The Somerville Magazine 2023

Towards a fairer world

Principal’s Message

Martin Luther King often said, ‘The arc of the moral universe is long, but bends towards justice.’ While this is reassuring, it is perhaps even more comforting to see how today’s Somervillians are not content to let this process happen by itself.

Instead, confronted by a world in which new opportunities vie with unprecedented crises, Somervillians seem determined to steer that arc towards justice through intellect, shared values and indefatigable spirit.

It is for this reason that we have chosen as the theme for this year’s magazine the concept of working towards a fairer world. This idea has been at the heart of Somerville’s purpose since its earliest days, and has remained a vital connective thread linking the endeavours of Somervillians ever since. In the following pages, you will see how it still unites the many different forms of work being done across our community today.

It is the link between the potentially life-saving research of Professor Elena Seiradake and the hard political choices of NATO adviser Catherine Royle. It also connects student Holly Cobb’s year of advocacy for Young Carers with medic Chloe Freeman’s health initiative for Oxfordshire refugees.

Perhaps most poignantly, the urge to create a fairer world is visible in our community’s efforts to expand justice of all kinds. The pursuit of social justice, for example, is evident in the work of community builders like our new Chapel Scholar Arzhia Habibi and museum director Rachel Backshall. The call

for academic justice is audible in Professor Patricia Kingori’s determination to share the stories of Kenya’s ‘untitled scholars’, just as it is in the seventy-year quest for recognition of the extraordinary centenarian codebreaker Patricia Owtram seventy years ago.

Social justice and climate justice, meanwhile, intersect powerfully in the advocacy of Niharika Singh. As the OICSD’s inaugural Savitribai Phule Scholar, she is seeking to highlight the intersectional vulnerabilities of India’s historically marginalised communities.

Alongside such pressing stories, you will also find moments of levity – because goodness knows we all need to recharge our emotional batteries from time to time. To that end, I particularly hope you enjoy our ‘My Room, Your Room’ interview with Susie Dent, as well as the rich variety of news about goings-on both here at Somerville and further afield.

It remains only to express my deep thanks, as always, to everyone who made this such an unforgettable and successful year, despite all the challenges we continue to face.

I do so hope you enjoy your copy of this year’s Magazine.

News and People

(1966, English), was appointed Acting Chair of the BBC Board.

Historians Professor Bolanle Awe (1958 DPhil History) and Professor Clair Wills (1982, English Language and Literature), Physicist Professor Julia Yeomans (1973, Physics), Climate lawyer and activist Farhana Yamin (1983, PPE), and Bank of England CFO Afua Kyei (2000, MChem) were elected as Honorary Fellows of the College.

NEWS

The Somerville College Choir released The Dawn of Grace, its first album in 10 years. The record features 20 works for the festive season composed by women, including 11 world premieres.

Somerville hosted Radio 4 quiz show The 3rd Degree, in which Fellows Dr Steve Rayner, Professor Louise Mycock and Professor Luke Pitcher secured a historic win against students Ying Di Ying (2020, Physics), Charlotte Perry (2020, Classical Archaeology and Ancient History), and Lizzy Abel (2021, Modern Languages).

The OICSD celebrated their 10th anniversary by launching the pioneering new Savitribai Phule Graduate scholarship for Indian students from Dalit, Adivasi and other marginalised backgrounds (see page 30).

Somerville signed the Oxfordshire Inclusive Economy Charter, solidifying our commitment to create an inclusive workplace and positive impact within Oxfordshire.

FELLOWS AND STAFF

Our Senior Research Fellow Professor Patricia Kingori was awarded a £6.5m Wellcome Grant for a new research project examining global health narratives around the end of crises.

Our Honorary Fellow and Alumna, Professor Dame Elan Closs Stephens

Professor Patricia Owens won a second Susan Strange Prize for Best Book in International Studies for her co-edited anthology Women’s International Thought: Towards a New Canon, which explores how women transformed the field of international relations in the 20th century.

A team of theoretical physicists including our Professorial Fellow in Physics, Professor Steven Simon, received a Frontiers of Science Award at the First International Congress of Basic Science in Beijing, China.

Professor Stephen Roberts was part of a winning bid to the Eric and Wendy Schmidt AI in Science Postdoctoral Fellowship Program that will fund 60 researchers applying AI techniques across natural sciences, engineering and mathematical sciences.

Professor Noa Zilberman secured funding for several sustainable computing projects, including a joint-funded UKRINSF on Carbon-Aware Networks and a €9.2m EU Horizon project, ‘SMARTEDGE’, providing secure, reliable and scalable edge intelligence for manufacturing, automotive, and healthcare applications.

Professor Konstantina Vogiatzaki

was awarded EPSRC funding for a project investigating how liquid air energy storage at small to medium scale might allow small communities to store energy sustainably and affordably, without batteries.

Our JRF Dr Yvonne Lu secured funding from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation Global Challenge to undertake a project using ChatGPT to benefit rural healthcare worker capacity in rural India.

ALUMNI

Three alumni were recognised in the New Year Honours: Dr Philippa Tudor CBE (1978, DPhil Modern History); Dr Ann Olivarius OBE KC honoris causa (1978, DPhil Social Studies); and Dr Joel Meyer MBE (2000, Medicine).

Professor Dame Angela McLean (1979, Maths) became the first woman in UK history to hold the post of Chief Scientific Advisor.

Emeritus Professor Caroline Series CBE (1969, DPhil Maths), Carolyn Regan CBE (1975, Modern Languages), Dr Natalie Shenker MBE (1997, Physiological Sciences), Professor Robyn Owens AM (1975, Mathematics) and Professor Deborah Bateson AM (1977, Physiology) were recognised in the King’s first ever Birthday Honours.

STUDENTS

Oxford-Indira Gandhi Scholar Medha Mukherjee (2022, DPhil Geography and the Environment) was awarded the Royal Geographical Society’s Frederick Soddy Postgraduate Award, making her the first Indian woman to win the award.

Martha Hughes (2019, Medicine) won the Society for Academic Primary Care’s Medical Student Prize for 2023.

Somervillian and young carer Holly Cobb (2021, French and Linguistics) won the Oxford SU Increasing Access Award (see feature, p32).

Maitha Al Shimmari (2020, DPhil Engineering) was selected as a 2023 Atlantic Council Women Leaders in Energy and Climate Fellow.

Our student contestants in BBC R4’s The 3rd Degree

Professor Patricia Owens

Somerville’s Commemoration 2023

Somerville’s Commemoration Service this year was held on Saturday 10th June in the College Chapel.

This important event in our calendar underlines the enduring relationship between Somerville and its members, as we commemorate our founders, governors and major benefactors, and especially alumni who have died during the past year. The address was given this year by our Tutor and Fellow in History, Professor Benjamin Thompson.

All Somervillians are welcome to attend this annual Service and we particularly invite close families and Somervillian friends of those who have died to join us. Next year’s Commemoration will take place on Saturday 8th June in the College Chapel.

If you know of any Somervillians who have died recently but who are not listed here, please contact commemoration@some.ox.ac.uk.

Fellows

April Carter (Tutor and Fellow in Politics, 1976-84) on 16 August 2022 Aged 84

Katherine Duncan-Jones (Mary Ewart Research Fellow, 1963-5, Tutor and Fellow in English, 1966-2001, Senior Research Fellow, 2001-2012, Emeritus Fellow, 2012-2022) on 16 October 2022 Aged 81

Adrianne Jill Tooke (Tutor and Fellow in French, 1981-2008, Emeritus Fellow, 2008-2023) on 2 March 2023 Aged 76

Joyce Maire Reynolds (1937, Honorary Fellow, 1990) on 11 September 2022

Aged 103

Margaret Ruth Elliot (1945, Foundation Fellow, 2004) on 6 November 2022

Aged 95

Ruth Binns née Marsden (1944) Mod Langs

Joanna Camilla Bosanquet (1968) on 16 July 2022 Aged 72 (DPhil)

Margaret Bowker née Roper (1955) on 8 November 2022 Aged 86 History

Alicia Phyllis Cansick née Carew-Robinson (1965) on 28 May 2022 Aged 73 Mathematics

Kathryn (‘Kate’) Patricia Moir Cave née Wilson (1966) on 3 December 2021

Aged 73 PPE

Inge Cramer (1971) on 7 May 2022 Aged 69 PPE

Janetta Kathrine (Jan) Davies née Hawthorn (1964) on 23 August 2022 Aged 76 Mod Langs

Helen Cripps Donson (1951) on 11 July 2022 Aged 89 Mod Langs

Catherine Elizabeth Durie née Green (1971) on 9 October 2022

Rachel Janetta Foakes née Bladon (1987) on 28 November 2022 Aged 53 History

Nancy Katharine Forstescue (1953) on 24 October 2022 Aged 87 Mod Langs

Rosslyn Yeo Green née Hawkins (1953) on 28 September 2022 Aged 97 History

Ann Hall (1954) on 10 April 2022 Aged 86 Geography

Margaret Alice Heath née Bragg (1950) on 26 December 2022 Aged 91 History

Joan Mary Johnson née Munden (1953) on 3 January 2023 Aged 87 PPE

Katherine Joan Lack née Taylor (1977) in 2021 Aged 62 Agriculture & Forest Science

Claire Lamont (1966) on 9 April 2023

Aged 81 DPhil English

Elizabeth Annie Uttley Lonsbrough née

Nelson (1942) on 15 May 2022 Aged 98 History

Jill Caroline Longmate (1978) on 29 March 2023 Aged 63 History

Mary Isobel Low (1945) on 17 January 2022 Aged 97 History

Patricia Adrienne Lucas (1949) on 30 December 2022 Aged 91 Lit Hum

Penelope Jane Mackie (1971) on 5 December 2022 Aged 69 PPE

Mary Therese (Sister Elizabeth) Mackie (1961) in February 2023 Aged 88 Lit Hum

Stephanie Mary Jennifer Martin née King (1971) on 18 March 2023 Aged 69

Mathematics

Olive Edith Merrick née Lovegrove (1951) on 13 November 2022 Aged 90 History

Penelope (Penny) Minney née Hughes on 22 February 2023 Aged 88 Lit Hum

Isobel Margaret Stewart Morrison née Taylor on 16 August 2022 Aged 87 PPE

Anne Wanjiru Ndungu aged 36 DPhil Clinical Medicine

Dorothy Margaret Newton née Casley (1951) on 6 January 2023 Aged 90 Mod Langs

Lesley Margaret Osborn née Clough (1969) on 10 May 2022 Aged 73 Dip.Social Admin.

