The Brazen Nose

237 Pages·2015·3.14 MB·English

The Brazen Nose
2013-2014
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The Brazen Nose
Volume 48
2013-2014
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Printed by: The Holywell Press Limited, www.holywellpress.com
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CONTENTS
Records Badminton Report .......................87
A Message from the Editor .............5 Strollers Cricket Tour ....................88
Senior Members .............................9
Articles
Class Lists .....................................18
Public Schools, Brasenose and
Graduate Degrees ........................22
The Great War by David Walsh .......92
Matriculations...............................27
Brasenose College Archives: A Brief
College Prizes ...............................31
History by Elizabeth Boardman .....102
Elections to Scholarships and
Exhibitions 2013 ...........................34 Life and Death on a Pilgrimage
College Blues ...............................39 by Jonathan Katz ..........................117
A Brasenose Prayerbook
Reports by David Bradbury ........................121
JCR Report .................................41 Letter to the Editor
HCR Report ...............................44 by Donald Anderton ......................126
Presentations to the Library...........47
The Mystery of the Medieval Half-
Chapel Report .............................51
Blue Blazer by Bill Roberts ...........127
Music Report ...............................53
Chassé-Croisé by Carole Bourne-Taylor
Arts Week .....................................57
& Roger Massie ............................129
The King’s Hall Trust For The Arts ..59
The Ashmole Society Report ........61 Travel
Ale Verses ......................................63
Introduction ...............................134
The Ellesmere Society Report ......65
The Yeti goes to China ................135
The English Reunion ...................66
Tenerife 2014: A week in an
Financial Review For 2013-2014 ..68
evolutionary wonderland ............138
BNC Staff News ..........................69
A Week in Jordan ........................141
Clubs University of South California ....147
BNCBC Men’s Team Report ........74
BNCBC - Women’s Team Report ..75 News & Notes ..................... 150
Football – HCR Team Report ......76 Brasenose Society ................ 155
Football – Women’s Team Report ..80 Year Reps & Gaudies ........... 160
Football –Men’s Team Report .......80 Development & Alumni Report 164
Rugby Football Report ................82 Donors to Brasenose 2013-14 .. 168
Lacrosse Report ............................84 Obituaries ........................... 183
Ladies’ Hockey Report .................85
Squash Report ..............................86
Croquet Report ............................86
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4 THE BRAZEN NOSE
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EDITOR’S NOTES 5
EDITOR’S NOTES
A couple of weeks ago I was able to visit the archaeological dig that,
at the time of writing, is going on in the Old Cloisters, on one side of
the Deer Park. The space beneath the main library is being transformed
into another reading room, and the redesign will restore many original
features. In particular, the flagstones of the cloister floor, long concealed
under modern flooring, will be visible again, and although on some
of them there are quite full epitaphs, on others students of the future
will only see very simple inscriptions, initials and dates. I asked one
of the archaeologists about these inscriptions, and she told me they
corresponded to burials below the floor, left carefully untouched in
their excavations. For a comparatively short period from the middle of
the seventeenth century (when the chapel and adjacent cloisters were
constructed) to the middle of the eighteenth, Fellows of Brasenose were
buried in the cloisters, and while the grave markings might lack detail,
the archaeologist assured me that records existed which allowed all these
abbreviated Fellows to be identified.
For me those flagstones – long hidden, acronymic, but with their
explanatory keys in the College archives – captured something about
colleges and commemoration. Thousands of people have passed through
Brasenose College since its foundation, students, staff, Fellows, but the
College never quite forgets any of them. You are at this moment reading
one way it tries not to forget: “the Brazen Nose,” my predecessor as
editor firmly informed me, “is above all a record.” The most significant
parts of this publication are the lists of students, the obituaries (some
thoughts on which by Sidney Whitaker we have included this year), and
the various clubs’ and departments’ accounts of the year: this year, I am
very glad to say, once more with reports from the staff. That’s one year,
one year out of more than five hundred, that won’t entirely be forgotten.
The Brazen Nose is just one way we preserve our memories, of course,
but I’d like to believe it’s not the least important. The greatest pleasure
of being editor, without question, is reading the letters I receive after
every issue has been posted out, sometimes supplementing accounts,
something correcting details, but most often simply sharing thoughts
that the Brazen Nose had stimulated. Without fail these letters open with
a polite but entirely unnecessary apology for wasting my time: you are
not, I promise you, wasting my time! I love the way such things gravitate
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6 THE BRAZEN NOSE
towards me, for instance the photo that we reproduce of the simple
epitaph that marks the grave of Peter Fraser, the great scholar of the
Hellenistic world, on the Greek island of Cephalonia. Another letter this
year introduced me to David Walsh, author with Anthony Seldon of
Public Schools and the Great War, who has been kind enough to write for
us about the Brasenose dead of World War I. Reading David’s article set
me off on a search for a predecessor I hadn’t until that time been aware
of, a Classics don by the name of Bob Brandt who died at Ypres in July
1915. Eventually I found myself, thanks also to an interest taken in my
research by The Times, chatting to members of Bob Brandt’s family,
for whom his death a hundred years ago, I discovered, still resonated.
The wealth of memorabilia his great-niece was able to show me of
this clever young man, tipped for great things, contrasted starkly with
the anonymity of the official histories of the war: there were far too
many casualties to dwell on any individual. With luck I’ll be able to
commemorate Brandt properly in these pages next year.
It is one thing to contemplate events that occurred a century ago.
But sometimes a College experiences much more immediate tragedies.
