ST HUGH'S COLLEGE
CENTENARY SUPPLEMENT
TO THE
CHRONICLE 1985-1986
ST HUGH'S COLLEGE
CENTENARY SUPPLEMENT
TO THE
CHRONICLE 1985-1986
ST HUGH'S COLLEGE CENTENARY SUPPLEMENT
TO THE
CHRONICLE 1985-1986
CONTENTS Introduction — The Principal. Speeches at the Centenary Gaudy — 4th July 1986: Daphne Lennie, The President of the A.S.M., Dr. Helen Wallis, Monique Viner, Q.C., The Principal, Lord Franks, Dr. A.J.P. Kenny, Master of Balliol College, Pro-Vice-Chancellor. Service of Thanksgiving at The University Church of St. Mary the Virgin, 6th July 1986: Introduction, Monica Dobbs (Melles), Sermon, The Very Revd. E.W. Heaton, Dean of Christ Church. Extracts from correspondence received by the Principal will be found in the text.
St. Hugh's College Centenary Year: 1985/6 St. Hugh's College opened its Centenary Development Appeal seven years earlier than the date of its celebration in the hope that its aim — £2 million — would be attainable by that time. In the event this optimism was justified, and the College was able to announce its remarkable result of £2,024,909.82 in the Centenary year. This is the greatest sum raised by a women's college since its foundation, and we are proud indeed of our Senior Members, our two most munificent benefactors who had, in the one case a daughter, in the other a wife who were Senior Members of the College, and the many individuals and foundations and companies who demonstrated their confidence in the achievements and the future prospects of St. Hugh's. The year of the Centenary was so historically important to the College that we have issued this Commemorative Supplement, separate from the Chronicle, to mark an especial occasion and to assure our Senior Members that we were especially aware at this time of how much we owe to them, and of what their expectations for the future mean to us. All women's colleges have been concerned over the past ten years about the effects of co-education in the originally male colleges of Oxford and Cambridge. There has been a difference of opinion which is genuine and important between those who believe that the future of women's education requires single-sex colleges, and those who feel that such a division might, eventually, prove disastrous. That difference of opinion remains, among members of Governing Bodies and among Senior Members of colleges, but on a matter of such importance to the future success of a college originally founded to further the education of women, we here are confident of the support and co-operation of those male Fellows who, at St. Hugh's, have contributed so much to the development and success of the College since we first admitted them. The most striking development of the Centenary Year was, undoubtedly, the College's decision to admit men Junior Members to the J.C.R. and the M.C.R., beginning in Michaelmas Term 1987. Our Centenary Celebration, then, was at once a farewell to one hundred years as a women's foundation for women Junior Members and graduates only, and a looking forward to the survival of the College as a co-educational institution admitting men and women on equal terms. This decision was formally taken in Hilary Term 1986; it has since been confirmed by the Queen in Council, and our Statutes are now changed. The year was one of genuine celebration. On Friday 14th March between 8.30 and 9.00 p.m. a Firework Display was held in the College grounds, organized by Kimbolton Fireworks, to which all members of the College and all neighbours of St. Hugh's in North Oxford were invited. A little rain fell, but failed to damp the enthusiasm of the spectators or the brillance of 5
the performance; we shall remember for a long time the intricate and highly organized splendour of the occasion. Three Centenary Lectures were given during Trinity Term in the Mordan Hall — the first on Thursday May 15th by Professor Alison Fairlie, whose recollections of "Researching in France and Oxford in the Early War Years" presented a vivid, entertaining and original account of graduate work in an era more perilous and, indeed, adventurous than recent times, even under the much deplored cuts. Her audience was both impressed and amused by her revelation of the resourcefulness of those years. Professor Elizabeth Anscombe lectured on May 29th on "Early Days in Philosophy" to a crowded and distinguished audience, some of whom were anxiously comparing her account of childhood philosophical instinct to what they had observed in their own offspring. This was an occasion of considerable pleasure — and philosophical excitement, with much subsequent discussion. Mr. Denis Mack Smith of All Souls College delivered the Henry Rowlatt Bickley Memorial Lecture on 5th June, on "Francesco de Sanctis; the political beliefs of a literary critic". It was an occasion which the donor of the lectures, Olga Bickley, would have recognized as what she had hoped to give us by her generous benefaction, and reminded those present of the eminent contributors to this series (beginning with Lord Clark), which is delivered every two years in the College. On Friday 20th June a Concert was held in the Sheldonian Theatre, given by the London Mozart Players conducted by our Senior Research Fellow, Dr. Jane Glover. The soloist was Imogen Cooper, and this brillant occasion was rounded off by a Buffet Supper in the Mordan Hall which was so successful and enjoyable that the last guests had scarcely left by midnight. A party was held by the Principal for the administrative staff; and the domestic staff, to whom the College owes so much for the success of this year — entailing so much work — were also entertained. The Junior Members held a memorable Ball on 26th June, when the garden was wonderfully transformed by silk-hung marquees, a hot air balloon and well devised lighting. A cocktail party and entertainment held by the J.C.R. in the Mordan Hall included a remarkable performance of a verse play on St. Hugh especially written by Avril Bruten. All these preliminaries led up to the Gaudy weekend itself, at which there was only one especial disappointment. The Chancellor, who had agreed to come and answer the toast to the University, was taken ill with pneumonia and was unable to attend. The Master of Balliol took his place, and the speeches given on this occasion by Senior Members, the Principal, Lord Franks and the Master are printed in this supplement. The Gaudy dinner was indeed memorable, our one regret about it being that so many members would have liked to attend whom we were unable to accommodate for lack of space. The Gaudy garden party on the following 6
day was, however, the high spot of the weekend — for then so many, young and old, Senior Members and their families, administrative and domestic staff, friends, benefactors, Honorary and Emeritus Fellows, mingled in the garden after lunch to enjoy perhaps the most accessible benefit St. Hugh's has to offer — its lovely and extensive grounds. The Centenary gates (at the new drive to the Principal's Lodgings), the brilliantly original design for them given by Laurence Whistler to the College, and the execution of them, by Richard Quinnell, paid for out of contributions from our American Senior Members, attracted much attention and admiration, as they have since. Donkeys, an inflatable castle, a Punch and Judy show, kept the children happy; a silver band played; the rain held off until 5 o'clock; and an informal dinner concluded the day. On Sunday I was happy to see several Senior Members in the Lodgings, though time was straitened because of the Centenary Service in the Church of St. Mary the Virgin at 12 noon. This was an especially moving and impressive occasion. Mrs. Dobbs, one of our Senior Members, has sent an account of the service which is printed here together with the Sermon preached by Eric Heaton, Dean of Christ Church, whom, many years ago, we were fortunate enough to have as our Lecturer in Theology. It was especially happy for us to have with us on this Gaudy weekend so many of our Honorary Fellows: Dame Mary Cartwright, Dame Peggy Ashcroft, The Rt. Hon. Mrs. Barbara Castle, Mrs. Chitty (Chairman of the Centenary Committee), Lord Tonypandy, Baroness Warnock, Lord Shackleton, The Hon. Dr. Honor Smith, and Mr. and Mrs. Alec Monk. With them we welcomed benefactors, donors and friends, and especially our new Visitor, Sir Nicolas Browne-Wilkinson, The Hon. Alex Wu and Dr. Q. W. Lee and their families, Lord Esher, Lord Franks (both sponsors of our Appeal), and Mr. Laurence Whistler. The family feeling of warm and continuing association, of contact especially with those who could not be with us — (apart from many Senior Members who have written to me, I would like to mention Professor Coburn and Professor Anscombe, both of whom were ill at the time and could not attend) — made the Gaudy weekend an experience that confirms what all the speakers on the Friday night, in different ways, expressed about the College and the University — a deep sense of kinship and affiliation. I cannot conclude this brief account without mentioning the contribution made by Brenda Hall and her indefatigable floral arrangers. The College was enhanced by their splendid displays, as also by the exhibition in the Library arranged by Penny Griffin. The Centenary History of St. Hugh's, also edited by Penny Griffin, has been widely read and enjoyed. Chef's contribution, the dinner and the buffet lunch, looked almost too good to eat. If I have omitted to mention anyone who added to the success and the 7