Barbara Phyllis Potts née Kidman (1949) on 14 March 2022 Aged 94 Physiology

Susan Mary Rands née Connely (1948) on 25 March 2022 Aged 91 English

Ellen Elizabeth Rice on 5 April 2023 Aged 71 History

Auriol Holt Roberts (1967) on 30 November 2022 Aged 74 Lit Hum

Mary Jean Aird Seglow née Moncrieff (1955) on 13 November 2022 Aged 85 PPE

Juliet Mary Stockwell née Butler (1958) on 14 October 2021 Aged 82 Maths

Prudence Mary Stokes née Watling (1948) in February 2022 Aged 92 History

Rosemary Ann Swatman née Cox (1967) in September 2022 Aged 74 History

Nadia Tollemache née Benziger (1954) in July 2022 Aged 87 Jurisprudence

Sylvia Trench née Maizels (1954) on 28 October 2022 Aged 86 PPE

Amelia Katherine Trueta née Strubell (1943) History and Mod Langs Pass School

Daphne Flora Wall (1950) on 14 September 2022 Aged 90 Mod Langs

Patricia Anne Watkins née Bennett (1971) on 30 March 2022 Aged 71 Jurisprudence

Miriam Leah Webber née Kay (1943) on 13 September 2022 Aged 97 PPE

Cerys Ann Webber née James (1981) on 18 May 2022 Aged 59 Physics

Susan Meriel Wood née Chenevix-Trench (1942) on 30 December 2022 Aged 97 History

An Inside View of NATO’s Response to the War in Ukraine

Catherine Royle (1982, PPE) forged a successful career as a diplomat before switching track to become a senior NATO advisor in 2015. At this year’s Spring Meeting, she gave an inside view of NATO’s response to Russia’s war on Ukraine, explaining how it is not only the deadliest conflict on European soil since World War Two, but a measure of things to come.

The first thing I must do before starting is offer two caveats. The first is to say that the following analysis is not the official view of NATO, but my own interpretation. The second, even more important qualification is to note that, at this moment, the Ukrainian people are fighting and dying to defend our way of life. We must never forget that sacrifice or the long shadow it casts over these conversations.

Having made those points, I must now change gear from being an individual who considers the human cost of such events to an official who thinks in terms of geopolitics.

EVALUATING THE CONFLICT 2014-23

In order to understand NATO’s response to Russia’s war on Ukraine, we must go back to 2014. In February of that year, the long, unhappy history between Russia and Ukraine erupted into fresh hostilities as Russia annexed Crimea and the Donbas war began.

NATO’s response to this aggression broke down into three categories. First, we continued the assurance measures designed to strengthen internal cooperation, such as joint exercises. Second, we coordinated deterrent

activities demonstrating our capability, such as bomber task forces. Third, we began to move at the strategic level from an expeditionary footing (as in Kosovo and Afghanistan) to a collective defence model. This involved the development of Graduated Response Plans to counter Russian aggression and the formation of Enhanced Forward Battlegroups by individual NATO states.

Did our response work? Probably to some extent, but it was messy. We were a bit like an orchestra tuning up: we made lots of noise, but there was no melody. And if you’re in the business of deterring an adversary, you need a clear deterrent signal.

Catherine Royle at this year’s Spring Meeting with Somerville Economics Fellow Dr Margaryta Klymak and former Energy Minister to Ukraine, Dr Sergiy Maslichenko (2002, DPhil in Transitional Economies). Credit: Oxford Atelier

NATO troops conducting joint exercises. Credit: JFCBS Twitter

If you’re in the business of deterring an adversary, you need a clear deterrent signal.

Having said that, our preparations did mean that when Russia invaded in February 2022, we were ready. The Graduated Response Plans were activated and the Enhanced Forward Battlegroups moved up to frontline NATO states. Meanwhile, NATO’s Secretary General walked a skilful line as he persuaded NATO members, rather than NATO itself, to send lethal aid to Ukraine.

Today, following a year of incredible bravery from the Ukrainian people, the situation looks grim for Russia, but not terminal. They’re unlikely to run out of money for the war this year. But GDP is declining, sanctions are taking effect and forcing Europe to wean itself off Russian gas has removed a key prop of the Russian economy.

The long-term picture for Russia also looks grim: a second mobilisation will only exacerbate internal unrest. Alliances with the

Wagner Group and previously dependable neighbours such as the Kazakhs look strained. Meanwhile, the country faces severely reduced investment from Europe, India and China (who won’t risk losing European markets). Lost investment will limit technological development and combine with demographic issues to cause employment shortages and an inability to resupply their military.

On the other side of the equation, Ukrainian morale remains high despite their losses. Western support also remains strong, fuelled by economic fallout from the war and news of Russian war crimes, which Ukraine is highly skilled at communicating via social media.

MEETING THE ONCOMING TIDE

The big question is, how will all this end? Well, the honest answer is that we don’t know. What I can tell you is that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has precipitated a shift in NATO strategy that is indicative of a sea-change in all our lives.

In the summer of 2022, NATO members met in Madrid to discuss NATO’s new strategic concept. They agreed two important principles: one, Russia is no longer an ally (an obvious but important point); and, two, NATO will defend every single inch of its territory –and defend forward.

That second point is significant not only because of the clear message it sends to our adversaries, but because it shows we have now reached a point in global security where we need to send such a message. Note, also, the qualification that we will ‘defend forward’: we are not closing our borders or abandoning partners. Defending forward leaves us ample scope to pursue NATO’s core activities of defence, deterrence and crisis prevention beyond European borders.

This summer, NATO members will meet again to formalise the plans underlying this new strategy. That will require another landmark decision, because NATO will seek to align its spending and procurement with its defence plans for the first time since the Cold War. Will the electorates of NATO member states support defence-spending at those Cold War levels? It remains to be seen.

The situation looks grim for Russia, but not terminal.

Catherine Royle speaking at this year’s Spring Meeting. Credit: Oxford Atelier

CONSIDERING THE BIGGER PICTURE

The last piece in the puzzle is democracy itself. Until now I have focused solely on Ukraine and Europe. But this war is part of a wider attack on democracy in which Russia is not the only actor and Ukraine is not the only target.

The famine narrowly averted by last summer’s UN-Turkiye grain deal showed how instability in global supply chains combined with climate change is a very real threat. Russia and China are already seeking to exploit such vulnerabilities across Mali, the Central African Republic and Burkina-Faso. They’re also waging influence campaigns in Israel, Iran and Saudi Arabia.

We know many nations in the Global South are rightly disillusioned by a global order that remains skewed towards developed nations. But if we don’t fight for democracy in those regions, billions of people could lose all hope of freedom and the path towards a better life.

In short, NATO and the developed world needs to up its political game. It has never just been about tanks or defence spending. Our priorities must be to focus, first, on how to end this war without selling out Ukraine. Then we need to think about how to live alongside Russia. Next, we need to decide how to avoid ceding the Global South to Russia and especially China.

Above all, we need to be open to a change in our international order that brings all nations to the table.

Catherine Royle is Political Advisor to the Commander of Joint Force Command, Brunssum, where she has been involved in defence planning for Eastern Europe since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Our thanks to Catherine for allowing us to summarise the key points of her address at the 2023 Spring Meeting. Our thanks, also, to Dr Margaryta Klymak, (Tutorial Fellow in Economics) for chairing the conversation and Dr Sergiy Maslichenko (2002, DPhil in Transitional Economies), former Energy Minister of Ukraine, for his moving personal account of the situation in Bakhmut.

We need a change in our international order that brings all nations to the table

Airbus A400M releasing defensive flares during a joint exercise, May 2023. Credit: JFCBS Twitter

HEARING THE VOICES OF KENYA’S HIDDEN SCHOLARS

In the first of two features examining notions of academic justice, Somerville’s Senior Research Fellow Professor Patricia Kingori tells us about her research into Kenya’s ‘fake essay’ industry and why we need to hear the real voices of the women involved.

Ifirst heard about the so-called ‘fake essay’ industry in 2019. It was a staggering discovery, due both to the scale of the phenomenon and its farreaching implications.

The fake essay industry refers to the process whereby academic writers based

In 2014, 31m students admitted commissioning someone to write their work.

in the Global South, with an epicentre in Kenya, produce work for students in the Global North. Conservative estimates suggest there are 40,000 writers working in Nairobi alone.

At the other end of this transaction are the beneficiaries of what is known as ‘contract cheating’. In 2014, 31m students from a global student cohort of 200m admitted commissioning someone to write their work. That number soared during Covid, with 37m students in the US alone admitting to having paid someone to write their essays or sit their online exams.

The prevalence of contract cheating is having a phenomenal yet largely unremarked effect on professions including medicine, politics, law and academia. In the UK, for example, 16% of UK medical students in 2018 selfreported paying other people to complete their work. The real number is probably far higher.

From the moment I heard about it, the existence of this hidden industry struck me as the story of our times. It is a story of globalisation, of the way in which the historic vectors of exploitation seamlessly adapt to changes in technology,

Patricia Kingori outside Oxford’s Big Data Institute, April 2023. Credit: Jack Evans

demographics and international politics to maintain the unequal status quo.

