ISSUE 8 MICHAELMAS 2008 GONVILLE & CAIUS COLLEGE CAMBRIDGE

Saving Lives from the Silent Killer

Saving Species from Extinction

The 67 Sundials of Caius Court

From the Master

Issue 8 of Once a Caian... is heading for the presses just as the College girds itself for thebeginning of Michaelmas Term and a new academic year. It seems to me that academics don’tgo on holiday so much as take their work elsewhere: fieldwork across the world, internationalconferences, the renewal of research links with universities and laboratories overseas, the nextbook or experiment. Gradually, however, the Fellows are heading back to greet the new cohortof students and resume their teaching.

But even in the depths of summer the College is not empty. As the students left, the buildersarrived, to erect their scaffolding, repair the roofs and replace the electrics. The Cavonius Centrein the Stephen Hawking Building hosted a busy programme of conferences, often with dinnerin the traditional setting of Hall as a key attraction. The Caius Summer School, in its secondsuccessful year, brought to the College a hundred lively sixth-formers from state schools aspart of our strategy to demystify Cambridge and attract applications from the broadestpossible range of students.

This issue of our magazine illustrates well the intellectual range and energy of Caians workingboth in the College and in the world outside. There is an interview with Richard Evans (1998),newly appointed as Regius Professor of Modern History in succession to another distinguishedCaian, Quentin Skinner (1959), and a widely-published authority on German history. MorrisBrown (1989), Professor of Clinical Pharmacology, describes his research into the causes andtreatment of the “silent killer”, hypertension. Nigel Simpson (1962), a retired pioneer of retinalrepair and a Founder of the Court of Benefactors, writes about his involvement withconservation in the Andes.

And as always there are College memories and curiosities. It has taken our appointment asResearch Fellow of an anthropologist working in Borneo to enable us to decipher a play ofwords in the inscription on a mysterious box in our silver collection: it was donated in 1901by a Caian who had encountered there a people known as the Kayan, and could not resistcommemorating the coincidence. Elsewhere in the issue Mick Le Moignan (2004) drawstogether memories of Caians involved in a series of elaborate sporting challenges whichenlivened the post-war years in the College.

Mick also reminds you of our new publication, “A Portrait of Gonville and Caius”, which bringstogether a historical essay by Professor Christopher Brooke (1945) with the exceptionalphotographs of Dan White. The first copies have been delivered, they exceed all ourexpectations and they are selling briskly.We are reprinting: order now to avoid disappointment.

Finally let me draw to your attention the stirring address given by Christopher Tugendhat(1957), Chairman of the Development Campaign Board, at this year’s May Week Party forBenefactors. Everything he said then about the College’s proud tradition of benefaction and theneed for it to continue is underlined by the economic storms that have struck us since. Thevalue of our endowment has held up remarkably well, given the state of world financialmarkets, but the costs of feeding our students and keeping them warm have soared.We arereliant on our benefactors to help us maintain the distinctive quality of the experience we offerto our students. I am confident that they will respond with loyalty and generosity, as they havedone over the centuries.

Christopher HumMaster

“A gift to Gonville & Caius College counts towardsthe Cambridge 800th Anniversary Campaign”

Dan W

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1...Always a Caian

ContentsYao Liang

Nigel Sim

pson

2 Saving Lives – from the Silent Killer – Professor Morris Brown (1989)

6 The May Week Party for Benefactors – Address by Lord Tugendhat (1957)

8 Gentlemen versus Scholars in 1946 and 1947

12 The New Regius Professor – Interview with Professor Richard Evans (1998)

14 Caius Music Ancient & Modern: Stile Antico and Cheryl Frances-Hoad (1998)

16 Saving Species from Extinction – Dr Nigel Simpson (1962)

18 Living Treasures of the Andes

20 The 67 Sundials of Caius Court

22 The Discovery of Mankind, The Ismailis and A Sky Full of Starlings –recently published books by Caians

24 Caius & the British Academy – Professor Christopher Brooke (1945)

26 Caius Connections in Science – Dr John Hardwick (1969)

28 The Borneo Box – Professor John Mollon (1996) and Dr Liana Chua (2007)

30 CaiNotes

32 CaiMemories

34 From the Archive... ...Then and Now

36 A Portrait of Gonville & Caius College –the new book by Dan White and Christopher Brooke

36362020

121288 1414

1616

Dan W

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Dan White’sphotograph of two

people hurryingthrough Chapel Arch –

See page 36.

STINGand

Stile Antico

2

High blood pressure, orhypertension, is known asthe silent killer. It is themajor cause of death anddisability throughout the

world, by increasing risk of strokes, heartdisease and kidney failure.

Fortunately the risk is largely reversible –if treatment is started early enough. Butbecause hypertension is common and bloodpressure rises inexorably with age, there hasbeen a temptation to ignore this rise until itis too late. A century ago, ignorance was bliss:there was no treatment and no goodevidence that hypertension was harmful –except in patients, like Franklin Roosevelt,with malignant hypertension, doomed to diewithin a year. The term essential hypertension– still applied to some 95% of patients inwhom we do not know the cause – was takento imply that high blood pressure is a goodthing, enabling blood to circulate as describedby William Harvey (1592), even throughthickened arteries.

It was actuaries rather than doctors whoreversed this thinking, and led to a goldenperiod of research in hypertension with threelarge questions: what is the cause, how shouldit be treated, and does treatment preventheart attacks and strokes? To the extent thatwe now have a greater choice of cheap anddemonstrably effective drugs than for anyother condition in medicine, this research wasindeed productive. The UK led much of theacademic and pharmaceutical research, andproduced two out of the four leading drugs –

causes of hypertension must be much morecomplex than previously suspected – aprediction fulfilled when our collaborationwith, first, ‘Windows 2000’ and then‘Windows Vista’ technology failed to deliverany further definite genes.

So Sharma’s study was one factor in mydecision, late 1990s, to recruit young patientsinto a new type of clinical trial, dubbedrotation studies, where all four availablemajor classes of drug for hypertension weresystematically compared in each patient.The hypothesis was that we would find fourpatterns of response, with each pattern givingus a clue to one of the main genes forhypertension. In the event, we found only twopatterns of response. In the one which wascommoner in this young cohort, patients’blood pressure fell more on either an ACEinhibitor or Beta-blocker than on a Calcium-blocker or Diuretic. In the other pattern ofresponse, the reverse was true: either aCalcium-blocker or Diuretic was moreeffective than the other two drugs. While wewere trying to make sense of these resultsand subsidiary analyses, insight came – as sooften in science – from older literature.

The question was why our choice of drugshad effectively not increased since the era 30years ago when John Laragh, in New York,with only beta-blockers and diuretics tostudy, described two types of hypertension.The answer came from a re-formulation ofthe 19th century law of physics – Poiseuille’sLaw – relating pressure and flow. Given thewell-known inverse relation between the

Once a Caian...

atenolol and amlodipine. But in recent yearsthere has been a temptation to pigeon-holehypertension as ‘problem solved’ – despitethe failure to offer most patients anyexplanation for their hypertension, anddespite failure (until recently) to achieveacceptable targets for blood pressure control.

As a clinical pharmacologist – someoneinterested in the workings of drugs, new andold – my research objective has been todescribe a circle from:• using the wealth of existing drugs to

identify patients with differing responses toeach drug, to

• discovering underlying mechanisms ofhypertension which explained thesedifferences, to

• identifying easily measured markers ofthese differences which avoid trial-and-error in choosing each patient’s best drug.

The resulting studies have taken placeagainst the background of the revolution ingenetics, culminating in the whole genomesequence in 2001, and five years later thetechnology to look systematically across thegenome in thousands of patients for genesassociated with common disorders. In the late90s, using what might be considered a‘Windows 98’ predecessor of this technology,my laboratory was the first to show that asearch in 250 families delivered only onepossible gene for hypertension. Theimplication of this research, much of itundertaken by my Caius PhD student,Dr Pankaj Sharma (1994), and my colleague,Dr Kevin O’Shaughnessy (1995), was that the

SavingLivesSilentKiller

from the

By Professor Morris Brown (1989)

The effects of blood pressure on the heart can now be seen in the clinic:Professor Morris Brown (1989) using a portable ultrasound to record thepatient’s echocardiogram.

3...Always a Caian

Acknowledgement of a simple duality at theheart of hypertension probably owed a littleto my own dual training in medicine andclassics, and the ‘ ’ construction atthe heart of Greek prose: on the one hand, abit of this, ... on the other, a bit of that.Serendipitous was recognition of the ‘AB/CD’initials of the four drug classes, with ‘AB’drugs blocking the renin pathway, whilst ‘CD’drugs eliminate salt and cause compensatoryincrease in renin levels. This recognition camejust in time to incorporate a mnemonictreatment paradigm, the ‘AB/CD rule’, in theLancet paper which reported the first rotationstudy. ‘AB/CD’ was intended to changehypertension treatment from a lucky dip torational choice. After some years, it evolvedinto NICE’s guidance of 2006.

During the intervening years, furtherstudies had suggested a solution to the thirdstring of my research objective: a simple testfor predicting the right drug in all patients. In‘AB/CD’, age, ethnicity and prior treatmentare used to predict which of the four drugs touse, but there are exceptions, and the ruledoes not help in patients on multiple drugs.Much better is the measurement of plasma

renin, now a routine investigation atAddenbrookes costing just £15.

The evidence for its value came initiallyfrom a study in 850 patients which showedthat, in patients receiving drugs thatnormally increase renin secretion, a low orsuppressed level of plasma renin mustindicate the presence of too much salt in thecirculation. The salt excess is caused in partby the adrenal hormone aldosterone whichtells the kidney to retain salt. Usually theblood aldosterone levels are normal – butinconsistent with the suppressed plasmarenin. These salt-retaining patients areresistant to multiple conventional drugs; butfollowing diagnosis by measurement of a lowplasma renin, they can now be controlledwith novel combinations or doses of diureticdrugs.

In seeking discrete causes for commoncomplex disorders, it is likely that the bestclues will come from the most extremepatients. Within the spectrum of salt-dependent hypertension, “extreme” meanspatients having a completely suppressedplasma renin at an age (<45) when renin isusually high, and despite treatment withdrugs which normally elevate renin. Dramaticvalidation of this approach has come fromfinding a number of these extremes toharbour a previously unsuspected benignaldosterone-secreting (‘Conn’s’) tumour oftheir adrenal gland. (See illustration.)

These fortunate patients – now aboutone per month in our clinic – are cured ofhypertension by a keyhole operation toremove the adrenal; and we ourselves – PhDstudent, Jing Wang, and pharmacologysupervisor, Tim Burton – have had thefortune (with the patient’s permission!) togrow normal and tumour cells from theadrenal in our lab and discover a regulatorypathway that appears to be missing frompatients who secrete too much aldosterone.

It would be false immodesty to claimthat my voyage of circumnavigation is nearlycomplete. Genes for hypertension remainelusive, but must exist – as 10% of peoplewith a family history of hypertension cantestify. Black people, who have low-reninhypertension even at a young age, are widelyassumed to illustrate Darwinian selection inaccumulation of genetic variations whichpromote salt retention in hot, salt-poorenvironments. But the smart money is nowon private mutations – that is, different ineach family – being responsible forhypertension. When the technology forcheap genome sequencing arrives, maybe assoon as next year, I would cautiously wager –say, one of the serpents on Caius’ caduceus –that the DNA from our extreme low-renincohort will reveal interesting mutations insome unsuspected genes.

Continued overleaf

amount of salt in the body and the kidney’ssecretion of a hormone, renin, the re-formulation states that there are only twobroad ways in which blood pressure can bechronically increased. One is by increasing theamount of salt in the circulation, the other byincreasing the secretion of renin. In mostpatients, neither factor alone is sufficientlyabnormal to cause hypertension but at leastone – salt or renin – is (with rare exceptions)necessary.

Among the four main classes of drugs,only the ACE inhibitors were developed toblock the effects of renin, and only thediuretics to promote salt loss. But therotation studies confirmed that the beta-blockers lower blood pressure throughblocking renin-secretion, and calcium blockerslower blood pressure (partly) through saltloss. So even though we have four majorclasses of drug for hypertension, they fall intoonly two broad categories, with the ‘AB’drugs targeting the renin end of the bloodpressure spectrum and the ‘CD’ drugstargeting the salt end.

So much for science. But art andserendipity now lent a hand.

The Reverend StephenHales measures bloodpressure: after theReverend has slit themare’s neck, hisassistant measuresthe height to whichblood spurts up aglass tube from thecarotid artery.