happiness of this Centenary Year, my apologies. It could not have occurred in the way it did without the help of Beryl Chitty and Barbara Kennedy, who were in control of the organization, or that of the Senior and Domestic Bursars on whom, inevitably, so much of the detail of organization fell — but more especially without the support and fidelity and good will of all the members of St. Hugh's who wanted to celebrate as one the survival and success of their College, and who made the occasion so moving and so important a landmark in the life of the University. Rachel Trickett
8
Transcription of Speeches delivered at St. Hugh's Gaudy Dinner Mrs. D. Lennie: Mr. Pro Vice Chancellor, my lords, ladies and gentlemen. I was very honoured indeed to be asked to propose a toast to the Association of Senior Members, but a bit exercised as to how to keep it to a civilized four minutes, and I thought perhaps I would take as my model a splendid young man of my acquaintance who had to make a speech as the best man at a wedding. You know how tiresome these speeches usually are, very long, very elaborate, very self-conscious and very unfunny, and this young man got up and he said: 'It is my pleasant duty to propose a toast to the bridesmaids. I think they look perfectly beautiful, I am engaged to be married to one next month and to tell you the truth I rather fancy the other ones'. (Applause) I will try and be as succinct. I remember when I was an undergraduate staying up after term one Gaudy and seeing all these world-weary old things coming back for their Gaudy and thinking to myself 'My God, some of these must have been up at least ten years ago' (laughter), and I now think to myself, and I look around among some of my friends here, that I cannot believe that in fact it was 50 years ago since I stepped out of my father's car in St. Margaret's Road to begin what in fact turned out to be three of the happiest years of my life (applause). And I look back and I wonder if in fact it could have been absolute bliss the whole way, because I know that memory does betray one and one feels nostalgic about things; some people's memory betrays them more than others. I remember coming out of the University Press some years ago with the then Master of Pembroke, Ronald McCallum, and he said, in the rather pontifical voice he sometimes used, 'Little did I think when I was an undergraduate with digs in Walton St. that I would have had five children born to me in that building', and I said to him 'Ronald, I don't think you can have done. That is the Oxford University Press. (laughter) Some of us are vaguer than others, but these three remembered years do have an enchantment of their own when one looks back, and even if one is still in Oxford one's memory does betray one. A man I know, a History don, said to me the other day: 'Oxford is not what it used to be', he said, 'no one is funny any more'. Coming as it did from someone whom I happen to know had said of one of his pupils at the last College Collections (one of those chaps who attack their subjects with vigour but spasmodically), 'he attacks his subject with all the enthusiasm of a Gadarene tortoise'. (Laughter/applause) My golden Oxford afternoon has extended for 50 years. I have been more 9
or less all this time in Oxford and I have had close links and very much appreciated links with this College, but I know that there are people all over the world who depend on the Association of Senior Members to keep them in touch with the College and to make them remember that they and I, all of us, have been and still will be members of this University and of this College, and I have great pleasure to ask you to rise and drink with me a toast to the Association of Senior Members. Dr. Wallis: Principal, Mr. Pro Vice-Chancellor, my lords, ladies and gentlemen. I have much pleasure in replying to the toast to the Association. I have felt deeply privileged in these four years to have been the President, because they have culminated in this year of our Centenary. The Association has never been more conscious of its past or more challenged perhaps by future prospects. I think of the Association of Senior Members as an invisible college, if I may quote or misquote this phrase, used in the 17th century of a group of men who later formed themselves into the Royal Society. For we form an invisible college as we unite generations together, keeping in touch with our parent body, St. Hugh's. In our Centenary celebrations as an Association we have set to celebrate the past in various ways. Our book, edited by Dr. Penny Griffin, who I am very happy to say will be my successor as President of the Association after the end of my period of office — her book St. Hugh's: 100 years of women's education in Oxford, published by Macmillans, is now being distributed and is being officially published in about a week. In it she has recruited a distinguished group of authors, members of the College, to describe the history of the College, present reminiscences for many of us, to survey the careers of St. Hugh's graduates partly by means of questionnaires and to describe the future of women's education, and the book is illustrated by pictures of worthies of Oxford over the years and other fascinating glimpses of the past. We have also mounted, under the leadership of Penny Griffin, an exhibition in the Library which really supplements the book and you will see there the most amazing scenes, for example, of St. Hugh's during the war years. Those of us who came up in 1945 and moved into College knew it had been a hospital for head injuries and really did not know much more, but you can see on the board in the Library what went on, and how the work that went on there was in fact taking the lead in surgery for the head. This is an aspect of St. Hugh's past which I think has been something of a closed book and is now open to us through the exhibition. There are various ways in which people have shown gratitude to St. Hugh's. I will just mention one other. A certain Mary Church, daughter of Dean Richard William Church, Dean of St. Paul's, who bequeathed to the 10