As a sociologist specialising in global health ethics, I knew I had to study this phenomenon. It spoke directly to my research on fakes, falsehoods and fabrications in global health, and my enduring fascination with the potential of fakes to reveal hidden truths about ourselves. But it also spoke to me personally.

By 2019, I had been working in Kenya for 15 years, and had repeatedly seen the way in which global institutions portray themselves as helping Africa. Despite this, the historic fault lines of inequality remain unchanged. The discovery of these writers seemed to offer at least one potential explanation for why this is so.

Clearly, this wasn’t a story I could tell by sitting at my desk in Oxford. To tell it properly, I needed to meet these people, hear their stories and understand what was driving them to occupy this marginalised and subordinate intellectual space.

I started visiting Nairobi in 2019 to find and interview these writers. Through those initial interviews, I learned how highly qualified these writers are (postgrad and above) and what the work entails (typically a 4-5 hour turnaround on an 8,000 word essay, PhDs within a week). I also learned about the zero-sum choice that compels these writers to do such dead-end work, and saw first-hand the mentally corrosive effect of helping others gain unearned access to the professions and privileged spaces you once dreamed of for yourself.

The first results of this research were published in 2021 with an article focused on challenging how we speak of and thus think about these writers. In the piece, I used testimony from the writers themselves to interrogate the popular term ‘shadow scholar’ and its problematic connotations of darkness in association with Africa.

The existence of this hidden industry struck me as the story of our times.

However, that first article was just the beginning. My research also highlighted that nearly all these writers are women who are also either sole bread-winners or single mothers. From this observation, my research is now evolving into an intersectional focus on what might be called ‘intellectual surrogacy’.

The term ‘intellectual surrogate’ offers a way to reconceptualise the contribution and sacrifice of these women. It equates the exploitation of their minds in knowledge-production with the gestational surrogacy which is another of Kenya’s deeply troubling growth industries.

The new project on intellectual surrogacy will take time. However, the more I speak to people working in this area, the more I believe there are potentially endless ways in which this type of extractive intellectual practice rewards a sustained and unswerving attention.

One recent example of an alternative approach to the problem is a forthcoming film co-produced by Lammas Park, the company founded by Sir Steve McQueen. The film seeks to bring together multiple academics like myself working on this topic across multiple regions.

My one overarching hope is that, however we do it, we keep telling these stories. If we give a voice to these unheard Kenyan women, revealing not only their hardships, but also the erudition, entrepreneurship and humour with which they subvert attempts to dominate them, perhaps we can start to dislodge those old, embedded narratives.

Maybe then these scholars will gain some of the recognition and opportunity they’ve been denied so long.

Patricia Kingori’s research on untitled scholars will feature in a forthcoming film directed by Eloise King for White Teeth Films/Lammas Park, due for release in 2024. You can read Patricia’s first article about the untitled scholars at bit.ly/ PatriciaKingori

Patricia during a research trip to Nairobi, February 2023. Credit: Eloise King/White Teeth Films

Laura working on an assignment at her house in Kasarani, Nairobi, May 17th 2023. Credit: Dominic Kirui

Credit Where It’s Due: The Long, Strange Tale of PATRICIA OWTRAM and The Lady Mother

For the second part in our series looking at academic justice, we hear the story of Patricia Owtram and the long, collaborative journey by which she found resolution to a historic injustice.

Patricia Owtram (1951, BLitt English) is a woman who has always excelled under testing circumstances. In World War Two, she worked as a WREN gathering Enigma Code for the Bletchley Park codebreakers. In the Sixties and Seventies, she broke glass ceilings at the BBC to produce programmes including University Challenge and The Sky at Night. In her late nineties, she became a best-selling author with her memoir Code-Breaking Sisters

So to learn that one of the most difficult experiences Patricia Owtram ever faced happened during her Somerville BLitt is unexpected to say the least. Equally unexpected – but far

more welcome – is the news that, after seventy years, this story has a happy conclusion.

Patricia arrived at Somerville in 1951 fresh from gaining a first in English from St Andrew’s. For her BLitt, it was suggested by Merton Professor of English FP Wilson that Patricia write on The Lady Mother, an obscure comedy of the 1630s by the playwright Henry Glapthorne.

The suggestion to write on The Lady Mother was a logical one, given that Professor Wilson was General Editor of the Malone Society, a scholarly association dedicated to the study

Patricia Owtram receiving her rebound copy of The Lady Mother from Professors Richard Proudfoot and Katharine Craik of the Malone Society. Credit: Jack Evans

of late medieval and early modern drama, and that this was one of the plays still in manuscript requiring editing.

Patricia duly agreed to work on Glapthorne. However, there being no suitable supervisor available in Oxford at that time, it was agreed that she would be supervised by Dr Arthur Brown of UCL. Brown had previously edited Thomas Heywood’s The Captives from the same MS collection so, again, the suggestion seemed logical.

Left largely to her own devices, Patricia worked hard to transcribe the play. She also prepared an introduction featuring biographical research on Glapthorne and copious notes on textual revision and reshaping.

In 1953, Patricia submitted her thesis, passed her viva and left for an exchange programme at Harvard. Several months later, she received a letter from Dr Brown inviting her to publish her work through the Malone Society, of which he was a member and latterly General Editor (1961-66). Patricia agreed – but to her bitter disappointment the version of The Lady Mother published in 1959 was attributed as ‘prepared by Arthur Brown and checked by Anthony Petti’. There was no mention of Patricia’s contribution whatsoever.

The injustice of this one act has pained Patricia for almost seventy years. ‘I was so disappointed that Arthur Brown took credit for my work,’ she told the Magazine.

‘But I wasn’t sure there was any means by which it might be put right.’

There the story might have ended, were it not for the fact that, almost sixty years later, Dr Anne Manuel, Somerville’s former Librarian and Fellow, interviewed Patricia for the Somerville College Archives. Patricia duly recounted the story of her BLitt – and added one further, crucial detail. In 2003, she had been contacted by Helen Croaker, the librarian and archivist of Monash University in Melbourne. Mrs Croaker had found Arthur Brown’s copy of Patricia’s thesis, with pencil-written notes, among the papers Brown bequeathed to the university on his death.

Dr Manuel subsequently contacted the Malone Society in May 2022 to make enquiries. Here, the case was taken up with tremendous diligence and care by Professor Richard Proudfoot, who succeeded Brown as General Editor of the Malone Society. Under his supervision, comparisons of Pat Owtram’s thesis and the Malone Society edition of The Lady Mother were conducted by Dr Manuel in the Bodleian, Helen Croaker of Monash and Professor David McInnis of the University of Melbourne.

These investigations confirmed that Patricia’s thesis, lightly edited by Brown, supplied the text, notes and at least the authorship section of the Introduction. In Spring 2023, the Malone Society ratified these findings and resolved to remedy the error in attribution by printing

a corrigendum sheet restoring Miss Owtram’s true role in preparing the edition. This corrigendum has since been sent to all subscribing institutional libraries.

The effective resolution of this case is a testament to the bravery of Patricia Owtram in seeking restitution, but also the integrity of current Malone Society members. It is surely through making such reckonings, carefully and compassionately, that institutions will evolve and outlive shadows of the past.

EPILOGUE

In July 2023, fresh from celebrating her 100th birthday, Patricia Owtram met Professor Proudfoot for tea at Somerville. There, Patricia was presented with a rebound copy of The Lady Mother, including the corrigendum, by Professor Proudfoot. Speaking of the occasion, Patricia said, ‘What a relief that an ancient wrong has been righted. I’m extremely grateful to Professor Proudfoot, Dr Manuel and all involved for taking this up and seeing it through.”

Patricia Owtram with Somerville’s former Fellow Librarian Dr Anne Manuel

What a relief that an ancient wrong has been righted.

Patricia Owtram, then and now. Credit: author’s collection (l), Jack Evans (r)

MIGRATION AND METASTASIS: The Secret Life Of A Protein Complex

A team including our Tutor in Biochemistry, Professor Elena Seiradake, have recently revealed new insights into how a protein complex plays a crucial role in the development and mobility of both neurons in the brain and cancer cells.

Biochemists like me have been working for decades to understand the chemical signals and interactions that underpin cell migration. As an expert in the developing brain, the migration of neurons is a central aspect of my research. Using crystallography, the technique pioneered by my great Somerville predecessor Dorothy Hodgkin, my team found new insights into how a particular protein complex is involved in both normal brain development and cancer cell migration.

We need to start with protein. From the enzymes that power chemical reactions to the haemoglobin that lets your blood carry oxygen, your cells are constantly producing different proteins in macromolecular machines called ribosomes, tiny factories that produce proteins according to the exact instructions they get from your DNA. The proteins can act within cells, on the surface membranes, and beyond.

As you read this magazine, trillions of cells in your body are separated into their proper organs where they function in different ways so that you can see, hear, think (and possibly enjoy a nice cup of tea) all at the same time. This high level of organisation throughout our body, where each cell is located in its proper place, depends on the migration of cells early on during development of a foetus. However, the same mechanisms can also be exploited by cancers to spread and metastasise in later life.

For our experiments, we were studying Unc5, a family of 4 proteins encoded by the unc5A-D genes. Proteins from this family are particularly expressed by migrating neurons in the developing brain cortex. Unc5 can interact with other proteins in your body. A previous study confirmed that interaction with one such protein, Netrin-1, appears to influence a large range of developmental processes. We found another protein with which Unc5 receptors interact is Glypican 3. We isolated the complex those two proteins form together, and used crystallography to resolve its structure.

Biochemists have been working for decades to understand the chemical signals that underpin cell migration.

Professor Elena Seiradake. Photo: John Cairns

The results were surprising. Often, these kinds of molecular complexes form simple shapes, such as one molecule attaching to another using a particular patch on its surface. Instead, Unc5-GPC3 forms something quite different: an octameric shape of four Unc5 proteins with a pair of GPC3 proteins wrapped around them at either end.

