Somerville College Report 2016-17

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SOMERVILLE COLLEGE REPORT

2016-2017



Somerville College Report 2016-17

Somerville College


Contents

Visitor, Principal, Fellows, Lecturers, Staff 5 The Year in Review Principal’s Report Baroness Jan Royall Fellows’ Activities Report on Junior Research Fellowships MCR Report JCR Report Library Report

9 11 12 17 18 19 20

Members’ Notes President’s Report Horsman Awards Somerville Senior Members’ Fund Life Before Somerville: Tina Green (1974) Members’ News and Publications Marriages Births Deaths Obituaries

23 23 23 24 25 38 38 39 40

Academic Report Examination Results Prizes Students Entering College

58 61 64

Somerville Association Officers and Committee

68

Somerville Development Board Members

68

Notices Dates for the Diary

68

Legacies

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


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

Principal Alice Prochaska, MA, DPhil, FRHistS

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

Fellows

Annie Sutherland MA, Bhaskar Choubey DPhil, DPhil, (MA Cantab) Associate (BTech Warangal NIT) (in order of seniority) Professor in Old and Middle Associate Professor of English, Rosemary Woolf Engineering Science and Tutor Joanna Mary Innes Fellow and Tutor in English in Engineering Science MA, (MA Cantab) Professor of Modern History, Winifred Daniel Anthony MA, Charlotte Potts DPhil, Holtby Fellow and Tutor in (PhD Lond) Professor of (BA Victoria University of History Experimental Neuropathology Wellington, MA UCL), FSA and Tutor in Medicine Sybille Haynes Associate Almut Maria Vera Professor of Etruscan and Suerbaum MA, (Dr Phil, Michael Hayward MA, Early Italic Archaeology and Staatsexamen, Münster) DPhil Professor of Inorganic Art, Katherine and Leonard Associate Professor of Chemistry and Tutor in Woolley Fellow in Classical German and Tutor in German Chemistry Archaeology and Tutor in Classical Archaeology Fiona Stafford Beate Dignas MA, DPhil, MA, MPhil, DPhil, (BA (Staatsexamen Münster) Karen Nielsen (Cand mag, Leicester), FRSE Professor Associate Professor of Cand philol Trondheim, of English Language and Ancient History, Barbara MA, PhD Cornell) Associate Literature, Tutor in English Craig Fellow and Tutor in Professor of Philosophy and Literature Ancient History Tutor in Philosophy Lois McNay MA, (PhD Natalia Nowakowska MA, Jonathan Marchini DPhil, Cantab) Professor of the DPhil Associate Professor of (BSc Exeter) Professor of Theory of Politics and Tutor in History and Tutor in History Statistical Genomics and Politics; Dean MT Tutor in Statistics Jonathan Burton MA, (PhD Roman Walczak MA, (MSc Cantab) Associate Professor Julian Duxfield MA, (MSc Warsaw, Dr rer nat Heidelberg) of Organic Chemistry and LSE) University Director of Reader in Particle Physics, Tutor in Chemistry Human Resources Associate Professor and Tutor in Physics Hilary Greaves BA, (PhD Renier van der Hoorn Rutgers) Associate Professor (BSc, MSc Leiden, PhD Benjamin John Thompson of Philosophy and Tutor in Wageningen) Associate MA, DPhil, (MA, PhD Cantab), Philosophy Professor of Plant Sciences FRHistS Associate Professor and Tutor in Plant Sciences of Medieval History and Tutor Luke Pitcher MA, MSt, in History DPhil, (PGCert Durham) Dan Ciubotaru (BSc, MA Associate Professor of Babes-Bolyai, PhD Cornell) Charles Spence MA, Classics and Tutor in Associate Professor of Pure (PhD Cantab) Professor of Classics; Assessor Mathematics and Tutor in Experimental Psychology Mathematics and Tutor in Experimental Simon Robert Kemp Psychology BA, MPhil, (PhD Cantab) Guido Ascari (BA Pavia, Associate Professor in French MSc, PhD Warw) Professor Jennifer Welsh MA, DPhil, and Tutor in French of Economics and Tutor in (BA Saskatchewan) Professor Economics of International Relations Alex David Rogers (BSc, PhD Liv) Professor of Damian Tyler (MSci, PhD Philip West MA, (PhD Conservation Biology and Nott) Associate Professor of Cantab) Associate Professor Tutor in Biology Biomedical Science and Tutor of English, Times Fellow and in Medicine Tutor in English; Dean HT-TT Christopher Hare BCL, (Dip d’Etudes Jurid Poitiers, MA Francesca Southerden Julie Dickson MA, DPhil, Cantab, LLM Harvard) BA, MSt, DPhil Associate (LLB Glasgow) Associate Associate Professor of Law Professor of Italian and Tutor Professor of Law and Tutor and Tutor in Law in Italian in Law

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Tessa Rajak MA, DPhil Fernando de Juan Sanz Stephen Rayner MA, (PhD (DPhil Madrid) Fulford Junior Durham), FRAS, MInstP Research Fellow Condensed Owen Rees MA, (PhD Senior Tutor, Tutor for Matter Physics Cantab), ARCO Professor Graduates and Tutor for of Music Admissions César Giraldo Herrera (BSc Magister de los Andes Steven Herbert Simon Bogota, DC Colombia, PhD MA, (PhD Harvard) Professorial Senior Research Aberdeen) Victoria Maltby Fellows Fellows Junior Research Fellow Anthropology Honorary Senior Aditi Lahiri (PhD Brown, MA, Amalia Coldea (MA, PhD Cluj-Napoca) PhD Calcutta) Professor of Research Fellow Anissa Kempf (MSc, PhD Linguistics (ETH) Zurich) Fulford Junior Colin Espie (BSc, MAppSci, Stephanie Dalley Research Fellow Medicine PhD, DSc(Med) Glas), FBPsS, MA, (MA Cantab, Hon PhD Stephen Guy Pulman CPsychol Professor of MA, (MA, PhD Essex), FBA London), FSA Lisa Lamberti (BSC Geneva, Behavioural Sleep Medicine Professor of Computational MSc Copenhagen, PhD ETH Linguistics Zurich) Mary Ewart Junior Sir Marc Feldmann AC, Research Fellow Mathematics Junior Research Stephen Roberts MA, DPhil, (BSc(Med), MB BS, PhD, Fellows MD(Hon), DMSc(Hon)), FAA, FREng, FIET, FRSS, MIOP James Larkin MBioChem, FMedSci, FRCP, FRCPath, RAEng-Man Professor of (PhD Warwick) Fulford Junior Lucy Audley-Miller FRS Professor of Cellular Machine Learning Research Fellow Medicine MPhil, DPhil, (BA Newcastle) Immunology Woolley Junior Research Rajesh Thakker MA, DM, Patricia Lockwood (BSc Fellow Archaeology and (MA, MD Cantab), FRS, FRCP, Manuele Gragnolati MA, Bristol, PhD UCL) Fulford Ancient History (Laurea in Lettere Classiche, FRCPath, FMedSci May Junior Research Fellow Pavia, PhD Columbia, DEA Professor of Medicine Experimental Psychology Mariano Beguerisse-Diaz Paris) MSc, (PhD Imp Lond) Fulford Stephen Weatherill MA, Hania Pavlou DPhil, Junior Research Fellow (MA Cantab, MSc Edinburgh) Sarah Gurr MA, (BSc, PhD (BSc (Hons) Toronto, Applied Mathematics London, ARCS, DIC) Jacques Delors Professor of MRes Glasgow) Fulford European Law Professor of Molecular Plant Junior Research Fellow Corinne Betts DPhil Pathology Neurogenetics Fulford Junior Research Matthew John Andrew Fellow Medical Sciences John Ingram (BSc KCL, Wood MA, DPhil, (MB, ChB Kerstin Timm (PhD Cantab) MSc Reading, PhD Cape Town) Professor of Fulford Junior Research Julia Bird (BA Cantab, PhD Wageningen NL) Neuroscience and Keeper of Fellow Biomedical Sciences Toulouse) Fulford Junior the College Pictures Muhammad Kassim Javaid Research Fellow Economics Sebastian Vollmer (MSc, (BMedSci, MBBS, PhD PhD Warwick) Fulford Junior London), MRCP David Bowe BA, MSt, DPhil Research Fellow Statistics Administrative Victoria Maltby Junior Research Fellow Medieval Fellows Philip Kreager DPhil Edmund Wareham BA, Italian Literature MSt Fulford Junior Research Sara Kalim MA Director of Boris Motik (MSc Zagreb, Fellow Medieval and Modern Melissa Bowerman (BSc, Development PhD Karlsruhe) Professor of Langs. PhD Ottawa) Fulford Junior Computer Science Research Fellow Medicine Lauren Watson (BSc, BSc Anne Manuel (LLB Reading, MA, MSc, PhD Frans Plank (Statsexamen (Med), MSc (Med), PhD Cape Ana Sofia Cerdeira (MD, Bristol) Librarian, Archivist and Munich, MLitt Edin, MA Town) Fulford Junior Research PhD Porto and Harvard) Head of Information Services Regensburg, DPhil Hanover) Fellow Neuroscience Fulford Junior Research Fellow Medicine Andrew Parker (BA Philip Poole (BSc, PhD Davide Zilli (BEng, PhD Liverpool), MA, ACMA Murdoch) Southampton) Fulford Junior Patrick Clibbens (BA, MPhil, Research Fellow Engineering Treasurer PhD Cantab) Mary Somerville Science Mason Porter MA, (BS Caltech, MS, PhD Cornell) Junior Research Fellow History Michael Proffitt BA Louise Mycock (BA Durh, MA, PhD Manc) Associate Professor of Linguistics and Tutor in Linguistics (from April 2017)

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Theresa Joyce Stewart Miriam Tamara Griffin Carolyn Emma Kirkby (Mrs) MA MA, DPhil DBE, OBE, MA, Hon DMus, (Hon DMus Bath, Hon DLitt Baroness Lucy NevilleMary Jane Hands MA Salf), FGSM Rolfe DBE, CMG, MA Barbara Fitzgerald Harvey Joyce Maire Reynolds Judith Ann Kathleen CBE, MA, BLitt, FRHistS, FBA MA, (Hon DLitt NewcastleBritish Academy Howard CBE, DPhil, (BSc upon-Tyne), FBA Fellows Bristol), FRS Judith Heyer MA, (PhD London) Hazel Mary Fox (Lady Fox) Pippa Byrne BA, MSt, CMG, QC, MA Victoria Glendinning DPhil British Academy PostCBE, MA Julianne Mott Jack MA doctoral Fellow Averil Millicent Cameron Jennifer Jenkins (D. 2 Feb. Carole Jordan DBE, MA, DBE, MA, DLitt, (PhD Holly Kennard BA, MPhil, 2017) DBE, Hon FRIBA, Hon (PhD London), FRS London), FBA, FSA DPhil British Academy PostFRICS, Hon MRTPI, MA doctoral Fellow Norma MacManaway MA, Baroness O’Neill of Nicola Ralston (Mrs) BA (MA, MPhil Dublin, DEA Paris) Bengarve CH, CBE, MA, (PhD Harvard), Hon DCL, Antonia Byatt DBE, CBE, Helen Morton MA, (MSc FBA, Hon FRS, FMedSci Early Career FRSL, BA Boston, MA Cantab) Fellows Kay Elizabeth Davies Anna Laura Momigliano Hilary Ockendon MA, DPhil, DBE, CBE, MA, DPhil, Siddharth Arora DPhil, Lepschy MA, BLitt (Hon DSc Southampton) (Hon DSc Victoria Canada), (BTech DA-IICT) Parkinsons FMedSci, FRS UK Early Career Fellow Josephine Peach BSc, MA, Rosalind Mary Marsden DCMG, MA, DPhil DPhil Baroness Jay of Maan Barua MSc, DPhil, Paddington PC, BA (BSc Dibrugarh) British Sarah Broadie MA, BPhil, Frances Julia Stewart Academy Early Career Fellow MA, DPhil Irangani Manel Abeysekera (PhD Edinburgh), FBA (Mrs) MA Harriet Maunsell OBE, MA Adrianne Tooke MA, (BA London, PhD Cantab) Paula Pimlott Brownlee Career Mary Midgley MA MA, DPhil Development Fellow Angela Vincent MA, MB, BS, Hilary Spurling CBE, BA (MSc London), FRS, FMedSci Julia Stretton Higgins André Veiga (PhD Toulouse) DBE, CBE, MA, DPhil, Hon Career Development Fellow Catherine Jane Royle de DSc, FRS, CChem, FRSC, Economics Camprubi MA CEng, FIM, FREng Foundation Fellows Nancy Rothwell Doreen Elizabeth Boyce Lady Margaret Elliott DBE, BSc, DS, (PhD London), MA, (PhD Pittsburgh) Emeritus Fellows MBE, MA FMedSci, FRS Ruth Hilary Finnegan Margaret Adams MA, DPhil Sir Geoffrey Leigh Baroness Shriti Vadera OBE, MA, BLitt, DPhil, FBA PC, BA Pauline Adams MA, BLitt, Mr Gavin Ralston MA Janet Margaret Bately (Dipl Lib Lond) Elizabeth Mary Keegan CBE, MA, FBA Lord Powell of Bayswater DBE, MA Lesley Brown BPhil, MA KCMG, OBE Margaret Kenyon (Mrs) MA Carole Hillenbrand OBE, Marian Ellina Stamp Mr Wafic Said BA, (BA Cantab, PhD Tamsyn Love Imison Dawkins CBE, MA, DPhil, Edinburgh), FBA, FRSE, DBE, BSc, FRSA FRS FRAS, FRHistS Honorary Fellows Clara Elizabeth Mary Katherine Duncan-Jones Angela McLean BA, (MA Freeman (Mrs) OBE, MA MA, BLitt, FRSL Baroness Williams of Berkeley, PhD Lond), FRS Crosby CH, PC, MA Jenny Glusker MA, DPhil Karin Erdmann MA, (Dr rer Michele Moody-Adams BA, nat Giessen) Kiri Jeanette Te Kanawa (BA Wellesley, PhD Harvard) Ann Rosamund Oakley DBE, Hon DMus MA, (PhD London, Hon DLitt Salford), AcSS Nahid Zokaei (BSc, PhD UCL) Fulford Junior Research Fellow Experimental Psychology

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Judith Parker DBE, QC, MA Francesco Hautmann Betiel Wasihun (MA, PhD Alumni Relations (Dottore in Fisica Florence) Heidelberg) German Physics Esther Rantzen DBE, Liz Cooke MA CBE, MA Christian Hill (PhD Cantab) Lisa Gygax MA Departmental Chemistry Caroline Barron MA, (PhD Lecturers London), FRHistS William Laidlaw DPhil, (MA Conferences & Oren Margolis DPhil, (MA Cantab) Chemistry Fiona Caldicott DBE, BM, KCL) History BCh, MA, MD (Hon), DSc Catering Alison Lutton DPhil, (MA (Hon), FRCPsych, FRCP, Edinburgh, MA Liverpool) Marco Scutari (MSc, PhD FRCPI, FRCGP, FMedSci Dave Simpson Padua) Statistics English Emma Rothschild CMG, MA Shaina Western (BA Quentin Miller Treasury Whitworth, PhD California at DPhil, (BMath Waterloo, Venkatraman Davis) International Relations Canada) Computer Science Ramakrishnan Kt, (BSc Elaine Boorman Baroda, PhD Ohio), Nobel College Accountant Ain Neuhaus DPhil Medicine Laureate, FRS (President) Lecturer in Medicine Mark Roberts MBioch, DPhil Tessa Ross CBE, BA Biochemistry IT Helen Ashdown Joanna Haigh CBE, MA, BM, BCh, (MA Cantab), Elena Seiradake (PhD DPhil, FRS, FRMetS MRCP, MRCPG, DCH, PGDip Chris Bamber Systems Heidelberg) Biochemistry Manager Janet Vaughan Tutor in Akua Kuenyehia BCL, (LLB Clinical Medicine Benjamin Skipp MA, MSt, University of Ghana) DPhil Music Porters’ Lodge Baroness Wolf of Dulwich CBE, BA, MPhil Graeme Smith MPhys, DPhil Academic Office Mark Ealey Lodge Manager Physics Joanne Ockwell (BA, MA Lorna Margaret Hutson University of Gloucester) Stephen Smith BA, BA, DPhil, FBA Academic Registrar MPhil, (MA Open) Classical Chapel Archaeology Caroline Mary Series Claire Cockcroft MA, (PhD BA, (PhD Harvard), FRS Brian McMahon MA, MSt, Pauline Souleau DPhil, (BA, Cantab), FRSB Programme (MA Essex) Director Sacha Romanovitch BA MA Paris-Sorbonne (Paris IV)) Director, Margaret Thatcher Scholarship Trust French Music Zachary Vermeer Stipendiary BCL, MSt, (BA Sydney) Law Library Will Dawes (PGDip RAM, Lecturers BMus (Hons) Edinburgh) Timothy Walker Susan Elizabeth Purver MA Director of Chapel Music Sophie Bocksberger MA Plant Sciences DPhil Classics Matthew Roper MA, (MA Hilary Davan Wetton MA Durham) Senior Music Associate Nicola Byrom DPhil, (BSc Retaining Fee Nottingham) Psychology

Lectures Development Joseph Camm MEng Office Richard Ashdowne Engineering MA, DPhil Linguistics Brett de Gaynesford Yvonne Couch MSc, DPhil (BA, College of William Vilma de Gasperin Medicine & Mary, USA) Deputy DPhil, (Laurea Padua) Development Director Xon de Ros DPhil, (Fellow of Modern Languages LMH) Spanish Catherine Mary MacRobert Alessandro di Nicola BPhil, MA, DPhil Russian DPhil Philosophy

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


Principal’s Report It is a pleasure for me to report on another remarkable year at Somerville, at the end of my own final year as Principal. Our undergraduate finalists have been well represented among the top results in the University; and the proportion of candidates placing Somerville as their first choice of college at Oxford continues to grow. The College prides itself also on our insistence that every student can succeed despite the inevitable crop of difficulties with personal and health problems: at Somerville, once a student is admitted to study here, we are committed to giving them all possible support. That commitment does not necessarily bring the reward of a high ranking in the Norrington table (where First-class degrees score disproportionately), but it ensures a consistent record of good degrees at the level of Firsts and 2:1s, giving all our graduates the basis for future success. Meanwhile, it is gratifying to see the numbers of exceptionally high academic scores and university prizes increase each year. It is also a matter for pride that our tutors and support staff continue to win awards from their departments and from OUSU, the student union. This year two tutors, Drs Siddharth Arora and Quentin Miller, won OUSU awards respectively as best lecturer in social sciences and best tutor in the Mathematical, Physical and Life Sciences Division, and our Academic Registrar who also deals with disability issues, Jo Ockwell, was recognised for her outstanding work in student support. Computer scientist Dr Miller summed up: ‘That three awards this year have gone to Somerville is no mere coincidence. The environment is so focused on teaching and learning, it’s impossible not to be continually caught up in the buzz of it. I feel very lucky to be part of it all’. The College’s Governing Body has paid particular attention to strategy in this year of transition between Principals, and raising academic standards is one plank in that strategy. In September 2016, a strategic review of progress over the past five years noted that the College had also taken great strides in creating a congenial working environment for both academic and support staff. A survey of support staff opinion showed 93% positive about Somerville as a place to work, compared with 75% in the previous survey, taken in 2012. An active policy of tackling any form of harassment, whether among students or staff, had clearly borne fruit. Our academic policy, led by Senior Tutor Dr Steve Rayner, is geared both to fostering the development of Somerville students and to enhancing opportunities for access to university, among communities not traditionally represented here. This year for the second year running, Somerville hosted the “Universify” free summer school for students from some of the poorest schools in areas linked to the College. It is designed to encourage Year 10 students to aspire to university and so to motivate them to do as well as possible in their GCSE exams. Dr Rayner is also a leading

Alice Prochaska

figure in the Higher Horizons consortium, centred on Stoke on Trent, which pursues a similar goal, supported by a grant from the Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE). Underpinning the progress of the College in all ways has been a determined fund-raising strategy: with the result that Somerville’s endowment has risen by about 80% since 2010. Thanks in part to our loyal alumni (participating in numbers well above the Oxford average) we are now better able to support students financially; although there is still so much more that needs to be done, in this era of rising fees and interest rates. It has been one of the greatest pleasures (and a constant challenge) for me as Principal, to meet alumni and other people in different parts of the world who can help the College – and therefore our students – to realise our aspirations. In the past year, my travels have taken me to India (for the seventh visit during my tenure) and Singapore. I met with the warmest of welcomes in both places, from alumni and new friends alike. The staff of our Development Office led by Sara Kalim have been the key to our success, consistently bringing in more funds each year

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than most Oxford colleges, and they have been a joy to work with. In 2016-17 the Margaret Thatcher Scholarship Trust awarded its first scholarships. The purpose of the Trust is to provide a living legacy for Britain’s first woman and first scientist to become prime minister, by offering full scholarships at undergraduate and postgraduate level to the most excellent students from any part of the world, regardless of political, social or cultural background and beliefs. The scheme echoes the support that Somerville provided to Margaret Thatcher herself as an undergraduate of modest means. In the same spirit, the Trust also provides Thatcher Development Awards, typically of about £2,000, for students and recent graduates to pursue innovative projects developing their personal and professional skills, with the proviso that the projects should provide some kind of benefit to other people. The Trust was delighted to welcome Dr Claire Cockcroft as our programme director in January, and she has been working with and mentoring Somerville students in pursuit of the development programme. To date, we have awarded eight full scholarships, ensuring that the recipients will leave Somerville at the end of their courses free from debt; and eight Somerville students are receiving Thatcher Development Awards. The programme mirrors some of the College’s leading characteristics of internationalism, inclusion and voluntary activity. Recipients of full scholarships include an undergraduate from Vietnam and a postgraduate from Malaysia, as well as British students from state school backgrounds. The development awards to date include the following: volunteering in a refugee camp in Kenya; a biology expedition and the establishment of a Science and Society Club at Somerville; the establishment of an India-Pakistan Arts/Politics Collective; volunteering in Peru; producing a show at the Edinburgh Festival; the establishment of a conference and a mediaevalists’ discussion group; an event promoting sustainable food production and waste reduction in College; and bystander intervention training for College students. The Oxford India Centre for Sustainable Development enjoyed another year of growth. Following last year’s highly successful conference in Oxford on “Nutrition, Power and the Environment”, a further conference was held in Delhi, and several satellite research projects are in progress. Two Indira Gandhi Scholars and the HSA Scholar in Law gained distinctions in their masters courses, and all three are going on to further research degrees at Somerville. On 17 November we celebrated the 150th anniversary of the birth of pioneering lawyer Cornelia Sorabji at a reception at India House in London. Speakers included the acting High Commissioner Dinesh Patnaik, the past and present Deans of the Oxford Law Faculty and an eloquent personal tribute to his aunt from her biographer Professor Sir Richard Sorabji. Our two first law scholars, Navya Jannu and Divya Sharma (the Cornelia Sorabji scholar), spoke movingly about the opportunity that our benefactors have given them. The Centre continues to develop its potential to enter into partnerships supporting scholarships and research, with a new building to house its work still a long-term goal. We

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are particularly grateful for the support of the Indian High Commission in London and the official representatives of the Government of India, successive High Commissioners and Lord Bilimoria, for their consistent support. Sadly, the Research Director Dr Alfred Gathorne-Hardy left us in July 2017 to move on to new roles. He deserves the main credit for getting the Centre established, running its regular seminars and lunch meetings, and melding its first scholars into a cohesive body. Each one of them has benefited from Alfy’s personal mentoring and the many opportunities for professional development that he set up. During the past year Professor Alex Rogers added to his many other duties by acting as the interim overall director of the Centre; and an exciting new appointment will be announced shortly. Somerville’s dynamic academic community has added or is about to add several new Tutorial Fellows. We are sad to lose philosopher Professor Hilary Greaves, moving on to a senior level fellowship at Merton College, and we congratulate physicist Professor Steven Simon on taking up his senior research position in the Physics Department, though happily he continues as a Fellow of Somerville. Professor Mason Porter, former tutorial Fellow in Mathematics, who has moved to UCLA, continues his affiliation as a Senior Research Fellow. This year we welcomed Elena Seiradake in Biochemistry, Dr Louise Mycock in Linguistics (a new post), and Dr Mari Mikkola and Dr Renaud Lambiotte will be taking up their appointments respectively in Philosophy and Mathematics in Michaelmas Term. Dr Vivien Parmentier will join the College in 2018 as Fellow and Tutor in Physics. It is a pleasure also to congratulate Somerville’s Fellows on several awards and prizes, including the appointment of Professor Aditi Lahiri as a vice-president of the British Academy. An important part of the community are the Junior Research Fellows, described later in this report. Music and the arts have flourished during the year, with a new director of Chapel Music, William Dawes, who joined in January, already making plans to take the choir on tour to India and Senior Music Associate Hilary Davan Wetton presiding over the resurgent College orchestra. Somervillians have been well represented in drama and comedy groups at the Edinburgh Festival, where this year’s offerings also included a one-woman show by Somervillian alumna Alison Skilbeck, on Shakespeare’s crones. Coincidentally, the Royal Bank of Scotland chose a day during the Festival to launch their new £10 banknote featuring Mary Somerville. Brigitte Stenhouse gave a talk at the launch party, her swansong as a valued member of Development Office staff before moving on to do a PhD on the mathematics of Mary Somerville. This was a year for honouring the College’s eponymous heroine. In May the noted biographer Richard Holmes gave the Bryce Lecture on “The Mary Somerville connexion” to a large and appreciative audience. Earlier, we received news of a generous gift. Mrs Emma Lambe and her two daughters, lateral descendants of Mary Somerville through her brother Henry Fairfax, are presenting the College with a collection of Mrs Somerville’s own books, several paintings by her and one attributed to her drawing master Alexander Nasmyth, and her personal collection of shells in their original cabinet.


The latter is especially iconic because the young Mary Fairfax nurtured her interest in mathematics and the patterns of the universe by studying the shells on her native seashore near Jedburgh. These newly acquired treasures will be on display in the Mary Somerville Room, once the JCR and more recently the College bar. It has been transformed into an elegant space for special events and gatherings in the College, thanks in part to a generous legacy by the late Honorary Fellow Ruth Thompson, who is herself commemorated in a named room in the Library. Librarian and Archivist Anne Manuel, who is also head of IT systems, has added the title Keeper of College Collections to her portfolio and presides over this and other transformations. The fortunes of the College have been transformed not only by fund-raising but also by the wise stewardship and innovative management of our Treasurer Andrew Parker. The College has raised a highly favourable loan for new building, and work is under way on the Catherine Hughes building. From 2019 onwards, for the first time in recent

memory, Somerville will be able to accommodate all its undergraduate students for the whole of their course, and all first-year graduates. We are fortunate in that all of this accommodation will be on site, a huge advantage in bringing the College community together. This has been a year of last times and farewells for me personally. I am deeply grateful for the great privilege and delight of leading the College for the past seven years. I thank those who have supported me and shared the journey: alumni, Fellows, staff in all departments, trustees and board members within and beyond the College and above all, the many hundreds of students who have made up this vibrant college community and shared with me their hopes, fears and extraordinary talents. As my eversupportive husband Frank and I take our leave, we send our very best wishes for the future to all our friends in the Somerville community and especially to my successor, Jan Royall.

Jan Royall, Baroness Royall of Blaisdon, has been elected Principal to succeed Dr Alice Prochaska, who retired in August 2017. As a graduate of London University, Westfield College, with no history in Oxford, Jan brings a fresh perspective as well as energy and enthusiasm to her new role. After graduating in Spanish and French Jan worked briefly in the commercial world before beginning a life-long career in politics. She worked in the European Parliament for six years, and then in the House of Commons for Lord Kinnock who was Leader of the Opposition. This was followed by ten years in the European Commission before her appointment to the House of Lords in 2004. She served as a Government Spokesperson on health, foreign affairs and international development under Tony Blair and joined Gordon Brown’s Government as Chief Whip. In 2008 Gordon Brown appointed her to his cabinet as Leader of the Lords and Lord President of the Council. After the 2010 election she became Leader of the Opposition in the Lords until she resigned in 2015. Jan’s long experience inside and outside Government in foreign affairs and the European Union will be invaluable to Somerville as our country and our universities engage in new networks and new relationships in the post-Brexit world. Much of her work in other parts of the globe has focused on women, young people, education and democracy-building. In this country Jan has worked a great deal on diversity, social inclusion, mental health, health, domestic violence and citizenship. She is passionate about young people and their potential. Until recently she was Pro-Chancellor of the University of Bath and she is engaged in many charities and organisations that work with young people, for example City Year UK, the NCS, Uprising and Step Up To Serve.

Jan Royall

Jan is chair of the People’s History Museum and a visiting professor of the Institute of Global Health Innovation at Imperial College, London.

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Fellows’ and Lecturers’ Activities Biological Sciences

Classics

In July to August 2016 Alex Rogers was Chief Scientist on the Nekton/ XL Catlin Deep-Ocean Survey to Bermuda where he discovered deepsea coral gardens and the deepest observations of invasive lionfish. Over the course of 2016 and 2017 Alex has authored or co-authored 27 peer-reviewed papers on various aspects of coral reef and deep-sea ecology. Alex also contributed to two chapters in the UN’s First Ocean Assessment and completed a report for the UN Division of Oceans and Law of the Sea on implementation of UN General Assembly Resolutions on management of deep-sea fisheries. He also participated in a workshop on the Paris Climate Agreement hosted by National Geographic in Washington DC, gave a guest lecture at the Royal College of Defence Studies and gave the Stanley Gray Lecture for 2017 for the Institute of Marine Engineering, Science and Technology at Lloyds Registry. He also taught on courses in Adaptations, Marine Ecology and Ecology and led the First Year Biological Sciences Fieldcourse. Alex continued as Director of Somerville’s Oxford India Centre for Sustainable Development.

Beate Dignas’s research continues to focus on the religious landscape of pre-Attalid and Hellenistic Pergamon. Currently she is participating in a project entitled ‘Materiality in Hellenistic Ruler Cults’, contributing with a focus on the agency and funding involved in honours for Attalid kings, as well as working on a study of the worship of Dionysus at Pergamon. She has been collaborating with Dr Lucy Audley-Miller on ‘Wandering Myths: Cross-Cultural Uses of Myth in the Ancient World’, based on the international conference both held at Somerville in 2014 and soon to be published by De Gruyter. She is also editing the ‘ancient’ volume in a six-volume Cultural History of Memory commissioned by Bloomsbury. Faculty and college duties have filled the past year with chairing exams, and looking after the graduate Oxford-Princeton links as well as three flourishing Somerville Classics courses: Literae Humaniores, Ancient and Modern History, and Classical Archaeology and Ancient History.