μεν.... δε

4 Once a Caian...

Above: Unsuspected curable cause of hypertension: in apatient with suppressed plasma renin, the CT scan showeda small nodule (shown in a white frame) hanging off thenormal upside-down V shaped right adrenal, above thekidney. The surgically excised adrenal shows the yellownodule attached to the normal adrenal – the yellow cortexmakes steroid hormones, the red medulla makesadrenaline.

Below: In the 19th century, a Caius medical student,Frederick Mahomed (1877), developed a ‘sphygmograph’for recording the pulse. This was overtaken by the mercurysphygmomanometer for the routine recording of bloodpressure. But specialists (in this photo, Caius clinical PhDstudent Isla Mackenzie (2003)) nowadays use recordingsfrom the wrist artery to look for tell-tale changes in thepulse wave that indicate stiffening of the arteries.

5...Always a Caian

AB/CD and the Renin system Secretion of renin from the kidneys is used by the body to control the amount of salt in the circulation, and hence blood pressure.This is a typical hormonal system, with one hormone influencing another, and various servo-controls. Most drugs developed for hypertension turn out either towork by blocking the system (‘AB’ drugs, shown in red), or by stimulating sodium (Na+, salt) loss and relaxation of the arteries (‘CD’ drugs, in blue). The ‘CD’ drugsreverse the normal fall in renin with age. The ‘AB/CD’ rule recommends initial therapy appropriate to age, and complementary combinations (e.g. A+C).

6

Where Cambridge leads,Oxford follows. First,Cambridge appoints aBritish Provost of Yale asVice-Chancellor in

Alison Richard. Then Oxford follows, byappointing her successor, Andrew Hammond.The difference is that whereas she was oncea Cambridge undergraduate, he was not anOxford one. Now as the Cambridge Appealcontinues to progress towards its £1 billiontarget, Oxford has launched an appeal of itsown.

This party epitomizes the reasons forCaius’ success. Every one of the severalhundred people here has made acontribution. Unlike some colleges, we havenot received any multi-million pounddonations, let alone several such donationsfrom a single person over a number of years.For us, a seven-figure donation is a rareoccurrence for which we are enormouslygrateful. We have to rely on mobilising thegreat mass of our alumni to give what youcan afford, however modest. It is yourwillingness to respond in such large numbersto our appeal that has enabled us to be sosuccessful.

We are not unique in this respect amongCambridge colleges, but we are one of theleaders. And I am not alone in saying this.The Cambridge 800th Anniversary CampaignReport gives an example of what a group ofalumni can achieve when they club together:for the McKendrick College Lectureship inHistory, 95 Caians raised £1million. I wasparticularly glad to see this, not just becauseNeil was once my Supervisor and severaldecades later an outstanding Master, butbecause as Master it was he who launchedthe current fundraising effort and set anexample of Magisterial involvement thatother colleges have followed. ThatLectureship is only one of a number ofexamples of collective effort to which theCollege can point with pride: the

thanks as well as the College’s.The result of all this activity is that

fundraising now brings in new pledgestotalling over £3million every year – and atleast the same amount again in legacypledges. That is a very considerableachievement for which I pay tribute to AnneLyon, our Development Director, and hersmall team – Mick Le Moignan, EmmaBeddoe, Jon Langford and Sarah Preston.

Anne’s leadership is as inspirational as it isimaginative and she works incredibly hard. Ishould also like to make a special mention ofOnce a Caian..., that Mick produces. It is anoutstanding alumni magazine that would docredit to a university, let alone a college, anddoes much to create a connection betweenCaians and the College that helps tounderpin our fundraising effort.

Once a Caian...

contributions of over 2,000 alumni andfriends of the College made possible theStephen Hawking Building; those who cameup in 1954 together raised the money toname a Wing of that Building, while thosewho arrived in 1956 are en route toestablishing another College Lectureship.

Altogether, since the present campaignbegan in October 2001, it has received some5,030 donations from 2,590 different donors.Caians account forabout 84% andparents for 13% ofthe total. I wouldlike to say aparticular word ofthanks to theparents since theyare, in a sense,contributing twiceover, by financingtheir children as wellas helping theCollege, from whichthey themselvesderived no benefit.

To put thefigures another way,some 25% of allliving Caians haveresponded to ourappeal. This ismodest by thestandards of someAmericaninstitutions, but verygood in the contextof this country. On the other hand, there are75% still to tap! Let me just give you onemore set of figures: we now have 4 GonvilleFellow Benefactors, 35 Founders of the Courtof Benefactors (including 8 new ones thisyear), 21 members of the Stephen HawkingCircle, 204 Members of the Court ofBenefactors and 20 Associate Members. To allof them I would like to express my grateful

May Week PartyenefactorsB

The

forAddress byLord Tugendhat (1957)Chairman of the DevelopmentCampaign Board

7...Always a Caian

Throughout that time, we have relied onordinary men and women to sustain us,either with benefactions while they are aliveor through bequests that we receive aftertheir death. Unlike some other colleges, overthe centuries, we have never enjoyed thepatronage of monarchs or other members ofthe royal family. Nor have we attracted thesupport of great magnates. The tradition ofthis College is to rely on people like you,

many of whom give whatever you canafford, rather than on a few large individualdonors. We hope, through gatherings likethis, to express our appreciation and, bymeans of such events as those arranged forthis afternoon, to show you to what goodeffect your money is put.

Which brings me to my final point,which I hope won’t cast a pall over the

proceedings. It is to ask each of you toremember the College in your will and to letus know that you have done so. As we are acharity this is very tax-efficient. You can becertain that the tradition of scholarship andfellowship for which this University and thisCollege are famous throughout the worldwill continue. You will also be contributing topushing back the frontiers of knowledge andto widening access for those who would not

otherwise have been able to afford to comehere. That is a worthwhile memorial.Moreover, when I look at the number ofyears that elapse between the momentwhen those who tell us they are making abequest draw up their wills and theirsubsequent deaths, I see a clear link betweentheir generosity and the lengthening of theirlife expectancy!

We must now re-double our efforts. As Isaid earlier, we have no mega-donors onwhom we can rely from year to year. But wehave been very effective in persuading someof our younger alumni from the 1980s and1990s, who have been successful in financialservices, to support us. Indeed in spotting thepotential of this “market” rather thanconcentrating on older alumni Anne was verymuch ahead of her opposite numbers at

other institutions. However, as we all know,the financial markets are currently in turmoiland we are unlikely to be able to raise somuch money from this group for as long asthe present upheaval continues. Findingalternative sources will require a majoreffort.

So I should like to turn to the past forinspiration. This College is 660 years old.

Guests at the 2008 May Week Party for Benefactors gathered in Gonville Court to hear addresses by the Master and the Chairman of the Development Campaign Board.

Yao Liang

Mick Le M

oignan “The tradition of thiscollege is to rely on peoplelike you, many of whomgive whatever you canafford, rather than on afew large individualdonors. We hope, throughgatherings like this, toexpress our appreciation.”

Lord Tugendhat (1957) addressing the assembled benefactors.

8 Once a Caian...

by M

ick

Le M

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an (

2004

)

Scho

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Gen

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en v

s The Gentlemen of Caius (in top hats) and the Scholars ofKing’s (in mortar boards) gathered after the race at thePike & Eel to share the prize – a Firkin of Ale, paid for bythe losing crew.

Chronology17 June 1946 Rowing: Gentlemen of

Caius v. Scholars ofKing’s

3 December 1946 Foot-the-Ball: Caius v.Christ Church, Oxford

10 June 1947 Return Rowing Raceon the Cam

21 October 1947 Return Foot-the-Ballat Oxford

Several Caians wrote in response tothe account by Douglas Rae (1945)in our last issue of the three-ball,three-referee “Foot-the-Ball” matchagainst Christ Church, Oxford, in

1947, with further information about theprevious year’s “Foot-the-Ball” contest inCambridge and the rowing challenges of thesame years between two crews of untrainedoarsmen calling themselves “the Scholars ofKing’s” and “the Gentlemen of Caius”. Ourcorrespondents generously sent many preciousphotographs and press cuttings of the events,which will be preserved in the College Archiveto inspire future generations.

Christopher Neame (1944) recalled the “StMichael’s Dyeworks”:

“The normal undergraduate dress of greyflannels or cords and rather dull shirts andpullovers was thought to be pretty dreary –aggravated by the fact that we were all still oncoupons, wartime clothing ration. Theytherefore took to dyeing all their own clothes– and anybody else’s they could get theirhands on – in all the vivid colours they couldfind dyes for and cook up in their gyprooms.I was rash enough to go up, one weekend inthe Long Vac., conventionally dressed: I wasstripped and sent off with puce trousers and agreen shirt!”

Michael Ramsay (1938), who like many ofthe participants had returned to Caius afterdistinguished war service, played in the first“Foot-the-Ball” match. Michael recruited andrehearsed the Brass Band, conducted on theday by “the great and glorious hand ofProfessor Paddy Hadley (1938), the wooden-legged, who reputedly kept up his socks withdrawing pins!” The Band played in a horse-drawn cart on the way from Dorothy’sRestaurant to Parker’s Piece, where the matchwas to be played. Sadly, the music upset thehorse, “who tried fruitlessly to get away,ending up at a kind of trot!”

Foot-the-Ball was a massive, post-warcelebration, enjoyed by the whole city: it drewa crowd of thousands and was filmed by PathéNews – John Younie (1945) remembersproviding the hay wagon for the camera –and covered by many newspapers, includingThe Times, The Daily Telegraph, Le Figaro andeven The Montreal Daily Star. The three balls,coloured red, yellow and green, were “kickedaway” by the Mayor of Cambridge, the ChiefConstable and the Senior Proctor. The referees(one for each ball) were three Caius Tutors,Henry Deas (1921), Hubert Tunnicliffe (1917)and Stanley Dennison (1945). The Senior Tutor,E K “Francis” Bennett (1914), enthroned on adais, was the Governor – or final arbiter incase of doubts or disputes. On the oneoccasion when two players threatened tosquare up to each other, Bennett called themin front of him, addressed them severely inLatin and promptly invented what is now

9...Always a Caian

10 Once a Caian...

“The three Caius men who arrangedthis original and spontaneously-conceived fun-feast specifically indicatedthat it was a real effort to add a touch oflevity to a clouded public consciousnessrather than the hurly-burly presentationof a “rag” in the accepted sense. Theiraim was achieved with eminent successand, as an expression of undergraduates’high spirits, this venture possiblysurpassed anything similar within livingmemory, simply because the jarring noteof rowdyism was avoided.”Cambridge Daily News, 4 December 1946

Above: Spectators and participants in both therowing and the foot-the-ball “rags” must haveraided their family wardrobes in search of suitablyVictorian attire. This group, posing in front of theGreat Gate, echoed the elegance of an era thatwas already fading into history.

Opposite page: Hundreds of townspeople andstudents enjoyed a day out beside the river as awelcome diversion from the post-war austerity.

Top right: Official approval was signalled by thepresence of the Senior Tutors of Caius and Kings,E K “Francis” Bennett (1914) and Donald Beves.

Bottom right: Professor Paddy Hadley (1938)conducted the brass band.

Three survivors have generously donatedphotographs and press cuttings to the CollegeArchive. From the top: Christopher Neame (1944),seen here with his late brother, Geoffrey (1942),John Younie (1945), who wrote in from his studioin Florence, and Michael Ramsay (1938), stillthriving in Belgium, after a long career with NATO.

seven oarsmen, were able to pull ahead at thelast moment. And we succeeded in holding onto our precious lead long enough to breachthe tape held across the river by FrancisBennett and Donald Beves, who pronouncedus the winners. King’s were still laughing theirheads off when they too finished, a second ortwo behind us.”

The whole event was conducted in thebest of spirits and provided a wonderfulantidote to post-war deprivations, on the veryday when the meagre soap ration was cut byone-seventh! Trevor de Hamel should have thelast word:

“We have read in The Caian an account ofhow Caius robbed Jesus of its cannon, rightlycelebrated as the most daring rag of all time. Itlacked only one element. By its very nature,the public were prevented from enjoying it.Whereas there was nothing secret about whatwe did. We, the gentlemen of Caius, providedthe public, both Town and Gown, with a merryexample of what a University rag could be like,one to be enjoyed by everyone.”