The next question was what function this complex might occupy in the context of a developing mammal brain. There are special cells in your brain during early development called progenitors (so named because they can differentiate into other types of brain cell) which we already know express GPC3. There are also neurons which express Unc5. To replicate their interaction in vitro and study it up close, we took some of the neurons and added them to a surface with stripes of GPC3. The neurons were repelled from the stripes, inducing them to migrate away or along them, and when the interaction was interfered with the migration was delayed. It seems likely, then, that this interaction is involved in cell migration during brain development, helping neurons to reach the correct final position at the right time. Collaborators in Barcelona (del Toro) confirmed this.

Unc5 and GPC3 are found in other cell types, too, including many types of

Delving further into the biochemical signalling of cell migration will give us a better understanding of how neurons or cancer cells are instructed to stop or go.

cancer cells. As such, we wanted to know if the Unc5-GPC3 complex also had a role in tumour cell migration. These sort of questions cannot be answered using only cell culture systems in the lab. We teamed up with collaborators in Lyon (Castellani) who took neuroblastoma cells that expressed both proteins and transplanted them into a chick embryo. They quickly migrated to a stereotypic location above the dorsal aorta where they formed tumour masses, a phenomenon also observed in human patients. Reducing the levels of GPC3 in the cancer cells, or inhibiting its interaction with Unc5, slowed down and impeded the effectiveness of the migration. This indicates that the

complex is a key regulator of tumour cell migration and metastasis, as well as normal neuron migration.

Unc5-GPC3 is just one of the myriad interactions between your cells. There are other proteins that form complexes with Unc5 that we can study next, and I’m delighted to say that we will be able to carry on this work for the next eight years thanks to a sizeable grant from the Wellcome Trust Foundation. Delving ever further into the biochemical signalling of cell migration will give us an even better understanding of how neurons and cancer cells choose – or are instructed – to stop or go, and any doors to new treatment that understanding opens.

Professor Seiradake (third right) and her lab team

Suzanne Heywood read Zoology at Somerville and completed a PhD at Cambridge before joining the Civil Service. Since then, she has worked as a senior partner at McKinsey and most recently as the COO of Exor, one of Europe’s largest diversified holding companies. Before all that, however, she spent ten years of her childhood at sea. In her new memoir Wavewalker: Breaking Free she tells the extraordinary story of those years, an edited extract of which we reproduce here.

Itold this story once before, in the 2012 College Report. Back then, however, I wasn’t ready to tell the whole story, because I knew that doing so would jeopardise my relationship with my parents. However, after seeing my own children reach similar ages to those I experienced on Wavewalker, I decided it was time to revisit my childhood in all its complexity. What I found when I did so was that much of it was far worse than I’d previously acknowledged.

But looking back also revealed something else. It showed how important learning was to my journey – guiding me out of the darkness and all the way to Somerville.

My story starts in 1975, when my father announced that we were going to spend three years sailing around the world in the wake of Captain Cook’s last voyage, solely on the grounds that we shared the same surname. My mother supported my father absolutely, so that was that. We set sail from Plymouth, when I was 7 and my brother Jon was 6. Our new home was Wavewalker, a 69-foot-long wooden yacht that we shared with three crew. We sailed first down to South America, then across the Southern Atlantic Ocean to South Africa. Along the way we met whales, tankers and flying fish. We also hit the doldrums, that point in the Atlantic Ocean where the winds disappear. For several days we sat sweating under a blue bowl of sky on an ocean thick as honey. When the sun was up I danced across the parched deck, searching for patches of shade. At night I lay on my sleeping bag, reaching up to grasp handfuls of the stars peppering the Milky Way.

But our worst voyage by far came when we set sail across the Indian Ocean, now with only two inexperienced crew members on board. Halfway across, we were hit by a gigantic wave that smashed a huge hole in the deck of our boat. The wave hit just after my mother had come below and asked me to help her make some food.

I crawled down from the table. I couldn’t remember when I’d last eaten.

‘I need a can of corned beef,’ she said.

I nodded, gripping the countertop rail with one hand while unlatching a cupboard door with the other. The cabin tipped backwards. Wavewalker was climbing another watery mountain. During the five or so seconds she took to climb the wave, I passed a can to Mum, who put it in the sink before we both stopped to hang on, waiting for the plunge forward.

But this time the pause was endless.

I tightened my hold on the countertop. When the hull finally tipped forward and Wavewalker began her dive, my grip gave way. I slid along the cupboards, my hands burning. There was an explosion and chunks of decking collapsed inwards above my head, followed by an avalanche of cold, grey water. The air filled with screams, some of them mine.

Icy water, black, grey and foaming white, flooded in through a hole above me.

The family waving goodbye, Plymouth, 1976. This and all other photographs courtesy of the author.

A few days later, miraculously, we found the tiny Île Amsterdam. We stayed there for several weeks while I endured multiple head operations without anaesthetic to treat a fractured skull. Somehow, my parents remained undeterred by this experience. As soon as Wavewalker was repaired, we set sail around Australia and up the Pacific Ocean. By then I wanted to go home. We’d been at sea for almost four years and Hawaii was supposed to be the end of the voyage, since it was where Captain Cook had been killed.

But Dad had other plans. In our family council, he overruled my brother and me when we voted to go home. Instead, we sailed back down to Australia and started the first of several long circuits around the Pacific Ocean.

By this point, I had become determined to educate myself. My thirst for knowledge started in Hawaii after Dad bought a tiny, second-hand television. He plugged this into the boatyard’s power, placed it on the table in the main cabin and started falling asleep in front of loud westerns. After a while, I discovered this new gadget contained more than just cowboys and fell in love with a science programme called Cosmos. This drew my attention up to the solar system, overwhelming me with how little I knew. Once, I’d wanted to go to school to make friends. Now I wanted to go there to learn.

When I was 13, I enrolled in a correspondence school and started studying. The problem was that there was no space on board Wavewalker,

I was trapped on Wavewalker against my will, with parents who didn’t seem to care how unhappy I was.

An artist’s impression of the interior of Wavewalker

Illustration: Camilla Ashforth

The family having tea at the helm.

and I was expected to spend most of my time cooking and cleaning for our paying crew (by this time my father had turned our boat into a floating hotel). To solve this, I created a cave out of an unused sail in our forward cabin and hid there, reading in the milky light that filtered through the canvas.

When I turned 16, my parents decided my brother needed to go to normal school and I was left looking after him in a small cabin in New Zealand while they kept sailing. They didn’t come back for nine months, during which I struggled to cope.

My luck finally changed when I wrote to Oxford. They passed my application on to

Somerville, which offered me an interview. I flew to England on a one-way ticket and arrived in college on a rainy day that made the buildings look like they’d been painted in melted wax. When I walked into her office, the head of zoology, Dr Marian Dawkins, was sitting in an armchair, papers piled in unsteady stacks around her feet. She peered at me over the top of her glasses and started firing questions. I thought it was inconceivable that Somerville would accept me, a girl who’d never seen a play, heard an orchestra or visited an art gallery. But I was wrong – after that interview, Dr Dawkins made me an offer that changed my life.

PROFESSOR STAMP DAWKINS REFLECTS ON MEETING SUZANNE

It wasn’t in fact a difficult decision to offer Suzanne a place at Somerville. Her lack of knowledge of Chemistry (normally a requirement for reading Zoology) was a bit of a problem, but her extraordinary motivation for learning new things and her demonstrated ability to work on her own made me sure she would make up this gap. Whether she would be so easily admitted now, when admissions are more centrally monitored and individual tutors have much less discretion, is another matter.

It was inconceivable that Somerville would accept me...but they did.

Wavewalker at anchor (top) and Suzanne at Somerville (bottom)

Suzanne attempting to study while en route to Fiji, 1985.

Suzanne Heywood will speak to Rebecca Jones (1985, History) at the Somerville Literary Lunch in November. Wavewalker: Breaking Free is available now from all good bookshops.

MY ROOM, YOUR ROOM

SUSIE DENT, WOLFSON 16

Susie Dent (1983, French and German) and Tom Farmer (2021, English) bond over a shared love of language and late-night snacks.

The first thing Susie Dent remembers as she steps into Wolfson 16 is not the sink hidden in the wardrobe or the smell of cabbage that haunted the stairwell.

‘There was an elderly man over the road who used to wave whenever we caught sight of each other.’ Susie points at a window on the far side of Walton

Street. ‘It made for a rather sweet start to the day, like something from Mary Poppins.’

The old chap’s gone now, his office at the Oxford University Press converted into a dining room. And that’s not all that has changed. The current occupant of Wolfson 16 is also a man – an inconceivable notion when Susie matriculated to the women-only Somerville of 1983.

Happily, Tom Farmer seems quite at home in his Wolfson digs. A set of bright yellow cricket stumps lean in one corner and the walls are decked with band posters, newspaper cuttings and photographs of friends and family.

‘You’re doing much better than me with your pictures,’ says Susie. ‘I’m not sure I had anything on the walls. Wait, no: I had a print by Klimt. Gosh, I haven’t thought about that in years.’

The Klimt print leads to talk of German literature and Susie’s time

studying French and German at Somerville. ‘I liked French, but German was my first great love. I found it spellbinding – like a dark forest, endlessly lyrical and deep.’

Unsurprisingly for an English student, Tom is also a lover of language. But, while he enjoys close reading, he prefers the grand sweep of themes and ideas which the English course offers so much scope to appreciate.

‘This year, I’ve really enjoyed seeing how much literature of the 1700s is rooted in political ideas from the

I found German spellbinding – like a dark forest, endlessly lyrical and deep.

Enlightenment. I love Blake, for example, and I’ve enjoyed tracing how concepts such as Hobbes’ theory of the state of nature find their way into his work.’

As for where to study, neither Tom nor Susie ever liked to spend all their time in Wolfson. ‘I can’t work in one place for too long,’ says Tom. ‘I like to start the day here, then head on to the Somerville Library.’