College a number of incunabula, books published before 1500. Well, books are my career and interest, and it brings St. Hugh's to the top of the women's league for incunabula in Oxford, amazing as this may seem, with 27, and for this reason I persuaded my colleague in the British Museum to present his book on incunabula of Oxford other than the Bodleian ones to the College Library. So that is just an example of the ways in which St. Hugh's has achieved eminence which, when one was an undergraduate, one really had no conception of — these works of Savanarola sitting on the shelf. Of course Geography was my subject, not History. We learn about the publications of our members and other activities from the the Chronicle, admirably edited by Ann Ridler. To cite an example from the fine Centenary number, what an array of learning from 'Jottings from a Monastic Kitchen', to 'Body building handbook for women' might have suprised, I think, our founding ladies of 1886. On the Association itself it may not be realised that we are the successors to the St. Hugh's Club which was founded in 1898 with 67 members and ran the St. Hugh's Club Paper published twice a year, and this paper, together with the St. Hugh's Annual Report, became the St. Hugh's Chronicle as we know it today. From 1895, the Old Students could become members of the College and from 1911 to 1926 they formed, with the Council members, the College. They then became Senior Members in 1926 and what may seem amazing now is that these members were in fact more powerful than the Tutors in those early years. Of course in the time when the College was growing up they were an element of continuity. But I would say that we did ask for a member of Governing Body this year, and though this is not constitutionally possible it is our intention to increase our bond with College. We believe that we can help in many and varied ways and with major changes impending, notably going mixed, we feel a strong Association in cooperation with the College would be entirely advantageous. We have been trying to make the Association more active outside the metropolitan area by instituting a series of regional meetings. The first, held in Edinburgh on 10th May 1986 for our Scottish Members, was a great success and was organised by Brenda Hall, who I will also say has been the organiser of the beautiful flower arrangements throughout the College for the Centenary Gaudy (applause) and who has recruited for that her colleagues in the National Flower Arrangements Society in Great Britain, who later will be looking after the royal wedding, so we were in very good hands. But let me remind you of our struggle to achieve women's rights, made by our redoubtable predecessors. This is an extract from the Oxford Magazine, a piece written by A.D. Godfray in 1896 on 19th February, just before the rejection in March of a proposed resolution to admit qualified women to the degree of Bachelor of Arts. It is printed in the Preface to Dr. Griffin's book: 11
'Ye Somervillian students, ye ladies of St. Hugh's, whose rashness and imprudence provokes my warning muse. Receive not with impatience but calmly as you would the simple observations I make them for your good. Why seek for mere diplomas and commonplace degrees when now unfettered rovers you study what you please while man in like conditions is forced to stick like gum onto the recquisitions of a curriculum'. While we, the ladies of St. Hugh's, the Association of Senior Members, look back proudly and with great gratitude on the achievement of 100 years of a women's college, we pledge our support to College as it embarks on its next 100 years. (Applause). Monique Viner: Madam Principal. I don't think I can manage all the rest. Once I was defending a client and he was being cross-examined by Prosecuting Council and he was finding it very difficult to answer some rather embarrassing questions. Goaded beyond endurance, he suddenly pointed at the Prosecution Council and said 'You wait, you wait until my mouthpiece gets at you'. Well, I am very happy to be your mouthpiece tonight (applause). Mind you, a mouthpiece has to have instructions and your Librarian sent me a nice lot of material. One hour at least. And Penny's book came yesterday and I thought 'Good, that's another hour'. But of course barristers may not appear in court without the fee marked on their brief, and my brief tonight is unmarked, and if that was not enough to stop me at least three members of the Association and the College wrote me separately and told me that because of the galaxy of talent all around me on no account must I exceed five minutes. Prejudice against women has had a very long history. In this College, founded not only for the intellectual education of its women but for its religious education, it is as well to remember the meditations of St. Augustine. He wondered why God had made women to be helpmeet of man. Could it be to help man in the fields? Well, obviously another man was better. Could it be for companionship? Well, everyone knew that for 12
company and conversation it was much better for two male friends to live and dwell together than for a man and a woman. So really St. Augustine could not imagine why God had made women as man's helpmeet other than for the reason of procreation. And St. John Chrysostom did rather better. He saw it as a sign of God's esteem and love that he made woman inferior to man because after all equality tends to rivalry. Well, when I came up to this College in 1944 I was the only woman reading Law in this College, and there were only four women reading Law anywhere in the University at that time. We did not have to have chaperones, but we were made to feel pretty conspicuous. When I went down I had to choose between a solicitor's branch and the barrister's branch. Of course it must have been a man to help you distinguish between women lawyers: if she has good briefs she is a barrister, if she has no briefs she is a solicitor. (Laughter) Well, in a male dominated profession it was not very easy to get into Chambers, and I was given numerous excuses for refusal. 'We have only got one lavatory. We couldn't share that. We couldn't tell our particular stories over tea with you there. We have a woman Clerk — you are bound to quarrel with her', and lastly 'we like you very much. If you had been a man we would have had you but as you are a woman we won't'. Well, I did get in somewhere eventually and what a lovely life it has been. And I might exceed my five minutes by telling you two stories: Once I was defending three gypsies accused of stealing lead, and father gypsy got off halfway through the case, and at the end of the case Defending Council has a speech, Prosecuting Council has a speech, and the Judge sums up. And then you wait in the corner of your chair, or in my case outside the court for the jury to come back into court. A friend of mine came up, a barrister, and he said 'You know, Monique, your chaps have not only stolen £500 worth of lead, they have stolen £1,000 worth of lead', and he gave me his reasons for so saying. The jury had not come back. At that time father gypsy walked up to me and he said: 'Miss, you were quite marvellous. You really made me believe we didn't do it'. (Laughter) Well, I must tell you my second story. I was very young, I was mitigating, that is saying all that I could say on behalf of the defendant and my defendant was an old lag of 70. He had been in and out of prison for petty crime all his life. He was before the court for petty crime this time, and I said to the court that since prison had clearly not been of use to this chap, it had not reformed him, it might be worth trying something else, giving him a chance and trying probation. And on the instructions of my old lag I told the court that if they did give him a chance he assured me that he would never appear in any criminal court again. The court listened with the most flattering attention. They went out for a very long time. They came back, they said they had heard with care what I had said, and with some misgiving they were going to give the defendant a chance and put him on 13