Renier van der Hoorn has continued research programs on plant disease and molecular pharming with his research team using funding from the ERC, John Fell Fund, Oxford-India Centre, Clarendon Fund, BBSRC and Syngenta. According to Thomson Reuters, he is one of only a few Highly Cited Researchers in Plant and Animal Sciences in 2016. There are only sixteen scientists in the UK having that title, two of them from Oxford. He has also obtained a grant from the European Commission to collaborate within a European network on improving plant-based expression platforms for the production of pharmaceuticals. He is organising the International Conference on Chemical Proteomics at Somerville College, planned for March 2018.

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Luke Pitcher spent the year as University Assessor. He provided oversight of the central Committees, ruled on Hardship cases, and, on one memorable evening, stood in for the Vice-Chancellor at the Zaharoff Lecture. He delivered the University Latin Sermon at St Mary the Virgin again in January: having chosen the story of Martha for his text on the previous occasion, he retold the tale of Judith and Holofernes (with a digression on the Temptation of St Anthony) this time around. He also published a revised version of his commentary on the fragmentary Greek historian Artemon of Pergamum for Brill’s New Jacoby.

Economics Guido Ascari’s research focused on understanding of the interaction between expectations and macroeconomics policies. Dynamic

macroeconomic models imply that the effect of monetary and fiscal policies on the economy depends on agents’ expectations about the future. How monetary and fiscal policies interact to determine macroeconomic equilibrium depends on the interplay between expectations and policies. The understanding of this interaction is crucial to identify the effect of policies. For example, a paper coauthored by Guido, P. Bonomolo and H. Lopes shows that allowing for time-variation in the way agents form their expectations could generate rational expectations equilibria that feature temporary unstable, but asymptotically stable, dynamics, and this framework is applied to study inflation dynamics. Another paper co-authored by Guido, A. Florio and A. Gobbi studied how expectations of future changes in monetary and fiscal policy affect the dynamic behaviour of the economy and its current response of monetary and fiscal policies. More info at: https://sites.google.com/site/ guidoascari/. Guido presented the above papers and other works at various seminars and conferences, and in talks at several central banks (Bank of Finland, De Nederlandsche Bank, Norges Bank, Riksbank, Fed of Chicago, Kansas City and New York). He gave a plenary address to the RCEA 8th Money-Macro-Finance workshop, 18-19 May 2017, and presented a paper at the National Bureau of Economic Research Summer Institute in Boston. He was visiting professor at the Dutch Central Bank (De Nederlandsche Bank).

Engineering Richard Stone is very pleased to report that Engineering at Somerville continues to flourish. This year we had three of the six engineers graduating with First Class degrees and there were also very good examination results in the first three years, with three or four students in the top forty of each year. Combustion work continues with EPSRC and industrial funding, and a major activity is using


Particle Image Velocimetry (PIV) to measure the flows in two dimensions during induction and compression within the optical access engine; these measurements can be taken 8000 times per second, and a single run generates about six gigabytes of data. This poses challenges with data analysis and how best to make comparisons with the computational predictions. Stephen Roberts continues to research the application of large-scale machine learning to scientific, commercial and industrial domains. His current major interests include the application of machine learning to huge astrophysical data sets (for discovering exoplanets, pulsars and cosmological models), biodiversity monitoring (for detecting changes in ecology and spread of disease), smart networks (for reducing energy consumption and impact), sensor networks (to better acquire and model complex events) and finance (to provide better insight into time series and aggregate large numbers of unstructured information streams). He continues as Director of the OxfordMan Institute of Quantitative Finance and as a Faculty Fellow of the Alan Turing Institute. Bhaskar Choubey continued working in the field of microelectronics for better sensor design for commercial as well as biomedical applications. This has led to new sensor as well as readout designs for digital cameras and electromechanical systems. In addition, he also started an activity on better design of nano-systems. He is serving on the IEEE Working Group on ICT in Europe, advising policy makers at European level.

English Fiona Stafford writes: ‘Since the publication of The Long, Long Life of Trees in August 2016, I’ve been very busy with radio interviews, conferences and literary festivals. One of the nicest things about the book is that it has enabled me to work with a former Somervillian, Matt Larsen-Daw, who is spearheading the Woodland Trust’s campaign to launch a National Charter for Trees in November 2017. I’ve also been contributing to a new TORCH Environmental

Humanities group. Apart from trees, I have published an essay on the Solway in an OUP collection, Coastal Works, and continue to work on the Oxford History of Romantic Literature. The Bicentenary of Jane Austen’s death has prompted several lectures and Yale UP have published a revised edition of my biography, Jane Austen: A Brief Life. I’ve had the pleasure of taking two more groups of Somerville students to Chawton – with fine, bright weather on both occasions. I’ve also been Chair of the MSt examination in English, convenor of the Romantic Research Seminar and host of the Astor Visiting Lecturer.’ Annie Sutherland’s monograph English Psalms in the Middle Ages (OUP, 2015) won this year’s Beatrice White Prize. Awarded annually by the English Association, the prize recognises outstanding scholarly work in the field of English literature before 1590. The year has also seen the publication of two essays on the Psalms in edited volumes, and the completion of work on two further essays on devotional literature, both to be published in 2018. In addition, Annie has worked intensively on her editorial project for Exeter University Press, presenting two papers on this ongoing research over the course of the year. She has continued to enjoy and be challenged by teaching and examining at graduate and undergraduate level. This year Philip West has taken on the Deanship, an office which affords insights into many areas of life at Somerville – not all of them, thankfully, to do with discipline. One of the happiest aspects of the role has been working with our excellent Junior Deans and with the members of the College’s administrative staff who do so much to keep the College running smoothly, in particular the Executive Assistant to Fellows, Karen Mason, and our Academic Registrar, Jo Ockwell. An article on ‘The Drama of James Shirley’s Poems’ was published earlier in the year, and Phil is now writing a co-authored article about punctuation in seventeenth-century poetry for a forthcoming collection of essays. He is also putting the finishing touches to his critical edition of James Shirley’s poems. He continues to

love working with manuscripts in the Bodleian Library and elsewhere, and has recently become a member of the Humanities Palaeography Committee.

Experimental Psychology Professor Charles Spence has been working to establish Gastrophysics: The New Science of Eating as a discipline. He recently published a popular science book on this theme with Penguin. He has also been working closely with chefs such as Jozef Youssef at his dining space Kitchen Theory in High Barnet. Following the sudden closure of the Psychology Department (due to the discovery of asbestos) his Crossmodal Research Group are currently without lab facilities and so doing lots of research online and ‘in the wild’.

History Joanna Innes had significant administrative duties this year, as Vice-Chair of the Faculty Board, and in Hilary Term as Acting Principal during Alice Prochaska’s sabbatical. ‘It was interesting to see the College and University from a fresh angle. In what free time I had, I completed work editing a collection of essays, Suffering and Happiness in England 1550-1850, co-edited with Michael J. Braddick, and due out in August, and continued work on the international collaborative “Reimagining Democracy” project, which is now focusing on Latin America and the Caribbean. I continued to serve as History Delegate for Oxford University Press, and as a member of its Finance and Audit Committees.’ Oren Margolis published his first monograph (The Politics of Culture in Quattrocento Europe) in Trinity Term 2016 and the book has been named proxime accessit for the Royal Historical Society’s Gladstone Prize. Oren has found the past academic year both enjoyable and productive as he got to move on to new things: working on his new project, a cultural history of the Aldine Press; continuing to make forays into the history of history-writing (an ongoing interest); and delivering a large number of conference and seminar papers on these various themes. He was awarded a Lambarde grant from the Society of Antiquaries for research

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in Rome on the development in the Renaissance of the papal title pontifex maximus. He also collaborated with his fellow British School at Rome awardee, contemporary artist Candida Powell-Williams, on her Arts Council England-funded exhibition ‘The Vernacular History of the Golden Rhubarb’ at the Bosse & Baum gallery, London – hopefully the first of many collaborations to come. Natalia Nowakowska is now in the fourth year of leading an EUfunded project entitled Jagiellonians: Dynasty, Memory and Identity in Central Europe. This has been a year of juggling books. Natalia has been preparing for publication the project’s first book, a collection of essays entitled Remembering the Jagiellonians (Routledge, spring 2018). The book traces how this major Renaissance dynasty has been remembered in a dozen different European countries, from the sixteenth century to the present day. Natalia’s book on the early Reformation in Poland is also set to appear later in 2017, to coincide with the Luther Year, the 500th anniversary of the Reformation (1517/2017). The book is entitled King Sigismund of Poland and Martin Luther, and is being published by Oxford University Press in December. Natalia has also spoken at an international conference in Bruges, delivered a public lecture in London and undertaken two very illuminating research trips to Vilnius and Prague. Benjamin Thompson has continued the process of implementing History curriculum reform as Director of Undergraduate Studies in History. Taking advantage of what may be a last opportunity to use ERASMUS funding and engage in European solidarity, he went to Lisbon to teach about the late medieval church. Thinking about Time and Temporality for the medievalists’ project has been curious in these turbulent times, and with big changes ahead for the Somerville History School.

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Law

Linguistics

Dr Julie Dickson has continued with her research work in legal philosophy. She completed an article, entitled ‘Why General Jurisprudence is Interesting’, which is shortly to be published by the Mexican philosophy journal Critica. In Trinity Term 2017 she had a term of sabbatical leave and wrote three chapters of her forthcoming book, Elucidating Law: The Philosophy of Legal Philosophy. Dr Dickson continued to enjoy her teaching for the college in legal philosophy and in European Union Law, and she is very proud of the performance of the Somerville undergraduate and postgraduate students who completed finals this summer, and who achieved some fantastic results including several Law Faculty prizes for the best performance in the year across the collegiate university.

Louise Mycock joined Somerville on 1 April 2017 and since then has had an article accepted for publication in the journal English Language and Linguistics. She ran a college taster session on Linguistics for a group of Year 10 students and their teachers in May, and participated in the two college Open Days in June to promote Linguistics to prospective students.

Professor Stephen Weatherill has spent most of the academic year looking down the back of the sofa for a trade deal between the UK and the EU that will deliver to the UK the exact same benefits as membership of the EU, sorting through the recycling in the hope of finding super new free trade agreements between the UK and India, the USA and Australia while also greeting with glee the vast injections of new cash into the NHS. So far he’s been disappointed, but he does think he might have spotted a few unicorns along the way. In the meantime, in a spirit of hoping things will somehow work out fine in the end, he has seen four books published in the last twelve months: Law and Values in the European Union (Clarendon Law Series), The Internal Market as a Legal Concept (OUP), Contract Law of the Internal Market (Intersentia Publishing) and Principles and Practice of EU Sports Law (OUP). He has continued to teach at undergraduate and postgraduate levels while also supervising seven research students, and he shares the general delight at the success of the Somerville finalists in Law in 2017.

Mathematics and Statistics Dan Ciubotaru received an individual teaching award from the MPLS this year. His research is in representation theory, an area of mathematics concerned with the study of symmetries. He is particularly interested in unitary representations of reductive Lie groups and Hecke algebras in the framework of the local Langlands correspondence. Jonathan Marchini has continued to pursue the research funded by his ERC Consolidator Award to develop statistical methods for uncovering structure in high-dimensional datasets in human genetics and neuroscience. This year a main focus has been the research related to the UK Biobank project (http://www.ukbiobank.ac.uk/) which has collected genetic data on 500,000 UK individuals. His research group has been responsible for estimation of haplotypes (paternally and maternally inherited DNA) for all the individuals, and for using his methods to predict genetic data unobserved by the assay used to collect the data. This work will be published towards the end of 2017. Quentin Miller also received an individual teaching award. His research interests include the design and implementation of programming languages, and language support for parallel processing.


Medicine Helen Ashdown’s main focus this year has been her ongoing research into blood eosinophils in chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. In particular, she is leading a clinical study which is now recruiting patients from across Oxfordshire. She has also published papers on the clinical features of whooping cough, and the workload of NHS GPs. She has recently taken over as national research lead for the Primary Care Respiratory Society UK, and has chaired the South West Regional Conference of the Society for Academic Primary Care. In March she welcomed the arrival of her daughter Elizabeth – just in time to attend the conference with her! Vanessa Ferreira is Associate Professor of Cardiovascular Medicine and Deputy Clinical Director of OCMR. She is an Honorary Consultant Cardiologist, and Clinical Lecturer at Somerville, and for the past year has been continuing research using cardiac MRI to study the human heart. She has published seven scientific papers and one news article, completed two book chapters and two consensus papers. Vanessa has submitted two major grant applications this year and is actively involved in committee work and on external Boards. Victoria Stokes was awarded a Wellcome Trust Clinical Research Training Fellowship in 2016 for her DPhil project entitled ‘The Role of the Adaptor Protein-2 Sigma Subunit (AP2) in Calcium Homeostasis’. She is exploring the biology of G-Protein Coupled Receptor (GPCR) function, focusing on the calcium sensing receptor (CaSR). Loss-of-function and gain-of-function mutations to the CaSR result in hypercalcaemia and hypocalcaemia, relevant to her background as a Specialist Registrar in Diabetes and Endocrinology. She is studying the CaSR signalling pathway and its components, focusing on the role of the adaptor protein-2 sigma subunit which is involved in clathrin mediated endocytosis of the CaSR. She teaches undergraduate and postgraduate medical students at Somerville.

Damian Tyler has enjoyed his first year teaching in Somerville and several of his students have won awards and distinctions. His research team has successfully undertaken the first human experiments using the novel technique of hyperpolarized magnetic resonance imaging for the assessment of cardiac metabolism. This emerging technique makes it possible to image how the heart turns the fuels we eat (like sugars and fats) into the energy we need to keep our hearts beating. It is believed that alterations in the balance between the use of fats and sugars may underlie many diseases of the heart and so this new imaging modality may provide a sensitive way to diagnose heart disease and to help monitor its treatment.

Francesca Southerden

Modern Languages Simon Kemp has two new books coming out this year. The first is a monograph entitled Writing the Mind: Representing Consciousness from Proust to the Present, published this summer with Routledge. It ventures towards a literary history of the mind over a century of European culture, examining how psychological novels change through the century with the rise and fall of psychoanalysis, existentialism, and behaviourism, the decline of religious belief and the advent of cognitive science. It’s the first of a projected trilogy, so he is now hard at work on the second volume, looking at theories of consciousness and literary criticism. Secondly, as part of his role as Schools Liaison and Outreach Officer for the French sub-faculty, he has been involved with Oxford University Press’s plans to create study guides for French texts in response to the recent changes in the A-level syllabus, firstly as a consultant, and then as the writer of one of the first volumes, a companion to Camus’s L’Étranger. Mary MacRobert has published ‘The place of the Mihanovi Psalter in the fourteenth-century revised versions of the Church Slavonic Psalter’ in volume VI of Studia Ceranea (2016) (http:// ceraneum.uni.lodz.pl/s-ceranea/ spis-tomow), and ‘The enigmatic Athens Psalter (Greek National Library, MS 1797)’ in “Slova I zolota vjaz’”.

Sbornik statej pamjati V.M. Zagrebina’ (1942-2004), edited by Ž. L. Levšina et al. (St Petersburg: Rossijskaja Nacional’naja Biblioteka, 2016) (https://vivaldi.nlr.ru/bx000008288/ view). She also gave a paper on ‘Uses of perfective non-past forms in early Church Slavonic homilies’ at a conference, ‘St. Clement of Ohrid in the Culture of Europe’, at the University of Sofia in November 2016. Since joining Somerville as the new Fellow in Italian, Francesca Southerden has presented her research on medieval Italian poetry at conferences and workshops in Paris and Berlin, as well as in Oxford. In May, she travelled to Eugene, Oregon, for the annual meeting of the Dante Society of America, of which she is an elected member of the Council. Together with her colleague in medieval Italian, Elena Lombardi (Balliol College), she has been convening the ‘Cavalcanti Reading Group’, which has attracted a lively and committed group of scholars and graduate students. She has completed a forthcoming article on Petrarch’s ‘Art of Rambling’, and is working on finishing a monograph entitled Dante and Petrarch in the Garden of Language, which brings together her interests in language, desire, subjectivity, and poetic space. As a longstanding member of the Somerville Medievalist Research

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Group, she is delighted to have participated in this year’s meetings alongside her colleagues in Modern Languages, English, and History. Almut Suerbaum has chaired the Final Honours Schools for Modern Languages and the six joint schools, which has been complex, but also fascinating – from oral exams to making sure that theses, dissertations and portfolios went to the right readers, from calming nerves of candidates and examiners to chairing meetings. She has given invited lectures in Berlin, Bonn, Freiburg, Helmstedt and Zurich, mostly on medieval religious song and mystical theology – a welcome counterpart, as were the meetings of the Somerville Medieval Research group, whose members were enormously pleased to be afforced by Francesca Southerden, Somerville’s Fellow in Italian.

Philosophy This has been a year of transition for Philosophy at Somerville. In September, Alessandro di Nicola concludes his two-year stint as Lecturer, and in October we will welcome our new Tutorial Fellow, Mari Mikkola, a specialist in feminist philosophy, who will join us from Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin. We will then start a new and exciting chapter in the history of Philosophy at Somerville. Our students have been delivering excellent results in prelims and finals this year, with distinctions for Somervillians in Maths and Philosophy, Physics and Philosophy, and PPE, and firsts for students specializing in Philosophy for Greats and PPE finals. The past year has involved Karen Nielsen in a hefty amount of administrative work: she served on appointment committees for a University Lecturer in Ancient Philosophy at Brasenose, and for the CUF in Feminist and Theoretical Philosophy at Somerville, also on the Board of the Faculty of Philosophy; was Mods Examiner

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for Philosophy; and was involved in the search for Somerville’s new Principal. Her article ‘Vice in the Nicomachean Ethics’ appeared in the journal Phronesis early in the year; another longer piece, ‘Spicy Food as Cause of Death: Coincidence and Necessity in Metaphysics E23’ will appear in Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy vol. 52 (2017). ‘Deliberation and Decision in the Magna Moralia and Eudemian Ethics’ is forthcoming in Brink, Sauvé-Meyer and Shields (eds.), Virtue, Happiness and Knowledge: Essays for Gail Fine and Terence Irwin (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017). In December 2016, Karen gave the keynote talk at an international conference for younger ancient philosophers at the Humboldt in Berlin, and in September 2016 gave a talk at the Southern Association for Ancient Philosophy at Cambridge. Karen waits to see how Brexit negotiations will impact her legal status in the UK and suspects she will have to seek legal help.

Emeritus Fellow Judith Heyer has been continuing to write and lecture on different issues emerging from the village data that she has been collecting over the last three decades or so, spending the winter months in South India and the rest of the year in Oxford. In 2016-17 she has published: ‘Rural Gounders on the Move in Western Tamil Nadu: 1981/2 to 2008/9’, in P.J. Himanshu and G. Rogers (eds.), Longitudinal Research in Village India: Methods and Findings (New Delhi, India: Oxford University Press, 2016), and ‘Loosening the Ties of Patriarchy with Agrarian Transition in Coimbatore Villages: 1981/2 2008/9’, in B. Mohanty (ed.), Critical Perspectives in Agrarian Transition: India in the Global Debate (New Delhi, India: Routledge, 2016).

Physics Steve Simon spent much of the spring/summer as a Visiting Professor at the Niels Bohr Institute in Copenhagen.

Honorary Senior Research Fellow Stephanie Dalley has given several lectures on the Hanging Garden of Babylon, including one at the Trondheim Arts Festival; her book on the Mystery of the Hanging Garden (OUP, 2013) is now published in Arabic by Beisan Press (Beirut), translated by Najwa Nasr. She went to Basra (southern Iraq) for the opening of the new museum of antiquities, spoke at a small conference, and visited the site of Ur, and the revived marshes, which now cover an area the size of Belgium. Her forthcoming book, a History of Babylon, is now on its third draft, to be published by CUP.

Nicola Ralston (1974, History, Honorary Fellow) and Gavin Ralston (Foundation Fellow) attending a Buckingham Palace Garden Party, at which Gavin was representing St Paul's Cathedral, where he is Lay Canon


Report on Junior Research Fellowships Every year Somerville supports a substantial number of Junior Research Fellows (JRFs) in a wide range of fields. Each JRF is asked to write an annual report for Governing Body to consider. The following piece attempts to summarise just some of the very exciting research that our early career researchers are pursuing. Anissa Kempf is working in the Department of Physiology, Anatomy and Genetics to discover more about the cellular and molecular mechanisms for regulating sleep. Anissa does this by studying the proteins active in the brains of flies. Julia Bird works in the Department of Economics, studying urbanisation in developing countries. Julia uses census data and satellite images (where she is also developing new techniques that will allow the evolution of any city to be studied), along with other sources of data to track urban development. Julia uses analysis tools developed in various disciplines, including criminology and epidemiology, to provide new insights which allow the effects of public policy to be evaluated. Julia has studied Kampala, Nairobi and Dhaka in particular depth. Kerstin Timm works in the Department of Physiology, Anatomy and Genetics in the research group led by Somerville Fellow Professor Damian Tyler. Using the group’s revolutionary imaging technique for tracking how the heart metabolises specific molecules, Kerstin is studying the effect of doxorubicin, a valuable cancer therapy drug which has significant adverse side effects in the heart. If doxorubicin’s impact on the heart can be elucidated and detected early enough, a better balance between the drug’s positive impact on the cancer and its negative impact on the heart could be achieved and patient outcomes could be improved. David (Dai) Bowe is a medieval Italian literature scholar, focusing on the works of Dante. In particular, Dai is pursuing an ongoing project on the role of women’s voices as authoritative and/or corrective in Dante and other medieval Italian verse. Dai worked with another of Somerville’s JRFs, César Giraldo Herrera, and the Faculty of Modern and Medieval Languages as well as The Oxford Research Centre for the Humanities (TORCH) to organise a one-day conference on the theme of ‘Shipwrecks and how to avoid them’. The workshop drew on the imagery of shipwrecks from many sources and should ultimately generate a volume on shipwreck as a metapoetic and narrative image. César Giraldo Herrera works in the School of Anthropology and Museum Studies. He has particularly wide-ranging research interests. One major project involves studying how Amerindian shamanic practices designed to support health and combat disease have real positive microbiological impact, achieving measurable health benefits through rituals that owe nothing to western/northern medicine methodology. César’s book on the subject promises to provoke a major debate and have a significant impact. César has also collaborated with other Somerville

researchers. The workshop on shipwrecks, in collaboration with Dai Bowe, is mentioned above. César has also been working with Maan Barua, a British Academy Early Career Fellow at Somerville and former JRF here, to run a series of informal discussions drawing together researchers from a wide range of disciplinary fields to consider recent publications in Geography, Anthropology, Environmental Humanities, as well as Science and Technology Studies. Melissa Bowerman works in the Department of Physiology, Anatomy and Genetics, developing musclespecific therapies to improve the quality of life for patients suffering from two incurable neuromuscular disorders. Melissa works within the research team led by Professor Matthew Wood, a Professorial Fellow at Somerville. Melissa has received Principal Investigator (PI) funding for her work, recognising the quality of her individual contribution to this important research. Fernando de Juan is a Theoretical Physicist who generates theoretical models to explain and predict the properties of an exotic class of materials known as topological insulators and semimetals. Juan works with experimental groups in Oxford and elsewhere to compare observed properties with theoretical predictions. This class of materials can show useful properties such as superconductivity or photovoltaic current generation (the latter potentially useful for solar power generation). Developing a robust theoretical understanding of how the structure determines the macroscopic properties of the material could mean that new, valuable materials can be discovered more easily. Lisa Lamberti is a Pure Mathematician, working on algebra and combinatorics. Lisa’s work has some overlap with that of Somerville Emeritus Fellow, Karin Erdmann, and a jointly authored paper is anticipated. Patricia Lockwood works in the Department of Experimental Psychology. Patricia investigates the psychological and neural mechanisms that underpin how people interact with other people. In particular, Patricia examines how the ability to interact with others is affected by factors such as personality, ageing and disorders of social cognition, including psychopathy and autism. Ana Sofia Cerdeira works in the Nuffield Department of Obstetrics and Gynaecology. Ana analyses the results of the first clinical trial looking at the role of particles generated from the placenta and detectable in the maternal circulation in preeclampsia. The condition, a potentially very serious complication of pregnancy, is currently not easy to treat or monitor. A measurement, using these particles, that indicated the level of severity of the condition could be very beneficial in improving appropriate management and treatment of the condition. Edmund (Ed) Wareham works in the History Faculty, and his research interests in medieval German monastic

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life and interaction are pursued through two channels. He works as part of a multi-researcher project studying 1,800 surviving letters from the Benedictine nuns’ convent of Lüne between 1460 and 1555. His role in this project is to focus on studying the combination of Low German and Latin used in the letters. Ed concludes that the evidence challenges the orthodox view that levels of Latin-learning were lower in female houses than in male ones, and has presented his findings to the collaboration. In addition to working on this collaborative project, Ed has been pursuing his personal research agenda. Current work, building on Ed’s PhD work, focuses on nuns and the baths. Nuns used trips to the spas for medical and social reasons, but such trips could also be used for devotional exercises, as nuns created ‘spiritual bathhouses’ in their minds as a Passion devotion. Lauren Watson works in the Department of Physiology, Anatomy and Genetics, investigating the molecular mechanisms of neurodegenerative diseases. In particular, Lauren focuses on spinocerebellar ataxias, a group of inherited conditions characterised by a lack of voluntary coordination of muscle movements which often results in an abnormal gait. Lauren works with stem cells that can be induced to become the specific type of neuron that is seen to be dysfunctional in these conditions. This approach has the potential to be a very powerful tool in characterising and ultimately combating the development of these devastating diseases.

Davide Zilli started his JRF as a postdoc in the Engineering Department but now continues his research working for spin-out company Mind Foundry, which was co-founded by Somerville Professorial Fellow Steve Roberts. Davide spent some time developing a system (the HumBug project) designed to use mobile phones to detect the presence of mosquitoes by listening for their characteristic ‘whine’. Following a conversation over lunch (such is how interdisciplinary work can often start), Davide has also collaborated with Somerville Emeritus Fellow Marian Dawkins FRS, to help develop a system for monitoring farm animal behaviour by analysing video feeds of their pens. More recently, Davide has moved to working in the commercial sector as a machine-learning researcher for Mind Foundry. Nahid Zokaei works in the Department of Experimental Psychology, where she focuses on understanding visual working memory and attention in both health and disease. Nahid examines the neuromodulation of working memory and attention in normal individuals and their deficits in patients with neurological disorders such as Parkinson’s disease and Alzheimer’s disease, and those at risk of neurodegeneration. Nahid’s other interests include understanding the correlations between neural activity and rapid forgetting and the interaction between attention and working memory. Dr Steve Rayner, Senior Tutor

MCR Report Somerville’s Middle Common Room has continued its upward trend in membership, hitting 200 for the first time with this year’s intake. The new graduate accommodation on Little Clarendon Street, Barbara Craig House, has added 30 high quality rooms a stone’s throw away, contributing to the ever larger, more active, and diverse graduate community in college. Since I joined the MCR four years ago, there has been a significant and sustained increase in the use of the common room in Margery Fry House, and with it a much busier and friendlier atmosphere – long may it continue! Hand in hand with the increased use, we have made concerted efforts to improve the common room facilities. The MCR Dining Room (the ‘Productivity Room’), still boasting the original dining table from the 1960s, is now a frequently used work space with a homey, if functional, interior. Downstairs, the ‘Dungeon’ has been completely refitted as a graduate study space complete with a room bookable for group work or tutorials. Despite the expanded social scene, with coffee and alcohol both flowing in perhaps worrying quantities,

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the MCR has continued to excel in both sporting and academic circles. The Boat Club have won a remarkable three blades this year, and MCR members have represented the university in a variety of sports from shooting to modern pentathlon. Spaces to talk at the twice-termly symposia have been in high demand, with an impressive number of the MCR all wanting to show off their equally impressive work. We were sad to say goodbye at the end of Trinity Term to many friends and colleagues graduating this summer. They will no doubt excel in their chosen careers, and will always be welcome back at Somerville and the MCR. We must also say a very fond farewell to Alice Prochaska, whose thoroughly positive impact on every aspect of college life needs no further exposition here; she leaves with the gratitude and best wishes of us all. Finally, I wish to thank everyone in college who has helped make this year such a success. Next year, I am sure, will be even better. Fergus Cooper, MCR President


JCR Report Somerville JCR has enjoyed a fantastic year, and it has been my pleasure to enjoy the company and successes of such a friendly and open student community. A wonderful demonstration of this was at swimming cuppers, where Somerville overwhelmed all opposition and walked away champions by bringing at least four times as many swimmers down to Iffley pool as any other team. Beyond the swimming, Somerville sport has been outstanding this year, with Women’s Netball (sporting brand-new team stash) reaching the final of cuppers, while Men’s Rugby did the same in the Plate Competition. Perhaps buoyed by these recent sporting performances, the JCR celebrated its first ever Somerville Sports Day which, aside from the snapping of the tug-of-war rope, was an unmitigated success. The Boat Club’s victories were too numerous to be fully listed here (if you’d like the full picture you should sign yourself up to the newsletter by emailing alumni@scbcrowing.com, I am told) but highlights included Blades for W2 in Torpids, and Blades for W1 in both Torpids and Eights! Beyond the world of sport, the JCR Committee ran compulsory workshops treating the subjects of gender and sexuality, race and disability for the first time, and our Women’s Officer Rani Govender deserves special praise for arranging self-defence classes and organising the free distribution of sanitary products to students. Elsewhere, the Access Roadshow took place once more following

the successes of last summer’s pilot, with Somerville student ambassadors speaking, and inspiring, in schools in Kingston and Hounslow. The Arts Fund has been made accessible for the first time (following a slight organisational hiccup) so that anyone wishing to engage in a project can do so without worrying about self-funding, and the JCR bikes (Bikey McBikeface and Cycleangelo – democratically named, as you may have guessed) are up and running with only one mechanical malfunction between them all year. Maintaining our strong collective desire to help where we can, the JCR is hoping to build on Somerville’s strong connection to India by sending several students to teach English in a school in Roshni, India, this summer. We remain in close contact with Molly from Molly’s Library, in Ghana, which in recent years we have helped to fundraise for and maintain, and provide support wherever we can. At the end of a great year, the JCR in particular wanted to show its gratitude to Alice for everything she has done as Principal, and we wish her all the best in the future. Somerville is a magical home and we are all sad to leave it (even I’m sad to be leaving, and I get to come back after my year abroad!), but I think the Alumni Association’s rather catchy tagline ‘Once a Somervillian, always a Somervillian’ very much holds true. Alex Crichton-Miller, JCR President

Thank you, Ali P

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Library Report 2016-17

All of us at Somerville will be sad to see Alice Prochaska leave Somerville this summer but none more so than the librarians and archivists who have received so much support and engagement from the Principal. With her background in historical manuscripts and archives and of course running one of the largest academic libraries in the world, Alice has been a tremendous source of advice, contacts and ideas for us and we will miss her very much indeed. Frank too has given unstintingly of his time and knowledge in fostering, supporting and maintaining public interest in the John Stuart Mill library – one of his leaving gifts recently was the freedom of the library with his own key to the collection! More of the John Stuart Mill Library and its friends anon.