‘I used to love working in the Somerville Library, too,’ Susie agrees. ‘It has a special kind of silence – a gentle rather than draconian one – that lends itself to proper thought.’

And what about distractions from all those gruelling hours of study? For Susie, it was drama. ‘We did a play about Stevie Smith and several Tennessee Williams productions. But I was always happier behind the scenes, helping with staging and props.’

Such reticence might seem uncharacteristic from one so often

in the limelight – yet is perhaps understandable. ‘I came from a convent school and didn’t really know anyone when I came to Somerville. Saturday nights in my first year were spent in Vaughan with the curtains drawn, listening to Joan Armatrading and hoping no one would realise I was home.’

In time, solitude was something Susie came to enjoy. ‘At school, I always felt like a nerd for loving language and books. But at Somerville, I found myself part of a community where it was good to be intellectual and acceptable to be alone. I’ve embraced that side of me ever since, really.’

The friendships followed in due course, as did another distraction. ‘I discovered that, coming from a convent school, I knew very little about boys or partying. I tried to remedy those gaps in my knowledge!’

Tom can hardly have time for romance. Every moment seems

occupied by his twin passions of sport and music. He plays football, rugby and cricket for Somerville, and writes sports journalism for Cherwell. He is also an avid gig-goer and current Editor-inChief of Phaser, a music and fashion magazine.

It is after leafing through the gig reviews in the latest issue of Phaser that the conversation turns to the perennial question of how best to recover from an Oxford night-out. Tom favours one of Oxford’s three kebab vans if he’s been to a gig on the Cowley Road.

Susie, meanwhile, had a soft spot for the Maison Blanc patisserie that stood on the corner of Little Clarendon Street. ‘We would come past around 1am and press our noses against the window, looking very forlorn. The bakers always came to the door and gave us free croissants.’

However, Susie’s ultimate recovery method was breakfast in Hall. ‘I always had the same thing: cold white toast with lots of butter and several cups of tea. It never failed.’

From there, it was back to Wolfson 16 and that unbeatable window seat with a view that, Tom and Susie both agree, remains one of the best in Oxford.

Susie Dent is a lexicographer, etymologist and presenter. Her new book An Emotional Dictionary is available now (see p37).

Tom Farmer hopes to work in journalism or PR when he graduates, and to perfect his leg-spin.

The Somerville library has a special kind of silence, gentle rather than draconian.

A HOUSE OF PRAYER FOR ALL PEOPLE:

WELCOMING ARZHIA HABIBI

We caught up with Arzhia Habibi, Somerville’s new Chapel Scholar and Director, to find out about how her Bahá’i faith and early upbringing in China influences her approach to creating an open and welcoming space at the heart of Somerville.

Your PhD looks at expressions of global citizenship in Chinese higher education. What inspired this focus and how has Chinese culture shaped your outlook?

I attended kindergarten in Fuzhou in Southeastern China until I was 5. This was where I first learned to speak Mandarin (which I later relearned when I returned to China for a year aged 18). Growing up in China to parents from Iranian and BritishIrish backgrounds, I often thought about what it means to ‘belong’, a question which I have taken forward in my research.

What made you interested in the role of Chapel Scholar and Director?

I was excited by the chance to build community, encourage creativity, and explore spiritual and social questions in a collaborative and reflective manner. One

thing that felt like a sign was finding out just before my interview about the founder of the Chapel, Emily Georgiana Kemp. Like me, she had many encounters and engagements with China that left an indelible impact, and in her 1909 book The Face of China there are several passages that embody the same spirit of wonder present in my own thesis. A further cosmic joke is that her birthday is one day before mine!

How do we open the doors of the Chapel so that people genuinely feel like they can walk in?

How does your spirituality inform your work here?

Much of my spiritual outlook draws inspiration from the Bahá’i Faith. Its founder Baha’u’llah expounded the principles of the oneness of religion, of humanity, and of God. It has a universalist core, emphasising listening and learning to all faiths, traditions and perspectives, and building communities together. This aligns perfectly with the aims of the Chapel. By listening to the diverse voices

of our speakers and being attentive to the college community and our wider context, we can create a bridging ground for different perspectives and peoples, constituted from music, poetry and different sacred writings.

What have been the highlights during your first two terms as Chapel Director?

There are three Contemplations that stand out. The first was when pupils from Chiswick Voices joined Somerville College Choir for a contemplation. I also loved Lisa Cherry’s offering on care and belonging, and the student-run Pride Contemplation in June. On all three occasions, the space was filled with people sharing from their hearts and lived experiences, sustained by the power of music, compassion, love and justice.

What are your hopes for the future?

I want to carry on engaging with Emily Kemp’s idea of ‘A house of prayer for all people’ by asking how we can open the doors of the Chapel so people genuinely feel they can walk in. Finding and exploring the many varied and creative answers to the challenge she left for us is a joy that endlessly renews itself.

Those of all faiths and none are welcome to join us in the Chapel every Sunday in full term at 5.30 PM for words, music, and reflection.

In 2013, the Margaret Thatcher Scholarship Trust was established to create a living legacy to one of Somerville’s most eminent alumnae. Its unrivalled scholarship programme pledged to bring the brightest minds to Somerville as Thatcher Scholars, empowering them to mould and forge a better future for their generation and those that follow. Now, as the MTST celebrates its 10th anniversary, we take a moment to look back on the Trust’s origins and forward to a future embodied by its newly appointed 50th Scholar.

THEN AND NOW: Charles Powell Reflects on 10 Years of the MTST

Charles Powell, Baron Powell of Bayswater KCMG, served as Margaret Thatcher’s Private Secretary and foreign affairs adviser from 1983-90. As we celebrate the tenth anniversary of the Margaret Thatcher Scholarship Trust, Lord Powell reflects on the origins and far-reaching impact of this ambitious programme.

Thatcher Scholarships at Somerville reach their tenth anniversary this year, coinciding with the award of the fiftieth scholarship. They have brought outstanding talents to the College, as well as a stimulating diversity of nationalities.

The creation of the scholarships was an inspired initiative of Alice Prochaska, the College’s former Principal. She wanted both to extend Somerville’s opportunities to a still wider range of young talent from within the United Kingdom and beyond, and to honour one of the College’s foremost undergraduates, Margaret Thatcher. Perhaps, also, she hoped to make up for the University’s decision decades earlier to refuse her an honorary doctorate. The institution of the scholarships has been taken up enthusiastically by Somerville’s current Principal, Jan Royall. They have benefitted enormously as well from the indefatigable energy of Jessica Mannix as Director of the Margaret Thatcher Scholarship Trust.

The idea of the Scholarships appealed enormously to Margaret Thatcher. Her time as an undergraduate at Oxford launched her into a new world of opportunity stretching far beyond the confines of Grantham. But her affection and loyalty were focused most on Somerville itself. As she once memorably wrote to the College from No.10: ‘I am only here because I was there.’ She retained regular contact with Somerville, including during her time as Prime Minister, notably with another former

Principal of the College, Daphne Park. She was also on the receiving end of annual descents from her former tutor, the Nobel Prize-winning chemist Dorothy Hodgkin. These caused her a mixture of anxiety and awe, neither normal Thatcherite sentiments, knowing that Professor Hodgkin had never been over-impressed by her talents as a student of chemistry and moreover disapproved of many of her policies as Prime Minister. To my uncharitable glee, she would sit meekly on the edge of her chair and hear the great Professor’s often withering comments in unprecedented silence. They did not diminish her attachment to the College.

By the time Alice Prochaska’s idea for the Thatcher Scholarships germinated, Margaret Thatcher’s life was moving towards a close. But I was able to tell her about the intention. What appealed to her was that the scholarships would be open to young people from all over the world, and the criterion for selecting the scholars would be talent for leadership. As I recorded and wrote to Alice at the time: ‘She was plainly delighted and honoured by the thought that holders of such scholarships bearing her name would carry forward the reputation of the College to which she owed so much herself.’

Having a great idea does not mean its instant realisation. That only happens when generous donors rally to it. And, thanks to the generosity of Margaret Thatcher admirers across the world and, indeed, from former members of the College, the scholarships are already the success of which we dreamed. The scholars themselves have shown high levels of academic achievement and demonstrated their leadership qualities in many countries and many walks of life. But the appetite for more scholarships remains unappeased, both on the College’s part and from applicants for them. These young scholars represent a living legacy of which Margaret Thatcher would be proud and which will further burnish Somerville’s reputation for decades to come.

These young scholars represent a living legacy…which will further burnish Somerville’s reputation for decades to come.

10 YEARS ON: Meet the Fiftieth Thatcher Scholar

This October marks the tenth anniversary of the Margaret Thatcher Scholarship Trust. It is a testament to the success of the Trust that this date also coincides with another historic milestone: the awarding of our 50th Thatcher Scholarship to Milton Lee (2023, Physics). Here, Milton tells us how he overcame personal hardship to achieve his dream of studying at Oxford.

My family’s financial future was wholly derailed in 2005. Our savings, which had been invested into a joint venture, were siphoned out by a business partner. An enterprise which should have provided for our future became a $200,000 black hole, triggering a legal battle which took five years to resolve. Squeezed by solicitors’ fees, even the school bus became an expense my parents had to plan around. Luxuries were out of the question. All this — and the insecurity of not knowing if it would be made right — led to a lot of tension during my childhood years, perceptible even through my adolescent naivete.

It was against this stressful backdrop that I went through school. Instead of resorting to private tuition whenever my grades flagged (extremely common in Singapore for those aspiring to university), I fell in love with learning on my own terms. I discovered the fascinating possibilities of maths through YouTube videos, and lost myself in Wikipedia rabbit holes on astronomy. I

learned from my peers, too, persuading the seniors at my Junior College to teach me calculus so I could pull my weight in astronomy competitions with them. I was also lucky to receive academic support from many wonderful and dedicated teachers.

My passion for learning drew me inexorably towards Oxford.