11...Always a Caian

their number and their appearance. Attics andcupboards must have been ransacked toprovide so much fancy dress: crinolines, bustlesand bonnets for the women, frock coats andsponge-bag trousers, cravats and spattedshoes for their escorts.”

Aidan O’Hanlon (1941), the heavily-whiskered starter, perched on a tricycle andclutching an umbrella, spun the coin andannounced that the Gentlemen had won thetoss, whereupon the two crews and thespectators set off for Fen Ditton, in buses, onfoot and in chartered boats. The course wasonly a thousand yards, to finish at the Pike andEel, where the Senior Tutors of Caius andKing’s would hold the tape. The prize, a firkinof ale (72 pints!), was to be paid for by thelosers but consumed together by both crews.

For the first half of the course, the boatswere neck and neck, cheered on by the hugecrowd. Then the Scholars began to edge ahead.Tony Lorimer (1940), as stroke for theGentlemen, decided to raise the rate, and theGentlemen’s rowing at once went disastrouslyout of sync. They struck into each other, felloff their seats and were fortunate that no-onewas knocked completely out of the boat. TheScholars should have romped home victorious.Trevor de Hamel’s account continues:

“That they did not was entirely becausethe sight of our predicament so convulsedthem with laughter that when the race was intheir pocket they found that they could notlaugh and row at the same time. Their speedfell off just when they could least afford it. Soit was that the Gentlemen, though reduced to

known as the “sin-bin”, ordering them to standin the corner for two minutes, contemplatingtheir misdeeds, before rejoining play.

Foot-the-Ball was itself the sequel to anearlier challenge, dreamed up by the lateTrevor de Hamel (1938). His great idea was arowing race between two teams of “dry bobs”(“unschooled in the art of oarsmanship”). Heoffered the challenge to a friend at King’s andthe game was on. Geoffrey Neame (1942), awartime fighter pilot, son of a famous mezzo-soprano, Astra Desmond, composed the mock-Victorian poster. Bill Howell (1945), laterProfessor of Architecture, drew the illustrationsfor it and five other “dry bobs” were found tocomplete the crew: John Younie, John Sleap(1941), John Anderson (1945), Allan Warr(1938) and Tony Lorimer (1940).

Geoffrey’s brother, Christopher Neame,the Captain of Boats, agreed to act as their“coach”, i.e. to ride a bizarrely misshapenbicycle alongside them in a striped blazer,bawling (disregarded) instructions at themthrough a megaphone. In the interests ofkeeping the boat in one piece, he insisted that“Tich” Morgan (1939), cox of the First May’sVIII, should take charge of the rudder!

The posters caught the popularimagination. When the teams met, in singletsand long pants, in the forecourt at King’s, totoss a coin, the Gentlemen of Caius in tophats, the Scholars of King’s in mortar boards,most of them sporting beards or whiskers, deHamel wrote:

“But we were as nothing compared to theonlookers. I must admit to being astonished at

Lionel Muspratt was the team’s Honorarymember, who may have been a great-uncleof Humphrey Lyttleton’s “lovely Samantha”.Trevor de Hamel wrote that he was “a manwhose spirit, if not his physical presence, I

am sure, contributed to our victory... How it came aboutthat he was elected, I no longer remember, but electedhe was, and no subsequent meeting of the Gentlemenwould be complete without him; although I have to confess that Inever met him, as he was never able personally to attend any ofour gatherings, then or since.”

Michael Ramsay explains: “There is (or was) a photographer’son King’s Parade called Ramsay and Muspratt. One of my chums,as we passed by the shop, said ‘Well, Ramsay, where’s Muspratt?’So I replied: ‘I think I saw him disappearing round the end of StMary’s Church.” Thus the mythical Lionel Muspratt was born. Hewas always invited to our gatherings in later life but never

appeared. He was even mentioned at the funeral ofTony Lorimer by the sons of the deceased (of course,with the permission of his widow).”

Chris Neame questions whether Musgrave wasmythical: “It is true that he was never able to attend ameeting of the Gentlemen, but the courteous andregretful messages he used to send always indicated hispreoccupation with Foreign Affairs of the greatest

importance, or sometimes international finance!”Trevor de Hamel finishes the story: “You may wonder what

became of the Gentlemen. Well ... all but three (Geoffrey Neame,Bill Howell and Tony Lorimer) and Aidan O’Hanlon, who had notbeen heard of for ages, survived long enough to accept aninvitation from Lionel Muspratt to meet him, a few years ago, foran evening of good cheer at the London home of Patrick Hamilton(1945). That Lionel Muspratt himself was prevented from attendingsurprised none of us!”

Challenge!John Charlton-Jones (1978) mentioned Foot-the-Ball to his son, who is reading History atChrist Church, Oxford, with the result thatthe new generation of Caius undergraduateswill shortly receive a fresh challenge fromthe old adversary, 61 years on. The contestwill, no doubt, be fully covered in a futureissue of Once a Caian...

Lionel Muspratt – an Appreciation

12

The appointment of oneof the College’s mostdistinguished andprolific writers andhistorians, Professor

Richard J Evans (1998) as RegiusProfessor of Modern History atCambridge University has been greeted withgreat pleasure at Caius.

It is seen as a well-deserved accolade toa hard-working professional historian whohas done much to ensure that the greatesttragedy of the twentieth century is fullyunderstood by the generations who wereborn after it was all over.

Richard Evans becomes Regius Professoron 1 October 2008 and, with impeccabletiming, the third volume of his trilogy onHitler’s Germany, The Third Reich at War, ispublished thirteen days later, with a boxedset of all three books to come from Penguinin time for Christmas. He was the principalexpert witness in the “Holocaust denial”libel trial of David Irving in 2000 and,perhaps on Santayana’s principle, “Thosewho cannot remember the past arecondemned to repeat it”, he believespassionately that we must face the terribletruth of the cataclysm that almost engulfedthe world, less than a lifetime ago.

His work is impeccably researched, theproduct of copious reading and brilliantanalysis. For all the importance of his ownstudies, he is scrupulously careful not to cuthimself off from the daily round ofacademic duties in College and University.He agreed, by chance, to become Head ofthe History Faculty at the same time asassuming the role of Regius Professor. Aswell as lecturing, examining and supervisingstudents, he will act as an informal adviserto junior members of the Faculty and willgive his inaugural, public lecture as Regius

corrected his father’s Welsh sooften, when they were first married,that he decided the family shouldbecome English-speaking and stayin London!

Evans passed the 11-plus andwent to Forest School on a state

scholarship before winning an openscholarship to Jesus College, Oxford. Bythen, he was “completely gripped” byhistory and leapt at the chance to plungeinto the library and work very hard. He was,he says, “almost obsessed” by the subject.

His interest had been sparked by twothings: on childhood visits to Wales, hevisited derelict slate quarries and wonderedwho had worked there and what their lifewas like; and growing up in the immediatepost-War years, he heard his parents talkingabout the Blitz – his father had gonethrough the campaigns in North Africa andItaly as an RAF radar operator, arriving inMilan in time to see the bloodstains on thepavement after Mussolini was executed.

Evans moved to St Antony’s College,Oxford to do his doctorate, later publishingthis work as The Feminist Movement inGermany 1894-1933. He was interested indiscovering why earlier liberal values hadcollapsed. He felt that nineteenth centurynationalism in Germany had been a liberalforce until unification in 1871, but then thegrowth of the nationalist movement “frombelow” had encouraged a more activeforeign policy and dreams of empire...

In 1972, he was appointed to aLectureship in History at Stirling University,“where I spent four years learning to teachand revised my thesis for publication.” Hemoved to the University of East Anglia in1976, “attracted by a great concentration ofbrilliant historians”, was appointed Professorof European History in 1983, wrote several

Once a Caian...

Professor in the Spring of 2009, probably onthe subject of why British historians’fascination with events on the Europeancontinent is not generally returned.

He is reluctant to reduce any of thesecommitments, believing strongly that:“Teaching and research are interdependent:it’s what a university is about. Teachingforces you to find a way of enthusingstudents and making them interested. Thechallenge of students is essential: historianswho only research can lose the ability tocommunicate.”

The Regius Chair was set up by George Iin 1724 and Evans will be the 21stProfessor. He is, he says “extremelyhonoured and a little bit daunted” by thelong list of extremely distinguishedhistorians who have held the position. Hisimmediate predecessor, Professor QuentinSkinner (1959), an early student of NeilMcKendrick (1958), “has achieved anunequalled dominance in his field ofpolitical thought.” Evans also admires G MTrevelyan: “He’s not fashionable but hisdetailed research has stood the test of time– and he was a brilliant writer. It’simportant to write for a wider publicwithout sacrificing scholarly integrity.”

Trevelyan’s “English Social History” wasone of only two books in English in hisWelsh parents’ bookcase (the other wasPalgrave’s Golden Treasury of English Verse).His parents met after both had moved fromWales to London. His father was a bankclerk and his mother a teacher, who

Interview byMick Le Moignan (2004)

Yao Liang

13...Always a Caian

more books and edited a number of others.His research was still very much focused

on German life – society and politics, thefamily, the working class, the peasantry –and in 1987 came the first book for a widerreadership, Death in Hamburg, about acholera epidemic in that city, which won theWolfson Literary Award for History (forwhich he is now a judge). More books onGermany followed and evolved into a majorproject which used the history of capitalpunishment to study the relationship ofauthority and obedience in German societyand politics between 1600 and 1987.

He moved to Birkbeck College, London,in 1989, becoming Vice Master and finallyActing Master for his final year. But heregretted doing no teaching and becoming afull-time manager, which partly promptedhis move to Cambridge and Caius in 1998.

He had met Dr Jo Whaley (1986) andProfessor Vic Gatrell (1967) throughcommon academic interests but had onlybeen to Cambridge as a tourist until NeilMcKendrick invited him to speak to theCaius History Society in the mid-90s. Hehad not been a member of a collegiateuniversity since his undergraduate days, but“people were incredibly welcoming” and heenjoyed meeting colleagues from differentdisciplines. There were those who warnedhim that college life was a snakepit: “But Ispent the first year looking for snakes andcouldn’t find any – people resolved theirdifferences in a very civilised way.”

It was a relief to get back to teachingand he devoted himself to building up agroup of postgraduate students and set upan M.Phil course in modern history. Hismajor research projects take about a decadeto complete: the first examined movementsof emancipation and social reform, includingfeminism and the labour movement inGermany, the second looked at disease inGerman society, then crime and retributionand, at Cambridge, his great work on theThird Reich. The inaugural lecture as RegiusProfessor may well set him off on his nextarea of academic exploration, the differingmutual perceptions that people in Germanyand Britain have of each other.

Richard Evans carries his honours andachievements lightly: he is now “the leadingprofessor in the world’s leading HistoryFaculty” but still finds time to play thepiano and is devoted to his wife and twoyoung sons (who gave a reading of The Owland the Pussycat at their parents’ wedding inCaius Chapel in 2004). He enjoys gardening,cooking and other country pursuits in avillage outside Cambridge.

In short, the new Regius Professoris refreshingly unpretentious andapproachable and a very great credit toour College.

Bundesarchiv,KoblenzU

SHM

M,courtesy of Anonym

ous Donor

United States H

olocaust Mem

orial Musuem

,courtesy of Instytut Pamieci N

arodowej

Bundesarchiv,Koblenz

Tiger tanks in production, summer 1943.

Camp commandant Richard Baer, camp doctor Josef Mengele and former camp commandant Rudolf Hössin relaxed mood at Auschwitz in 1944.

German air force troops round up a group of terrified Jews in the diarist Zygmunt Klukowski’s home townof Szczebrzeszyn.

Three and a half million Red Army prisoners of war died in German captivity, many of them while beingtransported from the front in open goods wagons like this one, photographed at Witebsk railway station on21 September 1941: when winter set in, the wagons became death-traps.

14

Making a successful careeras a musician isnotoriously difficult buta number of fairly recentgraduates from Caius

seem to be doing extraordinarily well at it.Stile Antico, the early music choral ensemble(four of whose eleven members are Caians),and the young composer, Cheryl Frances-Hoad (1998) are fast becoming forces to bereckoned with in music. When they all cameback to Caius recently, I asked them to tellme more about their musical careers to date.

The four current Caian members of StileAntico, Helen Ashby (2000), Eleanor Harries(2001), Andrew Griffiths (1998) and CarrisJones (2000), founded the ensemble, alongwith other Cambridge Choral Scholars, whilethey were still students. Since then they havesecured a recording contract with HarmoniaMundi, performed at major early musicfestivals in the UK and overseas, toured withSting, won prestigious awards for theirrecordings and achieved a Grammynomination for their debut CD Music forCompline.