Library Collection We have continued to purchase books for the library in all subjects and have been fortunate to receive many gifts of books, including substantial numbers from alumna Laura Barnett (1972), the bequest of Mavis Mate (1953), and of John Stoye, brother-in-law of Enid Stoye (1938) and husband of Catherine Stoye (1947). These and all our other donors have been listed at the end of this report. Our grateful thanks go to all of them. Special mention should be made of the donation of around 200 books from the library of Mary Somerville and her immediate family, by

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Emma Lambe, great-great-great-niece of Mary Somerville herself. The family also kindly donated five watercolours by Somerville and an oil painting that may have been painted by her tutor, Alexander Nasmyth (1758-1840). Some of these treasures will be displayed in the college’s newly named Mary Somerville Room (the old JCR bar) when refurbishment is completed later this summer. Monetary gifts have been received from the friends of Joanna Nicholson (1984) and from Yoko Odawara. From 1 August 2016 to 31 July 2017, 1852 books have been accessioned (of which 445 are gifts), 13 pamphlets and 14 DVDs. Sue Purver celebrated her 30th year at Somerville Library with the introduction of her Book of the Month exhibitions where she displays and writes about items in our antiquarian collection each month. You can follow her progress virtually on the library blog https://somlib. wordpress.com/

Special Collections and Archives Special Collections and Archives continue to attract increasing amounts of attention with 160 email enquirers (last year 144) and 41 visitors (last year 39). We provided exhibitions for International Women’s Day in conjunction with the Philosophy Faculty about Philippa Foot and Elizabeth Anscombe; for the celebration of the completion of the Amelia Edwards pots project (see last year’s report);


Darwin’s Descent of Man

Edward Brittain

for the Bryce Lecture on Mary Somerville and for the annual John Stuart Mill Lecture in addition to several other displays for events and reunions. Assistant Archivist Kate O’Donnell participated in the World War One Collection day organised by the University IT services with an exhibition about Somerville as a hospital, and prepared material on Mary Somerville for an edition of Antiques Road Trip (yet to be broadcast). Additions to the collections include material from Shirley Williams including a wonderful portrait of Vera Brittain’s brother Edward which had been unseen for decades, and additional letters from the family of Margaret Kennedy.

Hazel Tubman was recruited to map the marginalia in the collection which we had anticipated would take around three months. Due to the large number of markings that she found, however, this initial phase only took us a third of the way through the library. Generous donations from JSM supporters Virginia Ross and Christopher Kenyon have allowed us to bring Hazel back to continue the work in February 2017, to be finalised in August 2017.

John Stuart Mill Library

The Friends of the John Stuart Mill Library received their first 16-page newsletter in August 2016 and enjoyed two events: Tea with John Stuart Mill in March 2017 (speakers included Albert Pionke, Hazel Tubman and Helen O’Neill from the London Library) and the annual lecture given by Helen Small which attracted over 75 enthusiastic attendees. The lecture, entitled ‘Liberalism and its Enemies’, reappraised the importance of John Stuart Mill’s Inaugural Lecture as Rector of St Andrews 150 years ago in 1867.

The John Stuart Mill Library Project has had a busy and very successful year. The first books from the collection went to the Oxford Conservation Consortium (OCC) for repair with Darwin’s inscribed Descent of Man being the first volume to undergo much-needed restoration. Following an introduction from Linda Hart (1969) and with the assistance of the OCC we made a successful bid to the National Manuscripts Conservation Trust in October 2016 for £15,000 to repair the books containing marginalia. This project will dramatically increase the speed at which we can carry out the repairs as we will have a dedicated conservator for 100 days working on the project from August 2017.

Professor Albert Pionke of the University of Alabama returned in March and July 2017 and found he was able to digitise twice the amount he did last year thanks to Hazel’s groundwork in locating the marginalia.

Finally, we are proud to announce that our popular group study room in the library is to be renamed The Ruth Thompson Room in memory of our Honorary Fellow and generous donor who died in 2016.

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List of Library Donors 2016-17: Jakob Kastelic (Physics, 2013)

Alice Prochaska

Elizabeth Knowles (English, 1970)*

Frank Prochaska*

Anglo-Kuwaiti Friendship Society

Meriel Kitson (De Laszlo, Physiological Sciences, 1968)*

Dani Rabinowitz (Philosophy DPhil, 2006)

Victoria Archard (Lloyd, Maths, 1966)*

The Librarian

Phylomena Badsey*

Max Luedecke (Computer Science, 1999)

Joanna Raisbeck (Modern Languages (German) DPhil, 2013)

Jane, Lady Abdy (Noble, English, 1952), bequest Academic Office

Laura Barnett (Weidenfeld, Oriental Studies, 1972)

Mary MacRobert (Russian, 1970)

E.M. Robins (Maths, 1948)*

Shruthi Manivannan (History, 2015)

Matthew Roper

Oren Margolis*

Ilona Roth (PPP, 1966)*

Mavis Mate (Howe, History, 1953) [bequest of]

Liz MacRae Shaw (Masters, History, 1966)*

Elizabeth Black (Austin, English, 1959) [bequest of]

James McMullen*

Charles Spence*

Bhaskar Choubey

Henry Mee*

Fiona Stafford*

Patricia Davies (Owtram, B.Litt., 1951)

Valerie Mendes*

Julie Dickson

Fiona Mercey (Robson, Physics, 1981)*

Gina Starfield (MSc Refugee & Forced Migration Studies, 2016)

Jennifer Barraclough (Collins, Psychology, 1967)* Philip Behrens (MSc Water Science, Policy & Management, 2016)

Katherine Duncan-Jones Rosemary Dunhill (History, 1962)*

Elly Miller (Horovitz, PPE, 1946)

John Stoye (books from the bequest of) Elisabetta Strickland*

Marieke Faber Clarke (History, 1959)*

MIMA (Middlesbrough Institute of Modern Art)*

Orla Fenton (BCL, 2016)

Elaine Moore (Chemistry, 1967)*

Charlotte Graves Taylor (1958)*

Rosemary FitzGibbon (History of Art, 1967)*

Delia Morris (Kay, French and German, 1960)*

Sir Guenter* and Phyllis Treitel (Cook, PPE, 1948)

Friends of Joanna Nicholson (English, 1984; died 2016)

Hannah Mortimer (Robinson, Experimental Psychology, 1970)*

Janet Treloar (Geography, 1958)

Maggie Gee (English, 1966)*

Nile HQ Ltd.

Alice Gillett (Boycott, Agricultural Sciences, 1958) (from the Library of Simon Gillett)

Yoko Odawara (money used to buy books and for preservation)

Miriam Griffin* Rosalind Henderson (Bloomer, Modern Languages (French), 1964)* Joanna Innes

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Rahul Raza (Archaeology MSt., 2016)

Rosie Oliver (Rogers, Mathematics, 1976)* Jenna Orkin (Music, 1974)*

Almut Suerbaum

Philippa Tudor (History, 1975)* Niamh Walshe (English and Modern Languages, 2015) Jonathan Ward (DPhil Oriental Studies, 2011) Stephen Weatherill* Sr Jane Khin Zaw (PPE, 1956)*

Ann Petre (PPE, 1944)* *Gift of donor’s own publication


The Somerville Association President’s Report Our 2017 programme opened with dinner at the House of Lords. Baroness Jay then chaired a lively panel discussion on ‘The State We’re In Now’, focusing on the potential implications of Brexit, with speakers Jill Rutter (1975) of the Institute for Government and Will Hutton, Principal of Hertford College and former editor-in-chief for The Observer. We held our Annual General Meeting in March, taking the opportunity to express our affection for Dr Alice Prochaska, our retiring Principal, and our appreciation for all she has done for Somerville. It was a truly memorable day. Alice and our guest of honour, Baroness Williams, were in conversation about important issues of the day close to both their hearts, including education, the National Health Service, the values of Europe, world peace and human rights and women as political leaders. We also held a working lunch for our matriculation Year Representatives and brought alumni and parents up to date with their activities. We are delighted that our new Principal, Baroness Royall, will join us in college on 17 September for the second Year Representatives’ symposium. We are reaching out through this network to alumni who cannot easily join in activities at college or in London but enjoy getting together informally or on-line. We are also making good progress on our offer of e-mentoring, to current students as well as recent graduates to help them into the world of work. This is the top priority request of both JCR and MCR. It also

Horsman Awards The Alice Horsman Scholarship was established in 1953. Alice Horsman (1908, Classics) was a great traveller who wished to provide opportunities for former Somerville students to experience other countries and peoples, whether through travel, research or further study. The Alice Horsman Scholarship is open to final-year students and to all Somerville undergraduate and graduate alumni who are in need of financial support for a project, usually involving travel, research or further study, that is intended to enhance career prospects. Applications from Somerville students/ alumni who have secured a place on the Teach First scheme will be looked on favourably. For information about the application process please email academic.office@some.ox.ac.uk or visit www.some. ox.ac.uk/studying-here/fees-funding/student-awards. Applications are now accepted at the start of each term. Applications for Michaelmas Term close on Wednesday 18th October 2017.

allows alumni the opportunity to mentor and be mentored themselves at every stage of their professional and personal lives. Family and friends joined us in June for lunch and the annual commemoration service to celebrate the lives and achievements of those Somervillians who have died in the course of the year, including Honorary Fellows Jennifer Jenkins and Ruth Thompson. Finally, we record with great pleasure the remarkable Somervillians recognised with Queen’s Honours this year. In the New Year list, Baroness Williams of Crosby (Catlin, 1948) was made a Companion of Honour (and also received an Honorary Doctorate in Civil Law at Encaenia); Caroline Ross (1993) was awarded an OBE for legal services to international climate change negotiations; Rachel Griffiths (Cullen, 1967) an MBE for services to vulnerable people; and Professor Kamila Hawthorne (Ebrahim, 1978) an MBE for services to General Practice. In the Queen’s Birthday list, Gwyn Morgan (1972) was awarded an OBE for services to the rehabilitation of prisoners and Barbara Forrai (Lockwood, 1946) a BEM for services to charity in the UK and Russia. Our warmest congratulations to them all. Susan Scholefield (1973)

The Somerville Senior Members’ Fund 2016-2017 This Fund has been available to provide small sums to help alumni with unforeseen expenses and hardship. We are also able to subsidise the cost of individuals attending College events which would otherwise have been unaffordable for them. We hope that people who find themselves in need will not hesitate to call upon the Fund. We are glad to hear from third parties who think help would be appreciated. And we are always grateful for donations to the Fund. Applications for grants should be made to elizabeth.cooke@some.ox.ac.uk or lesley.brown@some.ox.ac.uk

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Life before Somerville Tina Green came up to Somerville in 1974 to read Physiological Sciences. From Oxford she went on to Wolfson College, Cambridge to finish her medical training, eventually becoming a Consultant Dermatologist in 1991, specialising in Allergy. Tina Green in 1975, with Clive Britten

I went up to Somerville at the age of 18 straight from school, so you may be wondering what amazing life experiences I could possibly have had with such a straight forward entry from school directly to university. The unusual nature of my particular path resides in the background I came from; I still have to pinch myself sometimes, wondering how different my life might have been without Somerville as my stepping-stone to a new world of opportunity. I went to a girls’ grammar school in Derby, which was my first ‘uplift’ from my council estate. I narrowly passed the 11-plus and started in the lowest form, as my junior school, in the modern 1960s way, had taught English phonetically so that we could write plays and be creative without worrying about spelling. It also taught Maths by living trigonometry, going out into the playground and measuring the height of trees – great for understanding why such a subject was useful, but not ideal for the preparation needed to pass the 11-plus. Many of my friends went on to the local secondary modern school, a place of chaos, and learnt how to put a crease in a man’s trousers and bath a baby. Grammar schools are a wonderful thing but not at the expense of those who don’t get a place there. I thrived at school and loved learning, although art was my main passion. After I borrowed a book about the dance of the bee, which fascinated me, my Biology teacher suggested I do the Oxbridge entrance exam. My parents, who left school at 15, were not impressed. My Latin teacher had suggested I try for Philosophy. ‘What sort of job could you get with that?’ was the puzzled parental reply. My teacher suggested I could become a spy (possibly tonguein-cheek) – this sounded thrilling to me, and was laughed off by my incredulous parents. ‘It has to be something that leads to a job,’ they countered. The teachers asked me to drop art and concentrate on sciences and I applied for Medicine (Physiological Sciences). I knew of no-one, except my teachers, who had been to university, so I based my views on the appearance of the panel members on University Challenge – one of my Dad’s favourite programmes where he took glee in answering the odd question. The TV was on all the time at home. I think my A4 drawing of a horse with its nervous system probably clinched me the interview. After my first train journey travelling solo, I arrived in Oxford. I was immediately smitten with its architectural grandeur,

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but perplexed by girls arriving with portfolios of work under their arms, milling around the JCR with such confidence, many knowing one another, discussing their interview preparation. The voices, the Southern accents, the easy laugh, the clothes! Strangely I didn’t feel uncomfortable, just thrilled to be there and join in the theatre of it all. It would be a two-day interlude in my otherwise humdrum life. Just before I was about to leave for my train I was asked to go to yet another interview; I was getting the hang of this. It turned out to be a fifteen-man semi-circular interview with me in the middle. ‘Why is the skeleton not made of iron?’ ‘What might happen to us in zero gravity?’ – fun questions, I thought, but I had better excuse myself as I had a train to catch. I didn’t get the scholarship. In those days your notification arrived by telegram. My mother opened it (nothing was private in our house). She went to the phone box and phoned the school. ‘Hard luck, you got a place for “something” sciences and not Medicine.’ I’d got in! I could not control my surprise and joy! Callooh! Callay! A door to a new world. It was not plain sailing from a transition point of view, and I think this should be remembered when we try and persuade state school children from deprived areas to try for Oxbridge. Contrary to what might be thought, in white working-class households there may be a view that you somehow shouldn’t get above yourself and, worse, become a snob. My accent made me something of a celebrity in Oxford: ‘Say sinGing again’ – at least people wanted to talk to me. But my accent imperceptibly softened, although I’ve never got to grips with ‘grarss’. This again cemented my snob status. I drank sherry (the tipple of the time), I wore Laura Ashley (new in Little Clarendon St), I had more disposable income than my parents on a full grant – again, an obvious point of difference as they lost the daughter they knew. We have never quite recovered. So now as a retired Consultant Dermatologist I am taking up my first love again, art. There is still something more than just touring state schools that we need to do, to encourage diversity. I am pretty sure I would not get into Oxford today. I had an EE offer and only just scraped in. I suppose I must have appeared a bit quirky which came over in my entrance paper – I’m sad this element has disappeared. But thank you, Miss Banister, for choosing me; I am forever in your debt.


Members' News and Publications Many news items have been received by post during the early days of September. The editor very much regrets that owing to design and print deadlines, these items cannot appear in this Report. They will appear in the Report for 2017-18; if you are affected by this and would like to update your contribution for next year, please do so before 31 July 2018. The editor apologises for any disappointment this may cause.

1937

Jo Vellacott is pleased that two of her books have recently gone into a second paperback edition: Conscientious Objection: Bertrand Russell and the Pacifists in the First World War (Spokesman Books, 2015); and From Liberal to Labour with Women’s Suffrage (McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2016). ‘At age 95 I continue to write and am working on a memoir. I am also active as a Quaker. I have two great-grandchildren.’

who had ambitions and always wanted make something of her life… She was at the same college as Margaret Thatcher. She always wanted to be the first lady to become prime minister. She did not make it, the other lady did. We all have to settle for something less than we hope, but she has made good use of her ninety years.” Otherwise, I have had two small moments of fame. One was an appearance on Woman’s Hour, as one of a ‘chain’ of women who had influenced each other. I was astounded at the reaction and by how many men listen to the programme. Secondly, in my home town I was given the Mayor’s bronze award, for services to the community – mainly for bringing the new University Centre in touch with that community.’ For more news of Lalage see Somerville Magazine 2017.

1944

1946

Joyce Marie Reynolds has been awarded the British Academy's Sir Francis Kenyon medal for her work on inscribed documents of the Roman period. We are delighted to congratulate Joyce most warmly on this and all her achievements.

1940

Ann Petre (Mrs Hales-Tooke) has self-published a third book: The Family that Flew: The Story of the Tor Bryan Petres, 1880-1950. It is an account of her father’s generation. Her four uncles and father were all fliers from just before the First World War. At 91, Ann does not expect to write another book but she does a certain amount of book reviewing. She sold her house and garden in central Cambridge, most reluctantly, in 2011 and downsized into a spacious flat in a retired people’s property in Chesterton, an attractive part of Cambridge. Her sons and grandsons visit when they can and her eldest grandson has been offered a place at LMH to read History.

1945 Lalage Bown writes: ‘This year saw my 90th birthday, a time of happy memories and many enjoyable birthday celebrations. Somervillians may be amused by a tribute-speech at one party by a 13-year-old greatnephew: “Auntie Lalage is someone

Barbara Lockwood (Mrs Forrai) was awarded the BEM in the Queen’s Birthday Honours 2017 for services to charity in the UK and Russia. We are delighted to congratulate her most warmly.

1948 Marigold Robins published in 2016 Twenty First Century Town: The Service Town, and sent a copy to the library. Marigold writes: ‘It discusses how present town layouts are out-ofdate. They prevent the installation of many useful services: the provision of family care services such as child care, for old/disabled people, of automatic transport for people and goods (no drones) – all within 100m of every dwelling in the town. But nobody challenges town layout. Look at Bicester, a “new” town still being built. The usual suburb layout with few local facilities and needing a car/bus/ roads to get anywhere useful. Time and space waste. Time for a new kind of town.’

Baroness Williams of Crosby (Shirley Catlin, 1948) speaking at the Somerville Winter Meeting

Shirley Catlin (Baroness Williams of Crosby) CH was made a Companion of Honour in the 2017 New Year’s Honours list and subsequently received an Honorary Doctorate in Civil Law at Encaenia for her distinguished career in both politics and academia.

1950 Rosemary Filmer (Mrs Moore) writes: ‘We have downsized and now live near family in Derbyshire. I am very busy with getting our new abode into shape, but our son-in-law is marvellous. Husband Derek has vascular dementia and needs a good deal of care, but I am still managing to do some research. After long gestation a co-edited book on later seventeenth century Quakerism has gone to the publishers, and at the age of eightyfive I have just signed a contract for another book, admittedly a short one, on George Whitehead, the eminence grise of Quakerism in the late seventeenth century. I don’t suppose, these days, that this is a record!’ Rowena Patterson (Mrs MacKean) writes: ‘I’m celebrating my 85th birthday and the completion of my PhD thesis. The topic is “Older people’s peer-run groups and their contributions to their participants’ perceived health and wellbeing”. The

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cooperating in a series of children’s books. Ruth is also hoping to work with another Somervillian, actress Daphne Alexander, on a screenplay. Somervillian cooperation across the generations is very precious to her.

‘Bletchley Girl’ Pat Davies with a copy of her book (Pen & Sword’s Publicity Dept.)

study grew out of my post-paid-work third age involvement with groups and the community, promoting learning in older age. Still living happily in beautiful Tasmania.’

1951 Patricia (‘Pat’) Owtram (Mrs Davies), a ‘Bletchley Girl’, and her sister Jean Argles have collaborated on 1,000 Days On the River Kwai, the story of their father, Colonel Cary Owtram OBE, who kept a secret diary during his years as Camp Commandant at Chungkai.

1952 Anne Fawcett (Mrs Kirkman) writes: ‘I retired from my voluntary work on the IMB of a detention centre about eight years ago and, wondering what to do with my spare time, I followed up an advert in the village newspaper and began learning to drum. While to my teacher’s disappointment I’ll never be a rock drummer, I have found a place in the church music group which consists mainly of an enthusiastic bunch of teenagers. Having had to give up the more energetic pursuits of bell-ringing and table tennis, I now go to a U3A poetry writing group which is amazing though quite challenging.’ Ruth Murray (Professor Finnegan) is very proud to have been awarded the Royal Anthropological Institute’s 2016 Rivers Medal and to have won prizes for fiction and nonfiction books. She is especially pleased with the multiple awards for her mythic Black Inked Pearl, and for the Hungry Monster Silver Award to Pearl of the Seas, shared with Somervillian Rachel Backshall (2012), the illustrator, with whom Ruth is

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Judith Mundlak Taylor writes: ‘My granddaughter, Mabel Taylor, has spent a memorable year at St Peter’s College. The tutors were very pleased with her. She closed a sixty-five year loop for me as I went up in 1952. In early May my son and I visited her in Oxford and we walked around the Somerville quad. I also managed to see my classmate Cynthia ColdhamJones (Coldham, 1952) while I was there. Earlier this year Valerie Vesser (Catmur, 1952) stayed with me here in San Francisco. I have a book coming out in December, An Abundance of Flowers: More Great Flower Breeders of the Past (Ohio University Press). In July I shall be 83.’

1953 Nadine Brummer has a new collection of poems, What Light Does, due for publication by the Shoestring Press in November 2017. Penny Minney has published an account of her travels as an undergraduate, sailing round the Mediterranean in a 17-foot long ship’s lifeboat: Crab’s Odyssey: Malta to Istanbul in an Open Boat (Taniwha Press, January 2017; available from Penny@minney.org, or can be ordered from bookshops). Since her retirement from teaching classics, Penny has been doing voluntary work as secretary to the Friends of Witton Dene and as trustee and fundraiser for the Breathing Space Project, St Michael and All Angels, Witton Gilbert. Sheila Ashcroft (Mrs Harrison) writes: ‘At the age of 81, I continue to be in demand as a speaker on local history, to local history societies, U3A groups, and W.I.s. I speak about the history of two monastic institutions in Suffolk, Butley Priory and Leiston Abbey, and the diaries of the eighteenth century parson, James Woodforde. In October 1954, the first-year undergraduates were gathered in the chapel to be addressed by the Principal, Janet Vaughan. She announced ‘You are Somervillians, and will continue to be

so for the rest of your lives.’ I have always remembered this, and I believe that it is the knowledge, expertise and confidence, instilled by Somerville, which have enabled me to enjoy this life-enhancing “career” long after the age of retirement.’

1956 Ann Pettit (Mrs Swinfen) writes: ‘By 2014, retired from university teaching, I decided the way to go in current publishing was to set up my own imprint, Shakenoak Press. I now have nineteen novels in print, mostly historical, including two standalones, two set in seventeenthcentury fenland, and two series. One series (eight so far), set in the Elizabethan period, features a young physician, refugee from the Portuguese Inquisition, involved with Sir Francis Walsingham’s intelligence service (first book The Secret World of Christoval Alvarez). My newest series (four so far), set in fourteenth-century Oxford, has as its central character a widowed bookseller with two small children (first book The Bookseller’s Tale). All are released as paperbacks and ebooks. The series are currently being recorded by professional actors as unabridged audiobooks. I’d love to hear from Somervillians via my website http://www.annswinfen.com and if anyone is contemplating independent publishing, I’m very happy to share my experience.’

1957 Charity Scott Stokes moved to Devon in 2008 and since then she has taken part in various local history projects. For the Devon and Cornwall Record Society she is currently editing a selection of eighteenth-century letters, the so-called Nutwell Letters, written to Sir Francis Henry Drake, 5th Baronet, of Buckland Abbey and Nutwell Court in Devon. Sir Francis was an MP for forty years, representing the pocket borough of Bere Alston, and Master of the King’s Household during the first twenty years of George III’s reign. Some of the Nutwell Letters were written to the baronet when in London by a family friend and mentor, subsequently overseer of the Devon estates. Others were written to Devon by the London apothecary and botanist William


Hudson, a friend of Sir Francis who acted as his London agent.

1958 Janet Treloar is as busy as ever and this autumn has a series of exhibitions at the Royal Watercolour Society, the Chelsea Art Society, the ScotlandRussia Society, Piers Feetham Gallery and ‘Art For Youth’. For details please see http://janettreloar.com/ exhibitions.html.

1959 Marieke Clarke published an article in June 2016 on her aunt Ank FaberChabot, who sheltered Jews in the Netherlands in World War II. The piece appeared in War and Women Across Continents (edited by S. Ardener, F. Armitage-Woodward and L.D. Sciama, and published by Berghahn). In September 2016, Marieke published (jointly with Pathisa Nyathi) Welshman Hadane Mabhena: A Voice for Matabeleland (Amagugu Publishers, Bulawayo). Onora O’Neill has won Norway’s 2017 Holberg Prize, an annual award for outstanding research in the arts, humanities, social sciences, law or theology. She has received the prize for her ‘distinguished and influential role in the field of philosophy and for shedding light on pressing intellectual and ethical questions of our time.’ Hilary Forrest (Mrs Spurling) has a new book Anthony Powell: Dancing to the Music of Time coming out from Hamish Hamilton/Penguin on 5 October.

1961 Maria Hargreaves (Mrs PerryRobinson) has contributed a chapter to Farm Street: The Story of the Jesuits’ Church in London, published in March 2017 by the Unicorn Press. Prue Hyman has just had a book published, mainly on women and the New Zealand economy, in the Bridget Williams Text series, an excellent set of small books on NZ society and its literary scene. It is entitled Hopes Dashed? The Economics of Gender Inequality (BWB, 2017) and is available electronically at http:// bwb.co.nz/books/hopes-dashed. In June/July 2017, Prue attended the

annual conference of the International Association for Feminist Economics, held this year in Seoul, South Korea, and spoke on her book in an international context at the final plenary. Caroline Pinder (Mrs Cracraft) writes: ‘On my fifth trip to Palestine I celebrated my 75th birthday in Bethlehem. Depressing to see continued settlement expansion (600,000 illegal Israeli settlers now). At Aida Refugee Camp tear gas canisters lay all over the ground. Welcomed by Bedouin deep in the Negev at New Dawn School at Be’er Sheva. Met an extraordinary English-Israeli woman, Roni Keider, near the Eretz Crossing, who drives Gazans to get medical help in Israel if they can get the permits from Hamas, PLO and Israelis. Visited Ma’alool, seven miles west of Nazareth, to see a village destroyed in 1948 and planted over with a pine forest. Twenty farming families driven out, 50/50 Christians and Muslims. Church has been rebuilt, and Muslims join Christians to celebrate Easter. Visited Hope Flowers School in a camp near Bethlehem. 350 children (4-13 years), mostly from surrounding refugee camps; emphasis is on peace and democracy. Provides workshops and counselling for both parents and children – most of whom have been traumatized by night home searches, witnessing violence, and harassment – as well as services for Special Needs kids. Met Military Court Watch: concerned with the 414 children detained in prison – some as young as 11; mostly 13-15. The resilience and restraint, grace and generosity of the Palestinians never cease to amaze.’

1962 Gaby Charing writes: ‘Four years ago my pleasant life was turned upside down by a diagnosis of bowel cancer. I’m still having treatment (now purely palliative, alas) and managing to lead a scaled-down version of my earlier life. I’ve had to give up activism in the Labour Party and Southwark LGBT Network, but am continuing a longstanding involvement as a public and patient voice in the local NHS, now with an emphasis on cancer. My motto is: don’t fight cancer, roll with it. Liz and I try to face it head on, and get on with our lives, with lots of reading, gentle travelling, and enjoying the

company of friends. I’d be very happy to hear from anyone who remembers me, gaby@three-wantz.co.uk.’ Rosemary Dunhill writes: ‘The book I have been working on since about 1980 has at last been completed and published by the Northamptonshire Record Society. It is called Northamptonshire National Schools 1812-1854. I may say this has not been 37 years of continuous work on the project and quite a lot else has happened in the intervening years!’ Sheila Roxburgh (Mrs Mawby) has (finally!) completed an Open University BSc (Hons), based on DipComp (Oxon) plus OU modules, including French and German. She and Andrew have recently celebrated their Diamond Wedding with a family lunch for eleven (three children, four grandchildren). Her interests are as follows. Photography: themes include family, garden, peacocks(!), fireworks, fairgrounds, landscapes and redevelopment – see https:// www.flickr.com/photos/86372217@ N00/. Travel: in recent years in the UK, France, Japan, Iceland. Languages: current target Japanese, JLPT Level 2 (trying to find an appropriate part-time class). Somerville: Film Club; direct contact with a few Somervillian friends, plus others by email; 1962 Year Rep. Local: Earth Heritage ‘Champion’. Pub quiz team.

1963 Elizabeth (Liz) Allen (Dr Young) writes: ‘I live on the Pacific coast of the Coromandel Peninsula in NZ. I’ve joined a group of people who support protection of kiwi from imported predators, mainly mustelids, in a 3,000 hectare area. Over the past ten years the protected kiwi population has grown from 27 to over 100 pairs of birds. As kiwi can wander up to 25km at night, I’m now checking that the adjacent borders are being protected so that these kiwi can safely wander at night.’

1964 Linda Akeroyd (Ms Wyllie) writes: ‘I am just continuing with our hobbies of ballroom dancing and gardening, and enjoying our European holidays – and I look forward to reading about what others in our year have been doing!’