probation. I felt that high. It was marvellous. Until I went out of court, and there was my old lag, sitting next door to the Probation Officer and saying 'The next time I come here I'm having a lady barrister'. (laughter) Well, things have changed a very great deal. Either since those early days of the College's foundation or since I was here. Now there are no less than 29 students reading Law in this College. In my day there was no Tutor here, and the only Tutor in the whole University used to dissuade women from reading Law, I think on the basis that if we went on we might do some good. Now as you know there is a Law Tutor and a delightful and an excellent one she is too. There are not only many women solicitors and barristers now. When I was called to the Bar there were no women on the Bench at all. Now there are three women High Court judges, there are 14 circuit judges, and there are 25 Recorders. It is still only a tiny proportion, something like 4% of the whole judiciary but even that would have been quite unthinkable in 1886. Plato said that the state that does not use its women halves its strength. That's true whether women use their education in their professions or their careers or whether they carry the ideals of their training into their family lives. Members of this College, Law has given me first a most wonderful life, and that is due to this College. I am quite sure that for all of you and for all of those who are not present but who have been in St. Hugh's, that is true whether they have carried it into their work or into their families, and so I ask you to raise your glasses and drink to the health of St. Hugh's. (applause) The Principal Mr. Pro Vice-Chancellor, Visitor, Honorary Fellows, distinguished guests of College, Fellows, Senior Members of St. Hugh's College. Tonight, July 4th, it's St. Hugh's College's Centenary and the Statue of Liberty's. (Laughter) And when I first laid eyes on her, the statue of Liberty I mean, 1949 crossing the Atlantic as one did in those days by sea, I was, I am bound to say, more deeply moved than when I first laid eyes on St. Hugh's College, which had been concealed from me as an undergraduate during the war by its exile to Holywell Manor. Nevertheless, colleges at least are allowed to feel as proud of their age as statues are. I am reminded when I think of this of the experience of a very brilliant and ardent old pupil of mine, a member of this College now alas no longer with us, who had the habit spontaneously at dinner or lunch parties of quoting from Shakespeare. On one occasion she was being entertained, and indeed was entertained, by a rather charming middle-aged gentleman who was telling her his experiences as an undergraduate in one of the men's colleges long before her time in the 1950s (that is her time was in the 1950s). At one point she was so moved she clutched his arm and said, in the words 14
of Ulysses to Nestor in Shakespeare's Troilus and Cressida 'Oh good old Chronicler who has so long walked hand in hand with time' to which he replied 'Not that old'. (Laughter) Nevertheless there comes a stage in everyone's life when it is permissible to rejoice in the passage of time, and I think some of you, I hope not all, may have heard of my experience a few years ago, in Vermont, in a summer school when I was asked by what then looked like a very well preserved middle-aged man how Oxford was these days. And I said 'Well, much the same. When were you last there?', to which he replied '1896'. This wiped the cocktail party smile off my face in a moment and I can only say that he was a very old man, but that he had been as a boy in Oxford and what he remembered most was in fact the colleges, because he said they reminded him of Alice in Wonderland, particularly the little gates, the tiny quads, the mazelike complications and intricacy of their architecture, like that of the way we live. Well, people do think like that about us, and not all of them like it. That mazelike intricacy, that delightful Wonderland quality is very much under attack at the moment as anachronistic, extravagant, elitist, introverted and out of keeping with the spirit of the age. Extravagant it undoubtedly is, as we can testify tonight. Nobody would deny that. Nevertheless, although it is extravagant of time, of energy, of scholarship and of money, it is still a fact that through centuries there have always been men and women who were willing to give their time, their energy, their scholarship and their money to foster and prolong this system, and do so, and have done so, for the most genuine of any reasons for supporting any institution, that it represents to them the best on offer, tried by experience and proved by evidence. That it should be extravagant as far as I am concerned underlines its excellence. Dr. Johnson, in a dispute between the relative merits of high living and high thinking, characteristically delivered his verdict 'Come, Sir, that man is most perfect who has most things. I am for knowledge and claret'. (Laughter) Not everyone is, you know, and not everyone is against just claret. I have had letters in my time as Principal from Senior Members who have strongly condemned the building of the new organ, and the redecoration of the Chapel at a time when resources for education itself were threatened, and I respect these views although I do not share them. The economy of a poor college is watched over critically and carefully by the members of its Finance Committee, and the needs of undergraduates I have never found to be taken by the Fellows of this College as a secondary matter. But these needs, like everyone's, are various ."Our basest beggars are in the poorest things superfluous. Allow not nature more than nature needs, Man's life is cheap as beast's." Education itself is a luxury. Art, architecture, literature, music, horticulture, have made this University one of the greatest in the world as well as learning and scholarship. The reminiscences of those of you sitting in the hall tonight over 100 years of women's education are 15
almost unamimous in their recollections of the importance to them of the Library, the building, the musical, dramatic, literary and political life of Oxford. If it is hard to know what Elizabeth Wordsworth and her followers would have made of women's colleges and women's education today, it is less hard to know what they would have felt about the actual place, the physical college, which the courage and foresight of Miss Moberly and Miss Jourdain and their Council made possible in the difficult years of the First World War. It is interesting to think that this room we are sitting in now was built in 1916. Differences of opinion like this I have singled out between members of the community which has existed for 100 years are inevitable, and are vital and healthy. So too are changes. A very serious decision for change was taken in this College this year when the Governing Body by more than a 2 /3 majority voted to admit men junior members. In the context of the University this may seem a trifling addition to a now generally mixed society. In the context of College and especially in its Centenary year it is still a matter for genuine disagreement. I have had letters from Senior Members regretting the decision. And I respect and understand this feeling. Indeed, it would be idle for me to pretend that I have not fought to retain St. Hugh's as a single sex college, but I have this to say to those who are disturbed: I do not think that any change that we can make will, unless we permit it, threaten the independent existence of a college like St. Hugh's, its character, its cohesion, its uniqueness. And this particular change will, to my mind, make it the more necessary now and not less, to emphasise what we have always thought of as the peculiar identity of St. Hugh's, not just as a women's society, but as a full collegiate part of the University. The answers to Sarah Curtis's questionnaire reveal that most Senior Members especially care for the College because of the opportunity it gave them to be educated in Oxford. We and the other mixed women's and men's colleges must aim to see that this opportunity for women and for their appointment to senior posts in the University does not diminish. It is a grave responsibility, especially for those ardent and idealistic supporters of this form of co-education who have fought so well and so successfully for their cause. We have a duty to our founders to see that this responsibility is not neglected, or forgotten, or left to die by default. My experience of our male colleagues over the past years is that this will not and cannot be so. They have supported us with loyalty, with understanding and with concern that has made them a living and valuable part of our community. (applause) So tonight we celebrate our first 100 years as a women's college. In another 100 years we shall be celebrating our bicentenary simply as a college of the University of Oxford, and not one of us will be here to see that occasion unless science performs some miracle. (laughter) I hope none of us doubts though that it will take place. I don't. I don't doubt. It does 16
The Centenary Ball
Thomas-Photos Oxford
Part of the A.S.M. Exhibition in the Upper Library
The President and Secretary of the J.C.R. with the St. Hugh's Rose at Chelsea Flower Show
E.D. Wearn
A.R. Lee
Flower arrangement outside the Chapel
