set’ and I never once thought that females were inferior or could not achieve great things.

Richmond High School for Girls had an ideal building for someone with mobility problems. Designed by award-winning architect Denis Clarke Hall, it was almost all on one level. I did not require ‘in-class support’ but I did have a loyal band of friends who took it in turns to carry my briefcase, the load increasing as the years progressed. There was an interesting mix of pupils: girls from Swaledale farms and villages alongside girls from Catterick Camp with experience of life in other countries.

Popular career choices were teaching, nursing or secretarial work, although some people did go on to university.

One Old Girl, before my time, went up to Girton: Brenda Hale, now President of the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom.

RUTH SILLAR

Education was changing by the early 70s and Richmond ‘went comprehensive’ in my final ‘A’ level year.

The High School became the sixth form centre and we now had lessons with the Grammar School boys – and much improved social lives. With its Norman castle and Georgian theatre, Richmond has a fascinating history. I always loved the title of one text-book – The Golden Age of Northumbria – and I feel proud to be both Northumbrian-born and Yorkshire-bred.

Ruth Sillar (1972-75)

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Members' News and Publications If you have a news item which you would like to appear in the next College Report please send in your contribution by 1st July 2019.

1942 Susan Chenevix-Trench (Mrs Wood) writes ‘What have I been up to? Chiefly keeping myself fed, watered, solvent, etc. in my 90s. But also writing and reviewing a short guide-book to the baptismal font at St Mary Magdalene, Eardisley, Herefordshhire, which presents iconographical problems of interest, and is beautiful anyhow.’

1943 Jean Hall writes ‘I still work voluntarily as a guide and steward at Exeter Cathedral. I also continue to produce guides (booklets) to canals in Cornwall, Devon and Somerset, and I represent the Inland Waterways Association West Country branch as a member of the Grand Western Canal Advisory Committee (run by Devon County Council).’

1945 Lalage Bown writes ‘Because I broke my hip in 2017, my 90th birthday year, some celebrations were postponed till I was 91. In particular former colleagues and successors at the University of Glasgow arranged a splendid occasion, with a dinner one evening and a seminar on Adult Education research the following day. The seminar proceedings have now been published on-line, while on the day I was presented with an album showing some highlights of my life and a number of tributes from colleagues and students. Among those who came were a senior scholardiplomat from Nigeria and people from all around the UK.’ Lalage is looking forward to two honours in October from Shrewsbury, the town in which she now lives : she will be the guest speaker at an important dinner to be given by the Shrewsbury Drapers Company, and she will be awarded an honorary DLitt by the University of Chester at a ceremony for the first graduates studying on Chester’s Shrewsbury campus. We hope to have

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more details of both these events in the College Report next year.

Audrey Donnithorne’s article ‘China’s Cellular Economy : Some Economic Trends Since the Cultural Revolution’ from China Quarterly No 52 (October 1972) is to be republished in Comparative Economic Systems edited by Paul Dragos Aligica and Peter J Boettke in the International Library of Critical Writings in Economics series published by Elgar Publishing Ltd. The expected date of publication is March/ April 2018.

Joyce Ormerod (Mrs Molyneux) is a member of the Dover Society, which interests itself in all aspects of Dover life, institutional, cultural and developmental. It produces a quality newsletter and organises meetings and visits of interest in the area.

Daphne Swan (Mrs Sleigh) moved after her husband’s death from her woodland home in the Fraser Valley to the nearby town of Mission. She has recently been adapting, editing and updating a 1970s book on the history of the Mission area, and this came out last December under the title of Mission As It Was. This is her tenth book: all of them are either histories or biographies relating to British Columbia, Canada.

1946 Josie Eckhard is in a care home favoured by Quakers.

Elizabeth Graham (Lady Kirk) has retired from the Local Access Forum, ending a 28-year involvement with the North York Moors National Park, but she is still a trustee of the Byeways and Bridleways Trust. She has given up farming but is still riding and in 2016 took part in a 240 mile ride from Dartmoor to the New Forest to highlight the loss of public rights of way.

1947 Marjorie Snell (Mrs Godden) writes ‘I very much enjoy receiving news of

Somerville and Somervillians, but I quite honestly do nothing that would interest anyone, apart from surviving, looking after my disabled husband, gardening and acquiring great-grandchildren – a quiet but enjoyable life.’

1949 Pat Lucas is still living in the bungalow to which her family moved the day after her first birthday (June 1932). The plot is nearly half an acre and she has a gardener one day a week. Her last dog died in 2016 but she looks after her niece’s dog from time to time and, with or without a dog, goes for a walk every day; she still drives. The RC Church is very important to her and she goes to Mass each day. Her chief interests, as always, are reading and listening to music. ‘Altogether I have quite a busy life and I enjoy every minute of it. I love hearing from Somerville.’

Mally Shaw (Mrs Yates) lost her husband suddenly in January 2016 and in 2017 she began the task of downsizing, hoping to move to a small, modern flat, but the process has not been smooth. ‘Quarts and pint pots come to mind!’

1950 Daphne Wall writes ‘Although slowing down, I continue to write and have finished the second part of my memoir, which covers the years 1946 to 1959 and is in its final edit. The first part, an e-book about the years 1935 to 1946, including my memories of the exodus from France in 1940, can still be downloaded onto tablets etc. by Googling Daphne Wall The World I Lost. I would love to have comments or news from Somervillians, particularly any of my generation still hanging on in!’

1951 Deborah Bosanquet (Mrs MottTrille) combines part-time legal office work with care of her 89-year-old

blind husband and care of youngest grandchildren, as needed. ‘Sharing college and university news with family helps us all to be more optimistic in the troubled world in which we live.’

Lindsey Miller (Mrs March) writes ‘My daughter has lived in Oxford since she came down from Magdalen College, and now lives in Florence Park, off the Cowley Road. In December I moved to Florence Park to be near her, and our houses are about 100 yards apart. I love being part of this lively community.

I plan to teach circle dance at the community centre, am part of the local environmental group and the book group and am performing with a group learning improvised drama. I attend the Oxford Quaker Meeting. I am very lucky to be still in good health, I should welcome contact with any of my contemporaries.’

Pat Owtram (Mrs Davies)’s book about her father’s war, 1000 Days on the River Kwai, has been a great success and was featured in the Daily Telegraph in August 2017. The first print sold out and Pen and Sword have reprinted so it is obtainable again.

1952 Judith Mundlak (Dr Taylor) had a fifth book out in January 2018, An Abundance of Flowers: More Great Flower Breeders of the Past, to some acclaim. She visited Somerville in March and gave a copy to the Librarian. Her granddaughter, who spent last year at St Peter’s, has graduated summa cum laude from Barnard College, New York.

Ruth Murray (Professor Finnegan) writes ‘Besides recent awards for a screenplay and two of my books (Voyage of Pearl of the Seas and (ed.) Scottish Ulster Fairytales), our forthcoming series has won a logo by Rob Janoff, designer of the Apple icon – a huge honour! Hearing Others’ Voices, a transcultural and interdisciplinary series edited by me and physicist RohSuan Tung, is designed to inform and engage young adults in recent advances in thought and key issues of the day.

Promised authors include among many others Rowan Williams, Rob Janoff, CS Kidsell on Native American science, Arthur Hawes on mental health. Further details from r.h.finnegan@open.ac.uk.’

Rowena Walton (Mrs Courtney) writes ‘Very busy at the grass roots.’

1953 Elizabeth Ann Gray writes ‘I still enjoy the activities I have been voluntarily involved with for a long time: Church PCC, Deanery, Diocesan Synod and its working groups, e.g. Faith and Justice, Ageing – making contributions as well as being looked after. I am on the Board of Doncaster YMCA. I am a member of the Doncaster Civic Trust (developing their educational work with university students and primary pupils). I enjoy the National Trust, the RSPB, the theatre and concerts in Sheffield and Manchester.’

1954 Nori Burawoy (Dr Nori Graham) was presented with the Lifetime Achievement in Dementia Care Award at the UK’s 8th National Dementia Care Awards 2017 on 15 November 2017.

The award recognises her work on old age psychiatry and care, which has made a significant contribution to the quality of life of people living with dementia for more than thirty years, including as the Chair of Alzheimer’s Disease International (ADI) from 1996 to 2002 and Chair of the Alzheimer’s Society from 1987 to 1994.

Nancy Coward (Mrs Stratten) celebrated 59 years of marriage in 2017. She and her husband lived very remotely in the then Southern Rhodesia, near the Mozambique border, but moved to South Africa in 1963, living in Natal and later Johannesburg. They had four daughters, all now successful in their own fields. Over the years they travelled a lot, including once round the world and a flight on Concorde.

‘We moved to Plettenberg Bay on the south Cape coast in 1991 where I raised funds and built a nursery school for 60 disadvantaged children and later a Grade R classroom. Hiked a lot and sang in the church choir. In 2013 I suffered a severe stroke which curtailed many activities so now my pleasures are mostly reading, seeing friends and day trip travel. We live in a retirement village with views of the Outeniqua mountains and the Indian ocean.’

Elizabeth (‘Pippa’) Hobday (Mrs Cookson) lived in England and Australia in her earlier life; she is divorced with three sons. In 1987 she went to live in Belfast and volunteered with various organisations there, especially Women

Together. She became a Baha’i pioneer in 1989 and was secretary of the local assembly for the same year. In 2003 she visited Macedonia and has been a Baha’i pioneer there ever since.

1956 Sonia Edelman (Professor Jackson) lives in Thornbury, where she is active musically and as chair of the local Labour party, but she still has an office in London and maintains her academic links. She has completed an EU-funded study of university students with a background in state care and is now researching very young children in foster care, a completely neglected topic.

She has published two book chapters this year and has three articles in preparation.

Ruth Hodgkison (Mrs Philip) has recently published a play, Joseph in Egypt, in memory of her dear late husband Max. It is mainly in verse (the principal poems written in Ruth’s 40s) and is a tragi-comedy, described by Ruth as follows : “In attractive, spacious, Royal format, this 'performable', 'easily speakable', play vigorously investigates the emotional journeys of the Genesis characters, generating very strong parts for women also, within an immensely detailed authentic Ancient Egyptian world, in a powerful take on this towering epic of forgiveness. Consensus: 'Fascinating!' 'Beautiful English!'

Somervillians, please make up your minds 'in two shakes - of a sistrum'.”

Mail Order by sending your cheque for £10.98 to Ruth Philip, 28 Netherburn Avenue, Glasgow G44 3UF. All profits to Somerville.

Helen Hughes (Dr Brock) writes ‘Archaeologists do not stop archaeologising. I am writing reports for Greek colleagues on the seals and beads found on two Bronze Age sites (2nd millennium BC) in Crete and am working with a colleague in Poland on a book about the amber trade between the Baltic and Bronze Age Greece.’

Stephanie Roberta Pickard (Dr West) has been elected to an Honorary Fellowship of Hertford in Michaelmas Term 2017.

1958 Frances Flint (Mrs Barker) has now lived in West Wales for twenty years and is very involved in village affairs. A

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major interest is the Solva Care Scheme, now in its third year. It is a charity with the aim of improving the well-being of everyone in the village, thus maintaining its viability and vitality; there are thirty volunteers ready to help the frail and elderly, or indeed anyone in the village and areas close by. Solva Care is now talked about as a blueprint for what local groups can do to help meet the needs/ aims of the Welsh Wellbeing Act. Kate Leavis (Mrs Varney) writes ‘After Oxford I spent thirty years working in County Hall, London, for the LCC/GLC/ ILEA until Mrs Thatcher's government abolished us in 1990. I moved around (and upwards) in various jobs/ departments – including in the ’60s Historic Buildings Committee clerkship, and the last thirteen years administering the Adult Education Service (final budget £40 million). After redundancy and moving to Norwich in 1990 I helped to set up and run the new UEA ExtraMural/Continuing Education programme for Norfolk and part of Suffolk. When we first moved here Norwich still had something of the market town intimacy of the Cambridge of my childhood and youth. It would be interesting to know of other Somervillians in the Norwich area.

My friend since we were neighbours in West as freshers, the writer Elspeth Barker (Langlands), lives in Norfolk, and another Somervillian, now a good friend, lives round the corner. My marvellous GP declares on her website that she is a Somervillian. I guess there will be more in the area. I live very centrally in a flat at the top of the former Norfolk and Norwich Hospital.’

Jean Scott (Mrs Fooks) finished her 26 years in local government with a busy year as Lord Mayor of Oxford and was also very much involved in Oxford’s celebrations of the 70th anniversary of its twinning link with Bonn, and also with Leiden – ‘especially with the current Brexit negotiations, it is vitally important that our links are not only maintained but strengthened.’ Jean has now ‘retired’ to Exmoor to be near her daughter in Exeter and is taking up new country pursuits, including the National Park Authority.

Janet Treloar held an exhibition of her paintings entitled ‘Anna Akhmatova and Isiah Berlin in Leningrad in 1945’ at Wolfson College in June. The exhibition was opened by the Principal on 10 June.

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1959 Marieke Clarke published in September 2017 a biography, Reverend Bowen Rees: a missionary for Matabeleland.

Isitsha kasibulawa; vessel not to be broken, with Pathisa Nyathi (Amagugu Publishers, Bulawayo, 2017; available in the UK through African Books Collective, which has a website). She is also publishing a book about the alumni of the all-black secondary school where she taught in Rhodesia 1963-4. She is an Elder of Oxford’s Quaker Meeting.

Press). I delivered a paper developing my subsequent research on this topic at the American Association of Eighteenth Century Studies at its annual conference in the USA last year.’

Gaby Charing writes ‘In my case, no news is good news! Nothing to report. I’m plodding on with my cancer treatment and still leading a pared down version of a normal life. In response to my last update, I heard from Ann Oakley (1962). Liz and I met her for lunch, and it was lovely.’

Carol Bishop (Dr Morrison) is an artist represented by several galleries in the US. In 2017 she had a show of oil paintings of the Parrsboro area at the ArtLab in Parrsboro and was artist in residence for two weeks; for her website see http://www.carolsfineart.ca/

Sheila Roxburgh (Mrs Mawby) writes ‘I still take photographs of various kinds and study Japanese, somewhat sporadically. I enjoy going to Film Club, Year Group meetings and other events at Somerville. Also in Oxford, I attend public lectures, usually at the Mathematical Institute. I keep in touch with a few Somervillian friends and we meet occasionally, though we reject the “Ladies Who Lunch” label. There are assorted family events. Grandchildren grow taller terrifyingly quickly. Three of the four are now definitely taller than me! Days at home are enlivened by our resident peacock and the local badgers, who visit us to be fed and admired.’

1961

1963

Maria Hargreaves (Mrs Perry) has recently contributed a chapter to Farm Street: The Story of the Jesuits’ Church in Mayfair (London, 2017) and has now finished her biography of Queen Charlotte, working title Queen of Flowers. Sisters to the King (London, 1998) is going into a ninth edition.

Carola Pickering (Dr. Haigh) is now quite disabled with arthritis, but she is learning the piano and continuing French.

Beryl Lodge (Dr Bowen) writes ‘For several years I’ve been working as a volunteer for a half-day a week in the gift shop of St Mary’s Collegiate Church, Warwick, and for one day a week in the Beazley Archive in the Classics Centre, Oxford, processing academics’ papers.’

1960

Cynthia Smith (Mrs Floud) has recently published A Dysfunctional Hampstead Childhood 1886-1911: The Memoir of Phyllis Allen Floud née Ford, edited by Cynthia Floud (Camden History Society, £9.99).

Irene Ridge retired from the Open University in 2002 and from 2003 to 2012 served as a magistrate.

1962 Naomi Claff (Dr Lightman) writes ‘I recently published an essay on the lifelong influence on John Ruskin (who was a generous benefactor to Somerville in its earliest years) of a rediscovered 18th century woman writer Anna Barbauld in the first book of essays on her work entitled Anna Letitia Barbauld: New Perspectives (Bucknell University

1964 Mary Keegan (Mrs Keen) writes “I slithered into Helen Brock’s lightwell as the year turned and began 2018 waiting for a bone in my ankle to knit together, cared for with unbelievable kindness by my eldest daughter for three weeks.

Avoid lightwells. Recovered fully and have just spent a week in Shetland and Fair Isle in this beautiful summer weather. This was a dream fulfilled and utterly magical.”

Alison Skilbeck and her husband Tim Hardy appeared in the Edinburgh Festival in August, Alison in her own one-woman comedy drama Are There More of You?, and directing Tim in a new one-act play by Simon Brett A Substitute For Life. Alison continues to tour her three one-woman shows, including a ‘platform’ version of Mrs Roosevelt Flies to London at the Reform Club. Her work for RADA has included workshops in Communications Skills for

RADA Business in Hong Kong, Mexico and Spain (in Spanish) and in Paris (in French). She was in an episode of Call the Midwife and will be seen in the US film Holmes and Watson. She continues her association with the Sunera Foundation in Sri Llanka, doing drama with disabled people.

Joan Wilkinson (Mrs Rymer) had a family and friends party to celebrate her Golden Wedding on 13 July. She and her husband now have six grandchildren, aged from 2 to 13, including twins aged 6.

1965 Helen Arculus (Mrs Thornton) writes ‘After her death in 2000, I found that my mother, Annette Arculus (Townend, 1937) had kept several boxes of old correspondence, much of it from her parents who lived in India for a long period. I decided to transcribe and publish these letters on a website (www.townendletters.uk). The Bodleian Library has included this website in its Beam Archive (www.bodleian.ox.ac. uk/beam/webarchive) as being worthy of preservation. Earlier this year, I deposited the earlier letters covering the period 1932 to 1944 in the Bodleian Library. The Somerville College Library and the Bletchley Park Trust Archive accepted my mother’s war time letters to her parents. A St Monica’s School photograph including my grandmother and Vera Brittain is also in the Somerville College Library. On her marriage, my mother went out to India. I am now working on the post 1944 letters which include my mother’s letters from India to her parents who were living in Oxford.’

Helen Goodman (Dr Lewis) writes ‘I have retired in stages from my acute/ community consultant paediatric post, taking up the community aspect on a part-time basis. I have now fully retired from clinic paediatrics. I remain an Examiner for RCPCH and have undertaken college representation for NICE. My husband David and I plan to move to London to spend more time with our children and eight grandchildren.’

Patricia Townsend (Mrs Marsden) writes ‘For the last thirty years I have had two parallel careers – as a psychotherapist and as an artist working with photography, video and installations. After I retired from my job as a psychotherapist in the NHS,

I decided to combine my two careers by researching the creative process of visual artists. I have just completed a PhD at the Slade School of Fine Art and my book Creative States of Mind – Psychoanalysis and the Artist’s Process will be published by Routledge in 2019.