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Elaine Arrowsmith (Mrs Davis) writes: ‘After many years dividing our time between the US, Italy and the UK we are now based at our home in rural south Shropshire. Since John’s retirement last year we have been travelling to far off places and in between keeping our garden in order and catching up with old friends, many of whom we haven’t seen for a long time. We take shorter breaks in Europe and the UK, often involving theatre and concerts, but also enjoy life in the beautiful Shropshire countryside and spending time with our three, soon to be four, grandchildren. If any Somervillian is planning a walk on the Offa’s Dyke path do get in touch!’ Eileen Baker (Lady Strathnaver) writes: ‘Retirement: I’m loving it! There’s so much to do, I sometimes wonder how I managed child-rearing and a 12-hour-a-day job as well! I’m so grateful to find myself nearing 75, survivor of one serious illness, with time: time for wonderful family and friends; time for long walks and exploring London (freedom pass in hand); time to travel and to read all those good books; and sometimes – often in fact – just time to be at home, back fully part of my neighbourhood of 47 years. In the past I always seemed to be rushing out somewhere but now I’m actually enjoying domesticity: the house, the garden, cooking, emptying out cupboards and drawers. I somehow became the depository of choice of four generations of a family incapable of throwing anything away. The historian in me also finds that difficult but I’m working on it. Anyone want a 90-year-old child’s sailor suit?!’ Corinna Balfour writes: ‘I have been researching the life of my great-greatgrandfather, Sir Hermann Weber, who lived from 1823 to 1918. Born in Germany, he trained as a doctor there, then came to England in 1851 to work at the German Hospital in London, later was also in private practice. He was one of the earliest people in England to recommend to patients with TB that they go to the mountains to try to get cured. This provides me with a link to Switzerland where I live. In the process I’ve found out quite a lot about German immigration in England in the nineteenth century, the hospital system and training of doctors. I use the library of Basel University and also the Wellcome

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Institute in London. I’ve much enjoyed the process of research, and have written some of it up, though it’s really for family and I don’t feel a need to publish.’ Sunethra Bandaranaike writes: ‘For nearly two decades, I have been heading Sunera Foundation, a charitable organisation in Sri Lanka, which is committed to enhancing the lives of differently abled young persons, by identifying their latent talents and developing them. Over the years, these youngsters have developed into self-confident individuals, integrating into mainstream society. Currently we run regular workshops in 36 locations throughout the country and have around 1500 participants. Our new project involves working with their mothers. Our pilot project was a highly successful stage performance by a group of parents. In our long journey, we have had financial support and strength from Friends of Sunera Foundation, headed by Susie Griffin, Susan Hoyle and Alison Skilbeck (all 1964). Their belief in our work has been a great source of inspiration to me.’ Jill Barnes (Mrs Hamblin) writes: ‘I continue with my hobbies and being Granny to twelve. I have more involvement with children as a leader of the Young Archaeologists’ Group in Colchester; in May I went on the leaders’ course in Formby, where prehistoric footprints can be seen on the (never ending) beaches. I was, sadly, by far the oldest there! I continue as village Archivist and Secretary of the Tendring Local History Recorders and have begun a series of courses on reading old handwriting, beginning with Secretary Hand. I spend most summers as a sailing widow, my husband not having been put off his passion for sailing by the loss of his beloved boat, ‘Arabel’, north of Spitsbergen a few years ago. Together, we enjoy travelling by more conventional means, including seeing our Korean ‘son’ in Seoul. Somervillians who knew my brother, Tim, who had returned from many years in Toronto to become Emeritus Professor in Edinburgh, should know that he suffered a stroke in March and, although his physical recovery is going well, he still, as I write this in July, cannot speak or read, though his understanding is all there.’

Rosalind Bloomer (Mrs Henderson), widowed in 2015, is still living on Anglesey. Her book Reflections on the Life and Thought of Blaise Pascal was published in March 2017. She writes: ‘I have to thank Jo Christian (Hickey, 1964) and her Pimpernel Press for the work put into its production and marketing.’ Chia-Ching Chang (Mrs Dawson) is a textile expert and she writes: ‘Probably the most unpronounceable activity I’ve taken up recently is Peruvian Loop-Manipulated Braiding. A less esoteric activity is lace-making, and I was lucky enough to be the local who was invited to make a piece of lace for the Fashion Museum, Bath, to show off their antique pillow and bobbins.’ Susan Hoyle writes: ‘It has been a grim year, with all the men of my generation of the family and a dear friend suffering from cancer; but to set against these horrors, there are also the deep joys of spending time with grandchildren, and attending weddings as well as funerals. Jeremy and I are slowly transforming a neglected 1560-and-1895 house into a comfortable place to live and welcome people, and I am having fun writing a historical novel – which takes up the time previously spent on Friends of Sunera Foundation, which (see Sue Griffin’s entry) has sadly had to be wound up.’ Chris Lyons (Mrs Grant) writes: ‘Since the 2014 Reunion I continue to enjoy seeing the world in retirement. Most adventurous trip was travelling overland (mainly!) from Beijing to Istanbul, seven weeks along parts of the great Silk Road. Truly amazing to realize what great civilizations once existed (sadly overlooked in history lessons of yore). Also three small expedition cruises: South Seas, coast of West Africa and west coast of South America; Cape Town, Iguazu Falls and Paraguayan Missions; Colombia and Venezuela; Ecuador; Cambodia and Laos; Burma; plus a river cruise from Amsterdam to the Black Sea (more history lessons!). All recorded on my website – another hobby. And fifty years on from our Pembroke College wedding, we have just celebrated in Sorrento and Ischia.’ Narayani Menon (Professor Gupta) writes: ‘I have been in Delhi the last


3 years, with occasional visits to Kolkata, to my late husband's family home, where I need to downsize the humungous collections of books. To escape from this, I have spent time editing and publishing a book on the Viceroy's House/Rashtrapati Bhavan (A Work of Beauty: The Landscape and Architecture of Rashtrapati Bhavan, Publications Division, New Delhi, 2016). I also lent my pen to try and save a prominent work of architecture - the Hall of Nations, 1975 - but failed. March to May this year was dedicated to getting my daughter Niharika married. I am so glad that we of 1964 are still in contact. It makes us feel younger, and 1964 seems yesterday, not a half-century ago! I can still feel the excitement of the first snowflakes softly settling on my wine-coloured coat as I walked down St Giles, and the slight nervousness of standing at Miss Ramm's door clutching a badly-written essay. As I see the 5 a.m. sunlight in London when I speak to my son on Skype, I recall the magic of sitting on the terrace of the Graduate House at 11 p.m., in the twilight - one thing I miss.’ Gillian Metford (Professor Clark) writes: ‘Retirement continues to be great, though our elder daughter has to explain to her friends why we think of it as an opportunity to get some work done. This year I have an unusual range of funded travel: so far, brief visits to Colorado and to Sweden, and (amazingly, and all being well) New Zealand and South Africa to come; writing editorial work, and useful activity at the British Academy. Stephen and I live in Bristol, and continue to be carers, as best we can, for our younger daughter. Our elder children flourish. Sam is a lecturer at Lancaster (philosophy), and he and Emily have Hallam (almost seven) and Ursula (almost two). Alex has Austin (two and a half) and Tobias (four months), so is taking a break from law; she and her husband live in Greenwich.’ Gillian is co-editor, Oxford Early Christian Studies / Texts, and coeditor, Translated Texts for Historians 300-800. Alison Skilbeck writes: ‘In 2015 I performed my show 'Mrs Roosevelt Flies to London' for a month at the King's Head Theatre. We held post-show discussions with such luminaries as Dame Helena Kennedy,

and Edward Mortimer, chaired by Jonathan Steele; I also played it at Ditchley House, to near sell-out audiences on the Edinburgh Fringe last year, and only recently to ex-pats in Cordes, France. I am still hoping Trump permitting - to fly her across the Atlantic in the opposite direction... My latest show, 'The Power Behind The Crone', all about Shakespeare's older women, will play at Edinburgh all August. In January 2016, as a Trustee of Friends of Sunera Foundation, I spent a month in Sri Lanka, working with the Sunera drama workshops for disabled people. I continue to work with students at RADA, as does my actor husband, Tim Hardy. My work for RADA In Business, whose profits go to help the students, has taken me to Italy, France, and Spain this year alone. Tim continues to act too, touring his one man 'Trials of Galileo'. We have been remarkably hearty, and feel more than lucky.’ Priscilla Turner writes: ‘I am making second editions of both O Love How Deep (www.amazon. co.uk/Love-How-Deep-Three-Souls/ dp/1449721206/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1331945630&sr=8-1 (reduced fictionalisation!) and Holy Homosex? (www.amazon.co.uk/Holy-Homosex-Priscilla-Turner-2013-04-17/dp/ B01MT4GX2B/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1497239820&sr=8-2&keywords=holy+homosex (study questions), but both are OK without these little changes. Don’t worry about being identified in the former: there just didn’t seem to be any need to call Girton Newton, Sidney Sussex Melville, Caius Poultney, Somerville St Mary’s etc. at this date, otherwise people and academic subjects are still quite heavily disguised. Nan Dunbar is still Jane Scott, for instance. I continue to post art to http://PriscillaTurner. imagekind.com and sometimes even sell some. There is some shorter writing and preaching here: www. linkedin.com/in/dr-priscilla-turner-46948139 .’ Sue Watson (Mrs Griffin) writes: ‘The last two years have been a dark tunnel as Rod and I had successive health crises, but life does seem a little brighter again now. We are celebrating our 50th wedding anniversary in August, spending a week in Penzance (my home town) with our daughters, sons-in-law and granddaughters.

Sadly, Susan Hoyle, Ali Skilbeck and I had to decide to wind up Friends of Sunera Foundation after ten years of supporting Sunethra Bandaranaike’s work with disabled young people in Sri Lanka, to the tune of £177,000 – over 33 and a half million rupees. When asked to help a former colleague with a writing project she had to abandon because of her illness, it was a great relief to find that I can still write fluently and to satisfy editors!’

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Gillian Arnold (Dr Cross) had a completely new Demon Headmaster book published in July – the first one for fifteen years. It’s called The Demon Headmaster: Total Control and on 10 July Gillian did a live-streamed interview about it, in Oxford, with Barney Harwood from Blue Peter. Nicola Galeska (Mrs Davies) writes: ‘The only news around here is which knee hurts most and when I get new batteries for my hearing aids!! No real cause to complain actually, we are both keeping well and so is all the family.’

1966 Elizabeth (Liz) Masters (Mrs Shaw) writes: ‘It seems a long time since we attended the Somerville reunion last September. I found it a very enjoyable and inspiring experience. My only regret was that I spoke with so many interesting contemporaries who I would have liked to have known fifty years ago. I’ve embarked on a new career writing historical novels and my second book No Safe Anchorage is coming out in October.’ For more details see www.lizmacraeshaw.com.

1967 This year is celebrating a 50th anniversary and a booklet of autobiographies is available for members of the year (contact : elizabeth.cooke@some.ox.ac.uk.) Jennifer Barraclough writes: ‘Since retiring from my medical post at the Churchill Hospital I have been living in New Zealand with my husband, but still make annual visits to Oxford. Writing is a major interest, with several novels and books on health care. I also run a small client practice using

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Rachel Griffiths (1967) with MBE

Carole Hillenbrand (1968) at the British Academy

Bach flower remedies, sing with a choir, and support animal welfare charities. My website and blog can be found at http://jenniferbarraclough. com.’

interconnected nature of cultures and civilizations; it was founded by the International Relations scholar, Dr Nayef Al-Rodhan.

Deborah Hewitt (Dr Bowen) retired this June from her full-time position in the English Department at Redeemer University College in south-west Ontario, but will continue teaching part-time for a few years yet. The joy will be that this involves no administration, and means she will also be able to get on with her own research and writing with less general panic. Her present project, for which she has a grant from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, is on The Voice of Environmental Hope in Contemporary Ontarian Poetry – her husband calls it The Poetry and Ecology Project for short. If you’re working in the crossover between literature and environmental issues, Deborah would love to hear from you! Rachel Cullen (Mrs Griffiths), the Care Quality Commission’s Mental Capacity Act Lead, was awarded an MBE in the 2017 New Year’s Honours list for services to vulnerable people.

1968 Carole Hillenbrand is Professor of Islamic History at the University of Edinburgh and the Vice-President of the British Society for Middle Eastern Studies. On 31 October 2016, the British Academy awarded Professor Hillenbrand the prestigious Nayef Al-Rodhan Prize for Transcultural Understanding for her book Islam: A New Historical Introduction (Thames & Hudson Ltd, 2015). The award is for outstanding scholarly contribution to transcultural understanding and is designed to illustrate the

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1969 Vijayalakshmy Rangarajan was invited a year ago by the Sahitya Akademi, India’s National Academy of Letters, to write a monograph on Konkuvelir, author of an epic called Perunkathai in Tamil. This book was published in May 2017 in the series The Makers of Indian Literature. Perunkathai is a version of the great Brhatkathã, a well known narrative of ancient India, which was originally written by Gunadhya in the Paisaci language. The contribution of the author Konkuvelir, well versed in both Sanskrit and Tamil, is fine.

1970 Sabina Lovibond writes: ‘In December 2016 I gave a talk on “La fragilité de l’ordinaire chez Wittgenstein” at a seminar at the Sorbonne, Paris, in a series on the theme “Ordinaire et forme de vie”. In February 2017 I was the keynote speaker at a study day at Queen Mary University of London on “The Concept of Attention in Simone Weil and Iris Murdoch”.’

1971 Sue Dixson writes: ‘I have just completed nine years “retirement!” in Bulgaria. Five years ago my civil partner left me, declaring that our animals were “expendable”. Having stayed with the goats, hens, dogs and cats, I have discovered a depth of connection with animals which gives new meaning to life. I accompanied the mayor of Dryanovo on his first visit to Britain, as part of much research to

alleviate the street dog problem here. I have recently fostered two beautiful dumped pups who will be rehomed via Santerpaws Bulgarian Rescue, one of several animal organisations I support. Four of us did a homemade three-day walking trip in the Central Balkan Park to climb Botev, its highest peak. I, ironically, taught my former Bulgarian teacher intensive Spanish before she moved to Tenerife for a better life.’ Dilys Wadman writes: ‘Over the last year or so, I realised that I would like to be much more in touch with College again. I contacted Liz Cooke and was delighted to be welcomed back so warmly. Liz asked if I would be willing to take part in a new initiative of year representatives, to extend Somervillian communication and contacts. I’ve enjoyed being involved in this, though feel I am doing it inadequately as at the moment the main focus is on Facebook pages, which I still can’t get to grips with! I hope to do better over the coming year and would love to hear from any of our year who have ideas about what we might do. Meanwhile, I’ve relished travelling – over the last year, I’ve been to Peru and Bolivia and Ecuador and the Galapagos, having fallen in love with Latin America.’

1972 Nicky Britten writes: ‘My job is Professor of Applied Health Care Research at the University of Exeter Medical School where I have worked since 2002. I made transitions from Maths to Medical Sociology via Management Science, all by chance, but I am very happy where I ended up.’ Gillie Evans will be ‘retiring at the end of 2017 after 35 years as a GP through the best of times in the NHS. Highlights have been my years as College Doctor for Somerville in the 1980s and more recently in addressing the medical care of patients in care homes, especially those with dementia. I am hoping to move next year to be within easy reach of Bath and Oxford.’ Carolyn Gates is living between Amsterdam and Penang (Malaysia) and continues to work on international trade economics, mainly for the EU. She travels frequently and is trying to return to writing.


Joanna Haigh is Co-Director of the Grantham Institute – Climate Change and Environment, at Imperial College London. She is hugely enjoying this role but notes that ‘the past twelve months have been even busier than usual in having to consider the ramifications of the US withdrawal from the Paris Agreement on combating climate change.’ Rosemary Hall writes: ‘Like many people, I volunteer, working in a charity shop one day a week. But retirement has enabled me to develop my interest in local history. It is amazing how history comes alive when you realize the ways in which local people were influenced by major political or social events. I had always found military history boring, until I uncovered the tale of a Warwickshire-born surgeon who volunteered to help those wounded in the Franco-Prussian War. I have written a number of articles in local journals and magazines, and researched a number of subjects, from the serious (pauper children in Victorian Warwickshire) to the notso-serious (circuses and menageries in nineteenth-century Alcester). But always the appeal is that you are discovering something that no-one else has discovered before.’ Mary Honeyball has been an MEP since 2000, specializing in women’s rights and gender equality, covering issues including the pensions and pay gap, sexual harassment, maternity/ paternity leave and human trafficking. She has produced reports for the European Parliament on prostitution (recommending that the buyer of sexual services should be criminalized as in Sweden), and on the particular issues faced by women refugees. Mary is also involved in legislation on copyright and intellectual property. Faced with Brexit, she will probably be gone by mid-2019. Two years ago she published Parliamentary Pioneers: Labour Women MPs 1918–1945. She is still living in central London and together with her partner Inigo Bing recently bought a house in a remote part of northern France. Scarlet la Rue is an American and as a second year student at the University of California, Berkeley, applied for their Education Abroad Program. She ‘was extraordinarily fortunate to be one of the two students chosen to attend

Oxford University for the 1972-73 school year. I “read” Biochemistry, but mostly, I learned as much as I could about Oxford and England, and loved it all. Now a retired surgeon in Sacramento, California, I think of Somerville fondly, and remain an Anglophile.’ Gwyn Morgan, Founder and Director of Prisoners’ Penfriends, was awarded an OBE in the Queen’s Birthday Honours list for services to the Rehabilitation of Prisoners. Rachel (‘Lizzie’) Rolfe (Mrs Rice) lives in Chesterfield and is now working as a counsellor to children and young people in the East Midlands area. ‘The need is very great given the constraints experienced in CAMHs and it is work I love. I did an MA in Autism about ten years ago and I now work with a number of children on the autism spectrum. I started out reading for a degree in Agriculture and Forest Sciences – but, prompted by events in my own life, I have taken a totally different direction forty years on.’ Janet Walker writes: ‘After qualifying as a Chartered Accountant, I spent twenty-five years in film and television before joining Ascot Racecourse in 2003 as Commercial and Finance Director. In 2011 I moved to the education sector, becoming the first female bursar of Eton College. I enjoy the job enormously as there is not just the school and its 400 buildings to keep me busy but also a substantial investment and property portfolio. My partner, Peter, and I are lucky enough to live in Eton too so my commute is a stroll across the playing fields.’ Laura Weidenfeld (Mrs Barnett) retired in May from Croydon Hospital after almost twenty years of working there as an existential psychotherapist. ‘I was feeling torn between wanting to visit my children and two granddaughters in London, one of my sons and his young family of three in Berlin, my mother and step-father in Paris, occasionally my daughter in Africa, attending courses, writing and trying to put down roots for my new life in Lewes. Making new friends has therefore been rather slow, but I am confident that gradually this will happen. My joy in the stunning views from my house has sustained me throughout. I now see clients

privately from home and am working on a new (psychotherapy) book; from September, I intend to have one London day a week for cultural pursuits and meeting friends. If you know of any old Somervillians in my East Sussex neighbourhood, please get in touch.’ Lme.barnett@gmail.com

1973 Jane Anstey (Mrs Fisher) writes: ‘I am still copy editing and indexing educational and academic books, and writing fiction (under the name of Jane Anstey) when I have time, though with no enormous success. My interest in theology has been rekindled by undertaking training as a Reader in the Church of England, and I have just applied to do an MPhil in Theology at Exeter University, I hope by individual research.’

1974 Jenna Orkin has a new book out on Amazon: Ground Zero Wars: The Fight to Reveal the Lies of the EPA in the Wake of 9/11 and Clean Up Lower Manhattan. Candida Stockton writes: ‘I am still working at HMRC specializing in indirect tax and wrestling with Brexit – but now only three days a week which gives a much better work/life balance. I recently got together with an old friend from Oxford days (reintroduced by a mutual friend who was at Somerville with me) which is the start of an exciting new chapter but also a nice link to the past. I am living in St Albans (one child still at home and one living nearby) but still visit Oxford regularly as most of my family live there.’

1975 Ginny Harrison has now retired from legal practice after thirty-five extremely varied years in Government and in private practice. She now undertakes voluntary mediation work as well as hospice visiting and it is very good to report that she and several old Somervillians of the class of 1975 meet up regularly for a lively lunch. These include Claire Wilson (née Dillon), Amanda Clarke (née Dalton), Fiona Sewell (née Torrington), Ann Stephenson Wright, and Jill Rutter. ‘Conversation

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never flags and we always seem able to take up from wherever we left off!’

1976 Susan Livingstone (Mrs Sinagola) writes: ‘On 1 April 2017 the year of 1976 met for a Ruby lunch to mark forty years from their matriculation. The event was attended by over half the year and was a very joyful event. As one participant said, ‘It was a great success. Weird that I saw many faces, and names, that were completely new to me. Was that me being dumb or did we just not mix enough? Such lovely, intelligent and interesting people, and wonderful reconnections with dear friends. Thank you, Somerville!’ If anyone in the year would like a copy of the collected short biographies, please contact elizabeth.cooke@ some.ox.ac.uk Lorna Hutson has been appointed Merton Professor of English Literature with effect from 1 September 2016: https://www.merton.ox.ac.uk/news/ lorna-hutson-appointed-mertonprofessor-english-literature

1977 Mary Chater (Mrs Curry) has moved back to England with her husband and misses much about Italy. But she is delighted that their touring ensemble theatre company Shakespeare in Italy (co-productions with UK and Italian theatres) has now got charitable status, registered charity no. 1172308. This should ensure core funding for the project for the immediate future. Their third summer school (this year in Padua) ran from 24 June to 8 July 2017. Cindy Gallop continues to face challenges building her social sex videosharing startup MakeLoveNotPorn – ‘Pro-sex. Proporn. Pro-knowing the difference’ – especially with funding, where her biggest obstacle is ‘fear of what other people will think’. As a result, she is now raising the world’s first and only sextech fund, to invest in disruptive sextech ventures founded by women. As Cindy likes to say, ‘Women challenge the status quo because we are never it.’ Her fund is called AllTheSky Holdings, after Mao Zedong’s ‘Women hold up half the sky’, which Cindy felt was relatively

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unambitious. If any Somervillians know any open-minded investors, she’d love to hear from you at cindy@ makelovenotporn.com. Helen Hallpike (Mrs Burton) is lecturing on Business and Organisational Behaviour at King’s College, London University and Kingston University Business School whilst studying for a PhD to legitimise her new-found career. She is also enacting the topic of her research, which is on ‘Careers in the face of increasing longevity’. She would love to hear from other mature students of all ages and maybe even form a Skype/Facetime/googlehangouts network for mutual encouragement/ commiseration! Katherine Taylor (Dr Kate Lack) writes: ‘Our son Chris (University College) got married last year (July 2016) to Carla Thomas (St Anne’s); they both read PPE. They currently live in Cairo, where she is a diplomat and he works for the British Council. Last autumn, Paul and I went on the Swan Hellenic cruise promoted by Somerville, travelling with Hiroko (née Akagi, 1977) and Albert Ong, and meeting up with other Somervillians on board.’ Emma Henderson is now a novelist and lecturer at Keele University. Her first novel, Grace Williams Says It Loud, was published by Sceptre/ Hodder & Stoughton to considerable critical acclaim in 2010 and won or was shortlisted for several literary awards, including the Orange Prize for Fiction and the Wellcome Trust Prize. It was runner-up for the MIND Book of the Year. Her second novel, The Valentine House, came out in April 2017 with the same publisher. She has also been to Germany (Berlin and a small island off the north coast called Hiddensee) to do research for her next novel; this was made possible by an Alice Horsman Travel Award from Somerville. There is more information on her website: www. emmahendersonauthor.com.

1978 Angela Bonaccorso writes: ‘I was in Australia as an invited plenary speaker at the INPC2016, the most important nuclear physics conference worldwide. It was a great honour and

responsibility for me. My conferenceopening talk (!!) was a success – I should say thanks also to the strength I developed in my young years at Oxford and at Somerville. Also I co-organize the second edition of a Summer School in Nuclear Physics in Pisa https://www.unipi.it/index.php/ maths-physics-and-nature/item/6163re-writing-nuclear-physics-textbooks. Family-wise my husband Ken Konishi will retire in November from his Theoretical Physics professorship while our son Mahiko will get his PhD in Psychology from York during the summer.’ Kamila Ebrahim (Professor Hawthorne), Vice Chair of Professional Development at the RCGP and Clinical Professor of Medical Education and Associate Dean for Medicine at the University of Surrey, has been awarded an MBE in the 2017 New Year’s Honours list for services to general practice.

1979 Claudine Dauphin directs archaeological/GIS projects in Jordan and Palestine/Israel affiliated to CBRL/ British Academy and funded by the Augustus Foundation. ‘Fallahin and Nomads in the Southern Levant from Byzantium to the Mamluks: Population Dynamics and Artistic Expression’ is a project focusing on the changing relationship between agriculturalists and Bedouins. ‘The Mediaeval and Ottoman Darb al-Hajj in Jordan’ has entailed surveying the two pilgrimage roads to Mecca and discovering and mapping the stop-over camps (http:// www.pef.org.uk/blog/category/fromthe-field/). She has lectured on the Hajj roads, in Amman under the high patronage of HRH Prince el-Hasan bin Talal of Jordan, in Jerusalem, and at the British Museum, and discussed the results of both projects at the 12th International Conference on the History and Archaeology of Jordan in Berlin, and at the International GIS Esri Conference in Versailles. Her most recent publications include several articles on the historical relationships between settled farmers, nomads and pilgrims in the Middle East, and two books: Animals in the Ancient World: The Levett Bestiary (2014) and Les Animaux dans le Monde Antique: Le Bestiaire Levett (2016), both published


by the Musée d’Art Classique de Mougins, France. Julia Gasper has published two books this year: The Modern Philosopher and Other Works by Elizabeth Craven (Cambridge Scholars Press), and Elizabeth Craven: Writer, Feminist and European (Vernon Press). https://elizabethberkeleycraven. blogspot.co.uk/2017/07/elizabethcraven-writer-feminist-and.html Deborah Taylor has been appointed to be Senior Circuit Judge, Resident Judge at Southwark Crown Court with effect from 10 April 2017. In May this year Judge Taylor very generously hosted a splendid dinner in Inner Temple for Somervillian lawyers.

1980 Vicky Canning (Mrs Andrew) writes: ‘Having set up a small chartered accountancy practice, and run it successfully for 22 years, I merged it with a larger firm in Bromley in November 2016. As well as working with the merged firm, I am also now working as a small business consultant/mentor/coach. I advise three distinct groups of people: those who are thinking of starting a business, ongoing businesses which are having issues and are looking to increase profits, and business owners planning an exit strategy. As well as small businesses in general, I also advise small firms of accountants. I am enjoying this exciting new phase of my career.’ Margaret Casely-Hayford has been asked to chair a Diversity review for the CILIP Carnegie and Kate Greenaway book awards, and in May she was appointed Chancellor of Coventry University. In 2016 she was elected to the board of the Co-op Group as a Member Nominated NonExecutive Director; and also appointed to the board of the Radcliffe Trust, which is one of the oldest charities in the country, having just celebrated its 300th anniversary. (It makes awards in relation to the support and sustainability of classical music and heritage crafts.) She is still Chair of Action Aid UK; on the Met Police Panel overseeing the Inquiry into police corruption, and on the advisory board of Ultra Education. She is also co-founding a charity called ‘One Day I Will’, and she co-manages a rap artist.

1982 Linsey Firkser (Mrs CornwallJones) writes: ‘I have had secondary progressive multiple sclerosis for 25 years. Fortunately, it didn’t affect me until I was about 30, when I had the first of my two sons, James. The second, Eddie, came when I was 34. I worked in publishing as Editor of the AIDS journal for five years before joining BBC News, where I produced the first ever subtitled football, and then BBC Radio 4, where I produced the Westminster Hour and worked on In Our Time with Melvyn Bragg. From there I was medically retired in 2011. However, with very little on the treatment horizon, I have just been accepted onto a trial of statins, so there is hope!’

1983 Mary Bucknall has moved to Dorset to be nearer her family. She is the Elected Representative for Deaf Anglicans Together (DAT) on the General Synod of the Church of England, 2015-2020 (with BSL interpreter support). Nicky Jenkins (Mme Gentil) writes: ‘After obtaining my degree in French and German, I moved to Paris to work as a translator, got married shortly afterwards, and have been here ever since. I translated for various companies for ten years before taking a break to raise our two children. During my years as a full-time mother, I took up the piano again (having done some classical piano as a child) but this time decided to learn jazz improvisation. Initially, I did this just for fun but my progress was surprisingly swift and before I knew it, I found myself performing in public (Paris restaurants, recitals, and private receptions). I recently wrote a book of short stories (in French – documenting how I belatedly discovered my true passion in life going on to become a fully-fledged jazz pianist) which was published over here in March 2016. In May, I presented my book at a national congress of piano professionals, where it was extremely well received and sold like hot cakes! I am hoping to bring out the English version by the end of this year. So I currently divide my professional life between performing, writing, and still occasionally translating; in May

2017, Steinway & Sons opened a new showroom in Paris and approached me to translate their publicity brochure. I am keen to share all this because we women can be faced with difficult choices when it comes to juggling our careers and motherhood and I hope it may encourage other women to know that closing the door temporarily on one’s career is not necessarily detrimental in the long run; when our children came along, I wanted to take some time out to be a full-time mother and I do not regret it for a second – it was not only the right personal choice for me but it turned out to be a great professional one too as it enabled me to discover that I could pursue a completely different career path.’ Sophie Mills has worked tirelessly at UNC Asheville, US, to build a flourishing Classics Department. In 2015 the US Society for Classical Studies honoured her with a SCS Award for Excellence in the Teaching of Classics at the College Level, for ‘the vision and leadership she has brought to Classics and to her college.’ https://classicalstudies. org/awards-and-fellowships/2015/ collegiate-teaching-award-sophie-mills

1984 Fiona Forsyth writes: ‘Still living in Doha, Qatar, and happy to get in touch with anyone out in the Gulf region – if the blockade lets us! Email: sestius675@gmail.com’ Rachel Jenkinson (The Rev. Mrs Gibson) writes: ‘Following seventeen interesting and varied years working in the Civil Service, ten years ago I swapped one sort of ministry for another, and was ordained in the Church of England. After serving as Curate at Christ Church, Chorleywood, then as Associate Vicar at St Andrew’s, Chorleywood (where I married Mark, a Civil Service colleague, in 2013), I moved to become Rector of St Clement’s Church in Oxford two years ago. Mark and I are very much enjoying life in Oxford (again!).’ Collette Lux writes: ‘This year, I have become Director of Communications and Marketing at UCL. Leaving King’s and moving to become one of the “godless of Gower Street” was a big

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pull but I am delighting in the radical anarchy at UCL! Its ethos is so close to Somerville’s that I feel almost at home. Attending The Archers old Somervillians dinner with former tutorial partner Helen Griffiths was great fun and it was good to see so many like-minded alumnae.’