Cheryl Frances-Hoad has won a plethoraof prizes and commissions. Most recently, herDante-inspired string quartet, My Day in Hell(commissioned for the Dante Quartet), wasperformed at the Cheltenham Festival. A CDof Cheryl’s chamber works will be releasednext year.

Both Cheryl and the singers of StileAntico are quick to acknowledge theimportance of their musical education atCaius. Carris Jones came up with no previouschoral training: for her, “being in the choirchanged everything”. As well as training insight-reading and ensemble singing, the one-time Caius choir members learned theimportance of punctuality: “Geoffrey drilledit into us!” Carris says the approach to earlymusic of Geoffrey Webber (1989), Precentorand Director of Studies in Music, was “veryinfluential on Stile Antico”.

Cheryl Frances-Hoad came to Caiusdetermined to become a full-time composerand studied with Robin Holloway (1967) whoshe says has been “ridiculously supportive” ofher work. Cheryl remembers coming to heradmissions interview at Caius, her portfolioof compositions under her arm, sodetermined to win a place that she did notapply anywhere else. She had been studyingas a cellist and pianist at the Yehudi MenhuinSchool since the age of eight and wasconcerned that she might not be strongenough academically to come to Cambridge.Even today, despite her Triple First, shewonders whether her place at Caius mighthave been due to a clerical error!

Andrew Griffiths, who works as aconductor when not singing with StileAntico, appreciated the many musical

Once a Caian...

&by Sarah Preston

This photograph ofStile Antico rehearsingwith Sting includestwo more Caianfounder members ofthe group, DavidWright (1996), thirdfrom left, and HelenAshby (2000), thirdfrom right.

Further information about Stile Antico, including details of forthcoming concerts, can be found atwww.stileantico.co.uk. Their CDs Music for Compline and Heavenly Harmonies can be ordered from

the website and are also widely available in record shops.

Further details of the work of Cheryl Frances-Hoad can be found at www.cherylfranceshoad.co.uk,including information about her debut CD to be released by Toccata Classics in 2009.

MusicMusic

Ancient

Modern

MusicMusic

AncientAncient

Modern

AncientMusic

Ancient

ModernModernModern

Mick Le M

oignan

15...Always a Caian

Sting’s rock numbers too!They enjoy touring as it gives them

uninterrupted time to work together andimprove their performance. They are lookingforward to their first concerts in the USA inJune 2009 at the Boston Early Music Festivaland are currently working on their third CD.Eleanor confesses that she did not expect toenjoy recording so much but now loves therisk-taking opportunity it provides: “recordingis liberating because you can makemistakes!”

Cheryl, like Stile Antico, has no shortageof work and currently has enoughcommissions and projects to keep her busyfor the next two years. At present she iswriting a piano concerto for performancenext year and is preparing for the recording

of a CD of her chamber works (supported byArts Council East and the RVW Trust). Sheadmits to being a “shameless self-publicist”:a necessary attribute for any youngcomposer who wants to make their workknown and keep the commissions coming.She draws much of her inspiration fromliterature and poetry, often researching textsin the University Library. Work on her songcycle The Glory Tree, which is sung in OldEnglish, involved many hours immersed inAnglo Saxon literature. Spending so muchtime alone composing can sometimes leaveher feeling disconnected, so she takes part ina range of other musical activities, fromsupervising students in ethnomusicology toplaying in a samba band.

She is in some ways a “traditional”composer: she thinks in terms of melody andharmony and is concerned to achieve good,idiomatic part-writing. She is an admirer ofBenjamin Britten for “combining emotion

with complete technical mastery” and sheaspires to do the same. Although shesometimes misses the more intuitive, fluentwriting of her early youth (she won the BBCYoung Composers Competition as a 15-yearold) she now finds that her “intellectualthinking” side is more developed.

Cheryl’s upcoming projects include beingmusician in residence at the CambridgeUniversity Department of Psychiatry andcomposing a psalm setting for the Caiuschoir. The Caius commission is a part of thechoir’s Cambridge Psalms project,culminating in a concert in November 2009as a part of the University’s 800thanniversary celebrations. Six settings havebeen commissioned, each by a Cambridgecomposer, including Alexander Goehr, Judith

Weir and Robin Holloway. This will be thesecond piece which Cheryl has written forthe Caius choir: her first, a setting of theNunc Dimittis, was written while she was anundergraduate and sung by the choir on BBCradio’s Choral Evensong. She still remembersthe pleasure of hearing her compositionperformed by the choir and, in particular, theperfect top C delivered by Cathy Bell (1999).

The early successes of these youngmusicians are the well-deserved results oftheir talent and determination. They alsoshow that the musical education andopportunities provided at the College byRobin Holloway and Geoffrey Webber are anexcellent preparation for the demanding lifeof a professional musician.

opportunities which Cambridge offered. Onre-reading some of his undergraduate diarieshe was astonished to see how many concertshe had managed to squeeze in. For thesingers, the move from student music atCaius to life as a freelance musician inLondon was “almost seamless, a well-wornpath”. Eleanor Harries, a mathematician whostill has a parallel career in accountancy, saysthe transition was greatly eased by beingused to having to fit a huge number ofcommitments into whatever time wasavailable.

The story of Stile Antico’s successfulmove from student to professional ensemblebrings together elements of talent,originality, hard work and luck. They attributemuch of their success to the fact that therehave been few changes in membership sincethe group’s formation. All the singers arevery committed to the ensemble: this isparticularly important since they workwithout a conductor, all contributing equallyto the process of interpretation andperformance, working in much the same wayas a string quartet.

Stile Antico are determined that theworks they sing, largely from the 16th-century, should not be museum pieces“performed behind glass.” They want theaudience to make a direct, emotionalconnection with the music. Workingdemocratically promotes a strongcommitment to the ensemble: “We all ownthe group and therefore we work harder”.They are so committed to the stability of thegroup that if more then two memberscannot make a proposed concert date, theygenerally decline the engagement.

Stile Antico’s prestigious recordingcontract, a rare achievement in the world ofclassical music, came about after theycompeted in the Young Artists’ Competitionat the York Early Music Festival in 2005. Theyhardly had time to draw breath before theyhad their first CD out and a full diary ofconcerts. Serendipitously, they were alsospotted by a concert promoter on the look-out for a backing group for Sting’s Musicfrom the Labyrinth project, in which heperforms lute songs of the 16th-centuryEnglish composer John Dowland.

So began a collaboration with Stingwhich has brought early music to a widerand completely different audience. Last yearthey went on a European tour with him andat the end of November they start a tour ofAustralia and the Far East with a concert atthe Sydney Opera House. In contrast to theirusual work, this project has more of theflavour of a rock tour, involving huge venuesand considerable stage equipment and crew.They have seized the opportunity toexperience another side of music making –and they have now learnt to back some of

Mick Le M

oignan

L to r: Carris Jones (2000), Andrew Griffiths(1998) and Eleanor Harries (2001), all foundermembers of Stile Antico, with composerCheryl Frances-Hoad (1998).

16

Natural history and bird-watching were an escaperoute for me from theconcrete of the Londonsuburbs when I was a child

in the 1950s. Later I became aware, throughmy reading, of the extreme biological richnessof the “Tropical Andes”. At some stage I had amental image of a magical tree somewhere inColombia, festooned with orchids where youcould sit, wait and see 400 species of birdspass by.

This was also the time when concernsbegan to emerge about an impending wave ofspecies extinction. (The first Red Data Bookswere issued by IUCN in the 1960s) I was firmlyconvinced that local scale conservation actionwould be both necessary and effective aswilderness areas steadily vanished.

In 1997, it seemed feasible for me tochange direction and become directly involvedwith endangered species conservation. DavidBrewer (1960), who had been a friend since1955 and a Natural Scientist/chemist byprofession like myself, was able to introduce

me to a distinguished specialist in LatinAmerican ornithology, Dr Robert Ridgely of theAcademy of Natural Sciences, Philadelphia.Robert had spent twenty years researching thebirds of Latin America, and especially ofEcuador – a small but geographicallychallenging country that hosts over 1,600species.

In January 1998 Robert, David and I met inQuito to go on an expedition to a remotemountain in the Andes. We joined Ecuadoreancolleagues to go and study the JocotocoAntpitta, a new bird species which Robert haddiscovered a month earlier. This was the startof our conservation project, the FundaciónJocotoco. Ecuador and Peru were then still

Once a Caian...

Here giant Morpho sulkowski butterflies –sulphur yellow below and powder blue above,float through the trees. Between is a broadband of temperate wet cloud-forest, (thespecial habitat of the Jocotoco and also sixother Antpitta species) containing hundreds ofspecies of epiphytic orchids, ferns andbromeliads. This is where brilliantly colouredtanager and hummingbird species proliferate,and Spectacled Bears and Mountain Tapirssecretly feed.

After ten years of development, theFoundation now has eight habitat reservesalong the west and east slopes of the Andesthroughout Ecuador, at altitudes ranging from200m to 4,000m above sea level. They provide

involved in a border war a few miles furthersouth of us. In September that year the CerroTapichalaca forest reserve was started, toprotect and improve the remaining habitat ofthe Jocotoco – and, perhaps a good omen,Ecuador signed a peace treaty with Peru whilewe were there, ending a dispute which hadlasted about 150 years.

On the Amazon slope of the Andes insouthern Ecuador, you will see one of nature’smost fabulous displays of biological diversity.In the Cerro Tapichalaca reserve it is possibleto walk in three or four hours from treelessparamo grassland at 3,500m on theContinental Divide, with an ‘Alpine’ flora, toluxuriant warm subtropical forest at 1,500m.

Antisana Volcano at sunset, on the edge of the Amazon basin east ofQuito, one of the last redoubts of the Condor in Ecuador. The icecapson Ecuador’s giant volcanoes (Cayambé, Antisana, Cotopaxi,Chimborazo, Sangay) have retreated about 200m in altitudeduring the last 20 years. The Andean Condor is in seriousdecline in Ecuador, with probably only about 30 pairsremaining, mainly in the area of Antisana and Cotopaxi.

SavingSpeciesfrom

Extinction

Franco Mendoza

Nigel Sim

pson

SavingSpeciesfrom

Extinctionby Dr Nigel Simpson (1962)

The Jocotoco Antpitta, a new species discovered in1997. The Jocotoco Foundation was first set up topurchase and preserve the Antpitta’s habitat, nowthe Cerro Tapichalaca Forest Reserve.

Murray Cooper

17...Always a Caian

(restricted range) species of plants, birds,mammals and reptiles. And because of therapidly vanishing habitat, large numbers ofthem are globally threatened species. Analysesconsidering all the continents have shown thatthese factors coincide most dramatically here.The ‘centres of endemism’ tend to be quitefocussed (think of Venn diagrams!) and it is inthese places that medium-sized habitatreserves (about ten square miles) can be veryeffective, where the inevitable humanpressures on land use are high.

Although Tapichalaca was chosen becauseof its bird, more than 30 orchid species arecurrently unique to the mountain. Eight of thefourteen frog species known there areendemic and globally threatened. Surveys inthe eight reserves by the herpetology teamfrom the Quito museum have already foundabout a dozen new frog and reptile species toadd to Ecuador’s huge and rapidly growingspecies count.

Last year David joined me again to meetLou Jost near his home in the Andes onTungurahua volcano. Lou was once atheoretical physicist from Wisconsin, but hasnow transformed into a botanist in Ecuador,and is expert on the more than 4,000 speciesof orchid which have been identified there(the world’s largest orchid flora). In 2005, Lou,with several botanical colleagues from Ecuadorand myself, established Fundación Ecominga, a‘sister’ organisation to Jocotoco. Ecominga hasalready formed three habitat reserves forsome very special endemic plant communities,east of permanently erupting Tungurahua,further down the Andes to Amazon slope. OnCerro Candelaria, Lou found an exceptionalradiation of orchids – about fifteen newspecies in a genus which previously had onlysix species worldwide.

There are hundreds of species still to bediscovered in these forests, but when a lostspecies is rediscovered this can be just asexciting. A Pale-headed Brush-Finch had notbeen seen alive for more than 30 years, and

was thought possibly extinct. Then in 1999Jocotoco Trustee Dr Niels Krabbe after longsearches, found just ten pairs in a valley of thecentral Andes. Fundación Jocotoco purchasedthe fragment of habitat that remained, and thatpopulation with our help has since expandedtenfold to 105 pairs.