Fenella Wojnarowska writes ‘I finished my last piece of research over a year ago, but it was gratifying to have it published in The Lancet. My current focus is widening access to Oxbridge for students from Cornwall, a county which gets far fewer students into Russell Group universities than it should. As a mentor for the Aspire Programme at Launceston College, once a week I meet the students potentially applying to Oxbridge for Medicine, most the first in their family to apply to university. They give presentations and have interview practice, gaining confidence over the year. They also present at the Café Scientifique to a lay audience – daunting but rewarding. I am the Bursary Secretary for the Oxford Alumni Cornwall Branch, formalising the process and chasing the recipients to produce a report detailing the projects we supported. I recently contributed an item on this for the Alumni Newsletter published as Group Bursaries Provide Life-Changing Opportunities For Students.’ See https://www.alumni. ox.ac.uk/blog/alumni-group-bursariesproviding-life-changing-opportunitiesstudents

1966 Liz Masters (Mrs Shaw) has recently published her second historical novel, No Safe Anchorage. It’s different in style and content from her more biographical first novel, Love and Music Will Endure.

Tom Masters, a young officer on a nineteenth century naval survey ship, is a square peg in a round hole. The tantalising glimpse of a stranger leads him to jump ship in a quest to find her. The story portrays the childhood of Robert Louis Stevenson; Tom’s adventures, taking him from the Hebrides to Canada, evoke the spirit of that writer.

1967 Deborah Hewitt (Dr Bowen) has just completed two years of The Poetry and Ecology Project, looking at how poetry and environmental issues might speak to

one another in SW Ontario. She and her undergraduate research assistants have produced seven eye-catching leaflets, on Food, Water, Trees, Wild Birds, Wild Creatures, Flowers and Pollinators, and Degraded Land; hard copy is being made available free-of-charge through libraries, bookstores, local environmental agencies, and schools. See the .pdf at https://www.redeemer.ca/wpcontent/uploads/Poetry-and-EcologyProject.pdf ‘We’d love it if this inspired others to design similar materials for their own local areas!’

Sarah Roberts is studying for an MA in the History of Art at Birkbeck.

1968 Carole Hillenbrand, Emeritus Professor, Islamic History, University of Edinburgh, and Professor, University of St Andrews, has been awarded CBE in the Queen’s Birthday Honours List for services to the understanding of Islamic History.

1969 Stephanie Hall is retired and does amateur research and landscape photography. She says that she is ‘grateful for my tranquil home. In 2017 I belatedly read Karen Armstrong’s Twelve Steps to a Compassionate Life (2011). She writes very lucidly on ways to transcend the me-first society. Bears reading again and again.’

Kay Partridge (Professor Dame Kay Davies) has won two awards for her contributions to muscular dystrophy research: the Vallée award, which funds one month’s sabbatical as visiting professor in Boston, and the Royal Society’s Croonian Medal and Lecture.

Yolanda Radcliffe-Genge (Mrs Powell) published her first novel Yellow with Black Spots in March 2018. Encouraged by readers’ five-star rating on Amazon, Yolanda is working on other projects, both fiction and non-fiction. Yolanda and her husband Tony (Exeter) divide their time between England and France, where they have been running a holiday rental, Maison Berchon, for several years; for more details see www. facebook.com/maisonberchon or www. maisonberchon.com Gill Randerson (Ms Bennett) is still working part-time with the Foreign and Commonwealth Historians, who celebrate their centenary in 2018, as

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well as being busy with other intelligence history projects. Her new book, The Zinoviev Letter: The Conspiracy that Never Dies, was published by OUP in August 2018.

1970 Sabina Lovibond writes ‘In March I was a contributor to the conference held at Mansfield College, Oxford, in memory of faculty colleague Pamela Sue Anderson. I also spoke at University College, London, in the first of what is to be a lecture series organised by their departmental “Minorities and Philosophy” Committee.

Two trips to Switzerland: in April to speak at a conference at the University of Lucerne (“Naturalism and Social Philosophy”); and in September (biannual symposium of the Swiss Association, Basel). Publication: “Iris Murdoch and the Quality of Consciouness” in Murdoch on Truth and Love, ed. Gary Browning (Palgrave Macmillan, 2018).’

Lucy Neville-Rolfe has joined the House of Lords EU Committee (Brexit).

She has stepped down as Commercial Secretary to the Treasury after three years as a Government Minister. She has a fourth grandchild, Ada Packer, the child of two Somervillians.

Elspeth Scholey (Mrs Rolls) writes ‘We have moved to a new area to be closer to family since my husband’s illness.

Besides the caring role, I am hoping to re-launch my consultancy and coaching business. In the meantime I am delighted still to be able to work in a voluntary capacity for Children in Need. All my background in coaching, learning and development, management and team building is coming in useful as I learn more about aphasia and work to help my husband.’

Sally Vere (Mrs Prittie) writes ‘Since retirement in 2013 we spend several months a year in Israel, assisting in reconciliation work between Israeli Jews and British Christians, to repair effects of the British Mandate. My musical activities are largely piano related, performing, leading worship and a little teaching.’

1971 Ann Boggis-Rolfe (Mrs Buxton) is this year Master of the Worshipful Company of Pewterers

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ANN BOGGIS-ROLFE

Sue Dixson writes from Bulgaria ‘In 1973, college sent me for what was a very enjoyable year in the Pyrenees to ‘improve’ (I never ‘perfected’) my French, the weaker of my two compulsory languages. I was amazed that 30-something colleagues could still ski and mountainwalk. This year, a former President of OUWBC contacted me about the 1975 Blue Boat crew and rowing memorabilia. We enjoy a mutually enhancing email friendship

across the generations. She, in turn, was delighted to hear that there is life at 66, as I walked the West Highland Way this spring. (My companion was 71!)

All Somervillians are welcome to visit me in Bulgaria and mountainwalk here, whatever your age.’

Liz Nisbet (Mrs Railton) is now largely retired. Her husband, Lance Railton (Keble, 1971) died nearly six years ago shortly after she retired but she has two grandchildren aged ten and

eight and still keeps in touch with her professional roots in social care. In 2013 she worked with Stoke Mandeville on their Jimmy Saville investigation. She is a Non Executive Director on the Board of Slough Children’s Services Trust which was set up by the government to run Slough Council’s Children’s Services following several failed inspections and she is Vice-Chair of the National Children’s Bureau, one of the national children’s charities. In between these activities there is lots of opera, theatre and travel! She is still in touch with several Somervillians and was very sad to hear about Ruth Thompson’s death as she had a fantastic and nostalgic lunch with her about four years ago. ‘I will try to keep in touch more conscientiously in the future.’

Dilys Wadman writes ‘I found it most interesting to see something of the Peruvian Amazon last year before having to cut my journey short after getting a mysterious virus. Since then I’ve stayed nearer home, and enjoyed my first visit to Crete at the time of Orthodox Easter.

The owner of the rooms in Rethymno where I was staying was horrified to think I would be on my own on Easter Sunday, and invited me to join her family; a lovely experience of Greek hospitality and celebration! At home, I’ve been volunteering as a member of the chaplaincy team in the local hospital.’

1972 Sue Lukes was elected this year as a Labour councillor for Highbury East ward in the London Borough of Islington; and in July was named as the borough's ‘Migrant Champion’, a new role and the first one to be so chosen in the UK. She will be looking at all council services and ensuring they work for all migrant residents (especially in view of the problems that have recently come to light for the ‘Windrush’ generation and their children, and those likely to face EU residents), promoting the excellent work Islington does for and with migrants and alerting government to the need to change policies where appropriate.

1973 Natasha Robinson writes ‘After 25 years as a consultant anaesthetist and more recently Associate Medical Director in Northampton, I have moved

back to Oxford and am enjoying a portfolio of very part-time medical roles including Honorary Secretary at the Royal Society of Medicine, and joining a research team at the Warneford.

Although I do miss everyday hospital life, there is now grandmothering, and time for an allotment, guiding at the Botanic Garden and a social life to compensate.’

Janey Anstey (Mrs Fisher)’s latest mystery romance novel, St Martin’s Summer (written in her maiden name) is now available as a download/kindle version from Amazon, or a signed copy can be bought direct (email her at jane. anstey@gmail.com to order).

Barbara Habberjam retired from full-time work in the Diplomatic Service three years ago, after a final posting to Moscow (coinciding with the annexation of the Crimea and imposition of sanctions – ‘an exciting if unnerving time’). Since then she has taken a postgraduate diploma in translation and embarked on a second career as a freelance translator from French and Russian into English. ‘It is good having a bit more time to spend with the family and to indulge my interests. I’m a volunteer guide at Tate Modern and get great pleasure from sharing my passion for art with visitors to the gallery from all over the world.’

1974 Panayota Bosana-Kouros (later abbreviated to Nota Kourou) served the University of Athens from 1979 until her retirement as full Professor in 2012. Since then she has kept her excavation project at Xobourgo on Tenos in the Cyclades and in 2017 her colleagues and former students offered her a Festschrift entitled Studies in Mediterranean Archaeology in honour of Nota Kourou, Études d’Archéologie 10 (Brussels: CReA-Patrimoine, 2017).

Erica Budgen (Mrs Wildgoose) is delighted that in January 2018 she became a very lucky Granny to Rowan, a lovely granddaughter. Erica is busy in the fields of mental health and also the Labour Party; she is on the executive committee of Bristol East Labour Party and the St George Labour branch, ‘as well as being a lucky NHS pensioner.’

Jane Everson (Emeritus Professor, Royal Holloway) continues to be very busy with research. In 2016 conferences

and events linked to the fifth centenary of Ariosto’s Orlando Furioso took her to Baltimore, and she co-organised the major British event at the British Academy. The Proceedings of this are now going forward to publication. She has also been in demand for conferences and lectures linked to her (now concluded) research projects on Italian learned academies which have taken her to Genoa, Rome and Berlin. Summer 2018 includes a trip to Toronto, when she hopes, at last, to visit Niagara. She was also very touched to be honoured with a festschrift which was presented in London and in Rome in the course of 2017. She has been appointed Associate Fellow of the IMLR, University of London, and Honorary Visiting Professor, University of Leicester.

Olwyn Hocking writes ‘Enjoying involvement with Official Report (Scottish Parliament’s Hansard) as part of freelance copy editing/proof reading.

Also celebrating 10th anniversary of launch of social enterprise Digital Voice for Communities – 500+ people helped to cross digital divide. Latest stage of downsizing is shift to rented home (after giving up car) – love the freedom!’

Helen MacEwan writes ‘As Brexit looms, I’m still working in Brussels as a translator, as I have been since 2004.

In my spare time I’ve written a couple of books about Charlotte and Emily Brontë’s time in Brussels. The most recent, Through Belgian Eyes: Charlotte Brontë’s Troubled Brussels Legacy, was published in 2017. For a review see : https://literaryreview.co.uk/she-calledit-a-puny-town. I also organise literary events and guided walks in Brussels for very international audiences, focusing on the Brontës and 19th century literature.’

Maria Rosa Macchi has retired from teaching and has developed an interest in psychology and hiking.

1975 Amy Daunis (Dr Bernstein) worked in journalism and publishing after finishing her DPhil. Then she and her husband Peter began the Bernstein Literary Agency, representing non-fiction authors such as Supreme Court Justices Sonia Sotomayor and John Paul Stevens and Chinese artist Ai Wei Wei among others. Their adult children, Elisabeth,

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Alexander and Nicky, work in the worlds of finance and art, and are now raising children of their own. Peter and Amy divide their time between New York City and their farm in Connecticut. They met on the Oxford-Cambridge ski trip in 1975 and are still avid skiers today.

1976 Philippa Cash (Mrs Schofield) after 37 years in the City is going to study for a full time Masters at Birkbeck from the autumn in comparative literary and cultural studies. ‘I am really excited about this new challenge.’

Finola Clarke (Mrs Gowers) very much enjoyed going back to Somerville in 2017 for the ruby anniversary of her year – ‘it was great to see so many familiar faces again and catch up with everyone’s news.’ After six years sitting as a magistrate she is now approved to chair the adult court – ‘a daunting and challenging task.’ She is also working towards approval as a chair in the youth court. She still enjoys visits to the theatre, opera, cinema and art galleries, as well as seeing old friends. She is a keen member of a book group.

Anne Mackay (Mrs Cowan) enjoys living in a Fenland village, helping out in the local primary school, especially with enrichment groups for reading. ‘“Winniethe-Pooh as Philosophy” was a recent challenge and Great Expectations, unabridged, with year 5 ongoing. I am also Joint Chair of Governors which is interesting given the ever changing government ideas about education in schools. I let out my growing sons’ bedrooms through AirBnB – convenient spot between Ely and Cambridge. Mates’ rates for Somervillians anytime!’

Linda Salt was elected Churchwarden of All Saints’ Church, New Haw, in April 2017 (after a year as Treasurer).

‘It is proving to be a most rewarding challenge and a chance to use my skills and experience in new projects.’

Jacqueline Shicluna was elected in 2017 as the first woman chair of governors of King’s School, Rochester, the oldest choir school in the world and second oldest school in the country.

Vivien West retired in 2017 (after more than 30 years of service) from her position as Patent Attorney with GlaxoSmithKline.

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1977 Mary Chater is a founder of Shakespeare in Italy. She writes ‘We received our first Arts Council grant for ‘Alien’s Order’, performed at the Italian Festival in Peterborough in September. The street theatre/pop up show included stories of Italians who had come to live and work in Peterborough after WW2 and Commedia dell’Arte sketches. Our 4th international summer school was held in Calabria in 2018 – Dame Janet Suzman led work on Antony and Cleopatra, Jane Wymark on Much Ado and director Chris Luscombe on The Winter’s Tale. We hope to produce our first Shakespeare in 2019.’

Anne Clarence-Smith (Mrs Marriott) volunteers once a week in the local Young Offenders’ Institute, teaching basic literacy and/or numeracy. In 2017 she started to assist on a challenging Victim Awareness/Restorative Justice course.

Angelika Manyoni (Professor Arend) has forthcoming a (slim) volume of poetry, Diminuendo, which also features photographs by her end-of-life partner Helmuth Brandl, and will be issued by the Mitteldeutscher Verlag Halle (Saale) in the spring of 2019.

Rosemary McLeod (Mrs Manger) has retired from Specific Learning Disabilities Teaching, after ten years in this post at Shrewsbury School. She took up rowing in her early forties and, thanks to excellent teaching and fine team-mates, has been successful at international and national level. She is currently a triple Masters World Champion in her age category. She coaches locally on the river Severn. She was never specifically athletic in her youth. She says she has surprised herself.

Rachel Stainsby (Mrs Phipps) writes ‘The Woodstock Bookshop celebrated its tenth anniversary this April with a party and readings by Julie Summers and Carys Davies at Wootton Village Hall. I started the shop in 2008, a few weeks before the recession, and since then it has three times been shortlisted for Independent Bookshop of the Year. This November 9-11 is our 7th annual Woodstock Poetry Festival – do have a look and book well in advance because some events sell out. This year’s poets include Liz

Berry, Esther Morgan, Imtiaz Dharker and Wendy Cope. Jamie McKendrick is reading from a new collection, as is Sean O’Brien. It should be good.

There’s also an open mic session for local poets brave enough to share their work. I became a grandmother in early June – I can’t understand why it has not been more written about. The most extraordinary and magical thing, and all my grandparent customers have welcomed me to what they clearly see as a very fortunate and secret club. I had always thought grandparents who cared for their grandchildren every week were rather excessive – now, they seem very restrained.

Sarah Whitley writes ‘I retired from a 38-year career in Investment Management with the same firm, Baillie Gifford, in April. Because I managed money in a rather unfashionable market, Japan, and did so from Edinburgh rather than London, recognition of the success of the team and my personal record has come in a rush. I was the first female recipient of the Outstanding Contribution award at the Fund Manager of the Year awards and the first recipient of the Lifetime Achievement award at the inaugural Women in Investment dinner. Post retirement so far has been busy with rowing, refusing nonexecutive roles, for at least a year, and trying to sort out our house. I look forward to returning to Japan for sporting events rather than business and going faster in the sculling boat which was my retirement present from work.’

1978 Kate Davies has been appointed Senior Fellow at the Whidbey Institute and Professor Emerita at Antioch University, both in the US where she lives. Her second book, Intrinsic Hope: Living Courageously in Troubled Times was published in May 2018. It describes how conventional ideas about hope are rooted in expectations and desires and how this leads to disappointment, frustration and despair when life does not conform with our wishes. As an alternative, it proposes intrinsic hope – a positive, but not necessarily optimistic attitude that does not depend on our external circumstances or on getting what we want.

1979 Julia Gasper writes ‘My news for the past twelve months is that I have contributed to two more books, one called The New Normal about sexuality, and the other Hands Off My Kids, an exposure of the scandal of forced adoption in the UK.’ Amanda Sowden (Mrs Martin) writes ‘Since I ceased to be an elected councillor, I have started to realise my long-held ambition of tackling a Scandinavian language. This summer I took time off work to attend a sixweek summer school at Oslo University in order to start learning Norwegian.

Wonderful to take the time to study again! Any advice about continuing with the language would be gratefully appreciated ...’

Angela McLean, FRS, Professor of Mathematical Biology at Oxford, has been made a Dame in the Queen’s Birthday Honours List for services to Mathematical Biology and Scientific Advice for Government. We congratulate her most warmly.

Jacqueline Watts in 2017 guest edited the sixth volume of the Ink Stains Dark Fiction Anthology published by Vagabondage Press in November 2017.

She published her sixth book as JS Watts in spring 2018 – a poetry pamphlet titled The Submerged Sea. She is waiting on a publication date for her next novel, while working on the novel that comes after that.

1980 Margaret Casely-Hayford has been awarded CBE in the Queen’s Birthday Honours List for charitable services in the UK and abroad. We congratulate her most warmly.

Neeta Patel has been listed (September 2018) by Computer Weekly as one of the 'Top 50 Women in UK Tech'. For details see : https://www.computerweekly.com/ news/252449081/Computer-Weeklyannounces-the-Most-InfluentialWomen-in-UK-IT-2018

1981 Fiona Gatty, since completing her DPhil at Somerville, has been working

as program adviser for one of the large Templeton foundations, based in the Material Science Dpt at Oxford.

Her work entails a considerable amount of travel to visit grantees, attend conferences and get to know colleagues world-wide. Increasingly her responsibilities are focused on developing strategic opportunities for the foundation to leverage its impact with key opinion leaders or global organisations, and the capacity-building of research in Latin America. She has kept up her interest in art history, writing an article with Dan Moulin (her predecessor as Chapel Director) on the Somerville chapel, and one for the catalogue of the Christ Church Library exhibition on Winckelmann and Curiosity in the 18th century Gentleman’s Library.

Her youngest child (of four) has just graduated from university.