1985 Susan Allen is an Associate Lecturer at the Open University and in May of this year she published An Introduction to the Crusades (University of Toronto Press). It is a companion text to the earlier co-edited sourcebook (with Professor Emilie Amt, Somerville 1984), The Crusades: A Reader (second edition, 2014, University of Toronto Press). Bonnie Effros has accepted a chair in History at the University of Liverpool, starting August 2017, and is excited about returning to the UK (this time with husband David, and kids Max and Simon). Anna Heselden (Mrs McGowan) writes: ‘I have been working as a Project Lawyer for Obelisk Legal Support. My most recent project was for Amec Foster Wheeler (oil and gas and clean energy) doing a GDPR Data Protection overhaul to their policies and procedures. My eldest twin sons, Thomas and William, completed their GCSEs last summer with 21 As between them including 19 A*s and my youngest son, Benjamin, passed his Common Entrance exams with flying colours to gain entry to Hampton School. The twins are now studying for their A-levels at St Paul’s School and Benjamin is enjoying life at Hampton. So I am a very proud Mum!’ Sarah Pakenham lives in Pimlico and works at Andersen Press Children’s Book Publishers as Director of Rights and International Sales. Sarah Price writes: ‘I’m coming to the end of my four-year posting as Ambassador to Finland which has been fun and fascinating. From early 2018 I’ll be back in the UK, working at the Foreign Office and settling my family (husband Simon and two boys) into our new house in Suffolk.’ Katherine Van Der Lee writes: ‘After graduating (Zoology), I became a solicitor practising utilities, planning

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and environmental law in London and Bristol. Three kids later, my husband’s job moved us out of the jurisdiction of the Courts of England and Wales, to Maryland in the USA where I work part-time as a State Park ranger. We will soon be moving to the New Haven area in Connecticut.’ Jane Willis writes: ‘I am married with two school-age children and based in Bristol – a great city! I am still in touch with several Somervillians and greatly value these longstanding friendships. I work full time as founder and Director of arts and health consultancy Willis Newson – www.willisnewson.co.uk – which was set up in 2002. Before that I was Arts Director of Barts Healthcare NHS Trust where I set up the hospital arts programme Vital Arts – http:// www.vitalarts.org.uk/. My work centres around using the arts to support health and wellbeing and I continue to be passionate about the power of writing to enable marginalised and vulnerable people to find their voice and express themselves.’

1987 Suzanne Cook (Lady Heywood) is Managing Director at Exor and Deputy Chairman of the Royal Opera House. She has been writing a book about her early life and has an offer to publish it from Bloomsbury. Jane Dickers is now a Partner of Gray & Gray LLP in Peterhead and has just been elected to the Council of the Law Society of Scotland. Vicky Loh (Mrs Outen)’s adored husband, Ian (Brasenose), a frequent visitor to Somerville, died in March 2017 from brain cancer. He leaves behind two children, Tom and Flora. Vicky is grateful for all the steadfast support of her Somerville friends.

1988 Claire Jacob (formerly Evans) has been diagnosed as having cyclothymia, a mild form of bipolar, which is rarely diagnosed unless it leads to bipolar disorder. In Claire’s case, an unfortunate combination of circumstances (extreme stress, prescription drugs, and jet lag) resulted in bipolar disorder. Claire has given up her job as a Chartered Patent and Trade Mark Attorney. She plans to

continue as a Somerville year rep, do voluntary work with her therapy dog, mentor young people and campaign on mental health and medical issues, using her experience of working in the field of pharmaceutical patents, and her legal knowledge. Nicole Belmont writes: ‘For the past three years alongside my day job in marketing I have been running a nonprofit choral music organization in New York City called Choral Chameleon. We have a professional ensemble, a volunteer choir and run an annual Institute in June for composers and conductors of choral music. We love to commission and perform new choral music in many genres. Next year we will be an ensemblein-residence at National Sawdust, an exciting new venue for chamber music in Brooklyn. I invite anyone from Somerville choir to get in touch, (visit!) and learn more about our activities. Our website is www.choralchameleon. com.’ Rachel Sylvester, The Times political correspondent, won the Political Journalism prize at the British Journalism Awards 2016. She was ‘thrilled to be vindicated’ after weathering the accusations made by Andrea Leadsom earlier in the year.

1989 Rebecca Domleo (Mrs Nuttall) writes: ‘While my children were young I entertained myself by learning Latin at night-classes. I subsequently ran a Latin club at my children’s primary school. I am now very pleased to be starting to teach Latin at secondary school in September when the last of my children goes up to secondary school. I will particularly enjoy teaching Latin literature, for which my degree in English will hopefully have prepared me well.’

1990 Claire Cockcroft was delighted to return to Somerville this year as the Programme Director for the Margaret Thatcher Scholarship Trust. Throughout the year, a programme of workshops and seminars (academic, personal development and careers) is offered to all students and 2017 saw the launch of the Thatcher Development Awards, to


support larger scale travel projects and opportunities for personal development, which is featured in the latest edition of the magazine. Claire is also involved with Somerville’s new venture into on-line mentoring Aluminate. ‘If you’re passing through Oxford, or would like to arrange a visit, don’t hesitate to contact me. I’d love to reconnect with old friends and any alumni interested in the mentoring scheme.’ Carol McColl (Mrs Bird) writes: ‘I have done a lot of teaching this year of Latin, Greek and Classical Civilisation, as well as helped to prepare online teaching resources for OCR. Next year looks set to be a lot quieter. In between times I’ve also managed to publish two guides to support the new A-level Latin syllabus, both on Roman elegy. Not sure I like the editing process very much. More recently, I took a nostalgic trip to Oxford as an advocate for classics, trying to persuade sixth formers to consider it as a degree subject. How wonderful those student days were!’ Kathy Brewis (Mrs Dunn) writes: ‘After more than a decade at The Sunday Times I quit to go freelance in 2013 but fairly quickly realised I like going out to work and being part of a community. So I’m now a copy-writer in the marketing and communications team at London Business School (LBS). I interview faculty and students from all over the world and write copy for adverts and campaigns. I’m married, with three daughters aged nearly 5, 7 and 12 – the oldest of whom already has her sights set on Somerville!’ Sally Mitchell’s youngest son in 2015 (then 3) was diagnosed with a life-limiting genetic condition called mucopolysaccharidosis II (MPS). Sally blogs about what it has meant for their family at www.hunterslife.co.uk. Susan Owens’s new book The Ghost: A Cultural History (Tate Publishing) comes out in October 2017. Emma Rich (Mrs Cross) writes: ‘I am enjoying life working for Willis Towers Watson four days a week and managing to juggle corporate and home life thanks to a flexible employer who is happy for me to work from home regularly when I need to. Our

daughters are now nine and six and we are all thrilled that we have recently added to our family in the shape of a black Labrador puppy called Tessa.’

1991 Zoe Cross writes: ‘I have been working as an environmental specialist with Panasonic for eighteen years now. However, recently I have started delving deeper into the difficulties faced by people like me with a socalled facial difference, and am now active in the Moebius Syndrome Association Germany. I am also currently in the process of writing a kind of memoir, in the hope that it may inspire others with a visual difference of some kind, or related self-esteem issues. Two years ago, I met my first serious partner. He is giving me plenty of moral support in this project, and would like to write a foreword when the book project gets closer to publication. On a different note, I have also just taken dual British-German nationality in light of the recent Brexit referendum. Like so many British expats, I am greatly saddened by these recent events, but hope that a viable position will be found in the coming years.’

1993 Caroline Ross, a lawyer at the Department of Energy and Climate Change, has been awarded an OBE in the 2017 New Year’s Honours list for her legal services to international climate change negotiations. Sarah Watson lives in Greenwich Village, Manhattan, with her husband and three year old daughter. She is Global Chief Strategy Officer and Chairman of BBH NY, an advertising agency originally established by legendary Somervillian Cindy Gallop (1977). She has another child on the way in October. She would love to hear from other NY based Somervillians: sarahwat@gmail.com.

1994 Cornelius Grupen writes: ‘Twenty years ago, I started writing for The Independent in London. A few years later, I joined McKinsey & Company, the consulting firm. Specializing in marketing and media management, I served clients all around the world,

from Detroit, Michigan, to Seoul, South Korea. Ten years ago, I set up shop as a ghostwriter for distinguished individuals. I love finding the voice that matches what my clients have to say. They include captains of industry, two former heads of government, and a former head of state. Earlier this year, I finished my tenth book, the reformist testament of a top-ranking politician.’ Glenn Nesbitt returned to Oxford in August together with his wife Lizzy (Worcester, 1997) and their two children, Joseph and Zoë. Glenn has spent the last nine years teaching at the Johannesburg Bible College in South Africa and is now an Associate Minister at St Ebbe’s Church. Max Whittle writes: ‘In June 2017, I had my second book published in Japan, where I have been living and working for the last sixteen years. My book Real Japanese is an introductory guide to the language and culture of Japan. It also contains a number of autobiographical stories and cultural reflections on my time in this wonderful country. The Japanese publisher is currently working to get the book published in the UK, so hopefully it will be available here soon. For the time being, I will be donating a copy to the Somerville College Library.’

1995 Stephen Arthur Allen is Professor of Music at Rider University in New Jersey. He initiated and co-designed a new and unique BA in Popular Music Culture and lectures on the Beatles, Radiohead and the film music of Stanley Kubrick as well as the general music histories and World Music. He is currently researching Bruce Springsteen and continues to publish widely on Benjamin Britten and the brass band repertoire. (Contact sallen@rider.edu for copies.) His article on Britten’s Violin Concerto has just been published in The Musical Times with a major piece on Gustav Holst forthcoming. He was recently awarded the Bertram Mott Prize for outstanding achievements in Higher Education. He continues to conduct the National Award-winning Princeton-Rider Brass Band, which he founded in 2004, and the Lancaster British Brass Band, PA and is about to begin the Rider University Brass Band.

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Tim Carter took up the post of vicar of All Saints’, Wellington, with St Catherine’s, Eyton, last October. It is a lively and thriving pair of churches in Shropshire.

1996 Helen Cowan is now a health writer for Reader’s Digest, British Journal of Cardiac Nursing, Hippocratic Post and other medical publications. She is a member of the Guild of Health Writers and the Medical Journalists’ Association. She recently interviewed Professor Matthew Wood about his research into muscular dystrophy. Her website is www.helencowan.co.uk.

1999 Katharine Baker (Dr Harding) has been awarded a postdoctoral research fellowship from the MS Society of Canada, starting in August. ‘Very exciting! I will be there for somewhere between 6 and 11 months. My project is titled “Is socio-economic status associated with disability in MS? A multi-national study”.’

Laura Dixon (Mrs Hall) moved to Copenhagen, Denmark, with her husband and two young daughters in summer 2017, and continues to work as Director of Communications for the luxury family travel firm Kid & Coe. Her children’s book, One Day, So Many Ways, is due to be published by Wide Eyed Editions in August 2018, focusing on the different lives of children in fifty countries worldwide.

Katerina Kaouri chaired the organising committee of the 1st Study Group with Industry in Cyprus in December 2016. Study Groups with Industry are week-long workshops for teams of mathematical scientists to work on important industrial and societal challenges, initiated at the Oxford Mathematical Institute in 1968. Fifty mathematical scientists from seventeen countries worked very productively on four Cypriot challenges, which ranged from improving the bus routes in urban Nicosia to designing a better recharge strategy for the Germasogeia aquifer in order to save water. Hilary Ockendon provided invaluable help, and the work on the water challenge has subsequently been continued with Oxford researchers. In January Katerina will be moving to Cardiff University as a Lecturer in Applied Mathematics. A very hard decision to leave Cyprus but she is looking forward to being back in the UK.

1998

2000

James Aspen says his only news is that he was the solicitor who acted for the winning charities in the Supreme Court case that hit the news back in March (Ilott v Blue Cross), which was about the scope of everyone’s freedom to decide who benefits under their wills. ‘A small claim to fame!’

1997

Aaron Maniam has been enjoying a new assignment in the Singapore government since 2014, overseeing policy on manufacturing, services, tourism and economic strategy. He is looking forward to returning to Oxford in Michaelmas 2017, for a DPhil in Public Policy at the Blavatnik School of Government. Caroline Orlebar writes: ‘I got married to John Wakefield on 17 September 2016 in St Mary the Virgin, Podington with fellow Somervillian Anna White (1997) as one of the four bridesmaids. John and I met at the 2015 Tennis Varsity Match and Alumni Dinner at Moor Park, Northwest London, as he had played

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for Cambridge and I had played for Oxford back in the day.’

Richard Stedman writes: ‘I have just completed a PhD in Mathematical Physics (which is classified as Maths, not Physics) at the University of Glasgow. My work was on a system of equations called the Witten-DijkgraafVerlinde-Verlinde equations which, amongst other things, play a role in the postulated extension of the standard model of particle physics called supersymmetry. I am sure that at least my former tutors would like to know this!’ Anthemos Georgiades and his wife Lucy (Keble, 2002) and their first child are loving life in San Francisco where Anthemos founded a venture-backed start-up called Zumper.

2002 Alex Finlayson and Stephanie Ashmore are enjoying adjusting to their new life, with a baby, back in the UK after several years abroad.

2003 Alexi Baker has been appointed Collections Manager of Yale University’s Historical Scientific Instruments Collection at the Peabody Museum of Natural History and will be transforming the collection as the Peabody enters an unprecedented period of redevelopment. Alexi was previously a CRASSH Mellon-Newton Postdoctoral Interdisciplinary Research Fellow. Johanna Harris is Senior Lecturer in English at the University of Exeter, where she has been since leaving Oxford in 2010. Her research and writing focuses on early modern literature and religion, especially puritanism. She will give the annual Jeremy Maule lecture on Thomas Traherne at Hereford Cathedral in October 2017. Johanna is married to Daniel Tyler, Lecturer in English at Balliol College, and they have one daughter, Imogen (2.5), and another child due in November. Daniel will take up a new position as Fellow and Lecturer in English at Trinity Hall, Cambridge, in September. Laura Macdougall is moving to United Agents on 31 July, as an Agent in the Book Department. She represents writers such as Jim Broadbent, the Labour MP Jess Phillips, and Ruth Hogan, author of the internationally bestselling The Keeper of Lost Things. She would be happy to speak to anyone considering a career in trade publishing. Huw Thomas is Leader of Wales’s largest local authority and the youngest Council Leader in Wales, after the Labour group, which controls Cardiff Council, elected him as their Leader.

2004 Sheiba Kaufman completed a PhD in English at UC Irvine in 2016 and is currently an Ahmanson-Getty postdoctoral scholar at UCLA Clark Library and Center for 17th and 18th


The Old Somervillian cricket team, from top left: Cameron Fern, Vivek Lodhia, Daniel Khan, Prannay Kaul, Gus Gayford, Tom Jenkins, Tom Smith. And bottom row: George Galla, Sam Packer, Will Travis, Ed Davison.

Century Studies. She has published an article in the edited volume, Shakespeare and Hospitality: Ethics, Politics, and Exchange. Alexander Starritt has his first novel, The Beast, coming out in September. It is described as ‘a darkly funny novel… a story in which comedy teeters on the edge of horror.’ For more details see: headofzeus. com/book/beast. Alex is organising readings, so if anyone is interested, just let him know: alex.starritt@ googlemail.com

2006 Elizabeth Prochaska was appointed as the new Legal Director for the Equality and Human Rights Commission in May 2017.

2012 Sam Packer has helped to set up an Old Somervillian cricket team. He reports: ‘In early July the Old Somervillian cricket club had its second tour in three years, this time to Belfast after the previous tour to Dublin. It was a great success on and off the field with two wins and two defeats. We’ve also had our annual game against the current college where the Old Boys once again put the youngsters in their place, as well as a couple of games in and around London. We will be touring again next year and plan to expand our London fixtures. All Old Somervillians are most welcome to get involved; if you fancy it, please contact the captain Sam Packer at samuelpacker@gmail.com.

We currently have players ranging from matriculation years 2001-2014 so there is plenty of variety age-wise and we would be happy for there to be more!’

2013 Niluka Kavanagh writes: ‘Having graduated just over a year ago, I first did a six-month marketing placement with British retailer Jack Wills. My manager was Somervillian Annabel Harani (Harrison, 2004), which was lovely to bond over! I’m now about to start a Sales & Marketing graduate scheme with KPMG. But first, a trip to Bali calls!’

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Marriages Cheng – Spence

Pitt – Montanari

Sophia Cheng (2008) on 27 August 2017 to Robert Spence (2008)

On 28 August 2016 Melanie Pitt (2001) to Rob Montanari (2001)

Grieveson - McGowan

Quaye – Woodcock

Simon Grieveson (2004) on 16 July 2017 to Kimberley McGowan

Jenkinson – Gibson

On 2 May 2013 Rachel Jenkinson (1984) to Mark Gibson

Oberoi – Cattai

In May 2015 Priya Oberoi (1992) to Marco Cattai

Orlebar – Wakefield

On 17 September 2016 Caroline Orlebar (1998) to John Wakefield

On 30 April 2016 Stacey Quaye (2003) to Paul Woodcock

Treacher – Khan

On 19 August 2016 Anna Treacher (2006) to James Khan (2006)

Wood – Spearpoint

On 19 May 2015 Vicki Wood (2000) to Toby Spearpoint

Zhang – Maiden

On 6 October 2013 Hilary Zhang (2005) to Benjamin Maiden (2008, Exeter College)

Caroline Orlebar and John Wakefield

Births Kaufman

To Sheiba (2004) and Bret Kaufman on 19 November 2014 a son Thomas Burhan Kaufman

Lexton

To Ruth Sian Lexton (1998) and Ean Hoffman Lexton on 30 December 2015 a son Jesse Huw Lexton Daniel Allfrey

Theo Georgiades

Alcalay

Georgiades

To Ruth Elizabeth (Mayers, 1990) and Eugene Alcalay on 18 March 2016 a daughter Juliet Sharon Alcalay

Allfrey

To Sarah and Philip Allfrey (2003) on 11 August 2016 a son Daniel Kenneth Allfrey, a brother for James

Ashdown

To Helen (Tutor in Clinical Medicine) and Michael Ashdown (formerly Tutor in Law) on 12 March 2017 a daughter Elizabeth Dorothy Charlotte Ashdown

Finlayson

To Stephanie Ashmore (2002) and Alex Finlayson (2002) on 27 April 2017 a daughter Isla May Finlayson

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Mautner

To Jessica (1997) on 24 November 2016 a daughter Rozalia (Rosa) Fern

To Anthemos (2001) and Lucy Georgiades on 19 May 2017 a son Theo Cole Georgiades

Maxwell

Gunn

Mohideen

To Philippa (Smithson, 2009) and Alexander Gunn (2008) on 18 October 2016 a son James Casper Gunn

Hanratty

To Holly (Brown, 2006) and Luke Hanratty (2006) on 26 June 2017 a son Jonah Robert Hanratty

Heath

To Kate (Naylor, 1999) and James Heath on 20 February 2017 a son Charles Francis Alexander Heath, a brother for William

To Esther Maxwell (2004) on 25 May 2017 a daughter Beatrix Grace Jane Maxwell

To Ayesha Mohideen (1996) and Rick Gibson on 20 October 2016 a daughter Fara Mary Beatrice Gibson, a sister for Zaki and Saira

Oberoi-Cattai

To Priya Oberoi-Cattai (Oberoi, 1992) and Marco Cattai on 15 March 2017 a son Massimo Prakash Oberoi-Cattai

Spearpoint

To Vicki (Wood, 2000) and Toby Spearpoint on 6 July 2017 a daughter Maggie Joan


Deaths Jenkins

Jennifer Jenkins (Hon Fellow, 2004) on 2 February 2017 Aged 96

Beckett

Elspeth Beckett née McIntosh

Enid Pamela Roslyn Fouace née Marshall (1938) on 7 November 2016 Aged 97

Fouace

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

Morrogh

Sayer

Hirst

Murray

Shaw

Louise Margaret Campbell Hirst née Campbell (1969) on 22 August 2016 Aged 65

Johnson

(1947) in December 2016 Aged 87

Diana Johnson (1954) on 22 November 2016 Aged 81

Bell

Kenyon

Jennifer Bell née Grindley (1963) on 28 May 2017 Aged 71

Birukowska

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

Black

Mary Rignall Kenyon née Humphrys (1941) on 9 January 2017 Aged 94

Keynes

Anne Pinsent Keynes née Adrian (1942) on 28 March 2017 Aged 92

Kohl

Elizabeth Lynne Black née Austin (1959) on 13 September 2016 Aged 79

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

Boulton

Large

Marjorie Boulton (1941) on 30 August 2017 Aged 93

Brown

Diana Margaret Brown née Clements (1957) on 20 May 2017 Aged 80

Corney

Marie Corney née Thurman (1966) on 22 December 2016 Aged 78

Creighton

Ellen Rhoda Christian Creighton née Barclay (1946) on 16 June 2017

Dundas-Grant

Valerie Hermine DundasGrant (1941) on 29 June 2016 Aged 92

Falconer

Gillian Laura Condie Falconer (1944) on 27 October 2016 Aged 90

Flew

Annis Ruth Harriet Flew née Donnison (1949) on 8 March 2017 Aged 86

Moira McColl Thorn Large née Sydney (1946) on 5 March 2017 Aged 91

Lee

Elizabeth (Biz or Bess) Murray née Hickson (1951) on 31 March 2017 Aged 83

Musgrave

Sinclair Loutit

Angela Sinclair Loutit née de Renzy-Martin (1939) on 18 August 2016 Aged 92

McCree

Storr

Neville Sington

Symonds

Roosegaarde

Taylor

Christine Linda McCree (1972) on 28 November 2016 Aged 63

Pamela Ayres Neville Sington née Neville (1981) on 1 March 2017 Aged 57 Aleida Elisabeth Mabel May Roosegaarde (Betty) Norman née Bisschop (1940) on 2 March 2017 Aged 95

Northcott

Joy Northcott (1985) on 25 January 2017 Aged 51

Ochoa

MacLeod

Page

Male

Elizabeth (Liza) Shaw née Mrosovsky (1955) on 26 December 2016 Aged 80

Beatrice Musgrave née Falkenstein (1945) on 26 May 2017 Aged 93

Ivy Margaret Lee née Cox (1943) on 30 January 2017 Aged 91 Sheila Jean MacLeod (1958) on 1 November 2016 Aged 77

Joyce Sayer née Buxton (1954) on 11 August 2017 Aged 93

Rafael Baptista Ochoa (2015) on 6 April 2017 Aged 23

Caroline Margaret Storr née Crawford (1969) on 21 January 2016 Aged 67 Anne Symonds née Harrison (1934) on 6 February 2017 Aged 100

Ann Gaynor Taylor née Hughes-Jones (1946) on 23 February 2017 Aged 88

Thomas

Rosemary Thomas née Toye (1976) on 2 October 2016 Aged 58

Topham

Pauline Bladon Topham (1947) on 4 April 2017 Aged 89

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

Wallis

Dorothea Wallis née Back (1943) in early 2017 Aged 92

Celia Ann Male née Carr (1955) on 7 March 2017 Aged 79

Christian Mary Parham née Fitzherbert (1950) on 23 April 2017 Aged 84

Parham

Walz

Maskell

Richards

Whitaker

Mate

Ross

Middlemiss

Ross

Rosalind Mary Maskell née Rewcastle (1947) on 7 September 2016 Aged 88 Mavis Evelyn Mate née Howe (1953) on 20 October 2016 Aged 82 Prisca Mary Faith Middlemiss née Mills (1967) on 15 December 2016 Aged 68

Sheila Rosemary Richards (1948) on 6 September 2016 Aged 87 Ann Lorna Katharine Ross née Chubb (1948) on 28 July 2016 Aged 86 Katharine Elizabeth Mary Ross (1940) on 7 November 2016 Aged 95

Rosemary Theodora Walz née Graves (1953) on 30 November 2016 Aged 82 Ann Whitaker (1946) on 8 May 2017 Aged 94

Williams

Betty Williams née Rollason (1947) on 8 March 2017 Aged 88

Woodfill

Jacqueline Isabel Woodfill née Iselin (1940) in April 2017 Aged 94

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Obituaries Jean Austin (Coutts, 1937) Jean Austin, my mother, was born Jean Coutts in Hampstead in December 1918, just at the end of the First World War. The eldest of six children, brought up in an intellectual but sheltered environment, where she enjoyed long evening conversations with her father, she easily won an open scholarship to Somerville to read Mods and Greats. Despite the outbreak of war and her father’s sudden death, she had many happy memories of her time there: bike rides out to Binsey for tea, heading the Jowett Society, living in Park Town, discovering philosophy, and meeting and marrying my father, the philosopher J.L. Austin. They were married in March 1941, Jean being the first Somervillian to be given permission to marry while still an undergraduate. Just three weeks later, they were bombed, and miraculously survived. Jean recovered just in time to take her finals and get a First in Greats. The combination of determination and brilliance she displayed then was needed again when her husband died in 1960 (when she was only 41), and she had to transform her life from being a devoted wife, mother and intellectual companion to building a career and supporting a family alone. Although devastated, she converted the family house into flats to supplement her income, and she taught philosophy when and where she could; with such success that in 1965 she became Philosophy Tutor at St Hilda’s, where she remained for twenty years until retirement. She loved her work, and was an excellent tutor. Although students found her intimidating and exacting, they also found her kind, empathetic and wise. Several went on to become philosophers due to her, and a great many kept in touch throughout her long life. One pupil described her as ‘a splendid example of what it is to take philosophy seriously … deeply serious about the subject, and intellectually demanding, but never solemn or overbearing; friendly, supportive, and always willing to treat one as a fellow participant in this intellectual endeavour.’ Always modest about her own achievements and abilities, especially in relation to her husband, she made her own mark in philosophy with two papers: ‘On Knowing One’s Own Mind’, delivered to the Aristotelian Society, and ‘Pleasure and Happiness’. These two titles reflected her own personal as well as philosophical predicaments, due to her husband’s early death: the problem of one’s own versus ‘other minds’, which she had worked on with her husband, and the problem of happiness, which had been so abruptly snatched from her. She had many pleasures, in addition to that of using her mind, and throughout her life she particularly enjoyed walking (as a ‘rational biped’) and nature, especially the pond in her garden in Old Marston.

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Jean Austin

She died on 26 July 2016, aged 97. She leaves four children, nine grandchildren, and thirteen greatgrandchildren. Lucy Nuseibeh (Austin, 1968)

Enid Fouace (Marshall, 1938) Enid was born on 19 June 1919 and grew up in north London, the eldest of four children. She attended Minchenden School in Southgate for her secondary education, where she did extremely well, displaying a natural gift for languages. She was also good at sports, especially on the hockey field. In 1938 she must have given her parents and family some very anxious moments when she was travelling alone by train in Nazi Germany at the time of the Munich crisis. She had secured a place at Oxford, and was no doubt anxious to maintain her fluency in the language. Later that year she came up to Somerville to read Modern Languages; one of her contemporaries was Iris Murdoch. Going down in 1941, Enid was recruited to work at Bletchley Park where there were many Somervillians employed, all strictly bound by the Official Secrets Act. She was extremely conscious of her responsibilities in this respect and never subsequently discussed or revealed any details of her work there, even after these restrictions were relaxed. Post-war, after taking up one or two teaching positions, Enid evidently decided that she would like to live in France, which for her at that time must have meant Paris. There she worked for some time at the British Council, and also gave private English lessons. Then it was that Lucien Fouace appeared, wanting assistance in making his own French


translation of one of Shakespeare’s plays. However, no evidence ever emerged that this was achieved! In 1949 Enid and Lucien were married and, after living initially with Lucien’s family in Antony, they moved to an apartment in the Quai St Michel overlooking the Seine and within sight of Notre Dame. In 1960 they moved to Fontaine sous Jouy in Normandy where they had bought a very pleasing rural property, largely surrounded by quite dense woodland, from which Lucien pursued his profession as an Avocat. In 1963 their daughter Claire arrived, and thereafter family life continued with Enid also giving secretarial support to Lucien in his work. Holidays were enjoyed, which included a trip back to England once a year. In 1981 Enid decided that she needed to re-establish her English roots and bought a property in Felixstowe, and Lucien joined her there after some time. In 2003 Enid published (via a private printing) a volume of verse Poems from Suffolk and Normandy. She made reference in a subsequent letter to a second volume of poems in French but unfortunately no trace of this has been found. By 2011 poor health had overtaken them both, and Enid was admitted to a care home. She died peacefully surrounded by her family on 7 November 2016. Nigel Marshall

Mercy Heatley (Bing, 1939) Mercy was born in 1921 in the North of Ireland where her parents, Geoffrey and Irene Bing, had started a boarding school for young boys – Rockport – in 1906. The school is now officially co-educational but it was not so in the 1920s, when Mercy was one of only four girl pupils. Aged 12 she went to Howells, a girls’ boarding school in Wales, where a contemporary remembered her as ‘almost on the same level as the teachers’, and from there, in 1939, to Somerville. At first she read PPE, then switched to History. Like many students she interrupted her studies to join the war effort, driving lorries in the Auxiliary Territorial Service. After this experience she intended to study psychology and become a probation officer, but a chance meeting on a train led her to decide on medicine and psychiatry. A year later, having studied more science, and with encouragement from Somerville chemistry tutor Dorothy Hodgkin, she returned to Oxford as a medical student. In the midst of her studies, Mercy met Dr Norman Heatley, ten years her senior, at a Somerville dance. They were married six months later in December 1944. He was not the Prince of Wales, whom her father had once thought the most appropriate match, but in Mercy’s eyes even better, a scientist and member of the Oxford team whose work on penicillin was already enabling the treatment of Allied troops in World War 2. Having had five children, and thanks to a succession of aupairs, Mercy was able to work part-time as a Consultant to

Mercy in uniform

Oxfordshire Education Authority and then Social Services. Her interest lay mainly in young people, and while working for Oxfordshire’s Family and Child Guidance Service, she developed a particular interest in autism. In the 1970s she pioneered the idea of integrating children with learning difficulties into the classroom, a practice which was adopted nationally after recommendation in the Warnock Committee report (1978). She also helped to found the charity Children in Touch to help pay for additional therapies for autistic children. After her retirement Mercy worked as an expert witness well into her 80s, assessing family problems for court hearings. As a fluent radio interviewee and prolific letter writer, she supported many causes including: • the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (participating in the women’s protests at Greenham Common) • opposition to the UK government’s Public Finance Initiative and any kind of privatisation in the NHS • opposition to the Iraq war. This led to national headlines when she withheld part of her income tax in protest and was duly summoned before magistrates. She also supported individuals – from NHS whistle-blowers to East European refugee children brought to the UK by the Ockenden Venture. To her death aged 94, Mercy retained her sharp wit and good sense of humour, remaining curious and caring about the lives of friends and family. Rose Heatley

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Aleida Elisabeth Mabel May Norman (Bisschop, 1940) Dr Elisabeth Norman (Betty) was a relentless campaigner for the rights of and standards of care for children with learning difficulties. Her third son, Thomas, was born with Down’s syndrome in 1956; she was advised to send him away to residential care and, awakened by this experience, she threw herself into voluntary work, first as Chairman of the Friends of Royal Earlswood, where Thomas went to live from the age of seven, and subsequently on the East Surrey Health Authority and as Vice Chairman of Mencap. She was horrified to find how mixed the care was and how poor the facilities. She became a prodigious fund-raiser for the Royal Earlswood, an NHS-sponsored home in an imposing Victorian building housing some 600 residents of varying degrees of handicap. She fought many battles with the Health Authority to prevent diversion of funds and to modernise facilities which would have been considered unacceptable for patients with no disability. Later, as the new ‘care in the community’ policy resulted in closure of the old homes and dispersal of residents, she worked with Brian Rix (later Lord Rix), Chairman of Mencap, to try and keep the best of the communal activities, believing that many of the less able would become ‘lost in the community’, unable to cope with normal life. Betty was born in 1922 to an eminent Dutch lawyer, Dr W.R. Bisschop, the great-grandson of one of Napoleon’s Marshals. She was brought up in Lincoln’s Inn and went to Queen’s College, Harley St., then to Somerville to study Medicine in 1940. She nearly missed doing so having been stranded in Canada at the outbreak of the war with a British Council girls’ delegation. Her father managed to find a passage on a (then neutral) US ship sailing from New York. Never the most punctual, she and a friend spent the departure day seeing the sights of New York and arrived late back at the dock to be told the ship had sailed. Running down the quayside they managed to climb on board as the last gangplank was withdrawn. Oxford in the war proved austere: many of the young men had left and food and coal were rationed. Students shared rooms to study in order to stay warm. She became great friends with Daphne Park and made the most of the limited social life. ‘Always elegant, never on time’ was her tutor’s assessment. As a student she worked at the Wingfield Morris hospital, treating the abscesses caused by chronic tuberculosis infection. In 1945 she became a Houseman at the Radcliffe Infirmary and also acted as a part-time penicillin nurse, giving twice daily life-saving injections. As the needles were reused and often blunt and most of the wounded did not understand the point of antibiotics, the penicillin nurses were the most unpopular people on the ward. Keen to specialise in children, in 1947 she joined the Queen Elizabeth Children’s Hospital in East London. Because paediatrics was still developing, many GPs did not deal with children and most patients were self-referred, coming from

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Betty Norman

the poverty of the East End. It was the job of the medical officer to handle anything that turned up at the door. Consultants came by three times a week to give advice. From there she joined Great Ormond Street as a Registrar at a very exciting time as the NHS had come into being and paediatrics was developing rapidly. There she met Dr Archie Norman, her future husband, who later came to be an eminent Consultant Paediatrician. Once married, she gave up practising medicine to devote herself to having children and raising a family. Starting late, she had five boys and three miscarriages in eight years. With Archie away working long weeks in London, she brought up her troublesome sons and embarked on her long crusade for children with disabilities, alongside her devotion to Archie and to family life. Between times she was a talented and bold artist, unfortunately rarely finishing her canvasses. Her abiding love was for her husband and children. She died after sixty-six years of marriage just over two months after Archie. Archie Norman

Mary Kenyon (Humphrys, 1941) Mary was born in Ilkeston, Derbyshire, the elder daughter of a Master Mariner. Her early education was at Nottingham Girls’ High School. The family moved to Essex when she was eleven and she and her younger sister went to Chelmsford County High School where she was made School Captain. She obtained a place at Somerville to read English Literature, and it was to her great regret that owing


Mary Kenyon

Anne Keynes at the time of her engagement in 1944

to wartime constraints her degree course was limited to two years. She loved Oxford and made the most of it; J.R.R. Tolkien was her tutor in Anglo-Saxon. After obtaining her degree she applied to the Foreign Office, admittedly hoping to be sent as a beautiful spy to some far-off destination, but instead she was sent to Bletchley Park to work twelve hour shifts in the famous Hut 6, decoding the Enigma transmissions. She said it was nothing like the film.

red geraniums in her conservatory, books everywhere. She would be ready to share her thoughts on any subject and was a wise and generous listener. She would happily cater for any occasion, on her venerable four-ring cooker, from dinner parties at home to weddings, school reunions and all the Church festivals.