In 2005, Lou Jost found an unknownbeautiful flowering vine, a Bomarea on a ridgeon Tapichalaca. After some detective work, withspecial help from another Caian birding friend,Mike Lock (1960) at Kew Herbarium, weidentified it as a species which was collected bya French explorer, Edouard André, in 1876, andhad not been seen alive since.

We try to develop new opportunities forthe local people, to encourage a positiveattitude to protection of the naturalenvironment. Jocotoco now employs about 60people in Ecuador, of whom 25 are ReserveRangers, usually from the families whopreviously owned the land. There are currentlylodges for visitors and research workers at threereserves. A fourth lodge will soon be completed.Local villagers are trained and contracted tosupply food and operating services, therebyproviding a contribution to the local economy.

Habitat restoration is another importantcomponent of the work involving local people.Some of this is funded by companies in the UKwhich have an interest in both conservation andclimate change mitigation. Twenty people arecurrently employed in a reforestationprogramme which should result in a millionnew native trees over the next five years. Thisproject is coordinated over here by the WorldLand Trust, which also supports Jocotoco,Ecominga, and several other conservationprojects in Latin America, with fundraising fromthe general public.

New threats emerge, such as climatechange, and the spreading disease which iskilling neotropical frogs. The rush into biofuels isincreasing carbon release by acceleratingdestruction of tropical forests and grasslands.The national bird of Ecuador, the AndeanCondor, is now reduced to perhaps only 30pairs, but we hope we can influence thisproblem. Ours is the first and probably lasthuman generation in the developed worldwhich has experienced, either directly orthrough the media, the magic of thesewonderful places, and is also aware of thisapproaching wave of species extinction. Wehave a window of opportunity and theresources to help protect at least arepresentative proportion of evolution’sdiversity.

That tree I was once imagining in Colombiahas become a reality instead in neighbouringEcuador. An unexpected bonus for me has beento find myself working again with five oldfriends from London through a commitment,shared with our dedicated colleagues in LatinAmerica, to conservation.

protection for about two-thirds of the 90 or sobird species in mainland Ecuador which areRed Data Book listed. Three more reserves arein the planning stages. Similar organisationswith the same mission have also formed inColombia, northern Peru and Bolivia. These

have established about another twentyhabitat reserves in the Andes and shareexperiences and funding networks.

The ‘Tropical Andes’ from Colombia toBolivia is a special region in urgent need ofconservation. Prof Edward O Wilson in hisclassic book The Diversity of Life, used westernEcuador as his case study of the incipienttragedy of a new and imminent wave ofspecies extinction, caused by the rapidlydominating human footprint on our planet. By1990 less than 10% of the original habitatsurvived, and the remnants were shrinking byup to 5% each year.

This region hosts both a fantastic diversityof species and high concentrations of endemic

Lou Jost

Group on Cerro Tapichalaca (l to r) Javier Robayo, botanist and CE of Ecominga Foundation, RentonRighelato, chair of Trustees of World Land Trust, UK, Nigel Simpson (1962), David Brewer (1960), FranciscoSornoza, ornithologist and CE of Jocotoco Foundation. Renton, Nigel and David met through birding inLondon in the 1950s.

18 Once a Caian...

Lou Jost

A RothschildiaMoth, with clear

panels in itswings. Wingspan

15cm (6 inches!)

2008 has been designated the Year of the Frog, to draw attention to the plight of tropical frogs generally,and especially in Latin America, where populations are declining rapidly, apparently because of a spreadingfungal disease. Fortunately, there is no sign of this in Jocotoco reserves yet. (Clockwise, from top left) 1. The green frog with white spots is the very rare endemic Eleutherodactylus galdi, from CerroTapichalaca. This may be the first living pictures of this species which was previously known only frommuseum specimens. 2. The frog with white feet is a new species of stream frog, Hyloscirtus tapichalaca,discovered in 2001 on Cerro Tapichalaca. Not known from anywhere else. 3. The red frog is the Poisonarrow frog, Dendrobates sylvaticus, which is abundant in the Rio Canandé reserve in the wet and hotlowland NW Ecuador. The poison, used for blow-pipe darts, is concentrated in the skin and originates fromthe diet of the frogs, probably from plants eaten by insects which are the food of the frog. 4. The pale, all-green frog is a new species of ‘Glass frog’ (so-called because they are semi-transparent, with internalorgans visible) discovered on the Buenaventura Reserve in SW Ecuador. Named Cochranella buenaventura,by Mario Yanez-Muñoz, from the National Museum in Quito, who took the picture.

Amethyst-throated Sunangel (larger than life size).

Clouds in the Tapichalaca rainforest.

John Sparks

Mario Yanez-M

uñoz (National M

useum,Q

uito)

Nigel Sim

pson

Fernando Sornoza (Jocotoco Foundation)

Luis Coloma (C

atólica University,Q

uito)

A Golden-hooded Tanager in RioCanandé reserve. One of the 143species of Tanager found inEcuador, many, like this, withbrilliant colours.

Doug W

echsler/VIREO

Close-up of the lip of the rare endemic orchidDracula cordobae at Buenaventura. Dracula orchidflowers imitate mushrooms to attract pollinatingfungus-gnats.

Nigel Simps

on

Mar

tin

Reid

19...Always a Caian

A pair of endangered Golden-plumed Parakeets at theirnest in a Wax Palm on Tapichalaca. Collecting for pets orfor sale and shortage of suitable nest sites are the mainthreats to parrot survival. Jocotoco is part of a group oforganisations which campaigns throughout northernLatin America for a major reduction in the cutting ofwild palms for Palm Sunday.

A male Long-wattled Umbrellabird, in fulldisplay at a lek, an endangered species inBuenaventura reserve.

Murray C

ooper

Martin Reid

The flowering vine, Bomarea longipes on a ridge of Cerro Tapichalaca. This species was unknown after itsdiscovery in 1876 and identified by comparison with a specimen held at Kew Gardens. (See text.) Inset isthe interior detail of the flower.

Both photos:Lou JostFrancisco Sornoza

Nigel Sim

pson

A Northern Ghost Bat photographed in a beach huton the coast of Ecuador, where a new JocotocoFoundation reserve for anendangered hummingbird is inthe planning stages. Ghost Batsare scarce but widely distributedacross Central America and theNorthern part of SouthAmerica.

A Caligo, or Owl butterfly, a large crepuscularspecies, in the Choco forest at Canandé.

Tarantula withan elegant blue-violetcolouration.

The large beautiful flower of a new tree species(Blakea sp nov) just discovered in the EcomingaCerro Candelaria botanical reserve. It is hoped thatwhen described it will be named for Sir DavidAttenborough.

Lou Jost

A pair of Pale-headed Brush-Finches at nest, one of 16 bird species which BirdLife International (HQ inCambridge) recently decided had been saved from extinction by human intervention.

Fernando Sornoza

Nigel Sim

pson

20

Fresh eyes can sometimes help usto see the familiar in a new light.This was certainly the case whenDr Richard Gibbens (1980), Fellowand College Lecturer in

Mathematics and Computer Science, invitedDr Frank King of Churchill College, theUniversity Bellringer and a well-knownauthority on sundials, to visit the College.

The six sundials around the towersurmounting the Gate of Honour are aregular attraction on Dr King’s Guided Walksaround the sundials of Cambridge, so theynaturally provided the first focus of attention.Magnificent they are, and possibly even usefulin terms of telling the time, at least to apasser-by in Senate House Passage, shortlybefore or after midday, on one of thoseincreasingly rare days when the sun shines. Tothe inhabitants of Caius Court, however, theyhave been mainly decorative for over fourhundred years.

The Gate of Honour was completed in1575, two years after the death of Dr JohnCaius (1519) but according to ProfessorChristopher Brooke (1945) in his History ofGonville & Caius College: “There is no doubtthat the Gate of Honour represents in almostevery detail his (Caius’) conception, even ifthe relative shares of the founder and thearchitect can never be precisely determined.”The architect was Theodore Haveus of Cleves,who oversaw the construction of Caius’ tombin the Chapel and probably most of CaiusCourt as well.

Indeed, Haveus himself became abenefactor to the College in 1576, when hepresented an extraordinary stone monument,set just off-centre in Caius Court, which morethan compensated for the rather

made a discovery: there, on the wall overChapel Arch, was a sundial which quiteoutshone those on the tower of the Gate ofHonour. Moreover, it enjoyed the distinctadvantage, for a sundial, of facing south andtherefore had a sporting chance of registeringthe time of day, if the sun should happen tobe shining on it.

Christopher Brooke’s History wasconsulted at once, but no mention was foundof the Chapel sundial. We dared to wonder ifit might have passed beyond the ken of anyliving Fellow. Dr King was not surprised: it hadseemed to him inconceivable that twosundial devotees like Caius and Haveusshould miss the opportunity to place thegreatest of their sundials on Caius Court’ssouth-facing wall.

He later discovered a reference to it inWillis and Clark’s 3-volume The ArchitecturalHistory of the University of Cambridge and ofthe Colleges of Cambridge and Eton, 3 vols. +vol of maps (Cambridge UP 1886), alsoquoted in The Caian Vol. LVI no. 2 1960:

“In 1625 Russel, the painter, was paid‘for gilding and working ye great mural dial£4; for gilding and working the six dialls overHon. Gate £3.”

Dr King observes: “I assume ye greatmural dial is the one over the Chapel Arch.Given that Russel was paid more forattending to this dial than to all the six diallsover Hon. Gate together we may guess that itwas either a really substantial dial or that itwas in much worse condition!”

On examining Loggan’s drawing of theChapel Arch sundial, he noted: “Theasymmetry in the hour-lines suggest a dialthat faces about 8 degrees east of due south.I think the wall flanking Senate House

Once a Caian...

uninformative north-facing sundials atop theGate of Honour on the Caius Court side. Itwas, according to Professor Brooke (ibid) an“elaborate, fantastical column with 60sundials”, with a weathervane in the shape ofPegasus on the top. No excuse, then, for thestudents of the day not arriving punctuallyfor their supervisions!

As far as we know, no image survives ofthe 60 sundials, which were arranged withmathematical precision in a hexecontahedron(sixty-sided figure). Pegasus and the sundialssurvived until at least 1625, since there is anentry in the Bursar’s Book for that year forgilding and repairing them, but by 1690 theywere gone: the celebrated etching of theCollege by David Loggan, dated 1690, showsclearly just the central column and the baseon which the great globe of thehexecontahedron must have stood. With luck,the many historians and mathematicians ofthe College will hypothesise further aboutthis spectacular structure in a future issue!

I must admit that I failed to grasp why 60sundials should be preferable to one, but DrKing seemed delighted to have discovered thesite of such a monument to sundial excess.He was, however, still not satisfied andargued that there must have been anothersundial, a much bigger one, somewhere onthe side of the Chapel. We inspected the ivy-clad walls, noted the comparatively modernclock and belltower, shook our headsregretfully and went in to lunch.

Professor Anthony Edwards (1968), an oldfriend of Frank King’s, decided to do a littleresearch of his own and returned beamingtriumphantly. He had enlarged a small portionof the Loggan print, (which each of us musthave looked at hundreds of times) and had

Anthony Edwards’ magnifying glass revealed animportant (but often overlooked) detail in Loggan’s1690 engraving.

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21...Always a Caian

Passage faces a degree or two east of duesouth and the Chapel inclines a little morethan that wall so Loggan has the gist of itcorrect.”

The first half of the inscription on thesundial reads “IOTA VITA” (or possibly “TOTAVITA”) but the second half is not legible. DrKing was at first puzzled by the “squiggles” onthe face, but any Caian will recognize them atonce as the snakes on Dr Caius’ coat of arms.

The Chapel itself has been renovated andaltered in every century of the College’sexistence. One of Dr Caius’ favourite“pepperpot towers” caps the medieval (1430)turret rising from the second buttress fromthe right in Loggan. In a print by J Harraden,dated c.1800, the tower has disappeared, ashave the great sundial and the dormerwindows, the shape of the main windows haschanged and an apparent top storey has beenadded (but with two false or blockedwindows on the right). Today, probably sincethe alterations of c.1870, a less elegant towersurmounts the third buttress and carries alarge bell to summon the faithful (orrecalcitrant!). It is a matter of taste, but manywill prefer the simplicity of the earlier design.