1984

1982

Katie Ghose has completed her first year as chief executive of Womens’Aid, the national domestic abuse charity, after seven years as Director of the Electoral Reform Society. She is an independent council member at the University of Sussex. ‘Loving life with my partner Andy and our lovely daughter Anela (age 9).’

Anneli McLachlan (Ms Harvey) spent 13 years in London teaching and writing about teaching Modern Languages before moving to Vancouver in 2004 and then four years later to Los Angeles.

She continues to write and has over thirty publications to her name, latterly writing mostly for Pearson. For five years she has been Secondary Campus Director at the International School of Los Angeles, a bilingual French American school with an IB Diploma Programme.

She writes ‘It has been a very great pleasure to be back on the ground amongst young people. They keep me busy! I am currently studying for a Certificate in Advanced Educational Leadership with Harvard Graduate School of Education. Being immersed in an online learning environment has been an enriching experience. I have been married to Alex Harvey (Jesus, 1983) for twenty years and we have three children.’

1983 Helen Parnell (Dr Williams) has been selected to train for ordination in the Church of England and will be studying at Sarum College, Salisbury, next term for a part time post-graduate diploma while continuing to teach physics at The Blandford School in Dorset for two and a half days a week.

Farah Bhatti has been elected to the Council of the Royal College of Surgeons of England. She was featured in the Womanthology magazine on 15 November 2017 and she mentioned Somerville in the article.

1988 Alexandra Bailey (Mrs Hems) moved to Edinburgh in January 2017 to take up the Headship of St George’s, a school for girls aged 2-18. ‘We are settling in to life in Scotland and delighted to be leading a school with 130 years behind it of educating women.’

Rebecca Copsey (Mrs Briscoe) graduated from Leeds Trinity University in July 2018 with a PGCE in Secondary Education in Modern Languages – French and Spanish.

Kate McLoughlin has this year published Veteran Poetics: British Literature in the Age of Mass Warfare, 1790-2015 (Cambridge University Press).

1989 Vickie Heaney is working as an artist and seabird researcher on the Isles of Scilly.Her website is www.vickieheaney. co.uk Fiona McCallum (Mrs Mayhew) writes ‘With every year the kids (Ewan 15, Eleanor and William 13) get older, my small leadership development business begins to grow. Last year saw clients ranging from Cambridge University to the London Stock Exchange and Private Equity. I also volunteer as a coach for a local charity and a school governor. Andy (Corpus) and I celebrated our 18 year anniversary this year, and when not driving the kids around, enjoy holidays in the Alps and North Wales. We’re still in touch with many of our Oxford friends and often see them at New Year.’

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cold and hard work! We sell eggs and Christmas turkeys and are working on restoring the house and improving the ten acre holding. As well as all this, I am a published poet at the ‘starter’ level, and am now looking to get to the next level and get a pamphlet or collection accepted for publication.

Poetry is an even harder world in which to get started than prose, particularly for someone living far from the London literary scene. I remain hopeful and persistent, but would be more than grateful for advice or mentoring from any Somervillian poets/publishers.’

Frances Hardinge was inducted as a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature on 4 June. ‘Needless to say, I’m very happy and excited about that!’

SAMANTHA KNIGHTS QC

1990 Samantha Knights of Matrix Chambers has been appointed Queen’s Counsel. https://www.matrixlaw.co.uk/member/ samantha-knights/

1992 Sophie Agrell writes ‘I moved to Scotland twenty years ago and work in Glasgow as a proof reader and copy editor/writer for a company specialising in public sector procurement and supply chain solutions (yes, most of it is as unexciting as it sounds). On 28 December 2016, I married Rosemary Hannah. After the briefest of civil ceremonies, we had a glorious blessing at St Mary’s Episcopal cathedral in Glasgow, where we met, followed by a huge Indian meal and a ceilidh, all in the cathedral. It was a very joyful day, attended by family and friends from around the world including my mother, Kamini (Wickremesinghe, 1964). We live on a smallholding in upland Ayrshire, where we keep free range chickens and turkeys as well as charming and characterful sheep and the usual assortment of dogs, cats, ponies etc. Depending on the weather, our life is either idyllic or very muddy,

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Celia Wrighton (Ms Delaney) writes ‘I am still married to David and living in London and am once again working in entertainment: having been an actress in my twenties; a jazz singer in my thirties; in my forties I am a musical comedian.

I’ve built up a successful business as a keynote speaker and speaking coach and alongside that am booked to entertain at conferences and to host award ceremonies. I’ll be taking a show to Edinburgh this year and I have shows in London and other cities, so just go to www.celiadelaney.co.uk if you’d like to come along!’

1993 Natalie Cook (Dr Briant) set up her own practice in 2013 and left the NHS in 2014. ‘I miss working in a busy team, but private practice is providing a better balance for the family. The work load has grown over the past three years and I’m looking forward to taking on some additional members of the team to ease the load a little.’

1995 Henry Potts has co-authored two papers on gender differences in medical education and performance: Unwin et al. (2015), ‘Sex differences in medico-legal action against doctors: A systematic review and meta-analysis’, BMC Medicine, 13:172; and: Unwin et al. (2018) ‘Passing MRCP (UK) PACES: A cross-sectional study examining the performance of doctors by sex and country’, BMC Medical Education, 18:70.

1996 Helen Goddard (Dr Cowan) has been made a Senior Fellow in Nursing at Cochrane UK. She is a health writer for Readers Digest, The British Journal of Cardiac Nursing and The Hippocratic Post. Website www.helencowan.co.uk.

Amelia Resheph (Mrs Gould) has been elected as a Fellow of the Institute of Engineering & Technology (FIET). She has also been named in the Cranfield School of Management ‘100 women to watch’ list 2018: https://www.cranfield. ac.uk/som/expertise/changing-worldof-work/gender-and-leadership/ female-ftse-index

1998 Louisa Radice is employed as a Junior (Software) Developer at one of the Coventry offices of the Department of Education (civil service, not the city’s schools).

1999 Katharine Harding writes ‘I have been awarded a post-doctoral research fellowship from the MS Society of Canada, so I will be flying out to Vancouver next week to start – very exciting! I will be there for somewhere between 6 and 11 months. My project is titled ‘Is socio-economic status associated with disability in MS? A multi-national study’. I have had a very productive and enjoyable time (and I can definitely recommend British Columbia as a great place to spend some time).

I’m just back in the UK and writing up my research.’

Katerina Kaouri returned to the UK (from her home country Cyprus) in January 2018 and has joined Cardiff University as a Lecturer in Applied Mathematics.

Caroline Smith qualified as a multi-lane rowing umpire in October 2016 and has since umpired in international fixtures including the under 16s GB v. France match and the Home International Regatta. She also continues to be part of the Umpires Panel for the University Boat Races.

2000 Alistair Fair, Lecturer in Architectural History at the University of Edinburgh, is the author of a substantial new book

about theatre architecture in Britain between 1945 and 1985. Modern Playhouses: An Architectural History of Britain’s New Theatres, 1945-1985 was published by Oxford University Press in March 2018.

2001 Peter Collins writes ‘I’m now an executive producer of factual documentaries at a company called Pioneer Productions. I recently exec produced Britain’s Polar Bear

Cub for Channel 4 that followed the ambitious attempt to breed polar bears at Inverness Wildlife Park in Scotland – resulting in a very cute baby polar bear! I also produced a history special with Lucy Worsley called Lucy Worsley’s Fireworks for a Tudor Queen for BBC4 in which we recreated a famous Tudor fireworks display laid on for Elizabeth I at Kenilworth Castle. Finally I recently made a three part BBC2 series that went behind the scenes of the new aircraft carrier HMS Queen Elizabeth.’

Narges Pourabdi is working in Yukon Territory, Canada, as a counsellor with the First Nation.

2002 Patrick Walker and friends organised a trip back to Somerville with their partners and children in July this year.

If you would like to visit College please contact either elizabeth.cooke@some. ox.ac.uk or lisa.gygax@some.ox.ac.uk

TOP ROW LEFT TO RIGHT: TOM LILLEY, HUGO MACKAY, CLARE GLICKSMAN (3RD FROM RIGHT) AND FIONA MACLEAN (2ND FROM RIGHT); FRONT ROW PATRICK WALKER AND GERALDINE LYNCH; ALL 2002 MATRIC EXCEPT FIONA WHO BEGINS A DPHIL IN OCTOBER 2018.

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SOMERVILLE OLD BOYS FOOTBALL CLUB

specialising in food systems; sustainable livestock production; animal welfare; and, strategic approaches to achieve a globally sustainable food system.’ In March 2017 she took up the post of Chief Scientific Advisor to Compassion in World Farming https://www.ciwf.org. uk/. She says it is ‘a very exciting time for sustainable food systems both locally and globally’.

2003

2007

Francis Wynne writes ‘I’ve just got back from an 8-month trip travelling through South America, taking in Colombia, Ecuador, Peru and Bolivia. It was a career break of sorts, I suppose! I’m now back in London for a few months but I will be returning to working as a Classics teacher in the forthcoming academic year. I’ve secured a position as the Director of Classics at the ISF Academy in Hong Kong, so hopefully that should be an exciting and enlightening new challenge!’

Richard Craddock (Fr Oliver Craddock) was ordained as a Catholic priest at the Oxford Oratory on Friday 29 June. He is Somerville’s first Catholic priest.

Elizabeth Macneal’s first novel The Doll Factory will be published as Picador’s lead 2019 debut title next Spring. Set in the Pre-Raphaelite circle of 1850s London, it is about Iris, a doll-making apprentice, and Silas, a collector of morbid curiosities. It won the Caledonia Novel Award 2018 and will be published in over 20 languages.

2004

2009

Simon Grieveson writes ‘Somerville Old Boys Football Club was established over 15 years ago, bringing together alumni who now live in and around London who wish to continue playing competitive 11-a-side football after leaving the ’ville. The team plays in a London amateur league on Saturday afternoons and trains at Highbury Fields every Monday evening. The club is always keen to see new Somervillians get involved, and so if you are interested in playing for the team or to come along to our training sessions, then please get in touch with the club manager Simon Grieveson (simon.grieveson@gmail. com).’

Becca-Jane Scofield has changed jobs and is now working as a Social Media Manager at M&C Saatchi in London.

2005 Heather Storey is Head of Commissioning for Children’s Care and Support for the Borough of Barking.

She was selected by MJ magazine as one of the 40 most promising under 40s in local government. ‘Delighted to be included in the MJ’s “40 under 40” feature amongst some fantastic talent, and feeling pretty excited for Local Government!’

Angela Wright describes herself as ‘An inter-disciplinary scientist

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2010 Ella Waldman (professional name Ella Road) had her debut play, The Phlebotomist, staged at the Hampstead Theatre this spring. The play was described as ‘a powerfully provocative vision of the future, questioning the value we place on one another, whether knowledge really is power, and if it’s truly possible for love to conquer all.’ Ella is currently under commission to Theatre Royal Plymouth for a new play and is also hoping to do some acting.

2011 Harry Challands and Rachel Porter are engaged to be married.

Thomas Reynolds is in the Civil Service Fast Stream (finance).

2013 Nasim Asl gained a distinction in her MA in TV Journalism at City, University of London, having been awarded a full monetary scholarship by the National

Union of Journalists. She worked as a researcher and sub-editor for the 2017 Times Guide to the House of Commons and wrote biographical entries for the 2017 intake of MPs (including a Somervillian). She gained a place on the prestigious BBC Journalism Trainee Scheme and moved to Glasgow after her training in September.

Francois Herinckx has just graduated with a Master’s Degree in Renewable Energy from Brussels and has been involved in the University sustainability plan as he played a part in the design of rooftop solar systems. He is also part of the University delegation to the COP24 in Poland in December.

Olivia Murray began her training as a Patent Attorney with Kilburn & Strode in October 2015.

Peter Wellham, since graduating from Somerville, has completed a Master’s degree in Molecular Plant Science and Microbiology, at Imperial College, London. He was very excited and relieved then to be awarded a place on Nottingham University’s Biotechnology & Biological Sciences Doctoral Training Programme to work for his PhD in his chosen field of mycology (fungi) for four years. He has already published several papers.

2015 Kritika Agrawal reports that Oxford University Press has recently launched their first ever ‘Hindi word of the year’ campaign for the Hindi language (a widely spoken Indian language that is also the official language in several Indian states). This campaign is akin to the immensely popular English Word of the Year campaign. Hindi is the only language, other than English, for which this campaign has been launched. Kritika was one of the panel who selected the Hindi Word of the Year. The campaign was launched in 2017 and the word was announced in 2018. OUP has designated ‘Language champions’ for their Oxford Global Languages (OGL) initiative and Kritika is their only multilingual language champion contributing towards four Indian languages – Hindi, Urdu, Tamil, and Gujarati. Kritika has been elected as Secretary-cumTreasurer for the Oxford Business Alumni Network Delhi Chapter.

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Marriages

MARTIN DESMOND ROE AND CHELSEA GABRIELLE LAPKA

38

VERENA TIMBUL AND JOHN RUX-BURTON, SOMERVILLE’S TELETHON TEAM

Agrell – Hannah

Ruffell – Place

Timbul – Rux-Burton

On 28 December 2017 Sophie Agrell (1992) to Rosemary Hannah

On 23 June 2018 Paula Andrea Ruffell (2000) to Thomas Nathan Place

On 21 June 2018 Verena Timbul (2000) to John Rux-Burton

Mcdonald – Robinson

Scott – Cassar

Roe – Lapka

On 29 May 2016 Anthony Mcdonald (2001) to Polly (Robinson, 2002)

On 28 April 2017 Martin Scott (2001) to Concepta Cassar

On 28th April 2018 Martin Desmond Roe (1997) to Chelsea Gabrielle Lapka

Panchal – Fleet

Stewart – Flanagan

On 19 May 2018 Reena Panchal (2000) to David Fleet

On 4 April 2018 Nathalie Stewart (1996) to Richard Flanagan

Births

CORINNE ROSA BRENDA DEEVES

Archer To Julia (Armytage, 2000) and Peter Archer on 3 November 2017 a daughter Emily Beatrice Armytage Archer

Bulkin To Noah (1995) and Avital Bulkin on 4 February 2018 a son Michael Aiden Bulkin, a brother for Benjamin and Nathaniel

Deeves

Knipe To Tim (1997) and Miriam Knipe on 4 October 2017 a son Alfred Leonard Thomas Knipe, a brother for Charlotte

To Aurelie Nelson (2004) and Simon Haw a son in 2017 Rafael Haw, a brother for Philip

Mcdonald

Sprigings

To Anthony Mcdonald (2001) and Polly (Robinson, 2002) on 4 June 2017 a son Robin Mcdonald

To Zoe Sprigings (2004) and Jonathan Mitchell on 5 May 2017 a son Jasper Esmond Mitchell-Sprigings

Mance

Strataki

To Charlotte Deeves (Harris, 2000) on 14 February 2018 a daughter Corinne Rosa Brenda Deeves, a sister for Hazel

To Victoria Mance (1997) and Mark Skelin on 27 July 2018 a daughter Lucy Josephine Philippa Mance Skelin, a sister for Catherine

Donnison

Middlebro’

To Aimée (2001) and Kevin Donnison on 20 January 2018 a son Edmund Neil Donnison, a brother for Tabitha

Hartwell To Maeve and Greg Hartwell on 22 February 2015 a son Aidan Hartwell and on 19 May 2017 a daughter Isla Hartwell

Nelson

To Pela Strataki (2001) and Alex Mijatovic on 25 May 2017 a daughter Celia Marina Irma Mijatovic (with the editor’s apologies for not including this announcement in the 2017 Report)

To Marta (Zaoralova, 2002) and Allen Middlebro’ (2004) on 26 February 2018 a daughter Julie Jane Middlebro’, a sister for Thomas Arthur born on 25 January 2016

Wakefield

Moulding

To Claire Weston (Turner, 2003) and Daniel Weston (Pembroke 2002) on 21 June 2018 twins Elizabeth Natalie and Christopher Thomas

To Mark (1999) and Sarah Moulding on 18 August 2016 a daughter Elodie Moulding

To Caroline (Orlebar, 1998) and John Wakefield on 3 March 2018 a daughter Danielle

Weston

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Deaths Griffin Miriam Griffin née Dressler (1957, Lit. Hum.; Fellow and Tutor in Ancient History 19672002; Emeritus Fellow 2002) on 16 May Aged 82

O’Donnell Denise Marie O’Donnell on 25 November 2017 (Bursar and Fellow 1975-1982) Aged 85

Imison Tamsyn Imison née Trenaman (1957; Honorary Fellow 1999) on 18 September 2017 Aged 80

Birukowska Maureen Ann Birukowska née Booth (1954) on 6 June 2017 Aged 81

Boardman Phyllis Mary Barbara Boardman née Boyce (1943) on 7 June 2017 Aged 92

Boulton Marjorie Boulton (1941) on 30 August 2017 Aged 93

Bower Nancy Joyce Bower née Thompson (1939) on 6 November 2017 Aged 95

Bryson Hilary Marian Bryson née Colvin (1952) on 9 November 2017 Aged 85

Canning Sarah Barbara Canning (1950) on 12 September 2017 Aged 86

Carnell Shirley Anne Carnell née Mair (1954) on 8 December 2017 Aged 82

Christodoulou Joan Patricia Christodoulou née Edmunds (1951) on 30 September 2017 Aged 84

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Dainty

Low

Page

Mary Elizabeth Dainty née Elbeck (1938) on 27 March 2018 Aged 98

Helen Margaret (‘Sue’) Low née Carpenter on 26 April 2018 Aged 91

Eleanor Rosalind Page née Pollard (1935) on 13 August 2017 Aged 101

Davies

Macaulay

Parham

Annie Kathleen (Kay) Davies (1937) on 11 November 2017 Aged 98

Patricia Mary Macaulay née Hale (1945) on 18 March 2017 Aged 92

Christian Mary Parham née Fitzherbert (1950) on 22 April 2017 Aged 84

Edwards

Gabriel

Parker

Felicity Clare Edwards née Toussaint (1945) on 26 February 2018 Aged 90

Frances Mary Gabriel (Fanny) Mallary née Neville-Rolfe (1973) on 26 October 2017 Aged 62

Lesley Gordon Parker née Gray (1939) on 21 February 2018 Aged 96

Mason

Margaret Jessie PopeHathersley née Leary (1955) in 2018 Aged 83

Harris Sheila Harris (1943) on 19 January 2018 Aged 92

Haynes Pamela Sarah Haynes née Powell (1947) on 18 August 2017 Aged 87

Hope Virginia Mary Hope Holt née White (1956) on 1 January 2018 Aged 79

Jackson Mary Jackson née Cheel (1955) on 1 March 2018 Aged 81

Joubert Verity Joubert née Curry (1972) on 30 June 2018 Aged 65

Kikonyogo

Annie Pamela Mason née Rhodes (1943) on 7 June 2017 Aged 92

McCormick Mairi Clare McCormick née MacInnes (1943) on 14 September 2017 Aged 92

McKay Elizabeth Mary McKay née Norman (1957) on 20 May 2018 Aged 86

McKellar Marian June McKellar (1946) on 27 October Aged 90

Mitchell Barbara Marion Mitchell née Davies (1941) on 12 October 2017 Aged 93

Pope-Hathersley

Stewart Margaret Stewart née Adams (1949) on 7 December 2016 Aged 86

Sugg Joyce Marie Sugg (1944) on 9 August 2018 Aged 92

Swinfen Rosemary Ann Swinfen née Pettit (1956) on 4 August 2018 Aged 80

Toynbee Clare Anne Jeanne Toynbee (1967) on 19 April 2017 Aged 68

Treisman

Eucacia Mary Laetitia Kikonyogo née Mukasa (1964) on 23 November 2018 Aged 77

Morgan Alison Mary Morgan née Raikes (1949) on 27 March 2018 Aged 88

Anne Marie Treisman née Taylor (1957; Lecturer 19645) on 9 February 2018 Aged 82

Kohl

Morrogh

Ward

Margaret Stewart McLaren Kohl née Cook (1944) on 10 September 2017 Aged 91

Felicity Diane Morrogh née Chugg (1952) in about December 2016 Aged 85

Mavis Dorothy Ward née Smith (1944) on 2 December 2017 Aged 91

Leonard

Mullard

Wright

Florence Eileen Leonard née Bellsham (1934) on 6 May 2017 Aged 101

Ursula Budynge Mullard née Stibbs (1944) on 5 October 2017 Aged 91

Margaret Wright (1957) on 8 December 2017 Aged 86

Lovelace

Leonard

Judith Ann Lovelace (1963) on 7 November 2017 Aged 72

Sheila Constance Leonard Ormerod née Preece (1945) on 8 December 2017 Aged 90

Obituaries Miriam Tamara Griffin (née Dressler), St Anne’s 1957, Lit. Hum.; Fellow and Tutor in Ancient History 1967-2002; Emeritus Fellow 2002.