A.R. Lee
The Vice-Chancellor and the Principal with Laurence Whistler and the Centenary Gates which he designed Helen Wallis
sometimes, I am bound to admit, when I am at my most pessimistic, seem almost inevitable to me that the College will then be known even in the Calendar as 'St. Hughes'. I hope not. But even professors from Cambridge have written to me under the misapprehension that we are an offshoot of Hughes Hall. Some optimism arises when I recall my challenging a young man assistant in Blackwells who wrote down the name of the College on my invoice in this manner. 'Why?' I asked him. The puzzle-headed boy replied 'Well, I suppose I was just giving a rough idea'. We don't want a 'rough idea' of St. Hugh's tonight or any other night or in 100 years time, but a precise idea, and I believe, however inevitably impressionistic our recollections of College are, that we tonight represent a precise idea of St. Hugh's, of what it has achieved, of what it is going on to achieve, and for that we have to thank all of you who from the start, often in discouraging circumstances, never lost faith or loyalty and contributed to our Society in its various and so fascinating manifestations. On behalf of the College, of the teaching members of the College, I want to thank you for that, for all you have done to make St. Hugh's what it is, for your loyalty, and your love for the College after its first 100 years, and I would like to say in conclusion what Carlyle tells us Coleridge found himself able to say of that strange institution, the Church of England, "With its extraordinary rubrics and its ancient customs at all hallowtide" — I quote from Carlyle's Life of Stirling — he could say of it, as we can now say of St. Hugh's, 'Esto Perpetua'. Lord Franks: Mr. Pro Vice Chancellor, Visitor, Principal, Members of St. Hugh's College and guests. I feel it to be an honour for anyone, a member of the University, to be asked to propose the toast to it. And I have particularly looked forward to doing so in the belief that the reply would be given by our Chancellor, Lord Stockton. I am sorry that he is not well. Because I remember 26 years ago when he was elected Chancellor of the University that there was a contest. Lord Stockton, then Mr. Macmillan, the Prime Minister, was in Africa. He was in South Africa, he was speaking about 'winds of change' and then travelling home (laughter). I was in India and Pakistan, advising the World Bank on the economies of those two countries, talking a lot to Mr. Nehru, trying to interest him in Indian agriculture, failing completely — he was a political animal and he knew there was a contest, he wanted to know who was going to win, Mr. Macmillan or I. Well, we all know the result. And I know that result was a very happy one. First of all for me. Had it not turned out as it did, I could not have been invited to become Provost of Worcester College, where my wife and I spent 14 splendid years. For Lord Stockton, 17
for I believe he has been happy and has enjoyed all of the 26 years of his very distinguished Chancellorship, but especially for the University, for the care and the wisdom with which he has presided, conferring degrees, on the high commemorative occasions of the University, at the numerous lunches and dinners in the University and in the colleges, where he has always spoken just with the right tone just at the right length. I think that we have come to feel that affection for him which he has for his University (applause). We are all very glad tonight to welcome the pro Vice-Chancellor in his stead. I was somewhat in awe of him. Masters of Balliol, Philosophy kings, they seem to run to it as a habit. Jowett, Edward Caird, Sandy Lindsay, Dr. Kenny, all of them Philosophers, all of them kings, Masters of Balliol. Now I am a failed Philosopher. When I look at him, a productive and a creative one, then I wonder. But I take comfort from one small fact, and that is that both he and I admire and respect the great mediaeval theologians. I still read Thomas Aquinas and Duns Scotus, so perhaps I can stand up in this company tonight (applause). I am speaking for the University of Oxford. It is enduring hard times. There are times of cuts, of compression and of financial squeezes. We have to endure all that. Departments have been closed. Posts in the University, posts in the colleges, have not been filled and fees, whether for graduates or for undergraduates, are under attack. Now I say that no night is so dark as not to have a dawn. Nothing ever lasts forever. And I believe that this University, ancient as it is, has some kind of ancestral memory that is going to get it through hard times, as before, when it has survived and has come through in strength and fortitude. This I believe will happen again. We shall see this place when present troubles are over maintaining its course, remaining a place of quality and excellence, retaining a place that men and women from all over the country will want to come to for what it has to offer. And I think that Oxford has a very great deal to offer. I came up rather a long time ago, in October 1923. I rather think that at that time the undergraduate University was perhaps more divided than it is now. I reflect that I was an exact contemporary of Evelyn Waugh and that there was a set, a fast set, of people who dined and wined, who lunched and punted and were captured forever, portrayed and caricatured, in 'Brideshead Revisited'. Can you believe that I, a contemporary member of that same University, of course I was not part of that set, but I had not even heard that they existed, I was totally unaware of it. (laughter) But I was living an active, interested, happy life, based on Queen's College. I had many activities, some more or less intellectual or literary, some merely mildly athletic. I was not hindered by my tutors, one or two of them helped (laughter). I learnt I think most from my contemporaries. They taught me something about precision and lucidity. How to make a point. What an 18
argument was and how to endure scrutiny and criticism. Oxford opened my mind. It enhanced what I had it in me to be. And I think it gave me all the opportunity I could ever hope for for the enlargement of my mind. At this point I must tell you a story: In 1925, at the end of my second year, I recieved a note from the Provost of Queen's asking me to call upon him. Now the Provost of Queen's had become a Fellow of the College in 1860 and he had become Provost in 1878 and he had therefore been elected before all the current Statutes and was therefore Provost for life and had no pension. In about 1905, 20 years before my time, he had felt age growing upon him and he had felt that he was not well and he had asked the College for a pension to enable him to retire. But the College in its wisdom, thinking he would not live long, refused him a pension and allowed him to continue at his salary in his lodgings in Queen's College. An invisible Provost, none of us had ever seen him, and I had a note asking me to visit him. I thought it was a hoax. But I was uncertain. So at the appointed hour I crossed the quad, I rang the bell, I was let in by a butler in full fig, led up to the first floor and there was the Provost alive (laughter). A great main of hair and beard, an Old Testament figure, and we suddenly knew that what we had all believed was untrue — we believed that his niece, who kept house for him, when he died had had him embalmed (laughter) and on June evenings had wheeled him out to the College gardens so that the Fellows of the College looking down upon their Provost would continue to pay his salary. This was clearly not true — there he was. And he looked at me and said, 'What do you do for sport in Oxford?'. I replied with some hesitation 'I rowed a little, I played some football', at which he looked at me and said 'You will never make old bones in Oxford unless you ride horseback'. I let this deliverance go by, but then he looked at me again and he said 'And what are your politics?'. Now I had none, but I remembered that my father and my mother were Liberals, so I said that I was Liberal, and apparently this remark was satisfactory because the Provost began to talk about the great Liberal leader. Well, in 1925 I knew who that was, it was Lloyd George, but he had judgement, he was judicious, it must have been Asquith, but he was bold, decided in judgement. At this point I gave up. I relied on my father's memory. Could it have been Campbell Bannerman? Not possible, so therefore it was the grand old man, it was Gladstone, but, you know, it wasn't, it was the man who was Prime Minister when he was a Fellow, Palmerston. I have never felt more uncomfortable in my life. I found my hand on the doorknob, I turned it, I slipped out, I crossed the quad, I returned to my room and from that day on neither I nor any other undergraduate of the college ever saw the Provost again (laughter). In such ways is the experience of an undergraduate of Oxford occasionally enriched. I owe Oxford far more in gratitude than I can offer to repay and there are 19