My passion for learning drew me inexorably towards Oxford. I applied in 2020 and was made an offer to study Physics by Jesus College. My joy at winning a place was soon tempered by the reality of tuition fees. Government scholarships for Physics research degrees are few and far between, and getting a huge private loan is something I can illafford, as I will soon need to help support my parents in their retirement.

Discovering the Lee Kuan YewThatcher Scholarship changed things; it was a simple choice to decline my offer and re-apply for Somerville to chase the glimmer of hope it presented. Preparing for admissions tests and interviews at the same time as military service in the infantry was physically and mentally gruelling. I had to make the best use of every scrap of time and energy available to me (even sneaking in revision during military exercises). The life of being an Oxford student seemed very distant.

But then the news arrived. It is hard to fully describe the jubilation I felt when I learned that my effort had all paid off and some fortune had finally come our way. I am so grateful to ST Telemedia and the Margaret Thatcher Trust for giving me this opportunity and making it possible for me to study at Somerville — this scholarship has rekindled my hopes and dreams. With it, I aim to contribute towards the fight against climate change to the best of my ability.

Rachel Backshall (2012, Classical Archaeology and Ancient History) is Assistant Director of the Scottish Crannog Centre. She joined us to explain how the museum has survived fire and pandemic to become a world-class model of sustainability, social justice and Iron Age resilience.

IRON AGE HEART: Bringing The Scottish Crannog Centre Back From The Brink 11

th June 2021 was a strange day for Rachel Backshall and her colleagues. In the morning, they heard that their community asset transfer to relocate the museum to the far side of Loch Tay was deemed so beneficial they were only to be charged £1 for the 12 acre site. That night, they stood on the same shoreline watching their beloved roundhouse burn to ash and pilings in just six minutes.

Out of the destruction, however, new life emerged. ‘We took stock as an Iron Age community would have done,’ Rachel says. ‘We gave thanks that no one had been hurt and no treasures had been lost. Then we started to rebuild.’

They were assisted by a phenomenal outpouring of support both locally and nationally. A local business ran a crowdfunder which raised £50,000 in just three days. The Deputy

First Minister of Scotland, John Swinney, and then-Culture Minister Jenny Gilruth came down to help. Then, in December, they heard that the Scottish Government was awarding the Centre £2.3m, the largest grant it had ever allocated to a museum of that size.

So what is it that makes this relatively small museum generate such an outsize impact?

Crannogs are houses built on stilts over water, generally connected to the shore by a bridge. They were common across Ireland and Scotland until the seventeenth century, with the first Crannogs dating back to the Early Iron Age around 2,500 years ago. As underwater sites, therefore, they offer exceptionally well-preserved insights into prehistoric life.

The old crannog on Loch Tay before the fire in 2020.

Credit: Murdo MacLeod

However, Rachel feels it is the Crannog Centre’s work as a living museum with social justice at its heart that has made it so valuable to the wider community. Today, the museum is both an accredited SQA centre offering apprenticeships to young people who struggle in mainstream education, and an established partner to charities supporting survivors of domestic abuse, refugee integration and mental health causes.

‘Our aim has always been to create a space where people can share their own stories while engaging with those of Iron Age Scotland.’ To make that possible, Rachel adds, diversity is key. ‘It’s only by making the museum diverse on the inside, both in the way we think and the team we create, that we can offer a true welcome to the diverse audiences outside our doors.’

Understandably, given this strong sense of community, the Crannog Centre was eager to reopen as soon as possible after the fire, and did so just five days later. The reconstruction process, however, has taken longer.

‘We didn’t just want to rebuild,’ Rachel says. ‘We wanted to take all the things that made the old Crannog special and really amplify them.’ Informing the reconstruction are three guiding principles: academic rigour, accessibility and romance.

‘I first fell in love with prehistoric archaeology during my time at Somerville,’ Rachel says. ‘So I know you need academic rigour to unlock the real magic of the Iron Age world. And once you do, the benefits are clear: Iron Age communities were knitted together by shared bonds of work, custom and story,

with so many important lessons for our own increasingly atomised and unequal society.’

A good example of the museum’s new vision is their take on sustainability. ‘As well as being low-carbon, we decided to set ourselves a historically relevant target. Wherever possible, all the materials for rebuilding and all the supplies used in the Centre’s day-to-day running will come from no further afield than someone living in a Crannog might have walked to collect them.’

Hence the new site will source timber from its own coppices, reeds, heather and bracken from its own shoreline and food from its own woodland gardens. ‘Ideas like this help bring the crannog to life,’ says Rachel, ‘We feel ourselves literally walking in Iron Age footsteps.’

For those interested in immersing themselves in the Iron Age world, the Crannog Centre is rapidly taking shape. A new roundhouse will open this winter and the first of three water-based crannogs will be completed next year.

‘All the stress of the last three years is worth it to know we’re creating the kind of space where real imaginative engagement and even profound change can happen – to know that we’ve come through the fire ready to grow.’

The Scottish Crannog Centre is open now. To support their redevelopment plans, visit bit.ly/ScottishCrannogCentre

All the materials for rebuilding will come from no further afield than someone living in a Crannog might have walked to collect them.

The remains of the original crannog after the fire. Credit: Murdo MacLeod

Immersive experience: a demonstration inside the old crannog. Credit: Murdo MacLeod

A FITTING MEMORIAL: THE COLLEGE-WIDE PROJECT TO COMMEMORATE MARY SOMERVILLE

The question of how to mark the 150th anniversary of Mary Somerville’s death, which fell in November 2022, was a difficult one.

Mary Somerville (17801872) was one of the greatest polymaths and communicators of her age. She was recognised as an expert in fields ranging from mathematics to geography to chemistry, and was described as one of the most distinguished astronomers and philosophers of the 19th century.

To commemorate a figure of such stature and symbolic value as our College’s eponymous role-model demanded something truly special. Various ideas were suggested and rejected. Finally, Somerville alumna and historian of mathematics Dr Brigitte Stenhouse (2012, Mathematics) came up with the idea of Somervillians getting together to transcribe a selection of Mary Somerville’s unpublished writings and correspondence with leading figures of the day. This struck a universal chord, offering as it did an

opportunity to add to existing scholarship on Somerville and celebrate the many accomplishments of our genius loci

The ‘Mary Somerville Transcribe-a-Thon’ took place on 29th November 2022, with over thirty members of College meeting to transcribe their texts under the watchful eye of Dr Stenhouse. The results of that memorable occasion will be uploaded to Epsilon, the open-source archive of nineteenth-century letters of science. They are also presented to members of the Somerville community in the commemorative booklet, ‘Correspondence of a Nineteenth-Century Scientist’, which is accessible via the QR

code below. The anthology contains fourteen unpublished documents, encompassing everything from advanced mathematics to meteoric observations, book business, botany and gifts of marmalade.

a Nineteenth Century Scientist’

Spending a day sharing these discoveries with other Somervillians was a great pleasure. Even better is the prospect that these letters – which place Mary Somerville at the centre of a global network via which scientific books, specimens and knowledge were shared – will now become more visible to historians and researchers.

DR BRIGITTE STENHOUSE

A REMARKABLE DECADE: THE OICSD TURNS 10

The Oxford India Centre for Sustainable Development was born in 2013 of a shared vision between Somerville College and the Indian Government. They envisaged a partnership that would support talented Indian scholars and use cross-cutting interdisciplinary perspectives to transform sustainable development in India.

In the decade since 2013, the OICSD has gone from an idea to a reality and from strength to strength. There have been many milestones along the way, such as our first conference back in 2016, the creation of the Cornelia Sorabji Law Scholarships which confirmed our interdisciplinary intentions and the appointments of Professor Radhika Khosla as Research Director and Dr Siddarth Arora as Programme Director.

The OICSD has made headlines and won awards for its research on sustainable food production and water policy, cooling and reforestation. It has shifted the agenda through the highlevel contributions of its alumni and the OpenAg Symposium, our ground-breaking research and policy forum dedicated to addressing food security in the Global South. Now, in its tenth anniversary year, the OICSD has made history by launching

the Savitribai Phule Scholarship, the first fully-funded graduate scholarship dedicated to Indian students from the underrepresented Dalit, Bahujan and Adivasi backgrounds. You can read about the OICSD’s inaugural Phule Scholar, Niharika Singh, overleaf.

OICSD Scholars and supporters celebrated all these milestones and more this summer at our tenth anniversary celebrations.

Recalling the occasion, our current Principal Jan Royall said, ‘What sets the OICSD apart is how its work resonates with our College’s deepest values and updates them for a new era. Ten years on, we see the OICSD exceeding its earliest promise as a trailblazer of academic excellence, global outlook and inclusive culture. Long may it continue.’

Top l-r: Principal Jan Royall with former Solicitor General of India, Mr Gopal Subramanium (l) and Mr Jai Shroff, CEO of UPL (r); OICSD representatives meet King Charles; Prof Radhika Khosla addresses the OpenAg Symposium 2022; celebrating 10 remarkable years this summer

BREAKING OLD BARRIERS: Meet the First Savitribai Phule Graduate Scholar

As the inaugural recipient of the UK’s first graduate scholarship dedicated to Indian students from underrepresented backgrounds, Niharika Singh will make history just by coming to Somerville. And yet this milestone is only the beginning of the change Niharika wants to create for India’s marginalised communities.

How did you develop an interest in environmentalism and climate justice?

I believe it was my academic studies that first planted the seed. My interest was piqued at Delihi University’s Miranda House by a compulsory module on environmental studies during my undergraduate degree. Subsequently, at the Tata Institute of Social Sciences in Tuljapur, I explored environmentalism and social justice in sufficient detail that I was encouraged to take it up professionally. After graduating, I proceeded directly to working at BAIF Development Research Organisation, taking on multiple projects across thirteen states.

What did you learn while working in India’s development sector?