Miriam Griffin, who has died aged 82 in Oxford, was an outstanding Roman historian with a long list of important publications, and a devoted and much loved tutor to Somerville undergraduates. She is very much missed by her former pupils, her colleagues, her family and her many friends.

Miriam was born in New York in 1935, the adored only child of polymath schoolteacher Leo Dressler and his wife Fanny, a stenographer. She took her first degree at Barnard College, and according to her cousins was legendary for her brilliance, torn between further study in physics, the piano, and classics.

After a masters degree in classics at Radcliffe she came on a Fulbright scholarship to read Lit Hum at St Anne’s. Immediately drawn to Roman History, she later observed: ‘When I arrived in Oxford and attended my first lectures, I realised the Romans had become very English in their assumptions, motivations and manners’. As an undergraduate she met Jasper Griffin at a seminar on Euripides; they married in 1960, the year in which Miriam embarked on a D.Phil in Roman History after gaining a first in Greats. Theirs was a supremely happy marriage, a ‘match of souls’ according to their daughters. Miriam is survived by Jasper, by their three devoted daughters and a granddaughter.

Following a Junior Research Fellowship at St Anne’s, Miriam was elected, in 1967, to the ancient history Fellowship at Somerville after the death of Isobel Henderson. Legend has it that the then Principal, Dame Janet Vaughan, on learning that Professor Syme and other luminaries gave Miriam top billing among the candidates, took it on herself to investigate the domestic arrangements of this young mother of two. She declared Miriam to be ‘what the French call rangée’, and the Governing Body was delighted when she was elected after a brilliant interview. Thus began Miriam’s thirty-five years as a Fellow and Tutor in ancient history. As tutor in philosophy from 1970, I was fortunate to have Miriam as a wonderful colleague and friend.

From the start Miriam was a hit with her pupils, who warmed to her eagerness to communicate, her analytical, probing intellect, her insistence on high standards and generosity with her time. For the undergraduates of the late sixties and seventies it was refreshing to have a young, American tutor who combined a superb grasp of history and the firmness of a teacher with real warmth and approachability. Several former pupils penned tributes for the Somerville Newsletter on Miriam’s retirement. ‘She has always been concerned with students as human beings as well as intellects’ wrote Gillian Clark. Loveday Alexander (who later officiated at Miriam’s

MIRIAM GRIFFIN

funeral) remarked how Miriam encouraged them to understand that people from the past were real people in a real society with real ideas – something new back then in the Sixties. ‘She told us to stop just being interested in Wars and the Emperors; …. we had to start becoming interested in their ideas, because it is ideas that change history’. Generations of her students were inspired by Miriam’s teaching, and they came in great numbers to her retirement lunch in 2002, and again to a symposium arranged to celebrate her 80th birthday in 2015.

Over her thirty-five years as tutor in ancient history, Miriam’s teaching duties expanded and developed. An ardent supporter of the joint school in ancient and modern history, she showed huge energy and dedication in building it up at Somerville.

Further teaching responsibilities followed in 1990 when she became a lecturer in ancient history at Trinity College, providing tuition and guidance there as well as at Somerville.

She was equally generous with her time and insights to the pupils at her newly acquired college, and always acknowledged her association with Trinity in her publications. Later she urged Somerville to admit pupils in the newly established course in Classical Archaeology and Ancient History, soon abbreviated to CAAH. This course was designed to be a rigorous study of its named subjects available to those without Latin or Greek.

While she strongly encouraged CAAH students to take an option of learning an ancient language, she supported them whatever choices they made, and was very proud of their successes.

As a Fellow of the College Miriam took seriously the responsibilities entailed. On many occasions she was the guardian of the Governing Body’s conscience, ensuring that

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we acted with fairness and academic probity. As Tutor for Graduates, she had a strong rapport with graduate students, especially those from overseas. For many years Miriam was personal tutor to undergraduates reading Music; she took a keen part in admitting them and a lively interest in their progress. She made time where possible to attend the Finals recitals of Somerville music undergraduates. From 1986-8 she served as Vice-Principal under the Principalship of Daphne Park, and as such was the Fellow in charge of the election of her successor, Catherine Pestell, soon to be Mrs Hughes. She was a superb Senior Common Room President, befriending new members and hosting occasions with warmth, wit and style.

Miriam’s academic output was extensive and distinguished. As the Roman historian Professor Catherine Edwards wrote in her Guardian obituary : ‘she played a crucial role in getting readers to appreciate the philosophical writings of the ancient Romans in their historical context, in particular those of Seneca, the Stoic philosopher and tutor to the emperor Nero.’ Her first monograph, Seneca: A Philosopher in Politics was published in 1976, followed in 1984 by Nero, End of a Dynasty.

Described in the Guardian obituary as ‘deeply learned and highly readable’, this related the young emperor’s weaknesses to the problems inherent in Roman political structures, and foregrounded Nero’s passion for the arts. Seneca remained central to her intellectual pursuits, with two acclaimed works on his relatively neglected On Benefits appearing, after a long gestation, during her retirement. Beneficence was a specially suitable subject for one who was so generous with her time, her praise and her tactful concern for others, but what fitted Miriam supremely to write on Seneca’s treatise was her intimate understanding of the nuances and pitfalls of giving and receiving benefits in a society such as the early Roman empire—not least to one like Seneca who owed his livelihood, his wealth, and ultimately his death to the emperor.

Two volumes entitled Philosophia Togata I and II (‘Philosophy in Roman dress’) were the result of an important collaboration between Miriam and Balliol philosophy tutor Jonathan Barnes; they put the study of Roman philosophy firmly back on the agenda. Philosophy and Power was the apt title of a volume of essays to honour Miriam’s retirement in 2002. It was edited by two former pupils, both of them Professors of ancient history, Gillian Clark and Tessa Rajak, and contained contributions from an international cast of scholars, among whom were some who had been her doctoral students as well as former undergraduate pupils.

Miriam was in considerable demand to contribute to television and radio programmes. She was a frequent presence on Radio 4’s In Our Time, and was the chosen expert on Nero for an edition of Great Lives. Never flashy, Miriam didn’t patronise the viewer or listener, and always seemed to be thinking as she spoke. In retirement she continued to teach undergraduates and supervise graduate students, as well as to publish prolifically.

Miriam fell gravely ill with acute myeloid leukaemia in 2014, but made a remarkable recovery. She was able to enjoy the eightieth birthday symposium in her honour in 2015, and to see more work published. In April 2018, Miriam hosted a

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lunch to celebrate the publication of her collected papers, but the leukaemia had returned and she died a few weeks later. In August 2018 the British Academy announced that she was to be awarded posthumously a British Academy Medal for lifetime achievement, a just tribute to an outstanding scholar, teacher and communicator.

Lesley Brown (Wallace, 1963, Emeritus Fellow) Miriam Griffin’s Memorial will be held in Somerville on the afternoon of Saturday 24 November at 2:30pm.

Tamsyn Love Imison (Trenaman 1957; Honorary Fellow 1999) Tamsyn Imison died last September aged 80 undiminished by decrepitude. She is sorely missed – by family, friends, her local community in Suffolk and perhaps above all by an education system in need of her ideals, warmth, skill, fun and wisdom.

Tamsyn did not complete her degree at Somerville. Pregnancy interrupted her studies which she later completed taking a BSc in zoology at Queen Mary, University of London in 1964.

Such goings-on were not then tolerated in Oxford though she and her husband-to-be, Michael Imison, were already firmly committed to each other. But her case may have helped produce a more flexible approach; the Principal, Dame Janet Vaughan, found indirect means to let my year know a local doctor was willing to offer contraceptive help.

But back to Tamsyn. Her first career was in scientific illustration and it was not until 1972 that she qualified as a teacher. She continued to amass qualifications and honours during her time as a head. She was made a DBE in 1998, an Honorary Fellow of Somerville, Queen Mary and the Institute of Education, and completed an MA in Education from the Open University in 1996.

Tamsyn retired in 2000 after sixteen years as head of Hampstead School. She and Michael then left London and lived in Halesworth in Suffolk, attracted by the flourishing Arts Centre filled with music, drama and delicious cake.

There Tamsyn, who had a wonderful flair for dressing in colourful clothes which did not require a constricted waist, set the community to gardening. Pots, planting beds, a herb garden with recipes, even rhubarb, burgeoned in the pedestrianised streets of the town with such success that ‘Halesworth in Bloom’ won ‘East Anglia’s Best Small Town’ in 2015. The park gained green flag status and a Hooker Trail was created in honour of botanist Sir Joseph Hooker who was born in Halesworth in 1817. June 2017 saw a weekend-long celebration of his bicentenary.

But it is in the school system that her wise counsel and inspiring example are so badly needed today. Among her many publications, her book Comprehensive Achievements: All our Geese are Swans, edited with Liz Williams and Ruth Heilbronn (Institute of Education Press, 2014) should be on the reading list of all politicians concerned with education

depended on young people growing up with people from the whole range of social, ethnic and academic backgrounds.

The school had no uniform and the over-arching rule was ‘Be kind’. Art, music and drama were encouraged. The music department staged a full opera (Dido and Aeneas) and Tamsyn mobilised a group of twenty comprehensive schools to commission original work from John McGrath and Adrian Mitchell for their students. The watchwords were fun and collaboration. When smoking in the girls’ toilets became a problem a group of girls were encouraged to decorate the space. They painted the walls with an enormous multi-coloured dragon. When this got painted over, the school keeper, who was away when it happened, reported that ‘I have never seen the Head so angry’.

TAMSYN IMISON

and trainee teachers. A collection of fifty contributions from former students, staff, parents and governors, it describes the feel and philosophy of one of the country’s most successful comprehensive schools.

Appointed in 1984 to head what was a scruffy, run down comprehensive on the borders of Hampstead and Brent, she turned it around, appointed staff in sympathy with her philosophy, threw out the blinds in her office, maintained a permanently open door and supply of coffee and was to be seen around the school scrubbing off graffiti and weeding the playground.

The philosophy of the school, agreed with staff and governors – as all policy was – was Learning Together, Achieving Together. Continuous professional development was standard for all staff. The school ran its own in-house Masters validated by the Institute of Education.

Tamsyn had a remarkable talent for consultation, team building and enabling experimentation and innovation. Never mind if it didn’t work. They could learn from that.

All students were expected to achieve – the school’s results were excellent – and were involved through the school council in decisions on rules and coping with issues like bullying. They presented to governors and were involved in the interview process for new teachers. One candidate reported that his trial lesson was applauded by the class, setting him up nicely for the rest of the process.

The school’s intake was genuinely comprehensive with substantial numbers of students from nearby council estates and from refugee families who needed support with English language and adjusting to an unfamiliar society. There was too a healthy intake of children from intellectual north London families who believed, as Tamsyn did, that the health of society

Tamsyn became involved in education strategy and policy on a national scale alongside Sir Kenneth Robinson as an active member of the National Advisory Committee on Creative and Cultural Education. Their report, All Our Futures, is regarded by teachers, parents and others as defining the creative and cultural needs of young people and suggesting how they might be met.

But Tamsyn should have the last word taken from her postscript to Comprehensive Achievements: ‘A good education, where all students are valued and can achieve, is the only way to develop the creative workforce we urgently need today. We will never overcome the major challenges we face locally, nationally, and globally unless the whole population contributes towards a better society. We will never achieve this if over 80 per cent of our young people experience continuous failures through selection, a narrow, out-of-date curriculum, and valueless testing. Increasing a hierarchy of unequal educational provision will ensure a culture of failure and a society with yet starker contrasts between the haves and the have-nots. This will totally destabilise our society’.

I hate to think what would she make of the financially starved, centrally controlled system with its new emphasis on expanding grammar schools which is now being imposed.

Auriol Stevens, 1958

Eleanor Rosalind Page (Pollard ,1935) Rosalind was born in 1916 in Exeter, where her family owned arguably the oldest printing works in Britain (dating back to 1781) which is still running today. Of this she was always immensely proud.

Rosalind attended and became head girl of the Maynard School in Exeter and then spent a year in Paris before taking a place at Somerville where she read French. Her years here were plainly very happy ones with many stories told of those she brushed shoulders with who later became household names.

Rosalind’s war years were filled with tragedy – although she never recounted them as such: she lost a fiancé in the first days of the fighting, her brother went missing for some months behind enemy lines after a covert operation, and

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ROSALIND PAGE

NANCY BOWER

both her home and the family printing works in Exeter were bombed, leaving them with nothing.

Nancy Bower (Thompson, 1939)

During the war Rosalind served as a WREN officer. She started as a lorry driver, having passed a mechanics exam with flying colours. (She put this down to her experience in taking exams and not to any aptitude for mechanics!) However, she later transferred to cipher work.

Nancy did not come from an academic background; her forebears had been either in service (Cornwall) or were ‘Other Ranks’ in the Army (Warrington). Her mother, Elizabeth (daughter of a painter and decorator), had been a teacher and her father, Wilfrid, rose from drummer boy to senior civil servant, both refusing to ‘know their place’.

It was at this time, while playing a game of mixed hockey, that she met a young naval officer called John Page, soon to become her husband. They made their home for the next 35 years in Laleham on Thames and it was here in a charming old house beside the river that they raised three children – Jonathan, Julie and Mary. Sadly, tragedy was to strike again when their daughter Mary was diagnosed with cancer and died at the age of seven. It was only after this that Rosalind finally took up her career in teaching French.

Rosalind played an active part in the Domestic Buildings Research Group, which recorded timber by timber buildings of historic note for posterity. After her husband’s retirement they moved to the village of South Pool on the Salcombe Estuary and it was here that Rosalind became very interested in church conservation. Her passion for the countryside and the human history that carved it was to include an unsuccessful campaign against the encroachment of bracken in the Devon lanes!

Known for her worldly wisdom and intellect, Rosalind devoured newspapers, endlessly cutting out little articles of interest for friends and family. She enjoyed the stimulation of those around her and had a way of always making you feel appreciated.

Rosalind died aged 101, a woman of great compassion, good humour and a twinkle that she kept until the end.

Julie Rashbrooke, daughter

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Following this trend, she was the first member of her family to go to university; being awarded a scholarship to Oxford was recognised as quite an achievement. Nancy inherited her mother’s chameleon-like knack for blending into any social background; this served her well at Oxford and in later life became an essential skill.

Nancy went to school at Enfield High and came up to Somerville in 1939 to read Modern Languages. She was also very gifted at Art, but French won.

On graduating, Nancy resisted the lure of GCHQ and instead taught in London. It was typical of her that hours in the air-raid shelter became a chance for her class to participate in music and song, skills she later used when playing the organ for Chapel at another school.

Nancy also taught French at Croydon High along with her new husband, Cedric. School plays brought out her flair for costume making, this recurring over many decades. She also played piano when required (playing boogie-woogie in the ‘Vicky Arms’ in Walton Street had kept her in drinks when a student).

Teaching was put on hold for a few years as Frances, the first of four children, came along in Sussex, Tom in Norfolk, and Kitty and Lizi in Wrington, Somerset. Nancy and Cedric had wanted to adopt, so Kitty, originally from Hong Kong, joined the family.

In Wantage, at King Alfred’s Grammar School, Nancy was ‘The Head’s Wife’ and redefined this from a passive, supporting role: while respecting tradition, she never let it rule her. She resumed teaching, both at the school and at St Mary’s (an independent girls’ school) down the road – all this while bringing up four children.

She retired in 1981, a decision made partly because of Cedric’s Parkinson’s. Neither slowed her down: moving to North Oxford, she made sure the Lib Dems there knew she’d arrived and was instrumental in the massive bazaars they held in the Town Hall. She also demonstrated at the Sheldonian against honours being given to the Prime Minister of the time. Nancy was a champion of the oppressed and marginalised, using her French, for example, at Campsfield to help refugees.

She was very hands-on regarding grandchildren, and all her life, our Mum/Grandma/Great-Grandma went far above and beyond to help us weather life’s vicissitudes. Her family all owes this truly remarkable woman so much and we remember her with love, admiration and so much thanks.

Nancy’s final years were spent very happily in Cornwall, a place she loved.

Tom Bower, son LESLEY PARKER

Lesley Gordon Parker (Gray, 1939) Lesley was born in 1921. Both her parents were actively involved with the arts and associated with the Bloomsbury set.

Lesley was a protégée of Edith Sitwell for the poetry she wrote throughout her life.

Having unsuccessfully applied to Oxford for October 1939, she was offered a place at short notice when war began.

Undergraduates were allowed to have men visit during the day, provided there was no alcohol in the room. One day the Bursar marched in, took a bottle of sherry out of the cupboard and put it outside the door, all without saying a word.