After the war, Mary worked for the publishing house Eyre and Spottiswoode. She loved London and became part of the literary and musical life of Bloomsbury. At one of many parties she met the music critic Max Kenyon, and they married in 1948. They lived for a while in London, then moved to the small village of Hutton, in Essex, where life was quieter than she liked. So began a great list of voluntary occupations which she took up in the local community. She was a School Governor, a trustee of local charities, a deliverer of ‘meals on wheels’ and managed to sell poppies for a total of 78 consecutive Novembers. She co-founded the successful local preservation society, regularly cooking for 150 at get-togethers, ran the history group for three decades and was still scrutinizing planning applications to the Council on its behalf in 2016. In addition to her historical work, for which she often gave talks to schools and societies, she was greatly involved in the life of her local church. She was a formidable cook and hostess, and, in her own fashion, an enthusiastic gardener. Her garden was large, prolific, overgrown and beautiful. She cared for it herself and at 94 was still digging her own potatoes which according to custom she had planted the previous Good Friday. If you walked down the lane past her house you might see her in disreputable old clothes, digging or stoking a bonfire. She would invite you in for home-made cake and tea, never in a mug but always in an elegant antique cup and saucer. You would sit in her sitting-room facing an avalanche of

Patricia Chancellor (Humphrys, 1949) and Corinna Kenyon-Wade

Anne Pinsent Keynes (Adrian, 1942) Anne Pinsent Adrian was born in Cambridge on 27 May 1924, and died there on 28 March 2017. She was the eldest child of E.D. Adrian, professor of physiology and Master of Trinity College (1951–65), and his wife Hester (Pinsent) Adrian, who was long committed to the causes of mental health and penal reform. Her twin siblings were Richard Hume Adrian, Master of Pembroke College, Cambridge (1981–93), and Jennet Parker Campbell, who followed her to Somerville in 1945 and is now living in Cornwall. Anne was educated at the Perse School, Cambridge, and Downe House. On leaving Downe in the summer of 1941, she was faced with the decision whether to join the WRNS or to continue with her education. Her love of France, and French literature, had been kindled before the war; her mother had read history at Somerville (1919); and her much-loved grandmother lived near Oxford. Anne settled on more education, at Somerville, and in December 1941 gained an exhibition in French. Her tutor was the redoubtable Dr Enid Starkie; and from her she was soon learning much about Baudelaire and Rimbaud. Dr Starkie’s teaching was supplemented, however, by a remarkable series of letters about the French,

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their language, and their literature which she received, at Somerville, from a young Breton called Guy Vourc’h. He had escaped from Occupied France to England in 1940, with little more than the Adrians’ Cambridge address in his pocket, and since then had been in service with the Free French. Anne initiated the correspondence in 1943, as a way of practising her written French; for his part, Guy approved of Oxford because he had found, when passing through on manoeuvres with his fellow commandos, that Blackwells was unusually well stocked with French books. Among her friends at Somerville were Shirley Bridges (Corke), who died in 2015, Rosamund Benson (Huebner), Cecily Hastings, and Susan Wood. Her main distraction was music: singing in the Oxford Bach Choir, trained by Thomas Armstrong, and with the Balliol College Musical Society, conducted by Christopher Longuet-Higgins. She was by all accounts a fine soprano, and treasured a letter from Dr Armstrong in which he thanked her warmly for her contributions to music in Oxford. Her viva in 1944 was held on D-Day. All she could remember of it was that Professor Gustave Rudler, Marshal Foch Professor of French Literature, seemed unable to focus on the matter in hand, and that she was released in no time. Anne left Oxford in July 1944, moving to London for the year of war work which qualified her for a war degree. She worked in the Ministry of Production, managing the supply of bicycles and other necessities to liberated countries; in letters home she reassured her parents about the doodlebugs. At a party that May she met Richard Darwin Keynes, an acquaintance from childhood in Cambridge, then working on radar and gunnery for the Admiralty. They discovered a common interest in the poetry of Rimbaud, became engaged in August, and married in January 1945. After the war they began their life together in Cambridge, with what became a family of four boys. Anne continued to sing, most often with the Cambridge University Madrigal Society conducted by Raymond Leppard. She occupied herself also in social work; with the organisation of conversation classes for visiting scholars from overseas; and writing papers on music, and French literature, for a reading group which flourished among the self-styled ‘Learned Ladies’ of Cambridge. Latterly she gave close attention to the family papers which had passed to her from her parents. One senses that she never left behind her years at Downe, and at Somerville, because she could never forget the friendships which had sustained her in a time of war. Anne’s children were brought up with two biscuit tins. The light blue one, decorated with the arms of the colleges in Cambridge, was filled by her with biscuits for cheese, especially the Bath Olivers. The dark blue one, decorated with the arms of the colleges in Oxford, was reserved for the succulent Jaffa Cakes, and other varieties containing chocolate. Simon Keynes

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Margaret Cox

Margaret Lee (Cox, 1943) My mother, always Margaret, was born on 20 March 1925 in Boston, Lincolnshire. There she spent a happy childhood in the fenlands. She came from a working-class family, who valued education. At school she excelled at everything and won a place at Boston High School. She gained the highest grade across all subjects at School Certificate, became Head Girl and took her Highers in 1942 when just 17. Art was her passion and talent, but instead she chose an academic route, the first member of the family to do so. Somerville offered a scholarship and so she came to Oxford in 1943. In the official matriculation photo, Margaret is the striking blonde in the second row, slim, petite and beautiful. My mother was unable to complete this first year due to illness, but returned in 1944 to repeat the year, joining a new year-group. Encased in a plaster jacket for weeks, she spent a great deal of time at the Radcliffe Infirmary. However, she enjoyed the rest of her time in Oxford, particularly once the end of the war brought peace and with it great change. The time my mother was ‘up’ was truly unique. Voluntary work was compulsory, and my mother did rooftop firewatching and helped in the local nursery. College rooms accommodated essential workers, and nurses occupied West, often waking everyone up in Library wing. In the first couple of years there were few men in Oxford, and most students were under the age of majority (21). This did not stop them having fun, and lifelong friendships were forged. In her last year, Margaret went to a ball, and much fun was had making dresses out of what material could be found. In 1947, Margaret left Oxford and moved to London where she trained as a librarian. In 1949, having just met my father, Ian, she underwent a major operation followed by a long period of convalescence.


My mother’s working life was to be short. In 1950, at the Council of Industrial Design, she compiled the catalogue for the Festival of Britain. My parents moved out of London to Fulmer, where they both worked at the Cement and Concrete Association. This was to be my mother’s last job. In 1954 she produced her first child, and gave up working, as was the norm. Within a few years there were four of us, two boys and two girls, which left Margaret little time for herself. As we became older, she spent less time on household tasks, preferring to encourage us to explore a world of books and learning. She read us her favourite stories and poems, including extracts from Beowulf, and introduced us to the works of C.S. Lewis and Tolkien, whose lectures she had attended. The grammar school and Oxford had provided social mobility. Her working-class background was long left behind, and we enjoyed a very middle-class existence, but she never forgot her roots. Somerville always occupied a very important place in her life. She knew it had been the making of who she was and was always grateful to have had that opportunity. Margaret died on 30 January 2017, a few weeks before her 92nd birthday. The last few months were probably the hardest of her life after Ian died unexpectedly in July 2016, which was a great shock. But she was tough, resilient, and never lost her enquiring mind. She retained a fierce intellect to the end. Hers was truly a life well lived, even if seemingly unremarkable. Kate Marshall

Moira McColl Torn Large (Sydney, 1946) Moira Large was born in Leeds in 1925 but as a young child moved to Leytonstone in East London where her father, Edward Sydney MC, (a future President of the Library Association) had been appointed the municipal Librarian. Moira attended Leyton County High School for Girls but she completed her ‘Highers’ in English, Latin, French and History at Chipping Camden Grammar School, as the family moved to the Cotswolds to escape wartime London. She was a very able student, finishing school in 1944, but she forewent going straight to University and signed up to ‘do her bit’ for the war effort, joining the WRNS and training as a Morse code wireless telegraphist listening in to German signals, particularly those being sent by the U-boats in the North Sea. Unbeknown to her at the time she was a vital part of the huge effort to break the ‘Enigma’ code. After the war Moira was awarded a place at Somerville to read English Literature, matriculating in 1946. It was an exciting time to be there and she threw herself into university life embracing the joy and the hope of those immediate post-war years. Like many at that time she briefly dallied with

Moira McColl

the Communist Party before joining the University Labour Party and she regularly attended the Oxford Union. She was tutored by the formidable Mary Lascelles through whom she developed her lifelong love of English literature. After graduating she moved back to London and initially followed her father into librarianship, taking the relevant exams at University College London. However, she found the work of a librarian rather dull and that her love of English was better embraced in the world of publishing. She joined the Phoenix Press and then worked for several years on the influential Hospitals Year Book. However, she had always wanted to travel and applied for a job in Northern Rhodesia (now Zambia) to manage a mobile schools’ library. (From those small beginnings that service has today become a worldwide charity known as Book Aid International.) Thus, in 1957, at the age of 32, and despite not knowing anyone there, she set sail on a ‘Union Castle Line’ ship from Southampton on the two-week journey to Cape Town and then the three day train journey up to Lusaka. She quickly immersed herself in colonial life touring the length and breadth of the country in a Land Rover, visiting villages and townships with her books. In 1960, Moira married Philip Large, a senior colonial officer, with whom she had three children, but with independence sweeping across Africa they returned to the UK in the mid ‘60s. Here she devoted herself to her growing family, but found time to give expression to her creativity through sketching, painting, and writing poetry and short stories, as well as in dress-making, embroidery and knitting, although her greatest loves were reading, gardening and ornithology. Moira was, for her time, a most adventurous woman. She was dignified, upright and loyal, always mischievous with words and a truly independent spirit. She passed away on 5 March 2017, after a short illness, at the age of 91. Andrew Large

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Rosalind Mary Maskell (Rewcastle, 1947) Rosalind Maskell was Senior Medical Microbiologist at the Public Health Laboratory and Wessex Regional renal unit at St Mary’s Hospital, Portsmouth. After school in Tunbridge Wells and at Millfield, she attended Somerville as a Nuffield Scholar in Medicine, graduating with a First Class Honours degree in 1950. She then undertook clinical training at St Bartholomew’s Hospital in London. After house jobs, she married a fellow graduate, John Maskell, and ceased medical practice for fourteen years in order to raise a family and support John in his work as a general practitioner in Havant.

Her persistence was rewarded when she was contacted soon afterwards by a group of researchers from Loyola University Chicago who were using genetic techniques to investigate the urinary microbiome and its implications for our understanding of urinary infection. It was a source of great comfort and satisfaction to Rosalind in her later years to know that another group of clinicians and microbiologists was conducting research focused on this problem and that their findings supported her own hypothesis that urine is not sterile in the absence of clinically significant infection.

In 1968, looking for an opportunity to return to medical practice as her children were growing up, she obtained an appointment as clinical assistant in the renal unit and public health laboratory service in Portsmouth. Her remit was to acquaint herself with the field of urinary tract infection and then to undertake clinical and laboratory duties in this field. This was to be the focus of her work for the rest of her career.

Away from the laboratory and clinic, she was governor of a number of local secondary schools and devoted any spare time to gardening. She was a voracious reader with a particular appetite for political biography and a keen eye for any lapses in grammar or punctuation. Predeceased by John, she is survived by her son Giles, a radiologist, and daughter Genevieve, a horticulturalist.

Alongside her clinical duties, she established from scratch a research programme which led her to publish two books, many chapters in multi-author publications on renal medicine, surgery and microbiology, and over fifty peer-reviewed scientific papers. Her interest had been stimulated by the plight of women whom she encountered in the clinic with unexplained urinary symptoms and clinical diagnoses of ‘urethral syndrome’ or ‘interstitial cystitis’. Her suspicion was that current standard laboratory techniques for urine culture were failing to identify the organisms which were causing infection in these patients. She was able to show that using prolonged growth under anaerobic conditions, pure cultures of certain ‘fastidious’ organisms usually regarded as commensals could be obtained from the urine of some of these patients. Her hypothesis was that repeated courses of antibiotics led to the selection of resistant bacteria in the urethral commensal flora and that these then had a role in the aetiology of symptoms. Her work was rewarded with a number of distinctions including the award of a DM by Oxford University in 1985 and election to MRCP (UK) under byelaw 117 the same year. She was proud to serve as a member of the National Biological Standards Board from 1988 to 1992. Despite these welcome forms of recognition, her work did not find favour with the medical microbiology establishment of the day and she was deeply wounded by a particularly damning review of one of her books. She always suspected that her work would have been better received had it emanated from a major research centre rather than from a part-time female clinician in a district hospital with a single laboratory assistant. Although sustained by her late husband’s reassurance that the truth will always out in the end, it remained a source of great frustration to her that work which had the potential to benefit countless patients suffering from disabling

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symptoms had not in fact changed clinical or laboratory practice outside her own centre. In her early eighties, she decided to make one final attempt to attract wider attention to her work on urinary infection and submitted a paper summarizing her earlier research to the journal Medical Hypotheses. This was published in May 2010.

Giles Maskell

Lorna Ross (Chubb, 1948) My cousin Lorna Ross died on 28 July 2016. Her earliest years were spent in Egypt, where her father was working. She loved her schooldays at Downe House (where she was taught by Clare Campbell, OS, who remained a lifelong friend), with its emphasis on the performing arts, and longed to be a dancer, but grew too tall. At home, she climbed the tallest trees in the garden, and once at a circus had a go at standing on a cantering pony. Later still, the line ‘I was just teaching my granddaughter to turn cartwheels’ was a memorable one. In 1948 Lorna gained a place at Somerville to read Greats. Although she came away with a Third, she made the most of university life, including becoming engaged to a member of the 1951 Boat Crew; we all mourned when the boat sank in front of the television cameras, and again when the engagement ended not long afterwards. True to her declared ambition ‘to make my mark on Oxford’, she took her final Schools clad in full-length black skirt, high-necked Victorian blouse and a tie of black velvet ribbon. After Schools, Lorna happily became secretary/companion to Gilbert Murray on Boars Hill. There followed a period of housekeeping for her grandparents and then a short spell of teaching. At 27, she married John Ross, her admirer from Oxford days; his ordination in 1957 led to eight years as a tutor/lecturer in Cambridge. This ended – with a fourth child on the way – with their move to Edinburgh, where John held the university post of Faculty Officer in Social Sciences and served as a non-stipendiary priest; Lorna, too, became more deeply committed as a Christian, and sought ordination, but without success.


Ann Whitaker (1949) Going to Somerville in 1946 as a mature student, Ann Whitaker became head of the junior common room. She was presented to the then Princess Elizabeth who asked her what she was studying. "PPE", she replied, to which the Princess threw back her head, laughed and asked, "What on earth is that?!" Ann was studying in Switzerland at the outbreak of the Second World War. She became secretary to the air attaché at the British Legation in Berne. There was an unexpected visitor one day in 1941, Airey Neave, the first British officer to escape from Colditz. He was a friend of the family and they went for a walk together. The next day he was gone, passed down the lines and back to England.

Lorna Chubb on the Isle of Lewis

In Edinburgh life was not easy in a large, neglected house, but Lorna was ever creative. To quote daughter Jane: ‘As a child, you are not impressed that your mum can cook, paint, sing, dance, identify plants and insects, speak a range of languages, and perform the pose of a crow in yoga. You just think she’s a bit of a hippie.’ And, one may add, write poetry. Nettle soup figured largely on the menu, in season; she let the spare room to a single mother and enjoyed filling the top flat with families from overseas sent to her by the university. Lorna also taught Classics for a while in local schools, and took flying lessons. After John’s sudden death aged 63 and her own serious cancer, Lorna, now free from family responsibilities, decided to fulfil a lifelong ambition to Go Far Away with God and arranged for a year’s retreat on Tristan da Cunha, visiting friends in Nigeria and South Africa en route. The ‘retreat’ was anything but solitary; though mornings were spent with her Bible, she lived with a family, became ‘Grannich’ and joined in many exciting expeditions. From pinnamin eggs and bird fat to all-day carding sessions and many ‘buffdis’ (birthdays), she relished it all. She still felt drawn by remoteness and one more big adventure followed: the purchase of a house just outside Stornoway, on the Isle of Lewis. She loved the huge expanse of sky, the small friendly town, the daily ferry faithfully crossing her view into the harbour; the painting group, the poetry group, the prayer group and her church, together with her small garden, absorbed her time and brought her congenial friends. She published some poems in a Scottish national newspaper, and had a display of her paintings in the town library. An unsuccessful hip operation obliged her to move into an excellent care home and when, aged 86, she was finally laid low by a stroke, she was ready to go. Lucia Turner (Glanville, 1951)

Returning herself to England via an adventurous journey, Ann enlisted in the WRAF and then was seconded to the Foreign Office and MI6. She worked in North Africa and Italy and was mentioned in despatches. Having gained a second class honours degree in 1949, Ann trained as a medical social worker with the Institute of Almoners, working at the National Hospital, Queen's Square, London. In 1957 she completed a mammoth research work on "The young chronic sick in the North East Metropolitan Region" for which she was sponsored by The Nuffield Foundation. This led to improvements in care nationally. She worked alongside Dr Queenie Adams at her practice in Harley Street. Together they founded a charitable trust for the establishment of homes for the rehabilitation of young men with mental and sometimes physical problems. They moved to Cornwall in the 1960s, where activities included organising summer camps for children in the garden and founding Tremore Christian School, an independent day school which ran for eighteen years in purpose-built premises in the grounds where they lived. When a staffing problem arose Ann found herself principal of the school. Dr Adams predeceased Ann Whitaker by 18 years and in those years Ann travelled twice to Uganda and in her 88th year to the Philippines. She warned officials and young people that "west is not always best" with regard to what she saw as the moving away from the Judaeo-Christian foundation of our society. Ann's home was always a place of welcome. Her sound wisdom, advice and her sharing of an astute understanding of world affairs will be much missed. She died on 8th May 2017. Susan Pernet Friend and former secretary

Christian Parham (Fitzherbert, 1950) died on 23 April 2017. There will be an obituary in the 2018 Report.

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The Artist’s Family, by kind permission of the Tate Gallery - Henry Lamb’s family at Coombe Bissett 1940; Henrietta aged 9 stands on the left

Henrietta Frances Phipps (Lamb, 1950) Henrietta Frances Lamb was born in 1931 at the crossroads of two significant artistic and cultural movements: Bloomsbury, where Lytton Strachey and Lady Ottoline Morrell met their counterparts of the 1920s generation, including Evelyn Waugh, John Betjeman and the Sitwells. Her father, the artist Henry Lamb, had been an associate of Augustus John, and at the turn of the century had married as his first wife Euphemia, John’s model and muse. It took him many years to disentangle himself from this liaison, and it was only in 1928 that he took as his second wife Pansy Pakenham, sister of Frank, later Lord Longford. They were both at the centre of a group of young, fun-loving writers and intellectuals collectively known as ‘The Bright Young Things’, whose literary achievements were punctuated by romps and practical jokes. Henry remained a close friend of Lytton Strachey, who appreciated Henry’s sharp, critical intellect, and their friendship lasted up to Strachey’s death. Henry was also extremely musical, and anticipated by many years the revival of interest in Early and Baroque music. Henrietta, the eldest of three children, grew up in Coombe Bissett in Wiltshire; she delighted her father by showing early signs of intellectual promise. A bookish child, she was

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surrounded by Henry’s artistic friends, as well as Pansy’s family and literary circle. Henrietta was, according to her sister Felicia, the apple of her father’s eye; he appreciated her gentle demeanour and painted many portraits of her. Until the war stopped them the family travelled frequently to Italy and France, but life at home in an intellectual hothouse made demands on the children; Henry’s tempestuous and argumentative spirit, although tamed by marriage and advancing age, could still burst out, while Pansy saw herself as a writer first, a homemaker only by fits and starts. Henrietta calmly survived the arguments, fortified by her friendship with Pakenham cousins of her age, but Felicia found the atmosphere so oppressive that she took a secretarial course, and became a journalist. Henrietta attended the Godolphin School at Salisbury; she took herself there without parental help, and was a model student. In 1950 she won an exhibition to Somerville to read History. At Oxford she was happy: she was a member of a select group of contemporaries who would become friends for life. At Oxford too she converted to Catholicism, thus provoking furious antagonism from Henry, who was a militant atheist. A Somerville friend remembers his angry outburst about the Oxford History syllabus. ‘They are teaching Henrietta about Barbarossa rather than anything serious’, he raged.


Henrietta left Oxford in 1954 and took a job at History Today, then run by Peter Quennell. She worked there, sharing a flat in Chelsea with her Pakenham cousins, until her marriage in 1960 to William Phipps the silversmith, son of Sir Eric Phipps, the British Ambassador to Hitler’s Germany from 1934 to 1937. William, in flight from a family so involved in great events, had passed a stormy youth, but his marriage to Henrietta was exceptionally happy, and until William’s death in 2009 they were seldom apart. The family lived at 31 Chepstow Villas, which for fifty years was a meeting place for their ever-growing circle of friends. While William forged silver in his basement workshop, Henrietta studied at Kingston College of Art, and became landscape gardener to the Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, working in the Town Hall and in the Parks Department. She had a hand in the design of so many civic amenities that one commentator maintained that her forty years’ work had ‘shaped the Royal Borough’. She remained involved in the gardens of Kensington almost to her death. Henry died in 1962, and Henrietta took on the administration of her father’s artistic legacy, a task increasing as his reputation grew. Pansy, however, lived till 1990, spending her last years in Rome, having followed her daughter into the Catholic Church. Henrietta brought her home and cared for her till her death. She and William worked together for the Church of St Mary of the Angels, Notting Hill among the homeless and the down-and-out. When already in her 70s she started to study Hebrew, and in 2015, despite increasing ill heath, she made a pilgrimage to the Holy Land with her daughter Teresa. She died in May 2016, aged 84. She is survived by her daughter and three sons. Miranda Villiers (McKenna, 1954)

Mavis Evelyn Howe Mate (Howe, 1953) Mavis Mate died at home in Illinois on 20 October 2016, just days after mailing her proud vote for Hillary Clinton. Although Mavis’s friends and family miss her terribly, we are glad, for her sake, she outlived neither her queen nor the last remnants of sanity in the American electorate. (Mavis was always betwixt and between her two countries. It troubled her that she sounded English to Americans and American to the English.) Born in 1933, within sound of Bow Bells, she lived through the Blitz and was the first in her family to attend college. She wrote, ‘Somerville offered me . . . the sustaining support of strong, female friendship, and the emphasis on academic rigour. There weren’t too many people with my background at Somerville, but . . . I was accepted for the kind of person I was, which made easier my transition to life in North America.’ Mavis married Charles Frederick Mate (Pembroke, 1952) and emigrated to Canada after Charles finished his doctorate. Both Mavis’s sons were born in Canada, then the family moved to the USA. At Ohio State University,

Mavis began work on her own doctorate in medieval history, with an emphasis in women’s studies. Charles died when Mavis was just 40. She wrote, ‘I needed to support my family. Fortunately, interest in women’s history was growing in the US, and with several articles already published, I received a position as an Assistant Professor at the University of Oregon. I enjoyed teaching and . . . administration, becoming co-director of the Center for the Study of Women and Society, while retaining my interest in late medieval economic history. Without a spouse, my work became my focus. In due course, I retired from the University as full professor and department chair, but continued my research on the economic history of Kent and Sussex. My most recent work was to contribute to a new history on the port town of Sandwich.’ Mavis endured Alzheimer’s Disease with dignity and fortitude. She died from a heart attack, the kind of nononsense departure she had hoped to make. To the end, she took pride in her garden, never missed watching BBC World News, and lived, as always, surrounded by piles of books. We remember Mavis with love, gratitude, and deep admiration for the way she led her life. She was a formidable intellect, a skilled administrator, and a dogged researcher. Colleagues describe her as ‘one of the most important foremothers of the medievalist feminist movement’ (and also as ‘an impressive ping-pong player’). Mavis was, in addition, a loving mother, a welcoming mother-in-law, and a proud grandmother. Mathew Mate and Shelli Koszdin, Laurence Mate and Paige Weston

Rosemary Walz (Graves, 1953) My mother Rosemary was born in West Kirby in the Wirral on 13 March 1934 and educated at St Mary’s School in Wantage. She spent her ‘gap year’ living with her Romanian aunt in Paris and studying at the Sorbonne before coming up to Somerville in 1953 to read French and German. Her study of modern languages took her to Heidelberg in the summer vacation at the end of her second year where she met Dr Walz, a German university lecturer 27 years her senior. Their long-distance courtship resulted in marriage in April 1957 and she moved to Heidelberg and had four children. As director of the Dolmetscher Institut, my father regularly received international visitors to Heidelberg and, as a couple, my parents were renowned for their hospitality. We were always told that Malcolm Muggeridge pushed my sister in her pram and Tony Benn mentioned being invited to tea in his diaries! They provided a home from home to English students in Heidelberg and continued this international open house when the family moved to Guildford where my father had the chair in the Department of Linguistic and Regional Studies at the University of

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but she was delighted to watch him sprint to an unexpected gold medal on the television! She died on 30 November 2016. Fortunately the whole family was able to come together at her bedside a few weeks before she died and we were able to bring her messages of love and thanks from the many people whose lives she had touched in her 82 years. Linda Walz (1982)

Maureen Birukowska (Booth, 1954) died on 6 June 2017. There will be an obituary in next year’s Report.

Diana Johnson (1954) I first met Diana at Somerville in 1954. She was one of the year’s remarkable cohort of people chosen by Mary Lascelles and Ursula Brown to read for the Honour School of English Language and Literature. I was reading Modern History, so we did not meet in a tutorial context, but as part of a large-ish informal group of friends which included Anthea Bell and Meg Pattison.