As Christopher Brooke pointed out (ibid ),the only one of Dr Caius’ statutes that hasbeen wholly and consistently obeyed is theone that prohibits the construction of anybuilding on the north side of Caius Court “lestthe air, being prevented from free movement,should be corrupted, and so do harm to us...and bring on us sickness and death.”

And, Caius might have added, lest itshould prevent the sunlight from striking themagnificent sundial on the Chapel Wall,which surely awaits a latter-day TheodoreHaveus to restore it to its former glory!

The Loggan engraving of 1690 shows both the great sundial over Chapel Arch and, in the foreground,remnants of the Pegasus-topped sundial given to the College by Haveus.

Theodore Haveus of Cleves, Dr Caius’ architect anda College benefactor in his own right.

The sundial on the south face of the Gate of Honour at 0749 GMT.

Above: Harraden’s print shows the eighteenthcentury alterations to the Chapel. No sign ofany sundials!

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22

David Abulafia’s new book, TheDiscovery of Mankind: AtlanticEncounters in the Age ofColumbus, engages directlywith original eye-witness

accounts of the Old World discovering theNew World. Reaching behind post-colonialand post-modern debates, Abulafia recreatesthe bafflement of Christendom coming toterms with lands more crowded andculturally diverse than previously imagined.The story he tells is alive with a sense ofadventure, danger and intellectual challenge.

Abulafia shows how the rediscovery ofthe Canary Islands (known as the InsulaeFortunatae in classical times) influenced laterdiscoveries in the Atlantic. He draws onnarrative accounts and archaeologicalevidence to build a picture of the Canariesand their inhabitants, arguing that,“Remarkably, a ‘Stone Age’ society can beobserved in the round, in a way that is notpossible for the builders of Stonehenge orthe founders of Jericho.” This meetingbetween late medieval European culture andthe Neolithic fascinates him and he conveyshis enthusiasm in lucid and engaging prose.

Columbus set off from the Canaries in1492. Abulafia’s Columbus “was learned, buthe was also self-taught; the story that hestudied at the University of Pavia can bediscounted, as can tales of his noblepedigree. It can easily be proved that he wasthe son of a Genoese weaver. He was not aJew.” Columbus came to see himself as “thebearer of Christ” (Christophoros), “God’sdove” (colomba), a protagonist in God’s planfor the conversion of the New World.Abulafia places Columbus in context, raisingquestions about the travel books he read and

Mediterranean. Throughout his career,Abulafia has explored the expression andnegotiation of cultural difference (he traceshis own ancestry back to a very oldSephardic family that left Spain for Galileearound 1492.) He became interested in thefact that Spanish encounters with indigenouspeoples in the Atlantic and Caribbean cameat a time when Christian hegemony was atits highest in Europe. While he had alreadywritten a best-selling biography, Frederick II:A Medieval Emperor (1988), Abulafia was notinclined to write a biography of Columbus. Itwas the wider themes of imaginative andintellectual difference that attracted him.

In the course of his research for TheDiscovery of Mankind, Abulafia was excited todiscover a rare Latin version of one of MarcoPolo’s manuscripts in the Caius LowerLibrary. (As Fellow Librarian, he is passionateabout the Caius Library and responsible forrecent exhibitions of manuscripts that havebrought undergraduates, graduates andfellows to appreciate better the extent of theacademic resources at the heart of theCollege.) Other research took him furtherfrom home to Madrid and the Azores. Theresulting book has already been much notedand praised in reviews. J.H. Elliot in theLondon Review of Books said: “readers willfind themselves carried smoothly over thewaters of the Atlantic in the wake of theearly European voyagers and settlers, who alltoo often experienced rough crossings orperished in the storms.” You could not ask fora travelling companion more genial, judiciousor better informed than Abulafia.The Discovery of Mankind is published byYale University Press at £25 and $35 (or$23 from Amazon USA).

Once a Caian...

the wider sources of his ideas and mappingthe development of his faith, manifest in agrowing tendency to interpret tribulationsand set-backs as tests from God.

Cannibalism attracts much attention inthis period of history. Instead of revelling ingory detail, Abulafia scrupulously raisesdoubts as to whether eye-witness accountscan be taken at face value. DiscussingColumbus’ visit to “the Cannibals” inNovember 1493, he draws on the memoirs ofa physician from Seville, Diego ÁlvarezChanca. On Guadeloupe, Columbus’ menfound an abandoned village: “Chanca saidthat they saw cotton, some spun and someready for spinning, in the houses. But as theyexplored, the captain and his men also foundmore sinister evidence, ‘four or five bones ofthe arms and legs of men’... Were these thebones of ancestors hung up in the huts ofthe Indians, as was traditional among theTaínos, or were these the remains of afeast?” Abulafia is interested not in passingmoral judgement on the practice ofcannibalism, but in understanding howColumbus and his men began to divide theIndians they encountered into “good andbad”. He is meticulously attentive to theways in which “Columbus oscillated betweendifferent ideas of how to treat the peopleshe had discovered”; and to how thoseoscillations and ideas moulded the fate ofthe indigenous peoples.

Abulafia is Professor of MediterraneanHistory and has been a Fellow of Caius sincehe was elected to a Research Fellowship in1974. He links the inspiration behind his newbook to his work as an economic historian,which led him to investigate relationsbetween different ethnic groups in the

By Professor David Abulafia (1974)Reviewed by Dr Ruth Scurr (2006)

Dan W

hite

The Discoveryof Mankind

23...Always a Caian

The Ismailisby Farhad Daftary and Zulfikar Hirji (1996)

Appropriately, in an issuecelebrating the remarkablecontribution of Dr NigelSimpson (1962) to preservingrare birds and other species on

the other side of the planet, we are pleasedto draw readers’ attention to the publicationof the latest book by Stephen Moss (1979),which is about birds much closer to home.

Stephen is a producer, writer andnaturalist based at the BBC’s Natural HistoryUnit in Bristol. A lifelong birder (Note: thismore p.c. term appears to have replaced theslightly ambiguous “birdfancier”) he moved

possible to derive immense enjoyment frombirds in the course of everyday life, mowingthe lawn or taking the kids to the park.Knowledge makes all the difference, ofcourse, in that it is much more rewarding tobe able to identify the birds one comesacross, but it is essentially a matter ofadjusting one’s internal focus to appreciate awonder that is all around us.

This would make an ideal Christmaspresent for anyone who has ever felt apassing interest in ornithology: it is nosubstitute for more lavishly illustrated,encyclopaedic books on bird identification,but it goes to the heart of the matter, inexplaining just why birders get suchenormous pleasure from the birds they seeand hear.A Sky Full of Starlings by Stephen Moss,published by Aurum Press, £12.99.

with his young family, a couple of years ago,to the Somerset Levels, where, he says, hefully intends to spend the rest of his life. Tocelebrate, he kept a diary for the whole of2007, in which he recorded every bird heencountered throughout the year.

The information on the various speciesseen is absorbing: a stream of anecdotes andobservations spin off from the mainnarrative, as birds fly in and out of view, butthe core and heart of the book is the way itreveals how Stephen’s interest in birdsinfluences and enhances every day of hislife. He writes in the Prologue:

“In recent years I have come to realizethat birdwatching is not something you ‘goout and do’, but something you are.”

It is a wonderful thing to travel acrossthe world, perhaps to look at birds that fewother human beings have ever seen, but it is

A Sky Fullof Starlingsby Stephen Moss (1979)

Islamic studies today have a fargreater global relevance than mostof us would have guessed, ten yearsago. Now that the Western mediatend to demonise Islam and

characterize aspects of it as brutal andrepressive, it is refreshing to read a bookthat emphasises the nobility and ethicalvalues of an Islamic community.

The Ismailis by Dr Farhad Daftary andProfessor Zulfikar Hirji (1996) is abeautifully illustrated, lucid and scholarlyaccount of the 1,400-year history, cultureand beliefs of the Ismailis. A culture withouta permanent geographical base needs to beextraordinarily resilient and resourceful, tosurvive so long. The Ismailis are Shi’aMuslims who trace their origins back to theProphet’s daughter, Fatima, and his son-in-law and cousin, Imam ‘Ali.

In a series of brilliant vignettes, Daftaryand Hirji trace the Ismailis’ development,from the early life of the ProphetMuhammed, through their dispersal bystages throughout Asia, Africa and parts of

countries, to preserve and support his people’sculture and their intellectual and ethicalachievements and to ensure a continuingdialogue with the wider global community.

The clear message of this magnificent andvery readable book is that in the long andremarkable history of the Ismailis, there aremany chapters still to come.The Ismailis is published by Azimuth Editionsand the Institute for Ismaili Studies,distributed by Thames & Hudson, £39.00.

Europe to thepresent, when theybelong to manynations but unite asa pluralistic, tolerantcommunity, underthe wise leadership of their 49th Imam,His Highness Prince Karim al-Husayni,Aga Khan IV, who succeeded hisgrandfather in 1957. Theirinternationalism has been theirgreatest strength, typified by the workof the previous Imam, Aga Khan III, as aprominent advocate for world peace, notablyas President of the League of Nations.

At times in their complex history, theIsmailis have founded states and cities(including Cairo), contributed to Islamicscholarship and been patrons of learning andthe arts, but they have also been apersecuted religious minority, fortunate tosurvive such cataclysms as the Mongolinvasion and the Crusades. The present AgaKhan founded the Ismaili Institute in Londonand many other institutions in different

24

The oldest and most prestigiousof British academies is theRoyal Society, founded in 1660primarily for the promotion ofthe Natural Sciences. When in

the nineteenth century the great continentalacademies, such as the Bavarian Academy ofSciences, were opening their doors to thehumane and social sciences, leading Englishacademics in these fields proposed to theRoyal Society that it should follow suit.

In the heyday of the prestige of theNatural Sciences, the Royal Society rejectedthe proposal; and in 1902 the BritishAcademy was granted a royal charter. Itspurposes are defined as ‘the promotion ofthe study of the humanities and socialsciences’.

Election is for distinction in research andthe promotion of research. “Only one or twoscholars a year are elected in most fields,even though there may be several hundredactive in the field in question. The electoralprocess is exacting and rigorous.” 1 TheAcademy also supports numerous researchprojects, research fellows and overseasinstitutes.

The division between the two academieshas become somewhat arbitrary asdisciplines have increasingly overlapped.When our own Joseph Needham (1918) –

Once a Caian...

long an FRS – was also elected FBA in 1971for his work as a historian of Chinese science,he was an extreme rarity. The combination ofhonours will become less rare as the BritishAcademy extends its fellowship furtheramong the social sciences. In the modernacademic world the distinction seemssomewhat less clear – though it may beconvenient to have two academies, sinceneither is inordinately large. But it seems tobe the case that although both academieshave increased in size in recent years, theacademic constituencies they represent havegrown much faster, so that they are hard putto it now to claim to be truly representativeof British academic life.

This said, it is remarkable that there areten Fellows of the Royal Society and seven ofthe British Academy in the Caius fellowship –well above the numbers in most colleges, butno matter for vainglory, since Trinity hasmore than twice the number in both and StJohn’s has more FBAs than Caius.

The British Academy’s volume ofobituaries for 2007 sadly recorded the deathof three Caian FBAs, our former Master, SirWilliam Wade (1936), our former SeniorFellow, Professor Philip Grierson (1929), andthe Reverend Professor William Frend (1952).

Sir William Wade, whom many will recallas a Master of genial dignity, was an

BritishAcademy

and theDr Richard Duncan-Jones (1963)

Professor David Trotter (1969)

Professor Richard Evans (1998)

Professor Edward Timms (1956)

by Christopher Brooke (1945) and Mick Le Moignan (2004)

CaiusProfessor Christopher Brooke (1945)

Mark M

niszko,Cam

bridge Design Studio

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exceptionally gifted lawyer, who after anapprenticeship in real property devised (ineffect) a new kind of law, administrative law,which he attempted to teach to Britishlawyers, while providing some other parts ofthe globe with new constitutions.

The Academy memoir of Philip Griersondescribes him as ‘the foremost medievalnumismatist of our time, or indeed perhapsof any time’ 2 – but also portrays the muchadmired and much loved resident Fellow ofCaius, whose collection of coins wasbalanced by his somewhat lessdiscriminating collection of ‘movies’ featuring‘such luminaries as Sylvester Stallone, JackieChan, Steven Seagal and ArnoldSchwarzenegger’. 3

William Frend was on a large scale: aman of large books, of massive learning,copiously adorned with novel insights andsurprising errors; a man with a large ego, buta good friend and a generous benefactor –both to the College to which he bequeathedhis library and to the Society of Antiquariesof London for which he founded the FrendMedal for the study of Christian archaeology.