On finishing her degree, Lesley was interviewed for Bletchley Park with two questions: do you prefer Bach or Jazz? Do you prefer chess or bridge? She preferred Bach, and hated both chess and bridge, but hated bridge more. By May 1945, there was very little work in Hut 6. Lesley met and soon married Frank Parker, an American serving in the Canadian Black Watch, who spent most of the war in prison camp. He was an artist, offering a life in the artistic community of Paris, where he had lived and painted in the 1930s.

In August 1945, a Norwegian shipping line was willing to sign on GI brides as stewardesses for the crossing. One stewardess was Melissa, aged 18 months.

They lived in New York, then France and finally settled in Boston USA, when her mother-in-law, who had lost her husband and younger son in the war, asked them to stay. She worked in Harvard University Library as a cataloguer of foreign books, but also designed and made costumes for one of Robert Cohan’s ballets.

After her marriage broke down, Lesley returned to England in 1968.

Having originally intended to settle in Oxford, she visited an old college friend in Norwich and bought the house next door.

Lesley was very active in many spheres after she settled in Norwich, including as candidate in local and national elections for the Liberals, never winning, never losing her deposit. She volunteered at Strangers’ Hall Museum where she helped develop new techniques for conserving fabric, which became the basis for the National Trust’s fabric conservation unit, and later catalogued part of the collection and reference library.

She volunteered at the CAB, and she helped set up a scheme to support clients who were facing tribunals, representing them at the hearings, almost always, successfully, relishing the challenge of putting her case and defeating her opponents. She was active in Norwich Quaker Meeting, serving a wide range of roles including Clerk.

Throughout her life, she always enjoyed a wide range of crafts: sewing, quilting, embroidery, knitting … the list goes on. She loved gardening and it was a point of honour that there would be some flowers blooming every month of the year.

Throughout her life, there would be friends, family or others, needing a bit of extra support, which she gave freely, whether a listening ear or more practical help.

She is survived by two daughters: Linzee Jerrett and Lucy Parker (Somerville 1979).

Lucy Parker, 1979

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Marjorie Boulton, 1941 First meeting Marjorie Boulton in 1945, when I was a fresher and she was already a first-class English graduate, I was immediately aware that I had encountered a true intellectual; though, unlike some people with her gifts, she had a splendid sense of humour and was also extremely modest. She had a gentleness and humanity which made her many friends, but sometimes made it hard for her to cope with the managerial aspects of life at Charlotte Mason College, Ambleside, the teacher training college where she worked from 1962 until 1971, when she returned to Oxford to undertake a DPhil.

Born in Teddington in 1924, Marjorie went to Bartonon-Humber Grammar School in Lincolnshire, where her father was head. Her mother, Evelyn (née Cartlidge), came from the Potteries and Marjorie adored her. She called her affectionately ‘my little mother’ and I understood why when I met the tiny, lively-minded Mrs Boulton. She supported her daughter in all her efforts; and Marjorie’s book, Zamenhof, Creator of Esperanto, first published by Routledge in 1960, has this dedication: ‘To Evelyn Maud Boulton, true follower of Zamenhof, with my thanks for everything’.

Marjorie’s ideas, as with many of us of that generation, were moulded by the 1939-45 war years. In Somerville, we had endless idealistic discussions about the future of Europe and of wider humanity; and Marjorie already gave kindness and shelter to migrants from Europe and further afield. Her attachment to Esperanto resulted from her conviction that a neutral, but shared, means of communication could bring people closer together from around the world. I remember her enthusiasm in 1949 when she started learning the language, and her continued motivation in forwarding the language and developing it can be gathered from a piece in her respected 1960 life of the creator of Esperanto, Ludovic Zamenhof. She implies that the language he invented was ‘humane, creative and compassionate’, and that it was ‘internationalist and humanitarian’. These reflected her own personality; and it is unsurprising that she valued it as a means of communication with people of many nationalities, as well as a vehicle for expressing deeply held humanism.

series, as many of them were titled The Anatomy of [Poetry, Prose, Drama etc.]. The last one appeared in 1980, but some are still used. After that, Esperanto filled her horizon. She was a member of the Esperanto Academy and various other Esperanto organisations – including the Esperanto Cat-Lovers Society. Cats were another of her passions and every letter and Christmas card from her gave the news of her current cats.

Marjorie became absorbed by Esperanto and for over twenty years ran a summer school at Barlaston in Staffordshire. When she invited me to one, I was impressed by the number of countries from which the participants came. I learnt that as a non-speaker, I was a ‘crocodile’ and hastily tried to learn enough to avoid the epithet. Astonished at how easy it was, I could see the attraction. Of course, using it for basic interaction is different from being so immersed that one can express deepest feeling, as Marjorie could. I observed at Barlaston how admired and respected she was, both for her personality and her literary output in Esperanto. She wrote over twenty books of poetry, plays and essays; and later on, her work apparently led to her being considered for a Nobel prize.

Barbara Marion Mitchell (Davies, 1941)

She didn’t abandon her native tongue and her teaching experience led to her publishing a series of text-books on English Literature, mainly in what she called her ‘Anatomy’

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MARJORIE BOULTON AT HER NINETIETH BIRTHDAY SEMINAR IN SOMERVILLE

Marjorie always had a strong affection for Somerville and it was fitting that her ninetieth birthday celebration (in 2014) was held in college.

Lalage Bown, 1945 Marjorie’s own account of her early years appears as ‘Life Before Somerville’ in the College Report 2009

Barbara Mitchell, born in Peterborough in 1923, was a Lit. Hum. student at Somerville from 1942 to 1947, and achieved Firsts in Mods and Greats as well as teaching Latin for two terms in a Manchester school in 1945. Her strong socialist views, developed in her student years, matured into a life-long sense of social justice.

In July 1947, the same week as she received news of her First Class degree, she married David Mitchell, then in his first year as Worcester College’s philosophy tutor. Raising a family of four children took priority over a research degree, as her high-flying school and university career now encompassed the complex obligations of full adulthood. In 1949, she became college

lecturer at St Anne’s in Latin, giving classes to undergraduates taking Prelims in Modern Languages, History and English. In 1955, with three children under seven years old, she became lecturer in ancient history and a member of the sub-faculty of Ancient History. She was appointed to a CUF lecturership in 1959 and a supernumerary Fellowship at St Anne’s in 1965.

Family life centred round the house at 7 Beaumont Street, owned by Worcester College. After she began teaching for St Anne’s, Barbara held her tutorials in the study on the first floor, only occasionally interrupted by errant children. Barbara and David were warm and generous hosts, and Saturday lunchtime became a joyous institution, an open-house for family, friends, colleagues to benefit from Barbara’s hospitality and cooking.

Academically she established her reputation as a Greek historian of the classical period, but she covered a large range in Roman as well as Greek History. One of her first pupils was Miriam Griffin, who became the ancient history tutor at Somerville in 1967, and they ran a joint seminar on early Christians and Jews that is still remembered. Her main publications were on Herodotean themes. She also worked on Anglo-Saxon history, particularly Bede, which sprang from the Latin tutoring that she provided for Prelims candidates throughout her career. She noted with a combination of pride and pique that passages of her article on the Double Monasteries of Anglo-Saxon England had re-appeared almost word-for-word in Melvyn Bragg’s novel Credo. She regretted herself not having written a book. Omitting a DPhil had not impeded her career, but it had deprived her of the three or four years of solid research time needed to lay the foundations of an original monograph.

She was an enthusiastic and intrepid traveller, whether with her young family on continental camping trips, with David after his retirement, or on her own. This long-distance travel found a magnificent coda in the tours to Iran, with other Oxford colleagues, in 1998 and 2002. Her stamina and physical agility did not desert her in old age, as she scrambled over monuments and obstacles with younger companions.

In the final phase of her life, her attention had refocussed on the family, especially after the death of her second son’s wife in 2001, when she helped unstintingly in the task of bringing up their four young children.

She began to suffer from vascular dementia, around 2006, when she was 83, but the condition was not disabling until a serious physical collapse in 2011. A geriatric specialist seemed pessimistic about her survival prospects but the prognosis was misjudged. Although the dementia was not reversible, her gentle character was unchanged and she remained sociable and welcoming until her death in October 2017.

Stephen Mitchell

BARBARA MITCHELL

Sheila Harris, 1943 Sheila came up to Somerville in 1943, arriving like many of us a year earlier than we had expected, owing to a change in the call-up regulations. It could perhaps be said of her that from the first she stood out in an unobtrusive way. She did not join a group of friends, sitting regularly at the same table, as most of us did. She moved around, equally friendly to all, independent and apparently self-sufficient.

I do have one specific memory of her at that time. Treats such as cakes were hard to come by in wartime and if we were entertaining we would get up early in the morning and cycle out to Oliver & Gurden’s cake factory and join the queue. On one such morning I fainted and found myself being surrounded by concerned housewives. In the distance I could see Sheila.

Soon there was a chorus of ‘Sheila!’ and I was rescued and cared for and safely returned to college. Whether I ever got any cakes, I can’t remember!

She was a Christadelphian, a branch of Christianity most of us had not come across before. Her faith was central to her life and her convictions unshakeable. She would not act against them and could not subscribe to the logical positivism which ruled the day. Consequently her class in Greats did not reflect her true ability.

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On graduating she went to teach at Nottingham Girls’ High School – almost by accident, as a fellow Somervillian was withdrawing in order to marry! In due course she became Head of Department and before long the youngest Second Mistress ever. And there she stayed for the whole of her teaching life, refusing a headship and giving outstanding service – a stalwart.

At the same time she was just as active in her church, leading a youth group, looking after the lonely and elderly, writing theological contributions to Christadelphian publications (very much a product of her own research and independent thinking). In middle age, in her ‘spare time’ while still expending more energy on school and church than most people possess, she took a London external BD and eventually moved over from teaching classics to RE. She was a brilliant teacher – I know, because she taught all my daughters.

In retirement, Sheila was as active as ever. She taught on theological subjects in adult education classes. She wrote on devotional aspects of her faith, essays and poems often illustrated by her close friend, whom she cared for as he became frail and needed the help his schizophrenic wife was unable to give. Having looked after her own mother till she died, she also was a mainstay for her elderly neighbours.

Only when all these had either died or moved into care homes did Sheila, aged 90 and suffering increasing health problems herself, give up her home and consent to be looked after. She moved to a Christadelphian home in Solihull, where she was very happy and where she died aged 92, just a few yards from where she had been born.

I would like to add as a footnote that after a time I had joined her on the staff of NGHS, where she became one of my greatest friends.

Mary Foote (Hinchliffe, 1943)

Mairi McCormick (MacInnes, 1943) In September 2017 the poet Mairi MacInnes – Mairi McCormick – died in York, aged 92. Born in a Durham village in 1925, she was educated in Helmsley and Somerville, married the American literary critic John McCormick, and followed him to the Frei Universität after the war and then to the USA, where she raised her three children in the wilds of Maine, then Rutgers, with time out in Mexico and Spain.

After a promising start with a poetry collection Splinters (1953) and novel Admit One (1956), Mairi’s literary career stalled for 25 years. It was only with the publication of Herring, Oatmeal, Milk & Salt (1982) that she really launched herself as a poet. Returning to England with John and their three children in 1987, she spent the last thirty years of her life in Yorkshire. Her subsequent watershed collections include The House on the Ridge Road (1988), Elsewhere and Back (1993), The Ghostwriter (1999), and The Girl I Left Behind Me: Poems of a Lifetime (2003). Mairi’s husband John died in 2010, but she remained in close contact with her sons, daughter and step-son, leading a vigorous social life among admiring friends in York. In 2015 she was awarded an Honorary

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MAIRI MCCORMICK

Degree from the University of York and the following year published Amazing Memories of Childhood, etc., a dazzling last collection, full of numinous poems about place and memory.

Besides poetry, Mairi wrote another novel, The Quondam Wives (1993), and a memorable autobiography, Clearances (2002). Praised by Richard Wilbur for its ‘wit and unflinching honesty’, it traces her life from Durham childhood to university in Oxford, describing her war-time experience in the WRNS, married life in post-war Berlin, and later life in the United States. It offers an astringently affectionate portrait of a marriage as well as a vivid account of her struggle to reconcile her roles as wife and mother – working as ‘advertising copywriter, university lecturer, editor, museum secretary, ghost-writer and general stooge’ – with her vocation as a poet. It’s an essential companion to Poems of a Lifetime.

Like Elizabeth Bishop, MacInnes is a poet of place. As she says in ‘A Year’s Marriage’, ‘such places as we live / Make common language with our love / And with the sun and the next traveller.’ She has left haunting sketches of many places: Berlin in ‘Souvenirs of Life from Occupied Berlin, 1954-9’, war-time England in ‘The Old Naval Airfield’, a mysterious house in Princeton in ‘The House on the Ridge Road’, a Pacific resort in ‘Welcome to Mendocino’, Scotland in ‘Luskentyre’, and Yorkshire in ‘Travelling North’ and ‘In York Minster’. The last ends with a typical epiphanic bridge: ‘I think that those who built this heavenly wood / had God in mind as equally as He has Aranjuez.’

Championed by the poet and critic Peter Robinson, MacInnes was praised by Anne Stevenson for her ‘visionary realism’. Her best work stands alongside that of Donald Davie, Bishop and others of her generation. It testifies to her intuitive feminism and bears out her claim that writing a good poem is ‘an engagement with the truth … it shapes your life and, with luck, the lives of others’.

Professor Hugh Haughton, York University.

Margaret Stewart McLaren Kohl (Cook, 1944) Margaret Kohl, daughter of a Baptist minister, was my life-long friend from our very first years at the Perse School, Cambridge.

Born on 16 August 1926, she came up to Somerville as a scholar in 1944 to read English together with a lively group tutored by Miss Lascelles.

We schoolgirls came to an Oxford welcoming demobilised servicemen and women, including American Rhodes Scholars and unacknowledged cryptographers from Bletchley Park.

Wartime shortages remained. The Bursar of Somerville achieved much on our ration books, while gaining gratitude during the bitter winter of 1946 for a morning issue of hot Bovril.

Margaret graduated with a First and remained in Oxford for two years reading for a BLitt. She then worked as an editor for the Encyclopaedia Britannica. At a Somervillian friend’s wedding in Germany she met Günter Kohl, a lawyer.

They married in 1954 and lived first in Heidelberg; when Günter joined the insurance company Allianz, they moved to Munich and took a house in a village nearby where she stayed all her life. Her children went to school locally and she joined the nearby church, perfecting her German. Family holidays were Alpine or lakeside. Her son Stephan with his family made his career in Europe; Katrin finished her education in England and is now Professor of German at Oxford and a Fellow of Jesus College.

Margaret initially taught English at Ludwig Maximilian University in Munich and subsequently joined the translation department at Allianz. Meanwhile she made contact with SCM Press and started translating theological books by a wide range of eminent German theologians. This led to her becoming the favourite translator for Professor Jürgen Moltmann of his series of learned and ground-breaking works, and in her late eighties she was asked by American publisher Fortress Press to edit Jürgen Moltmann: Collected Readings. English-speaking theologians were duly grateful for her work and a collection in 1998 was prefaced with the following dedication: ‘Moltmann’s contributions to this book have been translated

by Margaret Kohl, who has translated into English all six of Moltmann’s major works since The Church in the Power of the Spirit, as well as several of his smaller works and collections of essays (The Future of Creation, Experiences of God, The Power of the Powerless, Jesus Christ for Today’s World and The Source of Life). All English-speaking readers of Moltmann are

MARGARET KOHL (PHOTOGRAPH COURTESY OF JÖRG DOMKE, EBERSBERGER ZEITUNG)

immensely indebted to her skilful and readable translations, which are informed by her own considerable familiarity with his work and undertaken with enthusiasm for it to be widely read and appreciated. As an expression of gratitude we are dedicating this book to her.’

Günter predeceased Margaret and she became increasingly immobile; her family was caring and attentive, and she continued to assure me, when I telephoned, that she was content so long as she had her books and could continue her work.

Margaret Elliot (Whale, 1945)

Ursula Budynge (‘Tib’) Mullard (Stibbs, 1944) Ursula was born in Upton, now a suburb of Slough, but then a small village on its outskirts. Seven years younger than her twin sisters Jo and Marg, she was evacuated to Teignmouth during the war, living for some months with Uncle George and Auntie May while Alan, her father, searched for somewhere for the family to live. Jo and Marg, by this time VADs, were working as nurses in tented hospitals in France and so Ursula was to all intents and purposes an only child for much of this period. By the time they had moved to Teignmouth her father was wheelchair-bound, suffering from severe arthritis – something that Ursula was troubled with from her sixties

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onwards. She did well at the local school and gained a place to read English at Somerville; she met Bob – also reading English.

Although it was war-time and many things were rationed she and Bob and their group of friends made the most of their time: they found time to go walking in North Wales and the Lake District and Scotland. Once it became easier to travel abroad they travelled to the Alps with the Alpine Club, walking from hut to hut and hiring local guides to take them up onto the glaciers. Their honeymoon was spent in the Alps walking, kitted out with cumbersome Army surplus rucksacks and waterproof jackets, the only walking gear available just after the war. Ursula had an abiding love of the mountains; a love which was not only sparked by the majestic, wild scenery, but by the flora of those areas. She was a keen amateur botanist, never travelling without her botanical magnifying glass and, preferably, with a pocket-sized book of the flora of whatever part of the world she was travelling in. She was also fascinated by geology, wanting to understand the terrain through which she travelled and walked – and spent a happy three years doing a geology evening class at the university. Her curiosity about the natural world never left her and even when she had stopped flying to visit Neil in Australia and Frances in her many and various locations, she would get out her geological maps whenever there was an earthquake or volcano to work out what might have caused them. Later in life, she became involved in the theatre – in amateur dramatics to start with, with what was then the City of Oxford Theatre Guild – and then running her own professional theatre company, the Mayfly Theatre Company, which had many summer seasons in Oxford, performing at the Oxford Union. She became an expert lighting designer as well as a director; she also wrote a number of the shows she directed. Both she and Bob spent one long, happy winter adapting some of the Canterbury Tales for performance the following summer.

Throughout her life she made and kept friends: school friends; friends from university; friends from all the different areas of interest that she explored. After she left university she trained as a teacher and spent some years teaching after she and Bob were married, although once Frances had been born she didn’t return to teaching. She and Bob were married on 4 August 1949 in Teignmouth and had been married for sixty-six years when Bob died in October 2015. Burcot had been their home since 1957, moving into their house at the same time as Ursula’s mother (Big Granny) moved into the bungalow with Jo and Bob’s parents (Papa and Little Granny) moving into the next house but one. Frances, Alison and Neil were all brought up in the extended family community, something that meant a lot to all of them, not least Ursula whose keen sense of family was a fundamental part of her make-up. Her curiosity about the world extended to the lives of all of her scattered grandchildren and their partners; she was keen to know what they were doing, how their projects, both big and small, were progressing – and what their views were about a whole host of current topics when she saw them face to face.