Rosemary Walz

Surrey. We enjoyed a childhood with a steady stream of visitors and extended ‘family’ from around the world – my father’s experience of being one of the few Germans who spoke out against the Nazi regime, leading to his arrest by the Gestapo in 1936, influenced him to offer a helping hand and a welcome to all who might want it. In 1963/4 my parents built a home in Mallorca, and my mother added Spanish to her list of languages she spoke fluently. Mallorca became her permanent home in 1984/5 after my father’s death, where she became very involved in the local parish, working as ecumenical officer for the Anglican priest liaising with the local Catholic priest to promote ecumenical services. During this time she learnt to read and understand Mallorquin, the dialect of Catalan spoken in Mallorca. My mother put a lot of energy into creating beautiful homes for the family, developing skills in upholstery and carpetlaying to complement her expertise with the needle, which she used to create all the soft furnishings and most of our clothes as children. She took a great interest in the lives of her six grandchildren and was the number one fan of my nephew, Marcus Walz, as he developed his career as a kayak champion for Spain. She had always enjoyed travelling and would use his various international championships as springboards for trips. Sadly she did not feel up to travelling to Rio for the Olympic Games in 2016

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Diana was already creating her own inimitable sketchbooks, full of vigorous, decisive drawings of the people, animals, trees, buildings she saw around her every day, and peppered with characteristic comments on life and art. She was, I remember, into scraper-board at that time; it was a fairly new invention and it suited her capacity for producing bold, sharply observed vignettes in black and white. I remember one in particular which was her reminiscence of the Horn Dancers of Abbot’s Bromley, where she and her sister Pam had been at school. Shortly after this Diana began to experiment with wood cuts and with wood engraving. I clearly remember an expedition with her to the City of London, to Stanley Lawrence’s shop in the cobbled courtyard called Bleeding Heart Yard. This shop was a paradise for wood engravers, despite – or perhaps also because of – Lawrence’s strong and eccentric personality. He had a marvellous stock of wood engraving tools, blocks, inks and so on, but he was well known for taking kindly to some of his customers, and not to others. He and Diana got on very well. She stood up to him. He seems to have found her interesting, off-beat and worthwhile, as so many of her friends did over the years. Diana came to know and respect the work of wood engravers as diverse as Clare Leighton, Gwen Raverat and Eric Gill. I remember an expedition with her to Cambridge, where we spent so much time in Kettle’s Yard that we never got to the Fitzwilliam, and where Diana discovered in a small gallery in (I think) Downing Street that the proprietor had known Gwen Raverat personally, and had many affectionate reminiscences of her. It was interest in the work of Eric Gill that first led Diana to make one of her exploratory solitary journeys, this time to


Capel-y-Ffin where she did a whole batch of drawings of what is left of the strange monastic establishment of Father Ignatius. Another of Diana’s journeys was to Kilpeck in Herefordshire, where on more than one occasion she found a nearby B&B, full of dogs, horses and sheep, and stayed to fill sketchbooks with drawings of the Norman church, its rounded apse, its carved doorway, and its powerful carvings; the hare and hound, the dragon, the grotesque monsters and big-eyed human figures. She loved Kilpeck. On another occasion, Diana was in Cornwall, alone (she thought) in an old church. She was startled to hear footsteps and rustling, and to see an elderly woman appear from behind a pillar. ‘Are you a ghost?’ said Diana. ‘Not yet’ the figure replied – an answer worthy of Diana herself. They both had a good laugh. My recollections of Diana are more or less all of this variety, her acuity, her enquiry, her sharp observation, her wit. There was also her courage. She had a number of misfortunes in the course of her long life. All of these she met with determination, with resolution, with intellectual curiosity, with an interest in other people, with scorn for falsity, and above all with humour. Diana truly had a survivor’s stamina. I am glad to have known her. She will certainly be missed. Gillian Lewis (Morton, 1954)

Celia Male (Carr, 1955) Celia Male was born on 31 August 1937 and passed away peacefully, in her sleep, aged 79 on 7 March 2017. After reading Biochemistry at Somerville, she enjoyed a rewarding career as a scientific adviser and consultant. She was a prolific networker and, in later life, used her great interest in people, their stories and connections, to help reunite families and friends separated by circumstance all over the world. Celia spent her early years in Egypt, where she attended the English Girls College (EGC) in Alexandria, before coming up to Somerville in 1955 to read Biochemistry. On graduating, she joined the Medical Research Council Biophysics Research Unit at King’s College London, where she met her husband-to-be, physicist John Male. They married in September 1962. Celia had a considerable talent for simplifying and presenting complex subjects in clear, readable prose and she put this to good use in her subsequent career. After a short time as Scientific Adviser to a Swedish pharmaceutical company, she spent the remaining years as partner in a small consultancy firm, specializing in market surveys and forecasts for the pharmaceutical and food-technology industries. But Celia’s main interest was always in people. When the EGC was forced to close, following the Suez crisis in 1956, many of the girls and their families were expelled from Egypt and scattered worldwide. Some 35 years later, Celia set

Celia Male

herself the task of finding them. Starting with a few school magazines and her exceptional networking skills, she finally succeeded in locating most of the pupils and staff that had passed through the EGC over its 21-year life from 1935 to 1956 – some 1,600 individuals in all. This work culminated in a joyful and emotional reunion in London in 1991. Many ‘girls’ were reunited with friends they had lost since the school’s demise – and local reunions continue today in many countries. She also won international recognition for her work in genealogy. Apart from researching her own family, she was always willing to help others trace lost friends and relatives – and her many contributions to the JewishGen website were always lively and interesting. Her other passions included her cats, her garden, her cooking and her large collection of illustrated children’s books. Celia suffered a disabling stroke in 2009 and was diagnosed with inoperable pelvic cancer early this year. She is survived by her husband, two sons and three grandchildren. John Male

Liza Shaw (Mrosovsky, 1955) Liza is greatly missed. She was a person of warmth, generosity and understanding, as her family, friends and those for whom she worked well knew. She was also a person of exceptional strength and fortitude, qualities which became particularly clear during the last years of her life, qualities however which she consistently underplayed: ‘On my gravestone,’ she would say, ‘I want only two words: “She tried”.’

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Liza Shaw

Danny and Dinah, Christmas 1983

She was born on 11 April 1936 in Romania, where her father, Peter Mrosovsky, was prospecting for oil. She already had two brothers, and was later to have two sisters, one of whom, Kitty, was at Somerville. The family moved and settled in several different countries (Tunisia among them) after leaving Romania. In May 1944 they came to live in Oxford. Liza however then went to Badminton School (she was Head Girl) before applying successfully to Somerville, where from 1955 to 1959 she read Literae Humaniores. When I first went to coffee with her in college, I thought I’d met a kind of Russian princess surrounded by Tunisian bedspreads.

Diana ‘Danny’ Brown (Clements, 1957)

Following university, she worked in a city law firm, gaining good experience, and later taught in Coventry. However, she was really drawn to social work and in 1960 she was accepted by LSE; she gained two diplomas, in Social Studies and in Social Administration. Having trained as a social worker, she then worked in childcare from 1963 to 1994, first in Tower Hamlets and then in Haringey. In 1966 she married Jonathan Shaw, later consultant paediatrician, an immense source of support until the end. They have three children, Isabella, Susanna and Varya, and four grandchildren. After retiring, Liza put her enthusiastic energy into learning Russian, resulting in a good degree from the University of Westminster in 2000. She was also very much interested in Nabokov, who knew her father at university: her Russian connections deeply concerned and interested her. She died peacefully at home with Jonathan at her bedside and her family around her on Boxing Day 2016. Sally Marler (Turton, 1955)

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Diana ‘Danny’ Brown was born on 3 March 1940 and died on 20 May 2017. She was one of those rare people with a photographic memory and an encyclopaedic knowledge of everything from biology and medicine to history, the theatre, politics and the arts. She came up to Somerville in 1957 at the age of 17 to read Mathematics, a decision driven by her headmistress, herself a mathematician. At the time, Danny would rather have gone to art school. However, being at Somerville was life-changing for Danny. Inspired by her access to the personal library of John Stuart Mill, she found her spiritual home and became a life-long Humanist and advocate for women’s rights. While at Oxford she co-founded the University Humanist Society and joined the Liberal Club, the Labour Club and also the Conservatives; not because she was uncertain of her political views, but because she had views that she felt these organisations needed to hear. After Oxford, Danny worked for many years as a teacher in England and Switzerland. In 1970, while working as head of Maths at Tewkesbury Girls High School, she met her husband Roy. They married in 1973 and Danny became stepmother to Roy’s two children from his previous marriage, Wendy and Steven. Their own children, Rosamund and Adam, were born in 1975 and 1980. In 1976 Danny joined Roy and his partners in a new computer-services business, Metier Management Systems, which very quickly became the world leader in computer systems for the management of large-scale major projects. When the business was sold in 1985, the family moved to


Laren in the Netherlands. Not long after the move, Danny broke her neck in a car accident, putting an end to her business career. At around that time, the couple became activists in the field of population, family planning and women’s rights. In 1986 Danny became chairman of a UK charity, Population Concern, recruiting Prince Philip as patron and both Richard Dawkins and Archbishop Habgood as vice-presidents. In 1987, the couple co-founded a similar population advocacy organisation in the Netherlands, the World Population Foundation, which later merged with the Rutgers Nisso Foundation and was renamed Rutgers WPF. It has become the leading European organisation campaigning for sexual and reproductive health and rights. Danny became Chairman of the Somerville Appeal Committee in 1995 and remained in that position until 2003 when the Committee was disbanded and plans initiated to set up a Development Board in its place. She was also the first mother of a Somervillian daughter and son, Rosamund (1994) and Adam (1998). Danny was above all a woman driven by compassion. She loved the world and she loved people. Almost her every waking moment was spent in trying to put the world to rights. For the last fifteen years of her life she was dogged by illness, by an unforgiving auto-immune disease that left her quite often in pain and unable to sleep. But, undaunted, she carried on the struggle, mainly via an internet discussion forum that she founded, Secular Café, and with hundreds of correspondents on-line. From the letters of condolence and sympathy the family have received, it is clear that Danny was an inspiration not only to her family and close associates but to hundreds if not thousands of others who came into contact with her. Rosamund Akayan (Brown, 1994)

Lydia Wright (Giles, 1959) For Lydia, winning an exhibition to read history at Somerville in 1959 was a pivotal event in her life. The first member of her family to go to university, her three years there not only opened her mind to academic opportunities but shaped the way she saw the world at a time of profound change in society. After graduation she took a job at the Foreign Office working for a then secret department that analysed and assessed intelligence reports. She was assigned three countries: North Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia. Every night the typewriter ribbons used were locked in a safe. That work inspired a wider interest in the countries that she wrote about and when, a few years later, happenstance presented the opportunity to marry and swap Whitehall for South East Asia itself it was not a hard decision to make. Ian Wright, a journalist for The Guardian, had been appointed the paper’s first South East Asia correspondent. At the age of 28 the couple married and left for Vietnam

Lydia Wright

in a matter of weeks. For the next two years they lived in a Saigon hotel room and Lydia became a freelance writer contributing pieces for The Economist and The Financial Times. Her background and specialist knowledge opened doors. One young American military intelligence officer they knew at the time – and who became a life-long friend – still thought she had been secretly working for the government more than forty years on. She wasn’t – but she learnt quickly how to cultivate contacts. The assignment lasted until 1971 when they returned to the UK after Ian was appointed The Guardian’s foreign editor. The couple duly moved to Manchester and became parents in 1973. After moving to London Lydia returned to work, doing something which suited both her academic and writing interests. She became deputy editor of the Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, commissioning and editing the quarterly publication. It required diplomacy (dealing with academic egos is never easy), writing skills and in-depth knowledge. It also married her training in history with her journalistic knowledge of communication. She also continued to write and update the sections on Vietnam and Cambodia for the Far Eastern Economic Review yearbook. But her interests were wider and more eclectic. Since the 1960s the couple had spent significant time in Donegal and in retirement built a house in a remote spot on the Inishowen peninsula. In her early 30s Lydia was taught by locals how to catch lobsters under the rocks at low tide – using just a stick with a wire hook at one end. Into her

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Scilla is remembered by her fellow Somervillians as hugely entertaining and vivacious, with a distinctive smile and voice. After her degree she went on to complete her medical training at University College Hospital. She married David Read, a fellow medical student from Oxford, and had three children, Emily, Sophie and Olivia, all three of whom later became Oxbridge graduates. She decided to embark on further specialist training in psychiatry, and obtained her MRCPsych in 1995. She had been somewhat squeamish about the more corporeal aspects of medicine (she fainted when attending her first medical operation) and so perhaps psychiatry was a wise choice. In all events, she embraced the field with passion. She became a highly respected consultant at the Colchester General Hospital, and was adored by many of her colleagues and patients.

Priscilla Read

70s and until very shortly before she died she continued this tradition – catching sometimes three or four lobsters every spring tide. That typified her: an enthusiast whose intellectual and practical curiosity was boundless and for whom the world was a fascinating and exciting place to be explored. Oliver Wright

Priscilla Elise Read (Roth, 1965) Priscilla Roth was born on 25 May 1947. She was a very pretty child with shining blue eyes and softly curling red hair. The family moved to Dumfries, and then to Chichester. In 1956 our father, the psychiatrist Martin Roth, became Professor in the Newcastle upon Tyne Medical School. Scilla (as she became known) sometimes said that the carefree, sunny years of our early childhood really ended then. Scilla’s enduring sense of herself as the oldest made her in equal measure forceful and protective in relation to us younger siblings. All three of us were pupils at the Newcastle upon Tyne Church High School for Girls. Scilla enjoyed Latin, French and English, which were very well taught, but opted to study Sciences for A-level. She secured a place at Somerville, a very unusual achievement for a Church High School girl at that time. Her choice of preclinical medicine undoubtedly showed a paternal influence, but was to become a profound, life-long dedication to the needs of sick people, and especially the mentally ill.

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Scilla was a complex personality – bold, opinionated and forthright, but also humorous, fun-loving and generous to a fault. Her taste in beautiful things was one of her signatures. Her lovely house in the Essex countryside was decorated with great taste and adorned with antiques, and her garden was planted with her favourite roses and peonies in soft hues. She loved to cook and entertain and hosted many memorable get-togethers for the whole family. She also loved to travel, and especially enjoyed visits to Italy. Her accounts of family trips would be replete with descriptions of art, architecture and food, as well as humorous incidents. Scilla was a great raconteuse. Scilla’s loyalty and commitment to her family were deep. She adored her children and grandchildren and always had a very special bond with our mother. Scilla’s frequent visits to Constance in Cambridge were a source of huge joy and solace to her, and continued even when Scilla was herself becoming unwell. Her insistence on putting others’ health before her own was characteristic: Scilla continued with her clinical work until shortly before her death. In the last months of her life, Scilla was thrilled to be awarded the Fellowship of the Royal College of Psychiatrists, the crowning achievement of her career. Typically, Scilla was modest in her acceptance of the award. Despite unstinting dedication to the care of others, she did not seem to believe that she merited such recognition. Naomi Aslet (Roth, 1973) and Ilona Roth (1966)

Prisca Middlemiss (Mills, 1967) Prisca was born in Cambridge in 1948, where her father was a Fellow and lecturer at Jesus College. The family later moved to Manchester, where Prisca attended Manchester High School for Girls, coming to Somerville in 1967 to read German and French. She had a room in Vaughan, quite a new development at the time, and we envied her that! I remember many earnest discussions on the Romantic German poets, Prisca expressing her strongly held views and debating the finer points of Schiller, Rilke, Goethe and others … probably the only time in my life I have ever thought about German poetry over breakfast! She was a very reflective person and looking back I think she had


great maturity of thought, far more so than me. She would often look at you a while before replying; this could be quite disconcerting but her words were thoughtful and perceptive. And she had a lovely, long, slow smile and a great sense of humour. Prisca was always interested in theatre and acting and quite early on she auditioned for The Caucasian Chalk Circle. That was how she met Nigel, who was directing the play, and they became inseparable. Nigel gave her the leading female role, that of a giving and compassionate woman in a self-centred society – and that pretty well sums up Prisca’s life. In our day it was unusual for students to spend a year abroad – the Faculty of Medieval and Modern Languages was frequently more medieval than modern, as we often remarked – but Prisca and Nigel bucked the trend and spent a year teaching English in Germany, returning to Oxford to graduate in 1971. They were married at Merton College in September that year and then set off for a year in Finland, teaching English. This was followed by three years spent in Bulgaria, again teaching English. This was a real challenge, but exciting too. Prisca told us of a drab and regimented life, albeit with good friends among the staff and students they worked with. She spoke of ‘listening ears’ and remarked that often the only safe place to talk was in the car! On one occasion she stood up, very bravely, against the communist authorities, when pressure was put on her to falsify the results of a daughter of a high-ranking party member. This was Prisca through and through, standing up for what she believed. When they returned to London in 1975 Prisca worked for the British Diabetic Association, which fired her enthusiasm for medical journalism. I remember that she once edited a diabetic cookery book and regaled us with stories of the white paint and polyfilla used to enhance the delicious looking photos! She went on to write for the General Practitioner, Medical News and Practical Parenting Magazine, among others, using her own experience as mother to Ben and Sophie. In more recent times she worked for Unique, the Rare Chromosome Disorder Support Group. She had the remarkable gift of being able to interpret the complex science behind various genetic disorders into simple language. Although she had no formal medical background she was able to converse with medical experts and produce hundreds of leaflets on these rare disorders. She also helped to link families and carers across the world looking after children with identical chromosome conditions. In 1998 she was diagnosed with pulmonary fibrosis, but continued to lead a busy and active life, carrying on with her work and finding ways to circumvent the illness. She had many and various interests – gardening, growing fruits and vegetables, dress-making, travelling. We kept in touch throughout the years, albeit with infrequent meetings. I remember Prisca’s regular Christmas letters, her obvious delight and pride in her children and their achievements, her descriptions of family holidays and

Prisca Middlemiss

her increasing interest in medical writing. More recently, we re-kindled our friendship and met up on several occasions. She enjoyed a few reunions and events at Somerville and she talked a lot about her two beloved granddaughters. She spent much time travelling to Cambridge and Gloucestershire to spend time with her children and help with the grandchildren. She always loved reading and talked about her rather fearsome-sounding Book Group, to which you had to be admitted by a panel of members – she clearly relished the intellectual stimulation of this group! Her death, in December 2016, came far too soon, but she remained involved and active as long as she could and is much missed by her family and many friends. Rosamund Skinner (Forrest) and Susie Worthington (Middleditch), 1967

Hatty (Harriet) Brookland (Carswell, 1969) Harriet Carswell was born on 1 October 1950; her mother Ianthe Carswell (née Elstob) read PPE at Somerville, 1936. Hatty and I met at North London Collegiate School and came up to Somerville together in October 1969. She read PPE and I read PPP. In our first year we both had rooms in Vaughan where I particularly remember our Sunday routine. We would take our washing to the launderette on the corner of Little Clarendon St and Walton St. There was no college supper on Sunday evenings. Instead we collected sliced bread and jam from the kitchen and would go back to Hatty’s room and make toast on the electric fire while listening to the Mozart Clarinet Quintet and talking

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– although now I think we talked more about people and relationships than the big intellectual ideas that we were supposed to be grappling with in our studies! After Oxford, Hatty returned to London for her first job, at Lloyds of London, where she was the first woman on the floor of the Stock Market. She did not enjoy that environment so moved to work for the Consumers’ Association and Which? magazine. During this time she wrote several books about household economics. She then worked for more than twenty years as a very successful self-employed business woman, and as a freelance editor. Throughout her life Hatty devoted countless hours to voluntary work – including the Citizens Advice Bureau (CAB) and the Norden Farm Arts Centre. She was a tireless editor of the Marlow Society newsletter for many years. More recently she contributed to the CAB’s advice column in the local Marlow newspaper once a month. Hatty was an expert gardener, with an allotment which kept her family in seasonal vegetables and jam. She was an enthusiastic and excellent oarswoman and she had a skiff on the Thames. She somehow also found time to maintain a rich cultural life in art and music and many friendships. Hatty’s first marriage ended some years ago, but in 2013 she met Kevin Brookland and they married very happily just seven weeks before her death. Hatty leaves behind her new husband and three step-children, her sister, other family members and her many friends. Hatty died very suddenly and inexplicably after a minor accident in her garden, having been in very good health. Very sadly Bridget, her only child from her first marriage, also died recently. Hatty’s death came as a very great shock to her family and friends. She will be very sorely missed. Julia Goodwin, 1969

Helen Moira Minter (Knox, 1971) Born in Sheffield on 8 May 1953, Helen was educated at Sheffield High GPDST, leaving with grade As and distinctions in chemistry, maths and physics. Matriculating in 1971, she developed a lasting love for Somerville, making lifelong friends among contemporaries. After prelims she changed to agriculture and forestry. The course, for researchers and advisory experts rather than farmers and foresters, was intellectually fulfilling. Two inspiring lecturers, Geoff Hodgson and Collier Dawkins, taught her to think independently and defend her conclusions. She often acknowledged their enormous influence. After Oxford, she accompanied her fiancé, David Minter (Pembroke, 1970) to Aberdeen where she worked at the North of Scotland College of Agriculture monitoring distillery effluent. Having married on 14 June 1975, the couple moved to Brentford in September 1977, and she started an MSc in information science at City University, London. Her

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Helen Minter

thesis focused on patent law and resulted in a paper written jointly with her tutor, Charles Oppenheim. In autumn 1979 she joined her husband in Prague for two months behind the Iron Curtain. Back in London, she attended the May 1980 graduation ceremony, already two weeks overdue with her first child, then went directly to the maternity hospital, giving birth to James two days later. Combining motherhood and career, she worked parttime with CABI (an international information organisation), producing abstracts from scientific literature in over ten European languages. After about fifteen years she became a technical editor for the British Association of Dermatology, overseeing journal production. James was followed by two other children, William (November 1984) and Roxana (December 1988), and the growing family moved to a larger house in Isleworth. Helen was typical of a generation with wonderful opportunities to see the world, and the children, even when young, were unhesitatingly taken along. Among many trips abroad, the weeks touring Senegal in 1995 with a woman friend were particularly adventurous. Her varied interests included music (the Aberdeen Bach Choir, street choirs, and a Bolivian music group), stained glass, and badminton. She loved long walks, and her propensity to paddle along any suitable beach was legendary. By 2007, she and David had location-independent jobs, so decided to return to Helen’s native Yorkshire, buying a house in Whitby with fine harbour views. Happiness was completed by grandchildren, Lorencita (February 2010) and Anna (June 2012), but this joy did not last. In August 2012, Helen was diagnosed with a rare but aggressive cancer. Major surgery followed in September, but delays in making the diagnosis meant it was already too late. Understanding that, Helen filled her remaining time with as much life as possible. In combating the illness her courage shone,


bearing surgery and chemotherapy with dignity. She died on 31 May 2016 surrounded by her family. Her life was a model of measured good judgement, with a ready and generous store of compassion. She was blessed to have healthy offspring and see all reach adulthood, each with a successful career and each with a fine partner. David Minter

Joanna Nicholson (1984) Joanna was born in August 1966, the eldest of five children of Jackie and Graham Nicholson. The family lived near Hull, East Yorkshire, where her mother was a teacher of English and her father a university lecturer. Her twin lifelong passions of literature and music were evident then; when she wasn’t reading, she was practising the cello, or playing in the county youth orchestra. She came up to study English at Somerville in 1984. The Somerville English students whom she met there were a tight-knit group and became her lifelong friends. It was also whilst at Oxford that she met her husband Andrew Ferraris, who was studying Physics at Magdalen College. Her cello, ‘Bruno’, of course came to Oxford as well, and when not studying Joanna was again to be found playing in orchestras. After Oxford, Joanna moved to London. She studied Law at the College of Law and married Andrew in 1992, moving to New Malden in the south-west of London. After qualifying, she worked first for McKenna and Co, and then from 1994 to 2005 in the Government Legal Service for the Department of Health. Her work mainly focused on European health law, and she was closely involved with legislation, most notably connected with regulating medical devices and the sale of cigarettes. The music continued in London, where she sang with the Lawyers’ Music choir rather than played. After leaving the Civil Service, by which time she’d had her two daughters Emma and Charlotte, Joanna took up voluntary roles over many years in the local schools and the Catholic church, and became a well-known and wellloved member of those communities, all the while also being a caring and devoted wife and mother.

Joanna Nicholson

Joanna first became ill with cancer in 2013 and was treated for about a year. After that, she had around 18 months of good health before the disease returned in early 2016. She died peacefully on 1 September 2016 at the Princess Alice hospice, Esher, surrounded by family. She leaves her husband and two fabulous daughters who, along with all who knew her, miss her very much. Andrew Ferraris

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Academic Report Examination Results, 2016-2017 Undergraduate results Ancient and Modern History Class II.I

Frederick Clamp-Gray

Biological Sciences Class II.I Jonathan Baker Georgina Baynham Charles Chen Angelina Konnova Kirsten Simkin

Chemistry Class I

Benjamin Hawkey Gilder

Class II.I Jiaying Mo Olivia Murray

Classical Archaeology and Ancient History Class I

Peter Thompson

Class II.I

Hannah Gain

Classics and Modern Languages Class I

Sarah Bridge

Classics with Oriental Studies Class I

Dominique David-Vincent

Computer Science Class I

Dan-Andrei Gheorghe

Computer Science (BA) Class I

Anthony Guo*

Diploma in Legal Studies Pass Johanna Bottyanfy Lea Keita

Engineering Science Class I Jamieson Brynes Max Fishwick Joseph Gilfillan Class II.I

Tien Sun Lo

Class II.II Robert Chalmers Frederic Fooks

58

English and Modern Languages Class II.I

Beverley Noble

English Language and Literature

Class III

Alistair Gavin

Mathematics and Statistics Class II.I

Zixian Li

Class II.I Rosalie Baxter Jack Cottam Caitlin Jauncey Charles la Fosse Elizabeth Paskin Catriona Wilson

Class II.I

Thomas Udale

Experimental Psychology

Class I

Class I

Stuart Webber

Mathematics and Computer Science

Class I

Helen Burridge

Class II.I

Emily Albery

History Class I Tomas Dillon George Galla Joshua McStay Frances Varley Class II.I David Barker Anna Bett Matthew Evans Fairlie Kirkpatrick Baird

History and Economics Class II.I

Daniel Smith

Jurisprudence Class I

Maia Perraudeau

Class II.I Kate Bolton Zachary Foo Matthew Moriarty Ayo-Oreoluwa Smith

Literae Humaniores Class I

Luke Forryan

Class II.I Anna Baird Georgia Bruce Amelia Horvath Calam Lynch

Mathematics Class I

Krishan Bhalla

Helen Ryan

Mathematics (BA) Class II.I

Cicely Robinson*

Mathematics and Statistics (BA) Class III

Chenyuliang Zhang

Medical Sciences Miranda Rogers

Class II.I Stavros Dimitriadis Oliver Shotton Zoe Thursz

Modern Languages Class I

Pauline Chatelan

Class II.I James Aldred Harriet Dixon Rebecca Heitlinger Tamanna Khan

Molecular and Cellular Biochemistry Class I

Amrit Bal

Class II.I

Vitan Blagotinsek

Music Class I

Quinn Western

Class II.I Saffiyah Keig-Momin Harry McSwaine

Philosophy, Politics and Economics Class I

Leonie Hoffmann

Class II.I Mariella Brown Michael Costante Louis Mercier Class II.II Angela Shi

Physics Class I Kenneth Hughes Michael Hutcheon Jakob Kastelic Eduardo Rodriguez Class II.I

Richard Brearton


Physics (BA) Class II.I Delta Hung Joanne McAtear Class II.II

Menglai Liu

Postgraduate results Bachelor of Civil Law Pass

All students are offered the choice, at the start of their course, of opting out of any public list that the University or College may produce. There are therefore the following results to announce, without reference to subject or name: Class I = 3 Class II.I = 20 Class II.II = 1 This list is accurate at the time of print and some exam results may be released after this date. Undergraduates with an * after their names completed in 2015/16, but their results were released after going to print, and are therefore included here.

Orla Fenton

Divya Sharma

Clinical Embryology Pass

Babatomisin Adeniran*

Sanya Arora* Shelby Sparby*

Computer Science Distinction Rafael Baptista Ochoa*

Bachelor of Medicine and Bachelor of Surgery

Pass

Distinction Josephine Robertson

Contemporary India

Pass Philip Hartley Radhika Sholapurkar Matthew Titterington

Pass Shivani Sharma Smit Singh

Janhavi Agrawal*

Criminology and Criminal Justice Master of Business Administration Pass Xu Chen* Yoqtan Del Castillo Calderon* Mariko Nakayama*

Master of Philosophy Development Studies Distinction Deepa Kurup

Greek and/or Latin Languages and Literature Pass

Giulio Leghissa

International Relations Pass

Benjamin Daus-Haberle

Master of Public Policy

Pass

Toufiq Abdul Aziz

Global Governance and Diplomacy Pass Joshua Lievens Lucy Lim

Mathematical and Computational Finance Distinction Bonan Sang Pass

Ming Gao

Mathematics and Foundations of Computer Science Distinction Markus Schepers*

Psychological Research Distinction Chloe Bracegirdle* Pass

Gregory Simmonds*

Refugee and Forced Migration Studies Distinction Gina Starfield

Pass Satyender Duhan* Diwakar Kishore*

Social Science of the Internet Pass

Master of Science Applied Statistics Pass Xiankai Gao* Tianyue Yao* Tongjin Zhang*

Biodiversity, Conservation and Management Pass

Sofia Maria Teresa Clara Castello y Tickell*

Krishna Saumya*

Master of Studies Ancient Philosophy Pass

Floriane Van den Brande

British and European History 1500-present Distinction Anna Clark Daniel Rafiqi Cora Salkovskis

Clinical Embryology

Classical Archaeology

Distinction Catherine Bear*

Pass

Maria-Anna Mavroforaki

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Creative Writing

Economics

Distinction Stefano Domingues de Castro Pachi*

Nuwat Nookhwun

Pass

Jonathan Crossley*

Ibrahim Almosallam

English Pass

Mohd Nazri Bin Bajuri Bethany Dubow Avani Amalya Tandon Vieira

General Linguistics and Comparative Philology Pass Katharina Kranawetter Marcella Meehan

Modern Languages Distinction Colette Lewis Helena Ord Florian Remele Pass

Engineering Science

Georgia Pearce

Oriental Studies Distinction Jonathan Lawrence

Women's Studies Distinction Louise Perry

Postgraduate Certificate

History Jean-Michel Johnston Christy Lindsay

Inorganic Chemistry Ronghuan Zhang

International Relations Katharine Millar

Law David Frydrych

Mathematics Teresa Gomes Cipriano Nabais Conde

Medieval and Modern Languages Grace Beatrice Rey Lawson Conquer

Medieval and Modern Languages Friederike Wolpert

Diplomatic Studies Pass

Mike Masauvakalo

Postgraduate Diploma Diplomatic Studies Distinction Mohammed Sheriff Iddrisu

Oriental Studies Jonathan Ward

Pharmacology Alexandria Colaco Ines Tavares Pinto Sa Pereira

Plant Sciences Doctor of Philosophy

Olga Sedelnikova

Biochemistry

Master of Philosophy

Chih-Chao Liang

Chemical Biology Anne Makena

Clinical Medicine Anne Ndungu

Comparative Philology and General Linguistics Kinga Kozminska

60

Law Panagiotis Doudonis Tobias Lutzi

All students are offered the choice, at the start of their course, of opting out of any public list that the University or College may produce. There are therefore the following results to announce, without reference to subject or name: Distinction = 2 Pass = 8 This list is accurate at the time of print and some exam results may be released after this date. Graduates with an * after their names completed in 2015/16, but their results were released after going to print, and are therefore included here.