To fill their places, the Academy electedthree Caians in 2007: one ex-Fellow,Professor Mark Armstrong (1992) ofUniversity College London, and two Fellows,Professor Richard Smith (1989) and Professor

25...Always a Caian

Director of Studies in Economics.Professorships at Bristol and Warwick followedand he returned to Caius and CambridgeUniversity in 2005 and was appointedProfessor of Econometric Theory and EconomicStatistics.

Mark Armstrong read Maths at Queens’College, Cambridge and Economics at St John’sCollege, Oxford, before coming to Caius asSupernumerary Fellow in 1992. He is amicroeconomic theorist who works on theeconomics of information, competition andregulation. Following appointments atSouthampton and Nuffield College, Oxford, hewas appointed Professor of Economics at UCLin 2003.

In the current Fellowship of Caius, Binskiand Smith have joined five others: ProfessorChristopher Brooke (1945) (FBA 1970),Dr Richard Duncan-Jones (1963) (FBA 1992),Professor Richard Evans (1998) (FBA 1993),Professor David Trotter (2002) (FBA 2004), andProfessor Edward Timms (1956) (FBA 2006).

Notes1 From the British Academy website2 Lord Stewartby in C. Brooke and Lord

Stewartby, ‘Philip Grierson’, Proceedingsof the British Academy, 150 (2007), 79-104,at p. 92

3 Grant Tapsell, quoted ibid. pp. 84-5.

Paul Binski (1975). Their fields illustrate therange of disciplines the Academy fosters:Armstrong and Smith are eminenteconomists, Binski a leading art historian.

Paul Binski brought training both inhistory and art history to the study ofmedieval art and architecture. In the currentcliché, much of his work is “inter-disciplinary”; but it would be nearer the truthto say that he has trampled on the boundaryand brought new life to Gothic art andGothic cathedrals – and to WestminsterAbbey, above all. He was undergraduate,research student and Research Fellow atCaius in the late 1970s and 80s, then studiedand taught in Princeton, Yale andManchester, returning to Cambridge and toCaius in 1996 – as University Lecturer, thenReader, now Professor of the History ofMedieval Art.

Richard Smith is a graduate of ChurchillCollege, Cambridge, who has contributed tomany fields of econometrics andeconometric theory. His work has enabledmore accurate and reliable inferences abouteconomic magnitudes, and so has improvedthe information available to policy makersand shed new light on economic behaviourand outcomes. After lecturing at theUniversity of Manchester, he first came toCaius from 1989 to 1995 as a Fellow and

Margaret Sm

ith

Three Caian Fellowsof the British

Academy (l to r)Professor Paul Binski

(1975), ProfessorRichard Smith (1989)

and Professor MarkArmstrong (1992).

Professor Philip Grierson (1929) Professor Sir William Wade (1936) The Reverend Professor William Frend (1952)

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26 Once a Caian...

CaiusConnections

Science

by Dr John Hardwick(1969)

Discovery of theneutron in 1933In the early days of nuclear physics,polonium was a useful source of alpharadiation. The Joliot Curies found thatwhen beryllium was irradiated with alphaparticles, it emitted a very penetratingradiation, which passed easily throughlead, so was electrically neutral. Theyguessed it was energetic gammaradiation. James Chadwick (1919) thoughtit might be the elusive neutron that somephysicists believed must be inside thenucleus to stop the electrostatic repulsionbetween the protons pulling it apart.Chadwick’s colleague, Norman Featherobtained some polonium and they set towork, bombarding beryllium and otherelements and measuring the velocities ofthe recoiling atoms.

The experiment was like an unusualgame of snooker. Imagine a special set ofcoloured balls with different weightsrepresenting different atomic nuclei. If theblue ball is 31/2 times heavier than the redball, they have the relative weights ofnitrogen and helium nuclei (alphaparticles). If the white cue ball representsthe neutron, then the speed and hencedistance the different colours move afterbeing struck by the white will depend onits weight. Chadwick found that the whitewould need to be just over a quarter ofthe weight of the red ball, a bit heavierthan a proton, to simulate his results. TheJoliot Curies’ conjecture that thepenetrating radiation was a gamma raywould have been like using a ping-pongball for the white. That would have been avery different game; a new sub-atomicparticle, the neutron, was required.Chadwick received the Nobel Prize in1935 for the discovery.

The Chadwick window in Caius Hallshows Feather’s later experiments withinelastic neutron collisions wherethe target nucleus fragmentsinto other elements. The alphaparticle (red arrow) strikes theberyllium (orange ball), creatinga neutron (dotted blue line)and a recoiling carbon nucleus(black arrow). The neutronhits the nitrogen (blue ball)which absorbs it and thensplits into another alphaparticle (red) and recoilingboron nucleus (green).Detecting neutrons helpsto prove a reaction is ahigh energy nuclearprocess, not a lowerenergy chemical one.

Trying to write brief histories haspitfalls for the unwary. Bybrowsing through back issues ofThe Caian and internet pages,Rick Field (1969) and I wrote an

article on mountaineering (The Caian, 2003)but omitted the well-known doctor, artist andclimber, T. Howard Somervell(1909). One can be aware ofpeople of renown withoutknowing that they are Caians!

As I work on protectingaircraft against lightning strikes,I was familiar with thepioneering photographic studiesof lightning made by Sir BasilSchönland (1914) but I onlyrealised he was a Caian whenI saw the commemorativeSouth African stamp in TheCaian.

T E Allibone (1926),amateur philatelist,collaborator and puntingcompanion of Schönland would havebeen delighted with the 1991 stampcommemorating his friend. Allibone, whohimself contributed profoundly to theunderstanding of the physics of long electricsparks, noted in his Royal Society memoir “Inthe long list of scientists who havecontributed to our knowledge of lightning,

Basil Schönland’s name willstand forth for ever”.

Schönland was aSouth African who came toCaius to read Maths. Heserved as a Royal Engineerin the War but came back toCambridge in 1919, readNatural Sciences for Part IIand won the Schuldman Plate.By 1930, he was a Fellow of

in

like taking a photo while moving the camera. Ifthe camera movement perpendicular to thedirection of the subject’s motion is fastenough, the trace of a moving subject acrossthe film allows its speed to be measured.

Boys had not succeeded in taking anydecent photos in the UK butSchönland, using a similar camerain South Africa, with a dedicatedteam that would chase stormsduring the night, was able toresolve the different phasesof the strike. What happensis that so-called “steppedleaders” start from thecloud and jump down to theground in steps of about50m every 50 millionths of asecond, branching as they do so.

the University of Cape Town.Because of the frequent violent storms in

South Africa, there was considerable interest inresearch on lightning and how to mitigate itseffects. Little was known about what takesplace during a lightning strike. Sir Charles Boysmade a camera with pair of rotating lenses tostudy the phenomenon. The image obtained is

A South African stampissued in 1991 commemorates Sir Basil Schönland(1915). To the right of the portrait is a cloud toground lightning flash.

The window in Caius Hallcommemorates the discovery bySir James Chadwick (1930) of theneutron, which led to the splitting ofthe atom.

Derek Ingram

Used w

ith the permission of the South African Post O

ffice

When one of the branches reaches the ground,a large current front moves up the leaderchannel to the cloud much faster than thedownward leader and discharges all thebranches, brightly illuminating them in theprocess.

In 1958, Schönland was appointed directorof Harwell, the research centre of the UK’sAtomic Energy Authority, and was involved inits nuclear programmes. Since the 1950s therehave been many attempts to obtain controllednuclear fusion as a source of cleanenergy. At Harwell, Schönland reportedon the progress of the Zeta nuclearfusion experiment. Zeta made theheadlines in 1958, when plasma ofheavy hydrogen was heated andneutrons were detected. However,subsequent investigations showed thatthey were not neutrons generated bythermonuclear fusion.

Follow-on experiments required largeinvestments and industrial-scaleengineering and a separate laboratory wasset up nearby at Culham as a centre forfusion research. Had he lived, I thinkSchönland would have been pleased that,because of the electrical technologyinvolved in fusion research, CulhamLightning was set up in 1976 to simulatelightning to study its effect on aircraft.

In 1989 there was considerableexcitement at Culham when Pons andFleishman in the USA reported heatproduction and the emission of neutronsfrom a cheap table-top experiment that useda palladium cathode to electrolyse heavywater. Palladium is a remarkable metal: it canabsorb some 900 times its own volume ofhydrogen. It was claimed that within themetallic lattice of the palladium, the heavyhydrogen nuclei could come close enough tofuse together, but the experiments wereflawed and no neutrons were actuallyproduced.

Palladium was discovered by William HydeWollaston (1781) who was only 15 when hecame to Caius on a Tancred Scholarship toread Medicine, became a Fellow at 21 andremained so for the rest of his life. Hepractised “physic” only briefly but devoted

himself to science, winning the CopleyMedal in 1804 and becoming

President of the Royal Society in1820. He made many

presentations to the Royal

27...Always a Caian

radio pulses from a narrow angular source,about once a second. Further investigationsshowed they were natural and came from astar (CP1919), the first “pulsar” ever observed,composed predominantly of neutrons. Hewishreceived the Nobel Prize in 1974.

Remarkably, in 1934, soon after thediscovery of the neutron, the existence ofneutron stars had been suggested byastrophysicists, but no-one thought they couldbe observed. As the thermonuclear fire of astar burns out, the thermally generatedpressure falls and cannot prevent the starcollapsing from gravity. As it collapses, itbegins to spin more rapidly, just as a skater’sspin speeds up when his/her arms are pulled in.

The collapse follows several distinctphases. If you get on a bus, no way will you siton a seat next to someone if other emptyseats are available. Only when each row has aperson sitting on it will you deign to sit next toone of them. Electrons, protons and neutronsare like that; they don’t like being closetogether. This anti-social behaviour creates apressure that limits the collapse. For massivestars, the electrons and protons are squeezedtogether into neutrons, so that eventually acompact star of the same phenomenal densityas an atomic nucleus remains. The small sizeand rapid spin also result in very strongmagnetic fields and the associatedelectrodynamics cause radio waves to beemitted along the magnetic axis of the star. Ifthis is orientated towards the earth, we seetwo flashes of radio waves each rotation; thismechanism gives the regular periodicity. Foreven heavier stars there is no known physics toprevent the collapse to a singularity: these arethe black holes of “A Brief History of Time” byStephen Hawking (1965).

What a web of connections: and what acontribution to scientific understanding, fromone fairly small College.

John Hardwick (1969) studied Natural Sciences atCaius and took a PhD in High Energy Physics atLiverpool. As a Research Associate at RutherfordLab., UK and NIKHEF-H, Holland, he spent eightyears working on experiments at the Super ProtonSynchrotron, CERN, Geneva before returning to theUK in 1983 to join Culham Lightning.

Society on wide-ranging topics includingbotany, physiology and optics as well aschemistry and physics.

As a metallurgist, he helped to initiate theplatinum industry, making a pure, malleableform of platinum from the powder extractedfrom ore. Ore of platina was dissolved in aquaregia and the platinum was precipitated byadding an ammonium chloride solution. It wasby studying the waste solutions from

this process that he discovered the elementspalladium and rhodium.

Later, he found an optimum procedure toproduce palladium directly from the aquaregia solution of the ore. The discovery wascontroversial: Wollaston advertised palladiumas a new element for sale rather thanpublishing his discovery. The entire stock waspurchased by the chemist Richard Chenevixwho, thinking the advertisement was afraudulent claim, tried without success toshow that it was not elemental. Wollastonfinally published the discovery in 1805. Hemade a considerable fortune from his work onplatinum and left a bequest to the GeologicalSociety of London to award the WollastonMedal each year, appropriately struck inpalladium. The Wollaston Scholarships atCaius, also commemorate him and curiously,both Allibone and Sir James Chadwick (1919)benefited from them.

To finish this brief essay, we go toastronomy. Professor Tony Hewish (1942) hadinstalled a large radio telescope at Cambridgeto study scintillation effects of inter-planetarydust on distant radio sources. The telescopecame on line in 1967 and his research studentJocelyn Bell noticed some regularly repeated

The Wollaston medal,commemorating WilliamHyde Wollaston (1787), isthe highest honour awardedby the Geological Society of

London. The medal wasoriginally made of palladium,

an element discovered byWollaston.