One of the major differences between the development sector in India and the rest of the world is the dearth of funding. There are limited sources for local organisations, which hampers their ability to work at the grassroots level. Without financial support, local organisations struggle to design programmes and retain talented professionals. Another issue I noticed while representing the South Asian region in the 2021 Climate Adaptation Summit is that many organisations design their programmes to include indigenous tribal communities in their discourse, but ‘caste’ in particular continues to be absent. Both local and

international organisations lack the imagination to acknowledge the multidimensional vulnerabilities that Dalit communities face.

How do caste-based inequalities manifest in the climate justice movement?

Caste continues to play a major role in Indian society, affecting a person’s ability to access amenities like education and healthcare, but also reinforcing traditional hierarchies in new movements. Just consider the story of Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar. Celebrated as the “father” of the Indian Constitution and a pioneer of the social justice movement, he led the 1927 Mahad satyagraha to demand access to water for untouchable communities. His protest evidences the historic nature of the struggle to gain access to a basic resource like water. And yet, just last year, a nine-year old Dalit boy was beaten to death because

It is a disservice if organisations in the development and climate justice sectors do not recognise social realities of caste in their work

he drank from a well “designated” for his upper-caste teachers. These two incidents are almost a century apart, yet they reflect how little society has changed. Access to water is an environmental justice issue, and it is a disservice if organisations in the development and climate justice sectors do not recognise the social realities of caste in their work.

How will this scholarship enable your aspirations?

There is a prominent gap in the academic discourse on climate justice in India where social realities like caste are overlooked. I aim to bridge this gap through my work, and hope Oxford will empower those efforts. The fact that I am able to access such opportunity without generational wealth or status is a testament to Somerville College and the OICSD, who are building on the foundations of inclusive education first laid by stalwarts like Dr Ambedkar, Mahatma Phule, and Savitrimai Phule.

What specific change do you hope your studies might facilitate?

I am excited that my MSc programme in Nature Science and Environmental Governance explores environmentalism through an interdisciplinary lens. I am particularly inspired by the work of Dr Arielle Ahearn at Oxford, who documents rural development issues

experienced by pastoral communities in Mongolia. I hope my MSc will give me a similar ability to document narratives from India’s historically marginalised communities on issues of environmentalism. I want to use the resulting narratives to address intersectional vulnerabilities in the context of climate justice movements in India. Most of all, I want to show people that, despite many of these communities belonging to the lowest strata of Indian society, they have been pioneering sustainable methods of engaging with nature from which we can learn a great deal. We just need to listen.

Savitri-bai (-mai is used sometimes to denote maternal respect) Phule was an Indian social reformer, recognised to be the first female teacher in India She established the first school for girls in 1848 with her husband Mahatma Jyotiba Phule in Pune. Her advocacy for oppressed caste communities’ right to access formal education was met with hostility by the uppercaste Brahmanical conservatives at the time. Her efforts continue to inspire the anti-caste movement and shaped the Indian feminist movement. The University of Pune was renamed as Savitribai Phule Pune University in 2014 to honour her legacy.

Caste affects access to education and healthcare, but it also reinforces traditional hierarchies in new movements.

DARING TO DREAM:

A YEAR OF SPEAKING UP FOR YOUNG CARERS

Young carer and Somerville student Holly Cobb (2021, French and Linguistics) won the Oxford SU’s Increasing Access award in 2023 for her work reaching out to fellow young carers in the University. Here, she shares the story of a year that has seen her take a growing role in speaking up for young carers.

Everyone is nervous on their first day of Uni. I certainly was – but there was something else as well. I felt guilty for leaving my family behind, because I am a Young Carer.

Young Carers are defined by the Children’s Society as anyone under the age of 18 who takes on additional responsibilities to help look after a family member or friend who is suffering from a mental or physical health problem or misuses drugs or alcohol. In my case, that means helping my sister, who has several neurological and physical conditions. There are at least 800,000 of us in the UK – three in every fifty children – but the real number is likely far higher.

I was fortunate to have great support, but, sadly, this is not always the case. 39% of young carers say that no one at their school is aware of their caring responsibilities, and young carers are three times more likely to be NEET (not in Education, Employment or Training). This group should be a priority for support and outreach, but instead they are often overlooked and ignored.

All of this meant that when I got my place at Somerville, I was keen to find out what the University offered for young carers. I typed ‘Oxford University Carers’ into google and hit enter. “Did you mean

Holly Cobb (r) with Órla Lavery, Somerville’s Access and Inreach Officer. Credit: Jack Evans

‘Oxford University Careers’?” replied the search engine. I still accepted my offer – but Google’s misunderstanding heightened my sense of trepidation.

In many ways, I had nothing to worry about, and I love it here at Somerville. Nevertheless, the dire lack of recognition and targeted support for young carers at Oxford was gnawing away at me. Eventually, early in my second year at Somerville, I found I couldn’t dismiss my concerns any longer. I channelled my fears and frustration into a message to the college’s Access and Inreach Officer Órla Lavery.

hosted by HRH Princess Anne. I was certainly very nervous, but I always try to keep in mind both the privilege and responsibility I have to speak up for those less fortunate than me.

Thankfully, Somerville listened. Órla immediately invited me to meet with her and share my feelings and ideas. That led to a young carers’ round table in February, which was the first ever meeting of young carers from across the university. It was followed in May by our inaugural Young Carers’ Insight Into Higher Education Day. We invited young carer A level students from around the UK to come to Somerville to meet their peers and find out more about our experiences of going to university as a carer. It was amazing to watch their aspirations and confidence transform before our eyes.

At the same time, I got increasingly involved with carers’ charities. I became an ambassador for charity Be Free Young Carers, and was lucky enough to go to No.10 Downing Street on behalf of the Carers’ Trust to meet the Minister for Social Care, Helen Whately. A few weeks later, I was given the honour of addressing a reception to celebrate the charity’s 50th anniversary,

The momentum we’ve worked so hard to create is really starting to show now. In particular, the creation of the All Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) on Young Carers and Young Adult Carers and their new inquiry elevates this to a national conversation. Increasing recognition must now be backed up by the necessary changes of policy at a higher education level: support with applications and the transition from school to university, financial assistance to ensure you can take up your place, a designated contact at every university for young carers, and a safety net in case things go wrong at home.

Most importantly, young carers need to hear the crucial words that it is not a selfish act to go to university.

The day after my speech for the Carers’ Trust, I had a poignant reminder of why all this matters. I was at the Young Carers Festival at Fairthorne Manor, the largest gathering of young carers in the world, helping collect responses for the APPG’s enquiry. “School has been difficult,” one note read, “trying to balance being a young carer and being a child”.

To be a child is to dream, to aspire to take your life in any direction. Young carers often forget their dreams – but we can change that. I saw this for myself at the festival. As the young carers chatted and laughed, their responsibilities seemed to fall away and their futures hang unwritten in the air before them.

I feel like protecting those hopes and dreams for future generations is now within our grasp.

Young carers need to hear the crucial words that it is not a selfish act to go to university.

Holly speaking at the Carers’ Trust 50th Anniversary event.

Credit: The Carers’ Trust

It was amazing to watch their aspirations and confidence transform before our eyes.

A note from the Young Carers Festival, courtesy of the author

HEALTHCARE IN A HOSTILE ENVIRONMENT How Oxford’s Student Medics Aid Refugees

Last year, Somerville’s Chloe Freeman (2020, Graduate Medicine) and Pembroke College’s Ellana Slade revived the Oxford Refugee Health Initiative. Chloe shares her experiences of supporting refugees and asylum seekers living in Oxfordshire as part of the newest iteration of the initiative.

asylum process has an attritional impact on wellbeing. It is at the front of their minds at all moments: they had little warning in moving to a hotel, and it will be the same when the time comes to leave. Fear and weariness hang thickly in the air.

I have long worked to promote refugee welfare as a volunteer: first with the Refugee Women’s Centre in Dunkirk, and later as a support worker for unaccompanied young people with the French Red Cross in in Orléans. Shortly after I got my place at Somerville, I was excited to discover Oxford Refugee Health Initiative (ORHI). Formed in 2015, ORHI brought together students in partnership with local clinicians and services to address the unmet healthcare needs of refugees with great success.

It’s a grey day in November 2022, and the atmosphere here is tense. Just a few weeks ago, the rooms of this hotel might have been used by tourists on a city break. Now, they are home to 240 refugees from the recently closed Manston Processing Centre.

The long corridors and dated carpets evoke memories of a family holiday, but the similarities stop there. The hotel’s new residents had no choice in coming here. Their accommodation is simply not fit for purpose: there are no kitchens, few communal spaces, and laundry access is bad enough that some refugee hotels have had scabies outbreaks. Above all, the sheer uncertainty of the

There was just one problem: due to COVID it had entered stasis. My Co-President Ellana and I were determined to see how we could continue building on the foundations they had created (which involved sending many an email). One important inspiration to us was a lecture on health inequality from Dr Sharon Dixon, an GP from Donnington Health Practice who is also studying part-time for a DPhil in Primary Care Research at Somerville. She made it clear how something like the ORHI could make a difference by overcoming some of the barriers to accessing care.

The first impetus to the revived ORHI arrived in the form of eighty young refugees aged 14-17, some of whom were being settled

My Co-President Ellana and I were determined to see how we could continue building on the foundations they had created.

Chloe Freeman. Photo: Jack Evans.

in a care home in Headington. In the course of helping Social Services, we soon realised that we could have a bigger impact by focusing on the wellbeing of the whole person. Whether helping someone to navigate a new city, supporting asylum applications, or finding a local football team for two of the boys to join, there is much we can do beyond the clinical.