many thousands of men and women who feel about it as I do. It has enhanced their view of life, it has widened their friendships, it has enlarged their personalities, it has given hopes about quality of living and today I have a granddaughter just done a year at Oxford, a member of this College who is equally happy and I see her beginning to accept the gifts that Oxford so freely offers to all those who are willing and ready to receive them. Ladies and gentlemen, may I offer you the toast of the University of Oxford. Pro Vice-Chancellor: Principal, Visitor, my lords, ladies and gentlemen. I know exactly the sentiments with which you see me rise to my feet, having seen on the programme 'Reply, Chancellor'. I have had the same sentiments so often, as one sits in one's humble seat at Covent Garden for the curtain to go up on 'Il Trovatore', as the lights wane a man in impeccable evening dress arrives and says 'Unfortunately, owing to a slight chest infection, Sr Pavarotti is not able to be with us this evening. However, we are very glad to say that in his absence the part of Manrico will be sung by Mr. Ronny Corbett'. (laughter) I had never thought that I would have to understudy the Chancellor, although some items of his libretto I have become familiar with over the years, but I lack the voice, I lack the age, although I have had with the Chancellor an experience similar to that so vividly recreated for us by Lord Franks. That is, occasionally during the evenings and early mornings, when I have been privileged to enjoy a frugal nightcap with the Chancellor in the Lodgings at Balliol, from time to time a reminiscent air appears over his face and he says 'Tell me, when was the last time you saw Lord Kitchener . . .' (laughter). We all owe, as Lord Franks has said, a great deal to the Chancellor, and I would not feel able to take his name in this rather frivolous manner were it not that I am very happy to be able to tell you that the conversation I had this afternoon with Lord and Lady Macmillan reveals that he is very much on the mend (applause). Although he is very sorry not to be with us, I was glad to hear, and I quote the words of Lady Macmillan, 'he is over the hump now. What he needs is rather more male conversation', so I thought that perhaps this would not have been the ideal place for him to convalesce (laughter). But I hope to see him within the next few days and I hope that I can convey the greetings and good wishes of all of you (applause). But his absence enables you to cast eyes on an extremely rare animal. Many of you have flatteringly referred to me as 'Pro-Vice Chancellor'. I think that on this occasion I am actually a 'Pro Chancellor', neither a 'Vice-Chancellor' nor a 'Pro Vice-Chancellor', but acting in place of the Chancellor, and I think Pro Chancellors are extremely rare to be found in 20
Oxford — I have never seen one before. I have, of course, seen the ViceChancellor deputising extremely well for the Chancellor on a number of occasions. Most recently at the Centenary celebration for Mansfield College earlier this week, at which the Vice-Chancellor made an extremely skillful speech. It was a skillful speech for two reasons: The first was that it was learned and witty, and the second was that it was almost entirely taken from the speech by his and my predecessor, Benjamin Jowett, at the opening of Mansfield College 100 years ago (laughter). I thought that the Vice-Chancellor was clearly onto a good thing, so I rushed home to see whether there was a speech by Benjamin Jowett opening St Hugh's College on the occasion of its foundation. Alas no (laughter). Indeed research into the well known Life of Benjamin Jowett, which I am sure you all have by your bedside, reveals that he was rather an ambiguous ally to the cause of women's education in Oxford. It was said that he doubted whether it was wise to establish colleges for women at the universities or to allow women to enter into competitive examination with men. I quote from a letter he wrote to his confidante, Lady Stanley of Alderney: 'This is not my ideal of good education for women. I should fear that the work would be too hard for them and that they would soon be discouraged by being brought into unequal competition with men'. This from a man who had proposed matrimony to Florence Nightingale (laughter). 'I should like them to have a little really hard work, such as Philosophy or Mathematics or Greek or Latin, and a great deal of lighter work'. Those were his sentiments in 1876. However, in 1886 I am glad to be able to say that he had been converted. Like all Masters of Balliol, he was always willing to learn (laughter) and we are told that he gave valuable assistance in December 1886 to the Association for the Education of Women in Oxford by delivering two of his lectrures in Balliol Hall on Johnson and Bosworth. I was very glad to learn from the Principal's speech that she too thinks that Johnson provides an excellent model for women's education. But what was special about this lecture of Benjamin Jowett's was that admission was by ticket and none but women were admitted. Jowett allowed no notes to be taken. Seeing many of his audience provided with note books, he explained that lectures could not be heard with attention by those who are occupied with taking notes. 'All the audience should listen', he said, 'and afterwards write down what they can remember'. I am very glad to see none of you taking notes so you will have taken his advice (laughter). I should like to quote finally his letter in reply to the thank you letter which he had from the lady secretary to the Association, some of which I think is relevant to this day: 'It must be a great satisfaction to you to see the education of women for which you have done so much making steady progress in Oxford. There are two things which I rather feared for it: 21
1) overwork, 2) a neglect of accomplishments, especially music and drawing, which I shall always consider make a very important element of female and perhaps of all education'. I admire the great foresight with which he added those words 'and perhaps of all', fearing this might be regarded as a chauvinistic remark in a later generation (laughter). However, when I asked the Principal what was expected of a Deputy of the Chancellor this evening, she first explained that I had to follow Lord Franks and reply to his toast. If I was already nervous at having to understudy the Chancellor, I was doubly nervous replying to the toast of the University proposed by Lord Franks as a bit like having to reply to a toast to Philosophy proposed by Aristotle (laughter). I am a little less nervous now because I have realized that there is a slight chink in the splendid armour of Lord Franks. Of course I knew that in fair fight with the now Lord Stockton he had been defeated as Chancellor. But I knew that Lord Frank's magnanimity had never let this defeat rankle, that he had always been one of the warmest admirers of our Chancellor. What I had not realized until this evening was the fact that not being elected to the 'Brideshead' set was something that still rankled (laughter and applause). Only this enabled me to speak with any equanimity on the topic of the University after Lord Franks. When I think of the contribution made by women to the University of course it is my own subject, Philosophy, which comes to mind, and it is extremely easy to speak in these walls with a full heart on that topic because in my own education as a