So many people had direct experience of her thoughtfulness and kindness, her patience and her humour. All of these will be missed, together with her boundless curiosity about people and the physical world.

Alison Quick (née Mullard)

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SARAH CANNING

Sarah Barbara Canning, 1950 Sarah Canning, who has died aged 86, was the inspiring headmistress and former owner of Hanford Preparatory School, where girls took classes in art appreciation and dressmaking and learnt that a good seat on a pony was almost as important as a mastery of Latin and maths.

She came from a long line of educationalists – her grandfather was a key adviser on the 1944 Education Act – but she eschewed convention and ran Hanford with few rules, encouraging girls to make the most of the freedom of five years in the chipped and faded grandeur of a listed Jacobean manor house in the Dorset countryside.

Hanford had been founded in 1947 by her parents, the Reverend Clifford Canning and his wife Enid. From the start the school had a progressive outlook, with no uniform, no head girl, and no prefects – which was unusual for the 1940s.

A tough and sometimes prickly character during encounters with parents and staff, Sarah Canning, who took over the school in 1959, was nevertheless revered by the children, to whom she was known simply as Sarah C. She championed selfreliance in the girls, and this was nowhere more evident than in her attitude to riding, which she believed helped pupils think for themselves. ‘They have to make decisions. They learn to read the countryside. And of course, it’s great fun.’

The youngest of three girls, Sarah Canning was born on 22 May 1931 and educated at Sherborne School for Girls. She

read Greats at Somerville, returning to Hanford to teach Latin, English and riding.

An accomplished horsewoman, Sarah Canning kept a display of rosettes in the tack room at the school which recalled her brief career as a show-jumper, but she never forced the girls to be competitive.

Under her headship, children were given the freedom to manage their own affairs, setting up various committees elected by the girls. Thus members of the riding committee had the task of catching the ponies for early morning rides, using their break-time to groom them, and then taking turns to help lead those riders who were beginners.

Conditions were spartan in the early days, although many, used to the draughty corridors of their own country houses, found Hanford a home from home. Sarah Canning herself had no airs, and cared little for appearances. Dressed in a scruffy purple Puffa jacket, invariably accompanied by her dog Nonsense, she was sometimes mistaken for one of the school cleaners, and her pupils shared her ‘custard pie’ sense of humour, when, for example, a member of staff, dressed up for a night out, slipped in mud in the stable yard.

None the less, manners and consideration for others were an important part of a Hanford education. In her book, Terms and Conditions, about life in girls’ boarding schools, Ysenda Maxtone Graham cited an English exam question set for Hanford 12-year-olds in 1972: ‘Explain, as carefully as you can, how you would lay the table for lunch at home.’

Under Sarah Canning, the school developed a complicated ladder of merit to reward girls for good conduct. When a girl arrived, she automatically started in the rank of Boa Constrictor, third from the bottom. Most did their utmost to avoid the ignominy of demotion to Piglet (who must sit alone) and instead strove to rise to Cat (who could attend the Tuck Shop on Sundays). The other positions included Favourite Auntie and Best Granny and the ultimate accolade, Royal Guest, who helped dictate the pecking order and was allowed to bring her own jam to meals. The lowest rung of the ladder was Cave Lady.

Despite its eccentricity, Hanford has enjoyed some academic success over the years. A number of its former pupils have gone on to Oxford and Cambridge, while many of the girls pursued careers in the art world. Pupils arrived as ‘unformed jellies’, Sarah Canning once said, after which the school became ‘a sort of pot where they form themselves. Some even hate leaving, realising they have been in a beautiful place surrounded by interesting objects and paintings.’

Christian Mary Parham (Fitzherbert, 1950) Our mother, Christian, used to say she should never have got into Somerville. She had been educated by the Assumption nuns, her school evacuated during the war to Aldenham Park in Shropshire, home to the Acton family. Mgr Ronald Knox, who was staying at Aldenham translating the Bible, became chaplain

CHRISTIAN PARHAM

to the Assumption girls, and Christian remembered his short, brilliant sermons for the rest of her life. She also remembered marvellous games of hare and hounds in the Shropshire countryside.

When it came to Oxbridge, an Uppingham history master was engaged as tutor, a nun sitting in on every lesson as chaperone.

She went up to Somerville in 1950, and she always spoke of her years there with blissful nostalgia. Her college contemporaries remained some of her closest friends for the rest of her life. Some of the things she loved now sound charmingly old-fashioned: reeling at the Catholic Chaplaincy, croquet on Penrose lawn. At a tea party she first met our father, John Parham – and the moment she laid eyes on him she thought, ‘He’s the man I’m going to marry’. But it was several years before that happened.

After going down from Oxford, Christian went to work as PA to the writer and diplomat Paul McGuire, Australian Minister to Italy. In Rome, she blossomed into a great beauty, her beloved dressmaker, Tosca, designing and stitching clothes she would wear for the rest of her life.

John and Christian were married in 1958, and moved straight to Kenya, where John worked for Barclays DSO. Their first child, Philip, was born in 1960, and – typical of her friendliness and passion for languages – Christian taught herself Swahili in order to be able to chat to his ayah, Drusilla. When they moved on to Jerusalem, she learned Hebrew. Climbing Masada and camping by the Red Sea were memories that joined those of her time at Somerville in sustaining her during her years at home, in Ascot, as a devoted mother.

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By 1968 Christian had five children. But shutting herself away for an hour or so with her Hebrew books, or with whatever research project she had in hand (there was always something), remained her greatest treat and relaxation. Very occasionally, she made an impromptu dash to London – once, in 1967, to give blood (for both sides) during the Arab-Israeli War, and again to watch Marlene Dietrich sing in public for the last time.

For some years it was difficult for Christian to keep in touch with Somerville, but in the early Eighties two of her daughters were there – Kitty reading English, Maggie History – and she began to pick up the threads. She developed a deep friendship with Daphne Park, who in turn introduced her to P.D. James – an ally and soulmate for the rest of her life.

Like P.D. James, Christian was something of a sleuth. When Liz Cooke invited her to gather news of her matriculation year, she tracked down every single one of her contemporaries. Her report on her year, compiled together with her great friends Margaret Heath and Phoebe Van Oss, appears in the College Report for 1999, with an addendum in 2000.

She had a remarkable capacity for friendship and correspondence. Her passion for meticulous research into people and places continued unabated until her death, and it was in piecing together the colourful life of a great-aunt that she developed an affectionate friendship with Isaiah Berlin’s widow, Aline.

By early 2017, Christian, suffering from cancer, knew she hadn’t long to live. She made it clear that in the weeks left to her she simply wanted to be with her family. Somerville was part of that family. Not long before Christian’s death, Liz Cooke and Mary Keen drove down to take her out to lunch. It was a wonderfully happy occasion, and Mum was deeply touched.

Perhaps she was finally persuaded that Somerville was right to have taken her, after all.

Kitty Turley (Parham, 1979) and Maggie Fergusson (Parham,1983)

Joan Patricia Christodoulou (Edmunds, 1951) Joan Christodoulou was born in Poona, India, on 11 December 1932, but was brought up in England. She was educated at Chelmsford County High School for Girls, and gained a state scholarship to Somerville College, Oxford in 1951, where she read modern history, and met her future husband, Anastasios Christodoulou (Queen’s College, 1952). After leaving Oxford she married and had four children, three of whom were born in Tanganyika as she supported her husband’s work amongst the local community on establishing infrastructure, education and basic services, and the fourth in Leeds where they settled as her husband took up the post of Deputy Secretary at the University of Leeds.

The family moved to Bedfordshire in 1968 when Anastasios became Secretary; he played a significant role in the founding of the Open University and Joan became one of its longest-

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serving associate lecturers. She was appointed as a tutorcounsellor for the first arts foundation course in 1971, subsequently teaching over seven different courses, and becoming a trustee of the Open University Foundation. She was awarded a Long Service Certificate as a testimonial of appreciation for 25 years’ service, and, in 2001, was presented with an Honorary Doctorate.

Other academic interests included teaching WEA classes in local history. One was devoted to the Bedfordshire village in which the family still has a house, resulting in the publication of a book entitled The Story of Aspley Guise. From 1980 Joan was a part-time research student at the Open University, working on the eighteenth-century group of religious radicals known as the Universalists. She was awarded an MPhil in 1988, and published articles based on her thesis in the Journal of Ecclesiastical History and in the London Journal.

In addition to academic pursuits, Joan made a significant contribution to the wider community. She served on her local parish council; on the board of the Milton Keynes Development Corporation; on the steering committee for the Woughton campus community centre. She was a founder-member and trustee of Inter-Action, a director of the Living Archive, and Deputy Chair of the Orbit Housing Group, the fifth largest housing association in the country.

Despite becoming increasingly immobile for the final six months of her life, Joan continued to attend Spanish lessons at the University of the Third Age, play bridge regularly, challenge herself daily with crosswords and other puzzles, and take an active role in the local church, where she is now at rest.

Stephanie Jones (daughter)

Maureen Ann Birukowska (Booth,1954) Maureen was born on 31 December 1935 (St Sylvester’s Day, as she liked to tell us) and came to Somerville from Our Lady of Mercy Catholic Grammar School in Wolverhampton. As was possible at that time, she took the Science Honour Mods course before going on to a further two years leading to Finals in a chosen subject, in her case Zoology. There were a group of four of us in that year in Somerville taking the Science Mods course; one of our contemporaries said she thought we had to work harder than anyone else in college. With three sciences on the go, in Maureen’s case Chemistry, Zoology and Botany, it certainly did not leave much spare time away from labs and libraries.

Maureen took all this in her stride and went on to a DPhil in the Department of Medicine on aspects of blood chemistry and then spent two years at the Wright-Fleming Institute at St Mary’s Hospital.

For the next two years she was Assistant Education Officer at London Zoo. She recounted a memorable and touching experience during this time when a female orangutan placed her six-month-old baby in her arms and she cuddled it for ten minutes before handing it back.

After her spell at the Zoo, Maureen spent five years working for the British Council in London and then a year in Stockholm teaching English.

and Shirley, enjoying their generous hospitality and from time to time meeting as fellow-guests at the home of Anthea Bell in Cambridge.

Back in England, she was appointed private secretary to the Secretary of NERC (the Natural Environment Research Council) and remained with NERC for the rest of her working life. She spent the five years before her retirement working for the Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution and for this important work she received the MBE.

Shirley retained close links with Somerville, attending garden parties and the literary luncheons. A serious illness prevented her from attending the 50-year Reunion in 2004 and she was much missed on that occasion. After her recovery Shirley described to me how Bob had been at her side for days and nights during her illness and said, ‘I would never have got through it without him.’ Bob and Shirley were devoted to each other and to their family, all of whom have been successful in their adult lives. In recent years the arrival of grandchildren brought added joy, and they became muchloved grandparents.

She and her husband, Czes Burukowski, shared a deep commitment to the Catholic faith and a love of books: their reading was serious and wide-ranging. Maureen suffered from increasing physical frailty in her last years. She was devotedly cared for by Czes and was still able to hold an interesting phone conversation until a few months before her death on 6 June 2017.

Hilary Brown (Maunsell, 1954)

Shirley Anne Carnell (Mair, 1954) I first met Shirley in October 1954 when we were two of the ten historians at Somerville that year. Although we shared similar backgrounds – both of us girls from northern grammar schools – we did not become close friends at Somerville, and it was only later in life that I came to know Shirley well and to appreciate her qualities.

After Oxford Shirley went on to London University and gained a diploma in Social Science. Her first job was as a social worker in Birmingham, and it was here that she met her future husband, Bob Carnell, another Oxford graduate. They married in 1959 and over the next few years became the parents of Nicholas, Robin and Alison. A series of career moves as a management accountant took Bob to different parts of the country and also to Hong Kong. Shirley described the years in Hong Kong as her happiest time, with the availability of domestic help enabling her to enjoy teaching history at St Stephen’s College. On their return to England the family settled in Cheshire and Shirley became Head of History at Crewe Girls’ Grammar School. The final move was to Northampton, where Shirley returned to her original profession of social worker, firstly in Child Care and later in the Disability Service.

In his address at her funeral Bob spoke of the defining theme of Shirley’s life as Devotion, or Dedication, praising her for the ways in which she adapted to the changes arising from his career moves. I would add to this her capacity for friendship.

She made friends at Somerville who remained friends for life – sadly, all too short a time for Louise Parker and Margaret Briscoe, both of whom died young. Shirley was close friends with Kathleen Hennis (Mrs Jones), who was to become headmistress of Norbury Manor High School, and Manel Kanangara (Mrs Abeysekera), who came from Ceylon and later became Sri Lankan ambassador in Bonn. Shirley and Bob visited Manel in both Sri Lanka and Bonn – and indeed were widely travelled in other parts of the world.

Shirley and I became closer as the years went by. When my husband and I moved to Suffolk in 1996 we saw more of Bob

After retirement, Bob and Shirley moved from their large Victorian house in Northampton to a smaller one in a nearby village. Shirley enjoyed village life and took part in local activities. Always a great reader, she became a member of three book groups, together with a discussion circle and the WI. Shirley died in December 2017 after a short illness. She will be remembered for her lively personality, her kindness, generosity, insight and compassion. She will be missed not only by her family but by the many friends she made throughout the course of her life.

Sheila Harrison (Ashcroft, 1954)

Mary Jackson (Cheel, 1955) Mary Jackson died on 1 March 2018 after suffering from cancer for a number of years. She remained active and enjoyed life right up to the end, only entering hospital in January 2018.

Mary was born on 7 June 1936 in Croydon, and then spent most of her childhood in Northampton where she attended the High School. She was an enthusiastic swimmer and represented her county in competitions. On leaving school in 1955 Mary read Mathematics at Somerville and was awarded a BA in 1958. She sang in the Jazz Club on a fairly regular basis and liked to recall appearing on the same billing as Dudley Moore. After her degree Mary stayed on at Oxford for an extra year to obtain the Certificate in Statistics following which she joined the National Coal Board in their Operations Research Department, where she stayed for some six years. In 1966 Mary became a lecturer in statistics at City University and the next year moved to Imperial College as a lecturer in Operations Research.

In 1968 Mary was recruited to join the faculty at the London Business School, which was a new institution set up to introduce Business Education to Britain. Mary became a Senior Lecturer and joined the other staff members in creating teaching material aimed at British executives adapted from what was being taught in the USA. It was at about this time that the personal computer first appeared and Mary became closely involved in developing new statistical techniques using the novel programming ideas which were then rapidly appearing. In particular Mary and her colleague Mike Staunton developed modelling techniques using

53

MARY JACKSON

VIRGINIA HOLT

spreadsheets such as Lotus 123 which led to their publishing a series of books on spreadsheet modelling. These books sold widely and were translated into many different languages.

In addition the two authors ran teaching courses overseas, particularly in Nigeria.

Virginia Mary Hope Holt (White,1956)

Mary and her husband Peter had two children, Kate and Andrew. Kate studied biology at Somerville and is now a senior executive with Shell. Andrew read physics at Lincoln College and after a PhD at University College London is now Professor of Neuroscience at Newcastle University.

Away from the academic world Mary was an enthusiastic skier and enjoyed other mountaineering activities both in the Lake District and overseas. For most of her adult life Mary was an enthusiastic and talented artist. She made prints and etchings at evening classes at Morley College and the City Literary Institute. When she retired she was able to devote more time to painting, particularly watercolours which she enjoyed using outdoors both at home and on trips abroad.

Mary was the first member of her family to attend university and she grew up just at the time when the post-1945 social revolution was taking place. She had the ability to take full advantage of the opportunities that presented themselves and as a consequence led a full and fulfilling life. She has influenced many in the world of business through her teaching and books and touched many of those she met with her friendliness and kindness. She will be sadly missed.

Peter Jackson

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When Virginia arrived at Somerville, following in the footsteps of her splendid aunt Freda White (writer and political activist), it was her first taste of living ‘down south’. Born and raised in the classical streets of Edinburgh’s New Town, and a true Scottish patriot, Englishness in general intrigued her – and sometimes exasperated her (especially the Anglocentric Oxford history course, where hammering the Scots was the mark of a good king). But she flourished at Somerville. To no one’s surprise but her own, she was awarded an Exhibition in her second year. She always appreciated ‘the sense of freedom and growing up, finding myself among my own kind’. These friends for life valued her loyalty, wit, strength and resourcefulness. They elected her President of the JCR, knowing that whenever Virginia saw that things could be better organised, she would take action. This instinct carried her into a life of public service. She breezed through the highly competitive Civil Service selection process and went off to work in London.

Virginia’s marked ability would have carried her to the top in the Civil Service, but her marriage to David Adams took her instead to Keele University. By the age of 30 she had three sons, and then returned to work in the public sector. After running a conference for 700 pre-school providers, she went on to organise community groups in Staffordshire and work in the prison service. When her marriage sadly broke up she returned to her deep roots in Edinburgh, where she lived for the rest of her life. She worked first for Lothian Region Social Services, and then after retraining at Napier and Strathclyde

Universities (joining students half her age) for two Fife Councils. In the last years before retirement she joined the team at the Scottish Office legislating for the reorganisation of local government. She commented: ‘I have never worked harder nor so against the grain’.

The first decade of her retirement was full of activity. She was proud of her role in saving the remarkable frescoes of Phoebe Traquair, she travelled quite adventurously, and as a natural teacher and an avid learner she gave memorable tours at the Museum of Scotland. Since childhood she had loved sailing in the Western Isles – she also had a boat on the Forth with her second husband, George – and she visited every Scottish island, finishing with St Kilda. She enjoyed the company and fun of her growing family – she was a very proud but never a boastful mother and grandmother. At Upper Dean Terrace she lived in an ancestral treasure chest, painted in deep strong colours and filled with fine china, pictures and books, especially her huge collection of children’s books.

Virginia was a born survivor, and a bonny fighter. She had to call on these qualities often, especially in her last years, as her short term memory declined. But she remained her hospitable self, welcoming her many friends with lively conversation. She died suddenly and peacefully at home on New Year morning, dressed and ready for the day and within a few days of her 80th birthday celebrations.

Frances Walsh (Innes, 1956)

Rosemary Ann Swinfen (Pettit, 1956) died on 4 August 2018. The editor hopes to include a full obituary in next year’s Report.

Anne Marie Treisman (Taylor, 1957) Anne was born on 27 February 1935, in Wakefield, Yorkshire. Her father worked in educational administration and her mother, who was French, taught French. Anne read Modern Languages at Newnham College, Cambridge, and when she graduated was offered a Research Fellowship in French literature. More attracted by science, she asked if she could use the Fellowship to do a second undergraduate degree, in psychology, instead. This request was granted. After she obtained this degree, Anne was offered a scholarship at Somerville and obtained her DPhil.