Kieran Keel was an outgoing and popular second-year undergraduate
who died in an accident in February last year. Kieran’s funeral service
in the University Church was deeply moving, his friends taking the lead
in celebrating the life of a man with a talent for enjoying life, especially
when American Football was involved. The College as a whole did
what it does best, and came together to commemorate: the warmth and
intimacy of this community has never been clearer to me. A bursary has
been established in honour of Kieran which will support History and
Spanish students, American Football and sport at Brasenose. In addition
two trophies will be purchased, one for the American Football Club,
and one for Brasenose sports clubs: the “Kieran Keel cup for exceptional
contribution to Brasenose sporting life” will be awarded at Sports Dinner
every year.
The academic year 2013-14 brought an unusually large number
of new faces to the Fellowship, Professor Konstantin Ardakov (Tutor
in Pure Mathematics), Professor Rob Fender (Tutor in Physics), Dr
Rodrigo Momberg Uribe (Supernumerary Fellow in Law), Dr Edmond
Walsh (Supernumerary Fellow in Engineering), Dr Thomas Douglas
and Dr Christopher Parsons (Junior Golding Fellows), and Dr Christian
Johansson (Junior Kurti Fellow). We said a fond farewell to Revd
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EDITOR’S NOTES 7
Graeme Richardson, who after nearly eight years serving the College
moved with Helen and Matilda to a parish in Birmingham, where we
wish them every joy. Into the breach smoothly stepped Revd Reynaud
de la Bat Smit who (in the words of the JCR President Henry Zeffman)
“seems to have every British rock icon of the 60s and 70s on speed dial.”
Earlier in the year, on the topic of icons, Michael Palin entertained
the JCR with a rendition of “The Lumberjack Song” in German,
and we might also mention here a Brasenose team’s failure to impress
Jeremy Paxman on University Challenge. It was our second year in a
row to qualify, after a decade’s absence, in fairness, but we only just
failed to achieve the lowest score on record. Some things it’s best not
to remember. Contemplate instead the glorious escapades of our world-
beating HCR football team, surely the sporting highlight of the year,
and thrillingly recounted later in this publication.
Has having our first Prime Minister in two hundred years inspired
a generation of Brasenose politicians? Whatever the explanation,
a remarkable Oxford University Student Union election saw no less
than three Brasenose students (Louis Trup, Ruth Meredith and James
Blythe) elected to sabbatical positions for 2014-15. Another reasonably
significant election saw John Bowers QC appointed as Principal of
Brasenose from October 1, 2015.
As the College approached the fortieth anniversary of the admission
of women in October 1974, commemoration of that milestone has
been gathering pace. The JCR’s yearly Arts Festival in Trinity Term,
itself celebrating its twentieth anniversary, held a special ‘Women in
the Arts’ event: four alumnae (Gill Hornby, Sara Wheeler, Paula Carter
and Jane Johnson) came back to talk about their careers in writing and
the media. The College meanwhile awarded Honorary Fellowships to
Lieutenant General Michelle Johnson of the USAF, Professor Catherine
Hill, President of Vassar College, and Professor Andrea Brand, Herchel
Smith Professor of Molecular Biology at Cambridge. Reflecting on
this anniversary, we are keen to collect private memories of the last 40
years of co-education at Brasenose, which we hope will add a more
personal element both to our current celebrations and to the College
archives, providing a rich resource for future historians. Please do write
in with your memories to [email protected]: we plan to publish
a selection of them in the next issue of the Brazen Nose.
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8 THE BRAZEN NOSE
Which is as good a time as any to remind ourselves of the main
reason for the existence and persistence of Brasenose College, Oxford:
brains. Linda Katona, a Brasenose doctoral student, was awarded the
2014 Postgraduate Award of the British Neuroscience Association for
the best thesis in neuroscience. Her doctoral dissertation, examined
in August 2014 and researched and written under the supervision of
Profs. Thomas Klausberger and Peter Somogyi (formerly Nicholas Kurti
Senior Research Fellow at Brasenose, and a great friend of the College)
was entitled “The role of cell-type selective synaptic connections
in rhythmic neuronal network activity in the hippocampus.” She
received her certificate from President-elect of the British Neuroscience
Association Prof. John Aggleton later in the year.
I do hope you find the 2013-14 College record mentally stimulating.
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SENIOR MEMBERS 9
THE KING’S HALL AND
COLLEGE OF BRASENOSE
Tierced in pale: (1) Argent, a chevron sable between three roses gules seeded or,
barbed vert (for Smyth); (2) or, an escutcheon of the arms of the See of Lincoln
(gules, two lions of England in pale or, on a chief azure Our Lady crowned seated
on a tombstone issuant from the chief, in her dexter arm the Infant Jesus, in her
sinister arm a sceptre, all or) ensigned with a mitre proper; (3) quarterly, first and
fourth argent, a chevron between three bugle-horns stringed sable; second and third
argent, a chevron between three crosses crosslet sable (for Sutton)
The present foundation, dating from the sixteenth century, has a direct
and unbroken connection with Brasenose Hall, which existed at least
as early as 1262. The college was founded in 1509 by William Smyth,
Bishop of Lincoln, and Sir Richard Sutton of Prestbury in Cheshire.
It was one of the first colleges to admit women as well as men and is
open to graduates as well as undergraduates. Generous gifts and bequests
over the centuries enable the college to offer scholarships and other
awards for undergraduate and graduate study.
The corporate designation of the college is ‘The Principal and
Scholars of the King’s Hall and College of Brasenose in Oxford’.
Note on symbols
 Former Rhodes Scholar.
* Fellow or Honorary Fellow of another college.
¶ Holder of a University post (including CUF appointments) other
than a statutory professorship or readership.
‡ Holder of a statutory professorship or readership.
§ Further information will be found in the notes at the end of the entry.
A date in the left-hand column indicates the year of election to the
current fellowship (or other position) held.
Visitor
The Bishop of Lincoln
Principal
2011 Bowman, Alan Keir, MA DLitt Oxf, MA PhD Toronto, FBA §
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