Awards to Undergraduate, Graduate and Postgraduate Students 2016-17 Beilby Scholarship Jonathan Baker (Biological Sciences) Krishan Balla (Mathematics), James Martindale (Mathematics), Alexandra Romagnoli (Mathematics), Jonathan Tam (Mathematics), Andrew Tweddle (Mathematics), Sheheryar Zaidi (Mathematics)

Brazell Scholarship Jacob Amacker (Physics), Kenneth Hughes (Physics), Michael Hutcheon (Physics), Jakob Kastelic (Physics)

Bryant Scholarship

Science), Prannay Kaul (Engineering Science), Kelvin Lam (Engineering Science), Wai Yan Wong (Law), Adam Hillier (Mathematics and Computer Science), Dianzhi Yu (Mathematics and Computer Science), Isobel Hettrick (Philosophy, Politics and Economics), Calypso Lord (Philosophy, Politics and Economics), Jun-An Tan (Philosophy, Politics and Economics), Horia Magureanu (Physics), James Pidgeon (Physics), Eduardo Rodriguez (Physics), Daniel Tucker (Physics)

Scourse Scholarship David Miron (Biological Sciences), William Sargent (Medicine - Graduate Entry), Calum McIntyre (Medicine Preclinical), Miranda Rogers (Medicine - Preclinical)

Siu Ying Wong (Chemistry)

Shaw Lefevre Scholarship

Bull and Bull Scholarship

Jack Gascoigne (History), John Merrington (History), William Andrews (History and Modern Languages), Cameron Fern (Mathematics), Helen Ryan (Mathematics)

Edward Aplin (Classical Archaeology and Ancient History), Nuala Marshall (Classical Archaeology and Ancient History)

Cooper Scholarship Dan-Andrei Gheorghe (Computer Science)

Dukinfield Darbishire Scholarship John Henry (Medicine - Preclinical)

Ginsburg Scholarship

Barraclough Exhibition Ashley Barnard (Modern Languages), Eva Hilger (Modern Languages)

Beilby Exhibition Maximilian Bandurka (Biochemistry), Joshua Grubb (Biochemistry), Maria Allan-Burns (Experimental Psychology)

Amrit Bal (Biochemistry), Angelica Lindsey-Clark (Biochemistry)

Brazell Exhibition

Haynes Scholarship

Cooper Exhibition

Lachlan Black (Chemistry), Callum Hall (Chemistry), Benjamin Hawkey Gilder (Chemistry), Callum Prentice (Chemistry)

Radu-Bogdan Berteanu (Computer Science)

Hughes Scholarship Natalie Lo (Engineering Science), Lenard Ee-Jin Ong (Engineering Science), You Wu (Engineering Science), Anqi Zhuang (Engineering Science)

Murray Scholarship Maya Brownlow (History)

Endowment Fund Scholarship Jamieson Brynes (Engineering Science), Max Fishwick (Engineering Science), Joseph Gilfillan (Engineering

Cameron Saint (Physics)

Dukinfield Darbishire Exhibition Eva Zilber (Medicine - Preclinical)

Murray Exhibition Rani Govender (History), William Jonas (History)

Endowment Fund Exhibition Ryan O'Reilly (History), Georgina Riley (History), Wenji Shen (Law), Katharina Walla (Law), Thomas Richards (Modern Languages)

Shaw Lefevre Exhibition Alex Crichton-Miller (History and Modern Languages)

Prizes and Other Awards to Undergraduates and Graduates Archibald Jackson Prizes (for Graduates with a Distinction in their exams in 2017) Rafael Baptista Ochoa (Computer Science)*, Catherine Bear (Clinical Embryology)*, Chloe Bracegirdle (Psychological Research)*, Anna Clark (British and European History), Stefano Domingues de Castro Pachi (Creative Writing)*, Mohammed Sheriff Iddrisu (Diplomatic Studies), Navya Jannu (Civil Law), Deepa Kurup (Development Studies), Jonathan Lawrence (Oriental Studies), Colette Lewis (Modern Languages), Helena Ord (Modern Languages), Louise Perry (Women's Studies), Daniel Rafiqi (British and European History), Florian Remele (Modern Languages), Josephine Robertson (Medicine - Graduate Entry), Cora Salkovskis (British and European History), Bonan Sang (Mathematical and Computational Finance), William Sargent (Medicine - Graduate Entry), Markus Schepers (Mathematics and Foundations of Computer Science)*, Ranu Sinha (Geography and the Environment)*, Gina Starfield (Refugee and Forced Migration Studies)

College Prizes (for achieving a First, Distinction or average of at least 70% in all examinations other than the Final Honour School) Thomas Abbott (Modern Languages), Jacob Amacker (Physics), Hannah Ayikoru Asiki (Chemistry), Benjamin Barclay (Engineering Science), Lachlan Black (Chemistry), Yifan Chen (Medicine - Graduate Entry), Harold Collett (Philosophy, Politics and Economics), Alyssa Crabb (Biochemistry), Matthew Crawford (Chemistry), Jessica Crompton (Chemistry), Maddie Culhane (History), Francesco D'Antonio (Physics), Marie Ducroizet-Boitaud (Mathematics and Philosophy), Benjamin Etty (History and Economics), Cameron Fern (Mathematics), Callum Hall (Chemistry), Pak Hei Hao (History), Robert Harvey Wood (Mathematics), Adam Hillier (Mathematics and

61


Computer Science), Katherine House (English Language and Literature), Samuel Juniper (Mathematics), Prannay Kaul (Engineering Science), Robert Kirk (Mathematics and Computer Science), Denis KoksalRivet (Engineering Science), Robin Leach (Mathematics), Grace Lee (English Language and Literature), Jun Liu (Engineering Science), Ivo Maffei (Mathematics and Computer Science), Horia Magureanu (Physics), James Martindale (Mathematics), Benjamin Michiels (Chemistry), Francesca Millar (Music), Kean Murphy (Philosophy, Politics and Economics), Lenard Ee-Jin Ong (Engineering Science), Jack Pegg (Engineering Science), James Pidgeon (Physics), Callum Prentice (Chemistry), Joseph Rattue (Modern Languages), Siyu Ren (Engineering Science), Frederik Robinson (Mathematics and Computer Science), Alexandra Romagnoli (Mathematics), Claudia Rowan (English Language and Literature), Cameron Saint (Physics), Irene Sibille (Philosophy, Politics and Economics), Aaron Simpson (Medicine - Graduate Entry), Oliver Smith (Ancient and Modern History), Frances Spragge (Biological Sciences), Jonathan Stark (Physics and Philosophy), Jonathan Tam (Mathematics), Daniel Tucker (Physics), Andrew Tweddle (Mathematics), Alistair Wakelin (Engineering Science), Wai Yan Wong (Law), Siu Ying Wong (Chemistry), Andrew Wood (Biological Sciences), You Wu (Engineering Science), Sheheryar Zaidi (Mathematics), Anqi Zhuang (Engineering Science)

Mary Somerville Prizes (for achieving a First or Distinction in the Final Honour School examinations) Amrit Bal (Biochemistry), Krishan Bhalla (Mathematics), Sarah Bridge (Classics and Modern Languages), Jamieson Brynes (Engineering Science), Helen Burridge (Experimental Psychology), Pauline Chatelan (Modern Languages), Dominique David-Vincent (Classics and Oriental Studies), Tomas Dillon (History), Nina Faure Beaulieu (Biological Sciences), Max Fishwick (Engineering Science), Luke Forryan (Classics), George Galla (History), Dan-

62

Andrei Gheorghe (Computer Science), Joseph Gilfillan (Engineering Science), Anthony Guo (Computer Science), Benjamin Hawkey Gilder (Chemistry), Leonie Hoffmann (Philosophy, Politics and Economics), Kenneth Hughes (Physics), Michael Hutcheon (Physics), Jakob Kastelic (Physics), Angelica Lindsey-Clark (Biochemistry), Joshua McStay (History), Maia Perraudeau (Law (with Law in Europe)), Eduardo Rodriguez (Physics), Miranda Rogers (Medicine - Preclinical), Helen Ryan (Mathematics), Hannah Scott (History), Peter Thompson (Classical Archaeology and Ancient History), Frances Varley (History), Stuart Webber (English Language and Literature), Quinn Western (Music)

Principal’s Prizes 2017 Principal’s Prizes are awarded to those students who scored in the top 10% or better of their subject University-wide, and/or gain top marks for a dissertation or in a particular set of papers. This applies to finalists or third year students on a four year course. Undergraduate Principal's Prizes: Amrit Bal (Biochemistry), Angelica Lindsey-Clark (Biochemistry), Callum Hall (Chemistry), Peter Thompson (Classical Archaeology and Ancient History), Dan-Andrei Gheorghe (Computer Science), Prannay Kaul (Engineering Science), Lenard Ee-Jin Ong (Engineering Science), Stuart Webber (English Language and Literature), Joshua McStay (History), Miranda Rogers (Medicine - Preclinical), Pauline Chatelan (Modern Languages), Quinn Western (Music), Michael Hutcheon (Physics), Jakob Kastelic (Physics), Eduardo Rodriguez (Physics) Graduate Principal's Prizes: Anna Clark (British and European History), Cora Salkovskis (British and European History), Deepa Kurup (Development Studies), Bonan Sang (Mathematical and Computational Finance), Florian Remele (Modern Languages), Josephine Robertson (Medicine - Graduate Entry) Jonathan Lawrence (Oriental Studies)

Postgraduate Awards Alice Horsman Scholarship Anna Bett (History), Nathalie Botcherby (English Language and Literature), Sarah Bridge (Classics and Modern Languages), Hannah Broadbent (Experimental Psychology), Mariella Brown (Philosophy, Politics and Economics), Abigail Carroll (Philosophy, Politics and Economics), Fergus Chadwick (Biological Sciences), Pauline Chatelan (Modern Languages), Emma Henderson (Modern Languages), Elliot Howard-Spink (Biological sciences), Christina Hunt (Biological Sciences), Charles La Fosse (English Language and Literature), Calum McIntyre (Medicine), Joshua McStay (History), Zoe Moores (Classics and Modern Languages), Philip Oddie (Medicine), Florian Remele (Modern Languages), Matthew Robinson (Modern Languages), Laura Schack (Modern Languages), Adam Wynne (English Language and Literature)

Somerville College Alumni Scholarships Anna Branford (Modern Languages), Navya Jannu (Law), Miranda Rogers (Medicine)

Other Somerville Awards Cerries Hughes Prize Frederick Morgan (English Language and Literature), Maxwell Purkiss (English Language and Literature)

Chloe and Helen Morton Choral Scholarship Emily Albery (Experimental Psychology), James Powe (Music)

Daphne Robinson Award Maximilian Bandurka (Biochemistry), Benjamin Hawkey Gilder (Chemistry) Leonie Hoffmann (Philosophy, Politics and Economics), Maria Hohaus (Philosophy, Politics and Economics), Robin Leach (Mathematics), Angelica Lindsey-Clark (Molecular and Cellular Biochemistry), Ryan O'Reilly (History), Robert Pepper (English Language and Literature), Irene Sibille (Philosophy, Politics and Economics), Eva Zilber (Medicine - Preclinical)


Joan and Don Dixson Travel Grant William Andrews (History and Modern Languages), Charles Macpherson (English Language and Literature)

Margaret Irene Seymour Music Award Joshua Grubb (Biochemistry), Catrin Haberfield (English), Saffiyah Keig-Momin (Music), Eloise Kenny Ryder (Music), Francesca Millar (Music)

Rhabanus Maurus Award Lara Chittick (Modern Languages), Florian Remele (Modern Languages)

Sarah Smithson Prize Rebecca Heitlinger (Modern Languages)

Somerville Lawyers' Group Prize Alicia Kaupp-Roberts (Law with Law Studies in Europe)

OUP Prize for Personal Achievement

OSCE Prize for the Preliminary Examination in Medicine Part II

Benjamin Michiels (Chemistry)

William Sargent (Medicine - Graduate Entry)

Turbutt Prize for Second Year Practical Organic Chemistry

Martin Wronker Prize

Siu Ying Wong (Chemistry)

Miranda Rogers (Medicine - Preclinical)

Law Faculty Prize for Corporate Tax Law and Policy

Miranda Rogers (Medicine - Preclinical)

Orla Fenton (Civil Law)

David Gibbs Prize for the Best Submitted Work in a Special Subject Paper XII in FHS Modern Languages Sarah Bridge (Classics and Modern Languages)

Gibbs Prize Physics Prize for an MPhys Project in Atomic and Laser Physics Jakob Kastelic (Physics)

Scott Prize for Performance in the Physics Part A Examination Horia Magureanu (Physics)

Microsoft Prize for the Best Computer Science Project

Gibbs Prize Award for the BA Group Project Presentations

Dan-Andrei Gheorghe (Computer Science)

Joanne Mcatear (Physics)

BP Prize for the Best Chemical Engineering Part B Project

Scott Prize for the Best Performance in the MPhys Examination

Max Fishwick (Engineering Science)*

Eduardo Rodriguez (Physics)

Second Prize for the Part II Research Project

Maurice Lubbock Prize for the Best Performance in the Honour School of Engineering Science

Gibbs Prize for the Best Use of Experimental Apparatus in an MPhys Project

Amrit Bal (Biochemistry)

Chengzhi Zhou (Engineering Science)*

Eduardo Rodriguez (Physics)

Gibbs Book Prize

Proxime Accessit Gibbs Prize

Amrit Bal (Biochemistry)

Joshua McStay (History)

Awards with an * were awarded in 2015/16 after going to print, and are therefore included here.

Biochemical Society Prize

Law Faculty Prize for Human Rights Law

University and External awards

Angelica Lindsey-Clark (Biochemistry)

GSK Third Year Prize in Practical Organic Chemistry Callum Hall (Chemistry)

Turbutt Prize for Second Year Practical Organic Chemistry Natasha James (Chemistry)

Matthew Moriarty (Law with Law Studies in Europe)

This list is accurate at the time of print and some prizes may be awarded after this date.

Clinical School Year 4 General Practice Essay Prize Grace Barnes (Medicine - Clinical)

Hobson Mann Lovell Scholarship Eleanor Grant (Medicine - Graduate Entry)

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Students Entering College in 2016-17 Undergraduate students entering College in 2016-17

Diploma in Legal Studies

Pak Hei Hao, Tonbridge School

Johanna Bottyanfy, University of Konstanz, Germany

Mohamed Iman, The Quest Academy

Lea Keita, Paris II Pantheon Assas University, France

Engineering Science Benjamin Barclay, Harrow School

Ancient and Modern History Edmund Harding, St Paul's School, London

Jun Liu, Kingswood School

Abigail Payne, Weald of Kent Grammar School Rachel Solomon, Bryanston School

History and Economics Benjamin Etty, Archbishop Holgate's Sixth Form

Laurie Sanderson, North Bristol Post 16 Centre

Siyu Ren, Raffles Junior College, Singapore

History and Modern Languages

Oliver Smith, Radley College

Edwin Silverthorne, Pate's Grammar School

Laura de Lisle, Westminster School

Biological Sciences Atticus Albright, Steyning Grammar School

Alistair Wakelin, Peter Symonds College

Tiago Andrade Castro, European School, Brussels 1

English Language and Literature

Nina Billows, Deyes High School, Maghull

Catriona Fraser, Ulverston Victoria High School

Jai Bolton, Hanley Castle High School

Katherine House, Waldegrave School

Benjamin Fisk, Exeter College, Hele Road Centre

Imogen Laycock, Tapton School

Michael Hammond, St Paul's School, London Daniel Simonsen, The Corsham School Andrew Wood, Hampton School

Chemistry Hannah Ayikoru Asiki, Greenshaw High School, Sutton Jessica Crompton, Durham High School for Girls Joseph Heidrich, St Dominic's Sixth Form College Lily Latimer Smith, City of London Freemen's School Jessica Macdonald, Haberdashers' Monmouth School Girls Tommy Pitcher, The Pingle School, Swadlincote

Classical Arch and Ancient History Sade Clarke, Bishop Thomas Grant School, London Finbar Kavanagh, The Cardinal Vaughan Memorial RC School Rachel Roberts, Parmiter's School

Computer Science Grant Cox-Sehmi, Merchant Taylors' School, Northwood

64

Alexandra Drewe, Walthamstow Hall, Sevenoaks

Niall Macklin, St Peters High School, Gloucester

Theodora Briggs, Shrewsbury School

Grace Lee, Auckland International College Emma Line, Colchester Royal Grammar School Charles MacPherson, Kings School, Canterbury

Olivia Creber, Bishop Luffa School Elizabeth McGowan, Wirral Grammar School for Girls

Jurisprudence Alastair Ahamed, Bolton School Boys Division Ewan Fraser, Lenzie Academy, Glasgow Amna Khalili, Karachi Grammar School Alexander Martiyanov, Eton College Alexander Wathan, King's College School Wai Yan Wong, German Swiss International School, Hong Kong

Literae Humaniores

Claudia Rowan, JFS

Harry Goaman, Winchester College

Sabriyah Saeed, Withington Girls' School

Matilda Granger, Haberdashers' Aske's School for Girls, Elstree

Poppy Stuart, English Martyrs School & Sixth Form College

Barnaby Harrison, Eton College

Maya Tysoe, Camden School for Girls James Walsh, Chesham Grammar School

Stratton Hibbs, Robert E Lee High School, Texas, USA Charles Keen, Winchester College Alexandre Nash, The Ashcombe School

Erasmus Balsama Dattrino, University Paul Valery, France

Mathematics

Experimental Psychology

Ria Chavda, Haberdashers' Aske's School for Girls, Elstree

Maria Allan-Burns, King Edward VI School, Southampton

Robert Harvey Wood, Highgate School

Natalie Siena Trautman, Stuyvesant High School, New York Suzan Yavuz, Chelsea Academy

History Tristan Alphey, The Perse School Maddie Culhane, Cheltenham Ladies' College Norhane Ennaoumi, Harris Westminster Sixth Form

Jiali Liu, Wuhan Britain-China School Richard Lo, Northampton Academy, Northampton Thuvarakan Mathetharan, Tiffin School Gillian Parkinson, Clitheroe Royal Grammar School Yash Shah, United World College of South East Asia


Mathematics and Computer Science

Molecular and Cellular Biochemistry

Oscar Grove Valero, Whitgift School, South Croydon

Mark Chin, United World College of South East Asia, Dover Campus

Ivo Maffei, Liceo Antonio Rosmini, Italy

Alyssa Crabb, The Tiffin Girls School

Frederik Robinson, The Hollyfield School, Surbiton

Maximilian Hannam, Bedales School

Mathematics and Philosophy

Penny Sherlock, Colchester Royal Grammar School

Graduate students entering College in 2016-17 Auto Intelligent Machines and Systems (EPSRC CDT) Oliver Bent, University of Oxford

Music

Bachelor of Civil Law

Eloise Kenny-Ryder, The Godolphin and Latymer School

Orla Fenton, University College Cork, Ireland

Francesca Millar, Redland High School For Girls

Navya Jannu, Jindal Global University, India

Xinya Li, St Mary's School, Calne

Alice Woffenden, Guildford High School

Divya Sharma, National Law Institute University, Bhopal, India

Medical Sciences

Philosophy, Politics and Economics

Bachelor of Medicine and Bachelor of Surgery

Marie Ducroizet-Boitaud, Ecole Jeannine Manuel, Paris

Mathematics and Statistics Louis de Mendonca, Exeter Mathematics School

Elizabeth Cooper, King Edward VII School, Sheffield Sarah Peters, The Tiffin Girls School Lara Reed, Wycombe High School, High Wycombe Nandana Syam, Notre Dame Catholic VI Form College

Medicine Yifan Chen, University of Cambridge Jonathan Phillips, University of Cambridge

William Brown, King Edward VI School, Southampton Harold Collett, Colyton Grammar School

Sacha Burgess, University of Oxford

Holly Mackay, Benenden School

James Goetz, University of Oxford

Matthew Maclay, Dr Challoners Grammar School

Daniel Overin, University of Oxford

Kean Murphy, Hwa Chong Institution, Singapore

BPhil Philosophy

Rohan O'Reilly, Hampton School

Chiara Martini, University of Bologna, Italy

Hannah Patrick, Rydal Penrhos School

Aaron Simpson, University of Oxford

Irene Sibille, Liceo Classico Statale Vincenzo Gioberti, Italy

Modern Languages

Andy Wang, Brisbane Grammar School, Australia

Thomas Abbott, King Edward VI Aston Eve Althaus, St Marylebone Church of England School Katie Bastiman, Jersey College for Girls Melissa Boyce-Hurd, Wallington High School For Girls Alice Hadley, Burntwood School Elinor Lamrick, Croesyceiliog School Patrick Middleton, Whitgift School, South Croydon India Parker, Lady Margaret School

Grace Barnes, University of Oxford Magnus Fugger, University of Oxford

Tomi Francis, University of Warwick

DPhil Astrophysics Zahra Gomes, University of the West Indies, Trinidad Tobago

Eilidh Wilson, Williamwood High School

DPhil Computer Science

Physics

Cristian Trovato, University of Bologna, Italy

Yuchen Guo, Shanghai Guanghua College - Fudan Campus Ishraq Irteza, Nottingham High School Kyungmin Kim, Korean Minjok Leadership Academy Thomas Sandnes, Olchfa School Ryan Sephton, Foxford School & Community Arts College

Joseph Rattue, King's College, Madrid

Physics and Philosophy

Ella Shaw, Cardinal Newman College, Preston

Meryem Arik, Haberdashers' Aske's School for Girls, Elstree Jonathan Stark, George Watson's College

DPhil Condensed Matter Physics Sabrina Sterzl, University of Munich, Germany

DPhil Economics Zoe Fannon, University of Oxford

DPhil Experimental Psychology Sage Boettcher, Johann Wolfang Goethe University, Germany Chloe Bracegirdle, University of Oxford

DPhil Geography and the Environment Ranu Sinha, University of Oxford

DPhil International Development Rakib Akhtar, University College London

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DPhil Law

MPhil Development Studies

Tobias Lutzi, University of Oxford

Sigfried Eisenmeier, Zeppelin University Friedrichshafen, Germany

DPhil Mathematics Joshua Ciappara, University of Sydney, Australia

MPhil General Linguistics and Comparative Philology

Julius Eckhard, Ruprecht-Karls University, Heidelberg, Germany

Amanda Thomas, University of Oxford

DPhil Medical Sciences

Christoph Steinert, University of Mannheim, Germany

Anna GlĂźck, University of Vienna

DPhil Medieval and Modern Languages Rebecca Bowen, University of Edinburgh

DPhil Pharmacology Abi Yates, King's College London Tianrong Yeo, National University of Singapore

MSc Applied Statistics Jean-Francois Ton, Imperial College of Science, Technology & Medicine Fan Wu, Rheinische Friedrich-WilhelmsUniversity, Germany Chang Zhang, Imperial College of Science, Technology & Medicine

MSc Biodiversity, Conservation and Management

Giancarlo Antonucci, Polytechnic University of Turin, Italy

MSc Mathematical and Computational Finance Ming Gao, University of Liverpool Bonan Sang, Imperial College of Science, Technology & Medicine

MSc Pharmacology Conor Kearns, Trinity College, Ireland

MSc Refugee and Forced Migration Studies Gina Starfield, Yale University, USA

MSc Sleep Medicine Annabelle Banks, University College London

DPhil Psychiatry

Urvi Gupta, University of Delhi, India

Alexander Kaltenboeck, University of Edinburgh

Priya Maharaj, The University of the West Indies, Trinidad

MSc Clinical Embryology

DPhil Statistics

Anthea Mahesan Paul, SRM University, India

Oyekunle Oyekanmi, Emory University, USA

Mohamed El Fadhel Ayed, Ecole Normale Superieure de Cachan, France

MSc Computer Science

DPhil Zoology

Qixuan Feng, Supelec, Ecole Superieure d'Electricite, France

Benjamin Van Doren, Cornell University, USA

Luke Geeson, University of Nottingham

Interdisciplinary Bioscience (BBSRC DTP)

MSc Contemporary India

Maria Font farre, Wageningen Agricultural University, Netherlands

Master of Business Administration Oscar Gonzalez, Anahuac University, Mexico Sophie Mittleman, New York University, USA

Philippe Syz, Boston College, USA

Shivani Sharma, Lady Shri Ram College, India Smit Singh, University of Delhi, India

MSc Environmental Change and Management Tanvi Agrawal, St. Joseph's College, Bangalore, India

Anupama Panikar, Christ University, India

MSc Global Governance and Diplomacy

Qi Zhang, Tulane University of Louisiana, USA

Joshua Lievens, University of Sussex

Master of Public Policy

MSc Integrated Immunology

Freshta Karim, Panjab University, Chandigarh, India Edward Ndopu, Carleton University, Canada Richa Roy, National Law School of India University Bangalore, India Jai Vipra, University of Mumbai, India

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MPhil International Relations

MSc Math Mod and Scientific Computing

Lucy Lim, University of Cambridge

Eva Plananska, King's College London Sreetharan Sivapatha Sundaram, Queen Mary University of London Ana Filipa Vieira Noia, Escola Superior de Tecnologia da Saude do Porto, Portugal

MSc Water Science, Policy and Management Philip Behrens, University of Adelaide, Australia

MSc(Res) Clinical Neurosciences Connor Scott, University of Greenwich

MSc(Res) Inorganic Chemistry Xuejian Zhang, University of Birmingham

MSt Ancient Philosophy Floriane Van den Brande, University of Oxford

MSt British and European History 1500-present

Hisashi Hashimoto, Charles University, Czech Republic

Daniel Rafiqi, University of Warwick

Hannah Sharpe, University of Oxford

Cora Salkovskis, University of Oxford

MSc Law and Finance

MSt Classical Archaeology

Surya Kiran Banerjee, National Law School of India University Bangalore, India

Anna Clark, University of Oxford

Maria-Anna Mavroforaki, National and Capodistrian University of Athens, Greece


MSt Classical Archaeology Rahul Raza, University of St Andrews

MSt History of Art and Visual Culture

MSt Creative Writing

Beatrice Cartwright, Courtauld Institute of Art

Nika Cobbett, University of Surrey Roehampton

MSt in Modern Languages (FRE)

Harriet David, University of London (Institutes and activities) Natasha Parker, University of Exeter Sofija ana Zovko, Royal Holloway and Bedford New College

MSt English (1550-1700) Bethany Dubow, University of Cambridge

Colette Lewis, University of Oxford

MSt in Modern Languages (GER and ITA)

MSt World Literatures in English Avani Amalya Tandon Vieira, University of Delhi, India

PGCert Diplomatic Studies Mohammed Sheriff Iddrisu, University of Ghana

MSt in Modern Languages (GER)

Mike Masauvakalo, University of the South Pacific, Fiji

Florian Remele, University of Bayreuth, Germany

MSt in Modern Languages(SPA)

MSt General Linguistics and Comparative Philology

MSt Oriental Studies

Marcella Meehan, University of Birmingham

Louise Perry, The School of Oriental and African Studies

Helena Ord, Princeton University, USA

Samuel Jacques, University of East Anglia

Katharina Kranawetter, Vienna University, Austria

MSt Women's Studies

Georgia Pearce, King's College London

Jonathan Lawrence, University of Oxford

MSt US History Anthony Taylor, Ruskin College

Tadej Pahor, University of Ljubljana, Slovenia

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Somerville Association Officers and Committee

Somerville Development Board Members

as at 11 March 2017

as at 28 February 2017

President

Chair

Susan Scholefield (1973)

Clara Freeman (Jones, 1971)

Joint Secretaries

Deputy Chair

Elizabeth Cooke (Greenwood, 1964)

Hilary Newiss (1974)

Lisa Gygax (1987)

Basma Alireza (1991)

Committee Members

Tom Bolt

Nick Cooper (2008)

Ayla Busch (1989)

Richard Forrest (1994)

Lynn Haight (Schofield, 1966)

Natasha Robinson (1972)

Niels Kroninger (1996)

Virginia Ross (MCR, 1966)

Nicola Ralston (Thomas, 1974)

Lorna Sutton (2010)

Sybella Stanley (1979)

Karen Twining Fooks (Twining, 1978)

Sian Thomas Marshall (1989)

Frances Walsh (Innes, 1956)

Dr Alice Prochaska, Principal of Somerville

Fellows Appointed by the College Benjamin Thompson (Fellow and Tutor in Medieval History)

Honorary Development Board Members

Fiona Stafford (Fellow and Tutor in English)

Harriet Maunsell (1962)

Luke Pitcher (Fellow and Tutor in Classics)

Doreen Boyce (Vaughan, 1953) Paddy Crossley (Earnshaw, 1956)

For full details see the college website at www.some.ox.ac.uk/...

Margaret Kenyon (Parry, 1959) Nadine Majaro (1975) Roger Pilgrim Sam Gyimah (1995)

For full details see the college website at www.some.ox.ac.uk/alumni/the-development-board/

Dates for the Diary The updated schedule of College events appears on the College website at www.some.ox.ac.uk/alumni/events The 2018 Gaudy will be on the weekend of 24-25 June and will be for matric years 2000-2006. 68


Legacies Legacies are a vital source of support for the College’s activities. Here we record our thanks to all of those who have left legacies to support Somerville and we honour three of the Somervillians whose recent legacies have made a big difference to the College.

Jane, Lady Abdy (Noble, English, 1952)

Ruth Thompson (History, 1971)

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Catherine Hughes (Principal, 1989-1996)

If you would like to know more about leaving a legacy to Somerville, please go to www.some.ox.ac.uk/legacies or contact Brett de Gaynesford (brett.degaynesford@some.ox.ac.uk 01865 280361).

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Somerville College Oxford OX2 6HD Telephone 01865 270600 www.some.ox.ac.uk Exempt charity number 1139440. Oct 2015


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