After a period as a Research Fellow, she was appointed a lecturer at the Department of Experimental Psychology at Oxford. In an autobiographical essay, she noted, ‘Perhaps the fact that I had no brothers, was educated with girls only until the age of 17, and then went to a women’s college at Cambridge made me less aware of any obstacles due to gender than I might otherwise have been. It was not a very

ANNE TREISMAN

salient dimension for me. I did not pay much attention to occasional sexist comments – just took them for granted as a regrettable part of social life. I assumed that I could do whatever I was capable of and wanted to do, and that assumption in my case proved to be true. But, of course, I was lucky. Other women had a more difficult time. I was never disadvantaged, although I was the only woman on the psychology faculty at Oxford for my first few years in the job.’

In 1978, Anne accepted a position at the University of British Columbia, in Canada. Eight years later, she moved to the University of California, Berkeley, then, in 1993, to Princeton University. Through ingenious experimental design, Anne explored and illuminated questions attending the role of attention in aural and visual perception and developed what became known as the feature integration theory of attention.

As the New York Times reported, her insights into how we process aural and visual information ‘provided some of the core theories for the field of cognitive psychology’, and provided the stimulus for much subsequent research in the area.

Her work was highly valued by colleagues in both cognitive psychology and neuroscience.

During her career, Anne received many awards. She was elected to the Royal Society in 1989, the National Academy of Sciences in the USA in 1994, and the American Academy of Arts & Sciences in 1995. She won the Golden Brain Award in 1996, and was the first psychologist to do so. The University of Oxford set up an annual lecture in her name, and she

55

gave the inaugural lecture in the series in 2012. Her major contributions to our understanding of attention and perception were recognised at a ceremony at the White House in February, 2013, when she was awarded the National Medal of Science by President Barack Obama.

In her own words: ‘I have seemed in some ways to lead a charmed life, perhaps because I chose goals that came easily to me. I began with essentially no real training in science or psychology, and yet I got pretty much all the grants I applied for (this was in the good old days before the present tightening of scientific funding)... I managed to have four children, who graciously allowed me to work without exhibiting too many signs of neglect. I had students who were fun to work with and full of ideas; and my career spanned a period of real development and little competition.’

Anne died on 9 February 2018 at her home in New York, at the age of 82. She is survived by her husband, Daniel Kahneman, her four children, Jessica, Daniel, Stephen, and Deborah, and four granddaughters.

Deborah Treisman

Judith Ann Lovelace, 1963 Judith Lovelace, who has died aged 72, grew up in Essex and attended Ipswich High School for Girls. In the freezing winter of 1962-3 she was admitted to read Classics at Somerville, and I got to know her when our small group of incoming classicists first encountered our formidable tutor.

The Mildred Hartley who had interviewed us had become, in the intervening months, Mildred Taylor. Her new status meant she no longer breathed quite so hard down our necks as (we gathered) those of her earlier pupils, but Mildred could still be extremely fierce in unseen classes. I always admired how Judith remained an oasis of cheerful good humour even in the face of occasional onslaughts from our tutor. After Classics Mods only three of us went on to study for Greats. Tragically, two of them, Judith and Jenny Bell, died within months of each other in 2017.

After Finals, Judith went into local government. Initially she worked for the Greater London Council, then for the London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham where she became Director of Personnel Services. A dispute concerning an issue of principle resulted in Judith having to leave the post, but this was to lead her in new directions. She became a career counsellor, initially for a firm but later freelance. In 1992-8 Judith held a part-time post as Staff Commissioner with the Local Government Staff Commission. In it, she wrote, ‘my degree in Greats proved genuinely useful’. She continued as a part-time career counsellor until recently.

Judith took on many voluntary roles in Twickenham, where she lived in latter years. She chaired the Strawberry Hill residents association, the Twickenham Society and the Friends of Strawberry Hill. Her involvement in Strawberry Hill led her to organise two successful visits there by Somervillians, one before and one after its restoration. Despite increasing ill

56

health, she was a stalwart attender at Somerville occasions, always pleased to be reunited with friends from her undergraduate years. In retirement she continued to offer career counselling advice to ‘friends and neighbours, their children and grandchildren’. My last conversation with her was when I phoned her to tell her of the death of our contemporary Jenny Bell. I had no idea that only months later I would learn the sad news of Judith’s death.

Lesley Brown (Wallace, 1963, Emeritus Fellow)

Frances Mary Gabriel (Fanny) Mallary (Neville-Rolfe, 1973) A year ago when I visited my sister Fanny in Vermont, six months before she died of cancer, we bought two blue fishslices for my kitchens in London and Wiltshire. So almost every day I am reminded of her beauty, her Holman-Hunt hair, her warmth, and of the amazing knowledge of art, history and letters that peppered her novels.

Frances Mary Gabriel Neville-Rolfe died on 26 October 2017 at her home in West Newbury, USA. She was raised in Wiltshire on the family farm situated between Wardour’s medieval ‘old’ and eighteenth-century ‘new’ castles. After school at St Mary’s Convent, Shaftesbury, she read History at Somerville, following in the footsteps there of my mother Margaret Evans and myself. Fanny is also survived by her other two sisters, Marianne and Cathy, her brother Richard and her daughter Rebecca.

Her friends from Fanny’s time at Somerville talk about her vibrancy and generosity, her artistic and historical interests, her essay ideas, her clothes and her cooking tips. Her culinary triumphs, including French pastries and soufflés, later featured in a fine sequence of a novel set in the Brighton Pavilion.

The first chapter in her long and varied career was in the auction business starting in 1976 at Christie’s in London and later at Sotheby’s in New York. Her speciality was books and manuscripts, helped by knowledge of a prodigious range of European languages. In 1984 she married a colleague at Sotheby’s, Peter Mallary, and they soon moved to his native Vermont where they had Rebecca and he entered State politics as a Democrat with enthusiastic support from Fanny.

Fanny worked for the Baker Library at Dartmouth College, the distinguished Ivy League university. Her legacy included the cataloguing of a large collection of historic sheet music. She then moved into what became a family publishing business as editor of a monthly local paper Behind the Times and a weekly advertiser, It’s Classified, which was successfully migrated online.

But the summit of her career starting at the age of fifty was as a historical novelist – publishing under the pseudonym Miranda Neville. In a decade she wrote ten novels and several novellas, with one more work to be published posthumously. With titles such as Confessions from an Arranged Marriage and The Wild

Marquis she mixed a strong yarn, wit and lively sex scenes (so not Georgette Heyer) with cameos of art, architecture and fashion in the Regency era. Much of the detail reflected her work on manuscripts, her Wiltshire and Oxford life and tours of English country houses and gardens and visits to the opera with Papa, our highly cultured father.

Particularly after her amicable divorce from Peter, her growing confidence as a novelist opened up new avenues.

She attended conferences with writers in the same genre from universities across the US. They travelled together and collaborated on fiction and they provided Fanny with the most marvellous support when she was struck down by and operated on for cancer. But it was too late and within two years they, Rebecca and many friends and relatives were remembering her vivacity at a fine memorial service in Newbury’s dignified, white New England Church.

It is a terrible shock to lose a sister, especially a younger sister. They say ‘Those whom the gods love die young’ and I was privileged to be able to mention Fanny in the recent debate on cancer in the House of Lords led by Tessa Jowell, the Olympics Minister, who also died too young of this unfair disease.

Lucy (Baroness) Neville-Rolfe (1970)

FRANCES MALLARY

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Academic Report Examination Results, 2017-2018 UNDERGRADUATE RESULTS Biochemistry Class I

Amy Kidd

Class II.I Isobel Johns Martin Vesely

Biological Sciences Class I

David Miron

Class II.I Thomas ap Rees Isobel Dodds Emma Eatough Bryony Perham Alessandro Pirzio-Biroli Frances Spragge Dominique Vassie

Chemistry Class I Callum Hall Callum Prentice Class II.I

Frances Green-Armytage

Class II.II

Nicola Bailey

Chemistry (BA) Pass Ayane Semba

Classical Archaeology and Ancient History Class I

Edward Aplin

Class II.I Nuala Marshall Mai-Britt Tomson

Classics Class I

Rebecca Todd

Class II.I Chloe Funnell Natalie Milner Class II.II Satoko Aizawa Connor Roth

Computer Science Class I

Radu-Bogdan Berteanu

Engineering (BA) Class I

Kelvin Lam

Engineering Science Class I Prannay Kaul

Lenard Ee-Jin Ong You Wu Class II.I

Augustus Neate

English Language and Literature Class I Frederick Morgan Robert Pepper Class II.I Katharine Asquith Jess Bollands Rosanna Greenwood Catrin Haberfield Finn McQueen Haniel Whitmore

Experimental Psychology Class I David Ellis Charlotte Thornton Class II.I Zsofia Palasik Kazia Tam

History Class I Rani Govender John Merrington Georgina Riley Class II.I Maya Brownlow Julia Denby-Jones William Jonas Callum Jones Ryan O'Reilly Olivia Will

History and Modern Languages Class I

Martha MacLaren

Class II.I

Katharine Ward

Law Class I

Wenyi Gaia Shen

Class II.I Kwan Po Leanne Chu Courtney Marsden

Amelia Rose Khue Nguyen Tycho Orton Katharina Walla

Mathematics Class I Cameron Fern Louise O'Rourke Alexandra Romagnoli Andrew Tweddle Class II.I

James Woodfield

Mathematics (BA) Class I

Sheheryar Zaidi

Class II.II

Yiru Chen

Medical Sciences Class I John Henry Eva Zilber Class II.I Sanah Ali

Jae Young Park Matthew Zimmerman

Modern Languages Class I

Christopher Broughton

Class II.I Emma Beddall Martha Bellamy Lara Chittick Connor Jackman Tzvetelina Tzonova

Music Class II.I Elizabeth Bosson James Powe Giordan Price

Philosophy, Politics and Economics Class I Eleanor Fielding Calypso Lord Class II.I Dov Boonin Isobel Hettrick Maria Hohaus Kyungjin Kim Juliette Perry Edward Stowell Jun-An Tan Class II.II

Samuel Campbell

Physics Class I James Pidgeon Cameron Saint Class II.I

James Dborin

All students are offered the choice, at the start of their course, of opting out of any public list that the University or College may produce. There are therefore the following results to announce, without reference to subject or name: Class I = 3, Class II.I = 9, Class II.II = 1 This list is accurate at the time of print and some exam results may be released after this date.

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POSTGRADUATE RESULTS Bachelor of Civil Law Distinction Sean Butler Aradhana Cherupara

Vadekkethil Pass Shreya Prakash

Bachelor of Medicine and Bachelor of Surgery Distinction Eleanor Grant Pass John Frazer

Bachelor of Philosophy Distinction Chiara Martini

Master of Business Administration Pass Oscar Gonzalez* Anupama Panikar* Qi Zhang*

Master of Philosophy General Linguistics and Comparative Philology Distinction Amanda Thomas

International Relations

Economics for Development Pass Gideon Laux

Environmental Change and Management Pass Tanvi Agrawal*

Global Governance and Diplomacy

Modern Languages Distinction Jonas Bozenhard Anna Branford Sofia Derer Pass Jana Luck

US History Distinction Allison McKibban

Distinction Krysianna Papadakis

Pass Anthony Taylor

Integrated Immunology

Postgraduate Diploma

Pass Hisashi Hashimoto* Hannah Sharpe*

Diplomatic Studies

Law and Finance Pass Omoleye Osinaike

Mathematical and Computational Finance Pass

Jo Joyce Tan

Mathematical Modelling and Scientific Computing Distinction Christopher D'Arcy* Pass Giancarlo Antonucci*

Pharmacology Pass Conor Kearns*

Distinction Christoph Steinert

Master of Science by Research

Master of Public Policy

MSc(Res) Oncology

Pass Miriam Arhin

Doctor of Philosophy Chemistry Tim Markovic Gerard Robertson Wanda Stuber Diming Xu

Clinical Medicine Lucas Malla

Computer Science Omer Gunes

Engineering Science Deyan Dimitrov Farrukh Siddiqui

Pass Freshta Karim* Edward Ndopu* Richa Roy * Jai Vipra*

Aaron Simpson

Richard Teck Ken Wong

MSc(Res) Psychiatry

History

Master of Science

Master of Studies

Applied Statistics

International Development

British and European History 1500-present

Andrea Ruediger

Distinction Jean-Francois Ton* Fan Wu* Pass Chang Zhang*

Oana Gurau

Jacques Schuhmacher

Pass Andrei Balalau Kaitlyn Ross

Law Zachary Vermeer Andrea Zappalaglio

Biodiversity, Conservation and Management

Creative Writing Distinction Julien Clin*

Life Sciences Interface (EPSRC CDT)

Pass Urvi Gupta*

Pass Nicholas Robello*

Ben Lambert

Clinical Embryology

English

Mathematics

Pass Anthea Mahesan Paul*

Computer Science Distinction Qixuan Feng* Pass Luke Geeson*

Pass

Ming yan Ma

History of Art and Visual Culture Distinction Aleksandra Rutkowska

Jochen Kursawe Pengyu Wei

Medieval and Modern Languages Antonella Anedda Angioy

Philippe Syz*

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Pharmacology Louise Lundberg

Physics Dillon Liu

Plant Sciences Clement Champion Friederike Grosse-Holz

Zoology Benjamin Cowburn Grace Young All students are offered the choice, at the start of their course, of opting out of any public list that the University or College may produce. There are therefore the following results to announce, without reference to subject or name: Distinction = 3 Pass = 7 This list is accurate at the time of print and some exam results may be released after this date. Graduates with an * after their names completed in 2016/17, but their results were released after going to print, and are therefore included here.

Awards to Undergraduate, Graduate and Postgraduate Students 2016-17 All students are asked to give their consent to their awards being listed in this publication. A number of scholarships and exhibitions have been awarded for which this consent has not been obtained, these have been listed without reference to subject or name.

Barraclough Exhibition 1 Barraclough Exhibition

Barraclough Scholarship 1 Barraclough Scholarship

Science), Ivo Maffei (Mathematics and Computer Science), Harold Collett (Philosophy, Politics and Economics), Kean Murphy (Philosophy, Politics and Economics), Irene Sibille (Philosophy, Politics and Economics), 7 Endowment Fund Scholarships

Ginsburg Exhibition Angela Matheickal (Biological Sciences), 1 Ginsburg Exhibition

Haynes Scholarship Oliver Smith (Ancient and Modern History), Hannah Ayikoru Asiki (Chemistry), Lachlan Black (Chemistry), Jessica Crompton (Chemistry), Callum Hall (Chemistry), Benjamin Michiels (Chemistry), Siu Ying Wong (Chemistry), 2 Haynes Scholarship

Beilby Scholarship Alyssa Crabb (Biochemistry)

Murray Exhibition

Bentivoglio Scholarship

Kelvin Lam (Engineering Science), Maddie Culhane (History), Louise O'Rourke (Mathematics), Joseph Rattue (Modern Languages)

Andrew Wood (Biological Sciences), 1 Bentivoglio Scholarship

Roaf Scholarship Brazell Exhibition James Pidgeon (Physics), Cameron Saint (Physics), 1 Brazell Exhibition

Ashley Barnard (Modern Languages)

Scourse Scholarship

Brazell Scholarship

Yifan Chen (Medicine - Graduate Entry), 1 Scourse Scholarship

Jacob Amacker (Physics), Francesco D'Antonio (Physics), Horia Magureanu (Physics), Daniel Tucker (Physics), 1 Brazell Scholarship

Shaw Lefevre Exhibition Rachel Solomon (History), 1 Shaw Lefevre Exhibition

Bull and Bull Scholarship Grace Lee (English Language and Literature), 1 Bull and Bull Scholarship

Darbishire Scholarship Francesca Millar (Music)

Endowment Fund Scholarship Prannay Kaul (Engineering Science), Jun Liu (Engineering Science), Lenard Ee-Jin Ong (Engineering Science), Siyu Ren (Engineering Science), You Wu (Engineering Science), Adam Hillier (Mathematics and Computer Science), Robert Kirk (Mathematics and Computer

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Shaw Lefevre Scholarship Maya Brownlow (History), Rani Govender (History), Pak Hei Hao (History), John Merrington (History), Benjamin Etty (History and Economics), Cameron Fern (Mathematics), Robert Harvey Wood (Mathematics), Robin Leach (Mathematics), James Martindale (Mathematics), Alexandra Romagnoli (Mathematics), Jonathan Tam (Mathematics), Andrew Tweddle (Mathematics), 2 Shaw Lefevre Scholarships

Exam Prizes to Undergraduates and Graduates Accurate at the time of print. * indicates Awarded in 2016-17 after going to print, and therefore included here.