The real challenge came last year. The sudden creation of the nationwide refugee hotel system meant that, at just three days’ notice, Oxford would become home to hundreds of refugees whose health needs had been ignored for months. The Home Office suggested that there would be no reason to give refugees access to primary care as they would ‘only’ be here for a month or two (it has since been ten months with no clarity on most individuals’ applications). Fortunately, local organisations, charities and individuals all disagreed. Equipped with NHS funding, we got straight to work, registering the refugees with a GP and running an initial health triage with our team of student volunteers and two clinicians. What we found was heartbreaking and frustrating in equal measures. One man presented to us with recurrent headaches for two months, a highly troubling symptom - until we discovered that he had simply lost his glasses and not been allowed to have a replacement pair. Another patient had acute abdominal pains, and it transpired that he had a worm infestation. The condition is easy to treat, but instead he had been allowed to deteriorate to the point of being very ill. These two cases are just a small indication of a system that, as the Helen Bamber Foundation’s Dr Jill O’Leary told me once, “is designed to make healthy people sick and sick people more sick.”

With the end of the academic year, Ellana and I have now finished our term as Co-Presidents.

More than reviving the ORHI, we created structure, built partnerships, and embedded an ethos of inclusion and welcome. There are now 140 students and two GP surgeries involved in the project, and we have begun discussions with Oxford Brookes about involving their nursing students. We are working with refugee hotels in Witney, Thame and Banbury in addition to Oxford, and we have approached the Medical School about making that work an accredited part of the course. Our brilliant successors as Co-Presidents, Anthony Morris and Steph Webb, will carry these projects forward, and we can’t wait to see how things grow. Regardless of anything the everchanging legal and political situation can throw at us, Oxford University’s medics continue to show solidarity, ensuring refugees receive the care they are entitled to.

Somerville College was recognised as a University College Of Sanctuary in 2021. If you would like to learn about or support our work with sanctuary seekers, please visit https://www.some.ox.ac.uk/about/sanctuary/

If you would like to support the work of the ORHI or you are a medic and wish to volunteer, please get in touch at oxfordrefugeehealthinitiative@gmail.com

What we found was heartbreaking and frustrating in equal measures.

Kassam Holiday Inn

Outgoing ORHI Co-Presidents Chloe (furthest right) and Ellana (second left) with their successors, Steph Webb (left) and Anthony Morris (second right) following the ORHI Celebration at Somerville College, April 2023

INSIDE OUT

NEW GALLERY SPACE COMES TO SOMERVILLE COLLEGE LIBRARY

Under the guidance of new Librarian Sarah Butler, the Somerville College library has opened a new exhibition space in the Library loggia. The move is part of a wider effort to make the library more accessible and showcase the fascinating items held in the Somerville College archives.

The first exhibition in the new space was Luke King-Salter’s ‘Demeter’, a series of paintings inspired by the debut performance of Robert Bridges’ play Demeter, which celebrated the opening of the Somerville College library in 1904.

The second exhibition, selections of which are shown above, focuses on the important collection of European women’s art donated to Somerville by the art historian Rosemary FitzGibbon (1967, Dipl. History of Art) in 2020.

Embracing a diverse range of styles, the pieces in the current exhibition all have in common their ability to articulate the power and importance of women’s art.

Rosemary, who came to own many of these pieces through knowing the artists personally, feels they offer a necessary corrective to the historic marginalisation of women’s art both in galleries and the teaching of Art History.

acquire a new life at Somerville. They came to me as a record of relationships and stories, friendship and love. Now, as people stream past them in their new temporary home, I hope these works will generate new encounters.’

Somerville College’s new librarian Sarah Butler said of the exhibition space: ‘The Somerville College Library and Archives have diligently preserved the history of Somerville through the grateful receipt of donations both large and small. One of our primary aims is to share this history through the detailed cataloguing, digitisation and display of the fascinating objects for which we care. The new exhibition space is the latest step in that journey, providing us with a flexible means of exploring our proud, inclusive heritage.’

Alumni are warmly invited to visit the new exhibition space and enjoy its fascinating, frequently changing carousel of objects from the archives.

Speaking about the exhibition, Rosemary said, ‘I am so glad to see these paintings

As people stream past them in their new home, these works will generate new encounters

Somerville Librarian Sarah Butler is seen here in the new exhibition space with pictures by Hélène de Beauvoir, Joan Wright and Marianne Hellwig-John.

All photos this page: John Cairns

On Our BOOKSHELF

Kòkú Àkànbí and The Heart of Midnight

Maria

Motúnráyò Adébísí

The hotly anticipated debut novel by Maria Motúnráyò Adébísí (2014, English) tells the story of young Kòkú as he unleashes a demon on a school trip then embarks on an impossible quest, accompanied only by a clumsy shapeshifter and moody warrior-in-training.

Unraveller

Frances Hardinge

The latest novel from Frances Hardinge (1992, English), Costa Award-winning author of The Lie Tree, introduces us to a world in which anyone can create life-destroying curses, and Kellen, the one person with the power to unravel them. Called ‘spellbinding’ and ‘sheer perfection’ by The Guardian

The City of Babylon: A History

Stephanie Dalley

The new study by acclaimed Assyriologist and Honorary Fellow Stephanie Dalley seeks to redeem Babylon from the notoriety bestowed on it in antiquity. Pieced together from thousands of clay fragments, it reveals the brilliance of Babylon’s culture, science and society.

Members of the Somerville community have a long history of seminal contributions to the worlds of academia and literature. Here we take a moment to celebrate those Somervillians who have released a major publication within the past year. To let us know about your forthcoming book, please contact communications@some.ox.ac.uk

An Emotional Dictionary

Susie Dent

In her latest book, Somerville’s most beloved etymologist Susie Dent (1983, French and German) introduces readers to the 1001 overlooked emotional terms we all need to know, from the best kind of hug (cwtch), to the relief found in swearing (lalochezia). See feature, p20.

WaveWalker

Suzanne Heywood

Wavewalker: Breaking Free is the extraordinary true story of Suzanne Heywood’s (1987, Zoology) childhood sailing around the world. Alternating moments of great beauty with terrible isolation, it chronicles a formative struggle for freedom and empowerment –see feature, p16.

Century Sisters

Patricia

and Jean Owtram

The sequel to their bestselling Bletchley Park memoir Codebreaking Sisters, Century Sisters sees sisters Jean and Patricia Owtram (1951, BLitt English) tell the complete story of an extraordinary sisterhood that went from childhood innocence through sacrifice to a brave new world. See feature, p12.

THE YEAR IN REVIEW 2022-23

This year featured so many fond reunions, fascinating discussions and beautiful days that we couldn’t possibly fit them all into this year’s magazine. We hope the following highlights will give you a flavour of what a brilliant year it’s been at Somerville.

13 NOVEMBER

Cedar Circle garden party

This academic year, we launched our new community for regular givers, the Cedar Circle.

09

A celebration of sanctuary

To mark our first anniversary as a College of Sanctuary, we hosted a celebration of sanctuary featuring Dr Xand van Tulleken and Natasha Kaplinsky.

Literary Tea

Sir Simon Russell Beale and Professor Emma Smith (1988, English) shared a conversation celebrating the anniversary of the First Folio at our literary tea.

Carols at Temple Church

This year we celebrated the arrival of Christmas and winter with an alumni carol concert in the beautiful surrounds of Temple Church, featuring music from Somerville College Choir’s new LP ‘The Dawn of Grace’.

18 MARCH

Spring Meeting

Our annual Spring Meeting of the Somerville Association, hosted by our Fellow in Economics Margaryta Klymak, featured talks on the situation in Ukraine by NATO advisor Catherine Royle (1982, PPE, Hon. Fellow) and former energy minister to Ukraine, Dr Sergiy Maslichenko (2002, DPhil, Transitional Economies).

11 MAY

Anniversary Reunion

We held three very special reunions this year. In September, we celebrated the return of alumni who matriculated fifty years ago, in 1972; in March we celebrated those matriculating sixty years ago, in 1962; and in May, for the first time ever, we welcomed back alumni for their 70th reunion.

Supporters’ Lunch

A chance to say thank you to our supporters for their transformative generosity, with music from the choir and words from student ambassadors.

20 MAY

The Penrose Society Lunch

We showed our gratitude for the transformative generosity of those who leave a gift to Somerville in their wills, and relaunched our legacy community as the Penrose Society in homage to our former principal.

ACCESS ALL AREAS

Somerville College was founded in 1879 to include the excluded. Every year, that promise is renewed and extended by the work of our Access and Outreach team and Admissions Tutors. This year, we produced four new films highlighting the distinctive offering Somerville makes to prospective students of every background. The films feature many current students, several tutors and Betsy, our unofficial college dog. You can watch them all via the adjacent QR code.

ACADEMIC LIFE

STUDENT LIFE

SUPPORT AT SOMERVILLE

Forthcoming Events

SEPTEMBER 2023

9 Family Day

9 – 10 Gaudy 1992-1999

21 – 22 1973 Golden Reunion

22 – 24 Alumni Weekend (University)

23 Alumni Formal Hall and Bop

OCTOBER 2023

3 October City Group Young Alumni Careers event

21 Adrianne Tooke Memorial

NOVEMBER 2023

9 Monica Fooks Lecture by Sir Simon Wessely

18 Literary Lunch – Suzanne Heywood (1987, Zoology) in conversation with Rebecca Jones (1985, History)

DECEMBER 2023

4 Alumni Carol Concert in the Chapel

5 Alumni Carol Concert at Temple Church, London

FEBRUARY 2024

3 Supporters’ Lunch

MARCH 2024

8 Dorothy Hodgkin Memorial Lecture by Oxford University Vice-Chancellor Professor Irene Tracey

16 Medics Day with Professor Kamila Hawthorne MBE (1978, Medicine)

16 Spring Meeting with Professor Dame

Angela McLean (1979, Maths)

MAY 2024

18 The Penrose Society Lunch

JUNE 2024

8 Commemoration Service

SEPTEMBER 2024

5 1964 60th Reunion Dinner

7 Gaudy 2000 - 2007

19 – 20 1974 Golden Reunion

21 Alumni Formal Hall and Bop

1865 270600