Philosopher in several universities of different kinds, an education which I hope is still continuing, nobody had more influence on my own philosophical thinking than one of your Honorary Fellows, Professor Anscombe, who gave the centenary lecture here a few months ago. I have been impressed by the fact that among the professions that for a long time women avoided or had no chance of entering, one of the latest for them to break into was Philosophy. To my knowledge the first woman Philosopher whose works are at all well preserved is Princess Elizabeth of the Palatine, the correspondent of Descartes, the greatest philosopher of modern times. I commend to all of you who are interested in the comparison of male and female intelligence the correspondence between Descartes and Princess Elizabeth. The Princess writes to Descartes and says she has been reading his works and she is enormously in admiration of them. His great genius is something she can hardly understand. She does, however, have one slight difficulty and it is that the relationship between body and soul seems not to have been very convincingly described and the soul, as described by Descartes, she says 'seems something quite impossible of achieving on the body'. Would he please explain this minor 22
point in his Philosophy? Descartes writes back an extremely pompous and condescending letter, saying 'No problem whatever. The way in which the action of the soul acts on the body is very similar to the way in which, as the scholastics explain, the heaviness of bodies makes them fall towards the centre of the earth'. She writes a very short letter back saying 'This is very interesting' — however she seems to remember that in his book before last he pointed out that the scholastic nature of heaviness as described by the scholastics is total absurdity and self contradictory, so could he explain how this could explain the way in which the soul acts on the body? Descartes' reply to that is, I think, one of the most disgraceful documents in the history of Philosophy — essentially it tells her 'not to bother her pretty head about metaphysics but to leave it to man' (laughter). I think therefore that we can all look forward to a time 100 years hence when as our successors celebrate the 200th anniversary of St. Hugh's, we may see the professions much more fairly distributed among the sexes. Some of us can look forward to a time when the really exalted professions, such as Monarch or Prime Minister, are prised from the grasp of the female sex and opened to those of us who may aspire to them (laughter) and other more lowly professions such as those of dons in Oxford University will be equally divided among the sexes, and I trust that it will be a female Chancellor, Vice-Chancellor, Pro Vice-Chancellor, or Pro-Chancellor who will propose the toast of the University to the College 100 years from now.
23
EXCERPTS OF LEFT ERS RECEIVED BY THE PRINCIPAL
'The fireworks of some weeks ago aroused the feelings of anticipation, then we moved on to the beautiful concert in the Sheldonian — and then to the College itself which became the centre of so much happy activity'.
'What a wonderful Centenary weekend it was! Particularly the food, and the flowers, and the Swan Centenary gates'.
'It was good to stay in College experiencing life in the modern buildings, yet surrounded by friends made fifty years ago. . . . My grandchildren enjoyed the Garden Party immensely and admired the College where their mother and grandmother had been students'.
'Of course I knew (the Centenary) would be dignified and impressive, but didn't expect to enjoy it. But it was so smoothly and perfectly organized, and the whole weekend so happy and relaxed, with plenty but not too much to be done and seen, that I shall remember all of it with gratitude and pride'.
'The dinner was a tour de force; its marvellous seating plan, memorable speeches and delectable menu (and the little St. Hugh's posies a joy!)'.
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EXCERPTS OF LE 1-1 FRS RECEIVED BY THE PRINCIPAL
'I thought the Chapel quite lovely. And what a beautiful organ to replace the old gunboat!'
'Thank you for all the imagination and energy which went into the planning and carrying out of the Centenary Celebrations. I could have done with more of every section of the service in St. Mary's. It was memorable'.
'The Centenary history serves the same purpose (of bringing) the unknown people to life and links every generation through the whole century. It is lovely to be able to talk about the last 66 years or so with the book as background. .
'It was marvellous to see the College looking so prosperous and high spirited. We thought the Laurence Whistler gates truly masterly and the garden itself, with all its accidental small spaces, most intriguing'.
'Please tell the undergraduates how much their cheerful patience added to the weekend'.
26
St. Hugh's Centenary Service: 6 July 1986 On the odd occasions when I visit Rome, for it is not my regular or natural Mecca, what always strikes me is the immense size of so many of its buildings. Their soaring columns, lofty chambers, spacious courtyards and enormous doors so far exceed the human scale as seemingly to advertise their indifference to it. To ordinary mortals, these great edifices can be very intimidating (like old-fashioned British banks) and perhaps this is related to their purpose, if their purpose (as seems probable) is to make an affirmation about status: the status of the family, the status of the firm, the status of the benefactor, or, when it comes to the churches of Rome, the status of God and his saints. I begin thus cryptically with architecture which is indifferent to the human scale, because I think centenaries manifest a comparable detachment. All they celebrate is the conclusion of an arbitrary quantum of years usually quite unrelated to their content and, moreover, beyond the direct experience of the majority who do not far exceed the Psalmist's three score years and ten. Centenaries, it seems, are for institutions and their historians rather than for their ordinary members, except in so far as these members are elevated, rather than intimidated, by affirmations of status and manifestations of style. But a college is a very special kind of institution, consisting of a continuum of people rather than a repository of records, a bundle of developments, or a network of trends. And that means (does it not?) that characteristically a college must celebrate on a domestic scale; if you will allow the solecism, a college should have a centenary every 25 years. It is entirely coincidental that my own modest connection with St. Hugh's began just 25 years ago, when I assumed responsibility for its theological teaching. Although in the College hierarchy I never rose above that lowest form of acknowledged academic life known in those days as a £75 lecturer, my pupils evidently didn't let me down still further, for I read with pleasure in your forthcoming history (to be precise on p.253) that on the arts side Theology followed Law in producing through the years the highest percentage of Firsts. That connection may serve, perhaps, as a remote justification for my attempting to guide your thoughts on this special occasion. May I suggest two kinds of reflection — corresponding to the domestic and the grand, the personal and the public, which I have already tried to distinguish. Reflection on the domestic, personal scale leads you unambiguously to thanksgiving. You recall your own three years — unprecedented and unrepeatable: your circle of friends, including, perhaps your husband, despite those rules and regulations of which a Senior Member has written: 'They were not needed by those who kept them and not kept by those who 27