Archibald Prizes (for Graduates who achieve a Distinction in examinations) Sean Butler (Civil Law), Qixuan Feng (Computer Science)*, Julien Clin (Creative Writing)*, Sigfried Eisenmeier (Development Studies), Amanda Thomas (General Linguistics and Comparative Philology), Aleksandra Rutkowska (History of Art and Visual Culture), Christoph Steinert (International Relations), Konstantina Poulou (Law), Yifan Chen (Medicine - Graduate Entry), Eleanor Grant (Medicine - Graduate Entry), Jonas Bozenhard (Modern Languages), Anna Branford (Modern Languages), Sofia Derer (Modern Languages), Chiara Martini (Philosophy), Allison McKibban (US History), 2 Archibald Jackson Prizes

College Prizes (for Undergraduates who achieve a First, Distinction or average of at least 70% in all examinations other than the Final Honour School) Tsz Yau Jessamyn Chiu (Biological Sciences), Benjamin Fisk (Biological Sciences), Anna Gee (Biological Sciences), Daniel Simonsen (Biological Sciences), Hannah Asiki (Chemistry), Lachlan Black (Chemistry), Jessica Crompton (Chemistry), Daniel Cubbin (Chemistry), Lily Latimer Smith (Chemistry), Dorian Gabriel Muntean (Chemistry), Ryuki Nishikawa (Chemistry), Tommy Pitcher (Chemistry), Michal Pychtin (Chemistry), Alice Wong (Chemistry), Andrei Diaconu (Computer Science), Sophie Kuang (Engineering Science), Jun Liu (Engineering Science), Ming Ow (Engineering Science), Hannah Patient (English Language and Literature), Ilona Clayton (History and Modern Languages), Haowei Elvis Zhang (Law), Amrek Bassi (Mathematics), Robert Harvey Wood (Mathematics), Robin Leach (Mathematics), James Martindale (Mathematics), Jonathan

Tam (Mathematics), Adam Hillier (Mathematics and Computer Science), Ivo Maffei (Mathematics and Computer Science), Ramona-marinela Deaconu (Mathematics and Statistics), Joseph Salf (Medical Sciences), Eve Webster (Modern Languages), Laura Packham (Modern Languages and Linguistics), Agatha Lim (Philosophy, Politics and Economics), Junseo Yoon (Philosophy, Politics and Economics), Jacob Amacker (Physics), Francesco D'Antonio (Physics), Horia Magureanu (Physics), Vuk Radovic (Physics), Daniel Tucker (Physics), 19 College Prizes

Mary Somerville Prizes (for Undergraduates who achieve a First or Distinction in the Final Honour School examinations) Angela Matheickal (Biological Sciences), Callum Hall (Chemistry), Edward Aplin (Classical Archaeology and Ancient History), Radu-Bogdan Berteanu (Computer Science), Kelvin Lam (Engineering (BA)), Prannay Kaul (Engineering Science), Lenard Ee-Jin Ong (Engineering Science), You Wu (Engineering Science), Robert Pepper (English Language and Literature), Rani Govender (History), John Merrington (History), Martha MacLaren (History and Modern Languages), Alicia KauppRoberts (Law (with Law in Europe)), Cameron Fern (Mathematics), Louise O'Rourke (Mathematics), Alexandra Romagnoli (Mathematics), Andrew Tweddle (Mathematics), Robert Kirk (Mathematics and Computer Science), John Henry (Medical Sciences), Eva Zilber (Medical Sciences), Christopher Broughton (Modern Languages), Eleanor Fielding (Philosophy, Politics and Economics), Calypso Lord (Philosophy, Politics and Economics), James Pidgeon (Physics), Cameron Saint (Physics), 10 Mary Somerville Prizes

Principal's Prizes (for Undergraduates or Graduates who scored in the top 10% or better of their subject University wide, and/or gain top marks for a dissertation or in a particular set of papers)

John Merrington (History), Aleksandra Rutkowska (History of Art and Visual Culture), Yifan Chen (Medicine Graduate Entry), Jonas Bozenhard (Modern Languages), Calypso Lord (Philosophy, Politics and Economics), Horia Magureanu (Physics), 3 Principal's Prizes

Postgraduate Awards Alice Horsman Scholarship Anna Bett (History), Nathalie Botcherby (English Language and Literature), Emily Albery (Experimental Psychology), Urvi Gupta (Biodiversity, Conservation and Management), Annie McDermott (English Language and Literature), Frances Varley (History), 1 Alice Horsman Scholarship

Somerville College Alumni Scholarships Edward Aplin (Classical Archaeology), Aaron Henry (Medicine - Clinical), John Merrington (History), Eva Zilber (Medicine - Clinical), 3 Somerville College Alumni Scholarships

Music Awards Chloe and Helen Morton Choral Scholarships 2 Chloe and Helen Morton Choral Scholarships

Margaret Irene Seymour Music Award Joshua Grubb (Biochemistry), Catrin Haberfield (English), Eloise KennyRyder (Music), Francesca Millar (Music), Xiaoyi Ouyang (Classics), 1 Margaret Irene Seymour Music Award

Qixuan Feng (Computer Science)*, Prannay Kaul (Engineering Science), Lenard Ee-Jin Ong (Engineering Science),

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Travel Awards Alcuin Award Leonardo Ackerman (History), Katie Inch (History), Toby Sanderson (History), 1 Alcuin Award

Alice Horsman Travel Grant Thomas ap Rees (Biological Sciences), Rani Govender (History), Chiara Martini (Philosophy), Angela Matheickal (Biological Sciences), Robert Pepper (English Language and Literature), Connor Roth (Classics), Christoph Steinert (International Relations), Finn Strivens (Biochemistry), Eva Zilber (Medical Sciences), 5 Alice Horsman Travel Grants

Anne Clements Travel Grant Andrei Balalau (British and European History), Maria Font Farre (Interdisciplinary Bioscience (BBSRC DTP)), Tobias Lutzi (Law), 6 Anne Clements Travel Grants

Carmen Blacker Travel Award Aidan Quinlan (Classics)

Maria and Tina Bentivoglio Travel Grant William Andrews (History and Modern Languages), Oana Gurau (Clinical Neurosciences), Thuvarakan Mathetharan (Mathematics), Claire Nakabugo (Water Science, Policy and Management), Aleksandra Rutkowska (History of Art and Visual Culture), 1 Maria and Tina Bentivoglio Travel Grant

Olive Sayce Travel Grant Laura Fearn (Modern Languages), Eve Webster (Modern Languages), 2 Olive Sayce Travel Grants

Rhabanus Maurus Award Emma Beddall (Modern Languages), Lara Chittick (Modern Languages), Niamh Walshe (English and Modern Languages), 1 Rhabanus Maurus Award

Rita Bradshaw Travel Grant Eleanor Grant (Medicine - Graduate Entry), Amy Gregg (Development Studies, Daria Svistunova (Physiology, Anatomy and Genetics), Martin Vesely (Biochemistry), Polly Waters (Modern South Asian Studies), 2 Rita Bradshaw Travel Grants

Daphne Robinson Award Alex Crichton-Miller (History and Modern Languages), Eva Zilber (Medicine - Preclinical), Chloe Whitmore (Classics), 1 Daphne Robinson Award

Hansell Travel Grant Chloe Bracegirdle (Experimental Psychology), Ting Chen (Inorganic Chemistry), Azul Cimerman Sariego (Business Administration), Saman Malik (Modern South Asian Studies), Alexander Maton (Law), Eloise Stark (Psychiatry), Xuejian Zhang (Inorganic Chemistry), 4 Hansell Travel Grants

Janet Treloar Anna Akhmatova Travel Grant 1 Janet Treloar Anna Akhmatova Travel Grant

Joan and Don Dixson Travel Grant Joshua Grubb (Biochemistry), 1 Joan and Don Dixson Travel Grant

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Other Somerville Awards Cerrie Hughes Prize Grace Lee (English Language and Literature)

Medical Fund Scholarship Grace Barnes (Medicine - Clinical), Ain Neuhaus (Medicine - Clinical), Miranda Rogers (Medicine - Clinical), 2 Medical Fund Scholarships

Sarah Smithson Prize Martha MacLaren (History and Modern Languages)

Somerville Lawyers’ Group Prizes 2 Somerville Lawyers' Group Prizes

University and External awards 1 Bruker UK Prize in Chemistry, 1 Turbutt Prize in Practical Organic Chemistry, 1 Microsoft Prize for Best Computer Science Project, 1 Eugene Havas Memorial Prize, 1 Winter Williams Prize in European Business Regulation, 1 Law Faculty Prize in Constitutional Theory, 1 Junior Mathematical Prize, 1 Gibbs Prize for First BM Part I, 1 Clinical School Year 4 General Practice Essay Prize, 1 Physics Prelims Prize, 2 Physics Prize for Practical Work in Part B, 1 Gibbs Prize for Best Overall Performance in English Language and Literature Course II, 1 Proxime Accessit Gibbs Prize for Politics First Public Examination, 1 Gibbs Book Prize for History.

History

Mathematics and Statistics

Leonardo Ackerman, University College School, London

Ramona-Marinela Deaconu, Ion Minulescu National College, Romania

Hazel Ferguson, International School of Geneva, Switzerland

Medical Sciences

Katie Inch, Forest School, Snaresbrook

Jessica Mendall, JFS

Ancient and Modern History

Emily Louise, Chiswick School

Gerda Mickute, Vilnius Lyceum

Harry Bollands, Edgbarrow School

Toby Sanderson, St Georges College, Addlestone

Joseph Salf, The Cotswold School Academy Trust

Undergraduate Students Entering College in 2017-18

Arthur Eastwood, Brighton Hove and Sussex Sixth Form College

Biological Sciences Tsz Yau Jessamyn Chiu, German Swiss International School, Hong Kong Olivia Drake, The Perse School Anna Gee, Plymouth High School for Girls Celia Hanna, Fortismere School, London Cecilia Jay, Sevenoaks School

Chemistry Daniel Cubbin, King Edward VI College, Stourbridge Dorian Gabriel Muntean, Colegiul National Spiru Haret Tecuci, Romania Ryuki Nishikawa, Rugby School Michal Pychtin, XIII Liceum Ogolnoksztalcace, Poland

Computer Science Andrei Diaconu, Fratii Buzesti National College, Romania Alastair Flynn, Minster School, Southwell

Engineering Science

History and Economics

Charles Sneddon, Tonbridge School

Rohan Radia, Queen Elizabeth's School, Barnet

Modern Languages

History and Modern Languages

Ellen King, The Knights Templar School

Ilona Clayton, St Catherine's School, Bramley

Jurisprudence Jemima Mary Kearney, Altrincham Girls Grammar School Angela Trajkovska, Lycee International Des Pontonniers Leanne Yau, Westminster School Haowei Elvis Zhang, Hwa Chong Institution, Singapore

Jurisprudence (with Law in Europe) Emmanuel Amissah-Eshun, Wilson's School

Literae Humaniores Lucy Bannatyne, North London Collegiate School

Sophie Kuang, St Clares, Oxford

Liberty Conlon, Tanglin Trust School, Singapore

Ming Ow, Methodist College, Kuala Lumpur

Xiaoyi Ouyang, Rye St Anthony School

Laura Fearn, Dr Challoner's High School for Girls Eve Webster, St Mary's School, Calne

Modern Languages and Linguistics Laura Packham, Nailsea School

Molecular and Cellular Biochemistry Robert Asatryan, St Edward's School, Oxford Lucas Stolle, International College, Spain Helena Watson, King Edward VI Camp Hill School for Girls Rija Zaidi, Berg Videregaende Skole, Norway

MPhysPhil Physics and Philosophy Shaohe Miao, Harrogate Ladies' College Marek Sklenka, Stamford School

NUS Exchange - Engineering Boon Ki Sia, National University of Singapore

Eleanor Thompson, St Pauls Girls School

Matthew Pugh, Kingston Grammar School

Philosophy, Politics and Economics

English Language and Literature

Ewurabena Ward-Brew, Nonsuch High School for Girls

Hugo Lees, Eton College

Jessamy Gather, City of London School for Girls

Mathematics

Bethan James, St Davids Catholic College

Amrek Bassi, The Beauchamp College

Maebh Mulligan Smith, Charterhouse

Jessica Brown, Ysgol Dinas Bran, Llangollen

Hannah Patient, Colchester Royal Grammar School Rosalind Perrett, Strode College, Street

Rachel Donnachie, Loreto Grammar School, Altrincham

Experimental Psychology

Woo Seok Jung, Korean Minjok Leadership Academy, South Korea

Elena Eliseeva, Beau Soleil College, Switzerland

Benjamin Kotlov, Ridgefield High School, USA

Anna Kano, Westminster Kingsway College, London

Joel Summerfield, Boston Spa School

Yinni Hu, The King's School, Ely Agatha Lim, Raffles Junior College, Singapore Daniel Park, The Judd School Alexander Watson, Eton College Junseo Yoon, Hankuk Academy of Foreign Studies, South Korea

Physics Joseph Lord, Royal Grammar School, Newcastle-upon-Tyne Vuk Radovic, Mathematical Grammar School, Serbia

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Graduate Students Entering College in 2017-18 Bachelor of Civil Law Sean Butler, University of St Andrews Shreya Prakash, National Law School of India University Bangalore Kritika Sethia, West Bengal National University of Juridical Sciences, India

Bachelor of Medicine and Bachelor of Surgery

Doctor of Philosophy in Physiology, Anatomy and Genetics

Master of Science in Integrated Immunology

Linus Milinski, Georg-August Universitat Gottingen

Meera Madhavan, Royal College of Physicians, London

Doctor of Philosophy in Zoology

Master of Science in Law and Finance

Julius Grayson Bright Ross, Harvard University

Interdisciplinary Bioscience (BBSRC DTP)

Master of Science in Mathematical Modelling and Scientific Computing

Raphael Reinbold, Albert Ludwigs Universitat Freiburg, Germany

Yifang Xu, University of Liverpool

Magister Juris

Miranda Rogers, University of Oxford

Konstantina Antigoni Poulou, University of Oxford

Doctor of Philosophy in Clinical Neurosciences

Master of Business Administration

Doctor of Philosophy in Geography and the Environment

Emilia Paulina Piwek, University of Bristol

Master of Science in Pharmacology Kyoung Eun Lee, University of Brighton

Ning Yang

Master of Science in Pharmacology Master of Philosophy in Development Studies Amy Elizabeth Jean Gregg, University of Cambridge

Caroline Mia Weglinski, University of Oxford

Master of Science in Political Theory Research

Safa Fanaian, Osmania University, Hyderabad, India

Master of Philosophy in General Linguistics and Comparative Philology

Daniel Kotecky, King's College London

Doctor of Philosophy in History

Philip Wesley Burbidge, Palomar College, USA

Emma Louise Gale, University of Birmingham

Master of Philosophy in Law

Mohammed Harriss Vellam Vettintavida, Royal College of Physicians, London

Mary Pelletier O'Connor, King's College London

Doctor of Philosophy in Inorganic Chemistry Gregory Scott Sulley, University of Warwick

Doctor of Philosophy in Medical Sciences Liam Arnold Joseph Young, University of Oxford

Doctor of Philosophy in Organic Chemistry Zexin Zhang, Beijing University of Chemical Technology

Doctor of Philosophy in Physical and Theoretical Chemistry Andriana Tsikritea, National and Capodistrian (Kapodistrian) University of Athens

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Alice Polly Waters, University of Leeds

Maria Azul Cimerman Sariego

Master of Business Administration

Kharthik Chakravarthy, Imperial College of Science, Technology & Medicine

Master of Science in Modern South Asian Studies

Master of Science in Neuroscience

Oana Gurau, Jacobs University Bremen

Doctor of Philosophy in Engineering Science

Omoleye Folasade Osinaike

Navya Jannu, University of Oxford

Master of Philosophy in Modern South Asian Studies Saman Tariq Malik, Lahore University of Management Sciences

Master of Science in Biodiversity, Conservation and Management Gabriella Marie D'Cruz, National Law School of India University Bangalore

Master of Science in Sleep Medicine

Master of Science in Water Science, Policy and Management Claire Nakabugo, Makerere University, Uganda

Master of Studies in British and European History 1500-present Andrei Gheorghe Balalau, London School of Economics and Political Science Kaitlyn Nicole Ross, University of Oxford

Master of Science in Computer Science

Master of Studies in English (1900 - present)

Gergely Csegzi, University of Southampton

Ming Yan Ma, Chinese University of Hong Kong

Master of Science in Economics for Development Gideon Laux, Universita Commerciale Luigi Bocconi, Italy

Imogen Ella Thomas, University of Bristol

Master of Studies in Greek and/or Roman History Rahul Raza, University of Oxford

Master of Studies in History of Art and Visual Culture

Master of Studies in Modern Languages (German)

Aleksandra Maria Rutkowska, University College London

Jonas Christopher Bozenhard, University of Oxford

Master of Studies in Medieval History Megan Rose Burnside, University of Oxford

Master of Studies in Modern Languages (French and German)

Sofia Renate Derer, Ruprecht-Karls Universitat Heidelberg Jana Katharina Luck, HumboldtUniversitat zu Berlin

Postgraduate Certificate in Diplomatic Studies Miriam Aba Arhin, University of Ghana

Renewable Energy Marine Structures (EPSRC CDT) Emily Frances Anderson, University of Bristol

Master of Studies in US History Allison Marie Cooper Mckibban, Butler County Community College

Anna Frances Branford, University of Oxford

Somerville Association Officers and Committee

Somerville Development Board Members

as at 10 March 2018

as at 10 March 2018

President

Chair

Baroness Alison Wolf (Potter, 1967)

Clara Freeman (Jones, 1971)

Joint Secretaries

Deputy Chair

Elizabeth Cooke (Greenwood, 1964)

Hilary Newiss (1974)

Lisa Gygax (1987)

Basma Alireza (1991)

Committee Members

Tom Bolt

Tim Aldrich (1994)

Ayla Busch (1989)

Joanne Magan (1984)

Lynn Haight (Schofield, 1966)

Pia Pasternack (1982)

Niels Kroninger (1996)

Natasha Robinson (1972)

Nicola Ralston (Thomas, 1974)

Virginia Ross (MCR, 1966)

Jan Royall, Principal Somerville College

Lorna Sutton (2010)

Sybella Stanley (1979)

Karen Twining Fooks (Twining, 1978)

Sian Thomas Marshall (1989)

Frances Walsh (Innes, 1956) Fellows Appointed by the College

Honorary Development Board Members

Benjamin Thompson (Fellow and Tutor in Medieval History)

Doreen Boyce (Vaughan, 1953)

Fiona Stafford (Fellow and Tutor in English)

Paddy Crossley (Earnshaw, 1956)

Luke Pitcher (Fellow and Tutor in Classics)

Sam Gyimah (1995) Margaret Kenyon (Parry, 1959)

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

Nadine Majaro (1975) Harriet Maunsell (1962) Roger Pilgrim For full details see the college website at www.some.ox.ac.uk/alumni/the-development-board

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Legacies Legacies are a vital source of support for the College's activities. Here we record our thanks to all of those who have left legacies to support Somerville and we honour three of the Somervillians whose recent legacies have made a significant difference to us.

Margaret Stewart (nee Adams) - 1949, Modern History

Anne Elizabeth Stoddart - 1956, Modern Languages, French and German

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Betty Williams (nee Rollason) - 1947, Modern Languages, French

Dates for the Diary The updated schedule of college events appears on the college website at www.some.ox.ac.uk/alumni/events All events are in college unless otherwise indicated.

20 October

Literary Lunch: Jane Robinson Hearts and Minds: The Untold Story of the Great Pilgrimage and How Women Won the Vote

24 October

The Inaugural Mary Somerville Lecture

by Dame Stephanie Shirley, CH Excluding the excluded

29 October

London Group at the Oxford & Cambridge Club: Dr Frank Prochaska: The Feminisation of the Monarchy

6 November

Fooks Lecture: Professor Emily Holmes Mental Imagery and Mental Health: The Example of Intrusive Memories after a Traumatic Event

11 November

Somerville and the End of the War – a centenary commemoration day with Shirley Williams and Anne Logan

23 November

BBC Any Questions hosted at Somerville

24 November

Memorial for Miriam Griffin

24 November

JCR and alumni Law Dinner

29 November

Alumni Carol Service

5 December (tbc) London Group pre-Christmas drinks at the CAA Gallery

Somerville College Oxford OX2 6HD Telephone 01865 270600 www.some.ox.ac.uk Exempt charity number 1139440

2019 23rd January

Public Policy Group at the Oxford & Cambridge Club: Dame Fiona Caldicott The NHS: Where are we now?

2 February

Supporters’ Luncheon

2 March

Medics Day

9 March

Winter Meeting

18 May

Will Power society luncheon

8 June

Commemoration Service

29-30 June

Gaudy for matric years 1970-1978