needed them'. You recapture, perhaps, the thrill of your freedom — your personal and intellectual freedom — to explore, to read, to absorb, to question, to reject: a scene apparently without horizons, confirming, perhaps, the view of J.A. Smith, Professor of Moral Philosophy, in a lecture delivered in 1914: 'Nothing that you will learn in the course of your studies will be of the slightest possible use to you in after life — save only this — that if you work hard and intelligently you should be able to detect when a man is talking rot and that . . . is the main, if not the sole, purpose of education'. And each of you, of course, will have a pot-pourri of private memories — of a meeting, a play, a concert, a game, a party, a ball — all fit fuel for glowing gratitude. Among the many reasons for thanksgiving on this cheerful pilgrimage, I am confident that some of you will include your nurture at St. Hugh's in the Christian faith, for it is clear from your history that the College has never lost its original close association with the Church. Miss Wordsworth, your founder, named the first small rented house at 25 Norham Road after St. Hugh of Avalon simply, one is told, as a tribute to her father, who, like St. Hugh, had been bishop of Lincoln. The chance connection was an exceedingly happy one, since Hugh is a worthy patron saint for any college. By reputation, the most learned monk in the country, he revived the schools at Lincoln, rebuilt his cathedral (sometimes with his own hands), dispensed justice for kings and popes, refused to appoint courtiers to benefices, championed the people against the royal foresters, refused a demand of Richard I for money for the King's wars, and befriended Jews, lepers and other victims of oppression. This strong, independent man of God has been described as "austere but gentle, intransigent but tender" — a splendid and powerful exemplar. In connection with your celebrations 50 years ago, a statue of St. Hugh over the altar in this University Church was copied by the original artist for the College, and perhaps some of you present are among those who remember how the saint with his swan presided over the Library Staircase during the war years and reminded undergraduates, then dispersed and nomadic, that they really were members of St. Hugh's College. And so thank God for St. Hugh. I suggested at the outset that we should engage in two kinds of reflection and we now turn very briefly from the domestic and personal to the centennial and public. Although the century from 1886-1986 is as arbitrary as any other period of a hundred years, it does, in the case of St. Hugh's, possess a certain evolutionary coherence. This coherence gives the College an honourable status in the history of women's university education, which affords good grounds for sober satisfaction. St. Hugh's was founded and maintained in the conviction that young women are as well able to receive, and profit by, an Oxford education as young men, and just a 28
hundred years later your Governing Body has decided to relinquish its single-sex status and admit men undergraduates to the privilege of membership. Whether or not this development is wholly without problems is not a topic for today; it does, however, strikingly illustrate the victory of the principle that men and women should stand side by side as equals and share in common the benefits of all that Oxford has to offer. Once it was thought that women diluted the things to which they came eventually to be admitted; it is now increasingly recognised that nothing authentically human can be at its full strength without them. 'There is no distinction' — thus wrote St. Paul in the Epistle to the Romans, adding 'because the same Lord is Lord of all'. Here the apostle is speaking of privileged Jews and despised Greeks, but elsewhere he applied the same principle to other contrasted categories involving discrimination. In the Epistle to the Galatians, he urges: 'There is no such thing as Jew and Greek, slave and freeman, male and female'. He means, as the context makes clear, that as far as being a Christian goes, it doesn't make any difference whether you are a man or a woman. And, of course, if that were not true, Christianity would be completely de-humanised and diminished to insignificance. I am painfully aware that at this very time the General Synod of the Church of England is debating whether as far as being a Christian minister goes, it makes any difference whether you are a man or a woman. In my view, the theoretical arguments against the admission of women to the priesthood, so far from having any claim to theological respectability, simply and crudely reflect a sex-orientated type of cultic religion derived from easily identifiable pre-Christian sources. I mention this current lamentable assertion of the distinctive role of the male, in a context where it ought not to be found, because it is in danger of driving radical feminists even further up the wall — into ever more strident assertions of the separateness of male and female, so that women are invited to overthrow reason and objectivity as wicked male inventions and encouraged to pursue such aberrations as 'women's "truths'. These 'truths', we are told, originate in women's subjectivity, just as men's 'truths' originate in their subjectivity (for more of this, see Dale Spender, Invisible Women). Mercifully, this sort of nonsense has not contaminated Oxford's centuryold quest for the equal access of women and men to whatever truth has been or may be discovered and that gives good grounds for celebration today. But as we celebrate, we must commit ourselves to eternal vigilance. Male dominance is by no means dead; nor is female separatism; and both are enemies not only of humane studies, but of humanity itself. 'There is no distinction . . . because the same Lord is Lord of all'. St. Paul was right and St. Paul was courageous, even though he did fail to perceive and implement the practical consequences. The recognition of the interdependence of men 29
and women as equal components of humanity is a late flowering of that seed sown two thousand years ago. We pray that it may continue to flourish during the next century in the celebrated and much loved garden of St. Hugh's. Thanks be to God.
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EXCERPTS OF LE 1 I ERS RECIEVED BY THE PRINCIPAL
'Walking sticks, white sticks and a wheelchair helped in our sharing together our membership of St. Hugh's. The students who stayed up to look after us were all so considerate and friendly. The flower arrangements and various displays were beautifully done with skill and imagination. The service in St. Mary's and the 8 a.m. Eucharist in College all brought a sense of unity. The greatest inspiration, I felt, was the Garden Party with parents and children, past and present and future there together, and all so happy'.
'I just want to say how much I admire the new gates in Canterbury Road and the vista between the lime trees. It is one very pleasing way to mark our Centenary, and an interesting addition to Oxford landmarks'.
'The Garden Party brought vividly back to my mind a remark made by my cousin Ruth Pitter when we visited the College — "The charm of this place is not age but youth". And perhaps the eager little faces that watched the Punch and Judy number among them many future undergraduates of St. Hugh's, irrespective of sex'. 'I think we all went about in a delightful dream world, enjoying the garden, the functions, the exhibition, the delicious food, the meetings with old friends, the warmth and charm of the whole occasion'.
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EXCERPTS OF LE FI ERS RECEIVED BY THE PRINCIPAL
'While I am writing, I want to say how much I enjoyed the Centenary Gaudy dinner and how I appreciated the thoughtful steps taken to make the old (in the literal sense) students feel welcome. It was a stroke of genius to have the young undergraduates in their gowns to receive us, book us in and carry our bags to our rooms'.
'What a truly splendid weekend — at all levels the pursuit of excellence was clearly the theme — from the Service of Thanksgiving down to the buttonholes on the dinner table'.
'It was all so splendid — the flowers everywhere, indoors and out, the delicious food and of course meeting so many friends all together. The exhibition we found particularly interesting'.
'I am still wondering who was the "religious", for want of a better word, who walked across the lawn from the dining-hall side and settled himself on one of the long garden-chairs — this between 8 and 8.30 a.m. on Saturday. I meant to keep an eye on this interesting person in a rather bulky long white habit. But he went away without my seeing him go'.
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