A composite picture of the first hundred

pulses from CP1919, the first pulsar, taken

from the Cambridge Encyclopedia of

Astronomy, 1977. A negative image of this was

used on the album cover of Joy Division’s

“Unknown Pleasures”.

Image from

THE C

AMBRID

GE EN

CYC

LOPAED

IA OF ASTRO

NO

MY, edited by Sim

on Mitton, published by Jonathan C

ape.

Reprinted by permission of the Random

House G

roup Ltd

28

One of the strengths of thecollege system is that donswho spend their working daysin different specialiseddepartments are drawn

together at dinner. One of the present authorsis a social anthropologist who carries out herfieldwork in the interior of Borneo. The other isan experimental psychologist, and has the rolein Caius of ‘Auditor of Plate’.

So it was inevitable that we should findourselves at dinner one evening discussing anobject that is something of an anomaly in theCollege’s collection of silver. Perhaps it onceserved the Fellows as a cigarette box. In theSilver Catalogue (item 88.4) it is described inbare terms: ‘Brass box. Eastern. Lined withwood. Inscr. C. S. Myers’. It is in fact a noblepiece of craftsmanship – and we believe thatits origins are more interesting than theCatalogue would suggest. Formed of brass butwith silver inlay, it is intricately chased withscrollwork. Inside, it is lined with wood. A Latininscription has been added: ‘IN INSVLABORNEO JVXTA FINES KAIANORVMREPERTVM’. But on this the SilverCatalogue is silent.

How did this mysterious box enterthe College’s collection? A secondinscription records that it was given toCaius in 1901. The donor, CharlesMyers was an old member of theCollege who had matriculated in 1891. In1898, at the age of 25, having just completedhis medical degree at Barts, Myers joined amultidisciplinary team of scientists on theground-breaking Cambridge UniversityExpedition to the Torres Strait. Ledby eminent natural scientist andethnologist Alfred Cort Haddon,the expedition undertook anunprecedentedly exhaustiveanthropological survey of the TorresStrait, covering the fields of ethnology,linguistics, psychology, physical anthropologyand ethnomusicology, among others. A skilledmusician, Myers concentrated on studying theIslanders’ auditory reactions and recordingtheir music.

The Torres Strait Expedition lasted forseven months and became a landmark inBritish anthropology. A less well-known fact isthat five of its members, including Myers,spent several months on the island of Borneoon their way back to England between 1898and 1899. Haddon and his team had beeninvited to Sarawak – then ruled by a privatedynasty of ‘White Rajahs’ (1841-1946) – at theinvitation of Charles Hose, Resident of theBaram District. Hose was a keen naturalist,ethnologist, collector and writer, and appearsto have been eager to cultivate his academiccredentials and connections through this visit.Unsurprisingly, he was an attentive host,bringing ‘native’ persons and artefacts to his

In 1901 no Fellow of Caius would havemissed the happy identification of Caians andKayans that Myers was offering; but just incase, the donorship inscription reads: C. S.MYERS CAIANVS IPSE D. D. A.D. MDCCCCI, or‘C. S. Myers, himself a Caian, gave this as a giftin 1901’.

The Kayan are one of the dominant ethnicgroups of central Borneo, encompassingseveral territorially-defined sub-groups withintheir population. At the time of theExpedition’s visit, they lived in large, sturdylonghouse-based communities, cultivating riceand trading jungle produce and commoditieswith Malays, Chinese and other groups atriverine bazaars. Like most of their neighbours,they formed what European observers called‘stratified’ societies marked by stronglyhierarchical political and social structures.Central to this social system was warfare; liketheir Kenyah neighbours, the Kayan wereknown for their elaborate tattoos, ornate

Once a Caian...

residency in Marudi (Claudetown) for theExpedition members to study. He also took hisguests on guided tours up the great BaramRiver and its tributaries, visiting several villagesalong the way. It was on this trip that Myersmet the people known as the Kayan.

It is to these people that the inscription onthe box must allude. IN INSVLA BORNEOJVXTA FINES KAIANORVM REPERTVM:‘Obtained on the Island of Borneo, close to theterritory of the Kayans’. For any true Caian,that genitive plural – Kaianorum – willresonate. It occurs in one other place: therefrain of the Carmen Caianum, composed byBenjamin Drury (President 1868-75) and set tomusic by Charles Wood (1889) during the veryperiod when Charles Myers was anundergraduate:

Laudem ex amoreDignam fundatoreCaianorum moreUno demus ore

Kayans 1899. The assembled chiefs and participants at the Marudi peace conference between feudingKenyah, Kayan and other groups in the Baram area of Borneo. The gathering was organised by Hose, andattended by the Torres Strait Expedition members in 1899.

Caian Cousins

The Borneo Box givento the College by

Charles Myers(1891).

University of C

ambridge M

useum of Archaeology and Anthropology

29...Always a Caian

scroll motifs suggest that it wasprobably produced by Malaycraftspeople along the Bornean coast orin Brunei, and acquired by groups in theinterior through trade. Similar boxes arefound across maritime Southeast Asia,where they generally contain cigarettes orthe mildly narcotic betel nut, the chewingof which is an important social activitythroughout the region. Such items would beoffered, often alongside potent rice wine, to

visitors at Kayan and other Borneanlonghouses.

It is not clear how Myers acquired the boxthat now sits in Caius’ collection. It is possiblethat he simply bought it as a ‘curio’ from alonghouse or at ‘the Chinaman’s store’ inMarudi or some other bazaar in the Baramarea, ‘where they are usually in pawn’( Journal, October 9, 1898). Alternatively, hemay have been presented with it as part of aseries of gift-exchanges between hosts and

guests – important occasions when socialrelations were both established andreaffirmed. Whatever the case, the box wasone of a great many things – includingscientific specimens, photographs, indigenousartefacts, skulls, copious notes, and in Myers’case, wax cylinder recordings – which theExpedition members brought back to England.

Except for excursions to Egypt andsecondment for war work on ‘shell-shock’victims (he was the first to recognise theessentially psychological nature of thecondition), Myers remained in Cambridge forthe next twenty years. He was successivelyDemonstrator, Lecturer, and finally Reader inExperimental Psychology; and in 1913 hebecame Director of the University’sPsychological Laboratory, which was housed ina fine new building on the Downing Site.(Having inherited substantial funds from hisfather, Myers anonymously provided most ofthe cost.) In 1915 he was elected a Fellow ofthe Royal Society.

By his own account (in C. Murchison, AHistory of Psychology in Autobiography, vol 3),Myers hoped during these years to be electeda Fellow of Caius. Perhaps indeed he wasalready nourishing such hopes when hepresented the Fellowship with the handsomebox juxta fines Kaianorum repertum. But in theCambridge of those days, there were many –not only among philosophers but also amongscientists – who distrusted the infantdiscipline of experimental psychology. Andone way or another, it was not until 1919 thatMyers was elected to a Fellowship at Caius;and he held it only until 1922, when he movedto London, becoming Director of the Institutefor Industrial Psychology.

Myers must have continued to feelwarmly towards his College, and did not losetouch after leaving Cambridge. His sonEdmund Myers (1927) came up to Caius andtook honours in the Mechanical SciencesTripos. In 1935, Myers himself was made anHonorary Fellow by the College – ‘the highesthonour in their power to bestow’ (obituary,The Caian, 1947). This and Myers’ manyachievements are well recorded in publichistory.

For those who work and live in Caius,however, Myers’ most palpable legacy takesthe form of six magnificent silver dishes whichhe presented to the College in 1926. One ofthem today adorns the Master’s sideboard anda second nightly bears the fruit at the Fellows’dessert. Like the Bornean box, they stand asreminders of one Caian’s enduring relationshipwith his College.

AcknowledgementsWe should like to thank the following who haveassisted us in the preparation of this article:Dr Mark Blackburn (1982), James Cox, PaoloPace and Sammy Lau.

weaponry, animal-skin war coats and richlydecorated shields, often covered with tufts ofhair from their headhunting victims. Up to themid-twentieth century, most Kayan groupsobserved a complex of rituals, beliefs and dailypractices centring on relations with variousdeities and spirits associated with the naturalworld.

Although the Kayan were skilledmetalworkers, it is unlikely that Myers’ boxwas actually made by them. Its floral and

by Dr Liana Chua (2007) and Professor John Mollon (1996)

Caians 1894. Assembly of Third Year undergraduates in front of the Gate of Honour. Charles Myers is at thefar right of the second row from the front. At the far left of the same row is Edward Wilson (1891), whoreached the South Pole with Scott in 1912 and died on the return journey.

30 Once a Caian...

Caian OlympiansAfter the silver medal won by Alison Mowbray (1993) in theWomen’s Quadruple Sculls at the 2004 Athens Olympics,the Caius Boat Club had a reputation to maintain in Beijing!It did so triumphantly in the formidable person of 6’9” tallJosh West (1998), who rowed “in the engine-room” atnumber five in the silver medal-winning British Eight.

Josh said: “I rowed Head of the River with Caius in twoMay Bumps (1999 and 2000). Of course, we didn’t row atthe speed of international racing and it didn’t involve thatintensity of training, but they were great experiences thatprovided enduring memories and friendships. Rowing forCaius taught me lessons about working with a team from arange of different backgrounds that have helped to guideme, both in my ongoing rowing career and more broadly, inmy life.”

Andy Baddeley (2000), the outstanding British 1,500mrunner, was “pleased but not satisfied” with his ninth placein the Olympic final and still has his sights firmly set on anOlympic medal in London in 2012.

Following the success of Caius get-togethers in London, New York andHong Kong, informal social gatherings have recently been organized inAustralia and California. Caians in many different walks of life weredelighted to find they shared memories and experiences with othersthey had never met. They were surprised to find so many Caians intheir own part of the world and resolved to continue meeting fromtime to time to celebrate their shared connections.

In July 2008, Professor Peter Clothier (1955) and his wife, Ellie,invited all Caians known to be living in or near Los Angeles to anevening’s celebration. Several responded with interest but regrets andquite a number turned up, with wives and partners, and enjoyedreminiscing and comparing notes on their experiences. What Peterobserved in them was “a shared sense of redirection toward a lessconventional set of values and beliefs.” Whether this is a tendency ofCaians in general or just of Caians who have moved to California is atopic for further discussion!

Guests included Professor David Kunzle (1954), Professor IrwinZiment (1955), Professor Joseph Prabhu (1972), Anthony Matthews

Caius Gatherings in Sydney and Los Angeles(1976), Barry Isaacson (1979), Matthew Lamb (1986), and ChristianZapf (1986). A fuller report of the event can be found on Peter’s“Buddha Diaries” blog for Monday July 21, 2008 at:http://thebuddhadiaries.blogspot.com

Caians in Sydney attended drinks on Friday 15 August 2008 whichwere kindly hosted by Professor John Saunders (1967) and his wife,Alison, at their beautiful apartment overlooking Sydney Harbour. Thegathering was a great success and it is intended to hold anotherfunction before the end of the year. Present were Dr Melissa Perry QC(1987), who is coordinating functions for Sydney Caians with herassistant, Catherine Young, Dr Elizabeth Peden (1995), Professor JohnCarter (1977), Dr Kate Sainsbury (1990), John Pitman (1985), NathanHodges (1985), Dr Mark Staples (1994), Dr Andrew Harman (1998)and his partner Sarah, Mike Barrett (1955), Mary Nicholson (1991),Moray Vincent (1984), Kelvin Widdows (1975) and Elizabeth Usher(1995). Caians who are interested in attending future events inSydney and have not previously been contacted are warmly invited towrite to Melissa Perry at mperry@sixthfloor.com.au.

Cai

No

tes

Josh West (1998) on the left of the front row, after the British Olympic Rowing Eightreceived their silver medals in Beijing.

The Caius Gathering in Los Angeles.

Film MusicThe Forbidden Kingdom, starring Jackie Chan,is the first feature film to be scored by theyoung, Los Angeles-based Caian composer,David Buckley (1995) as a solo composer.Directed by Rob Minkoff, whose past creditsinclude The Lion King and Stuart Little, it wasthe number one film on its opening weekendin the USA and was released in the UK inJuly. The soundtrack is available on iTunesand Amazon. Another young Caian musicianand composer, Tommy Hewitt-Jones (2003)flew over to LA to assist David with scorepreparation.

David Buckley said:“Don’t be put off because it’s a Jackie

Chan movie, it’s not an all-out martial artsflick. It’s as much Karate Kid/Never EndingStory/Wizard of Oz as it is Crouching Tiger.Fun for all the family I’d say!”

David’s second feature film, Creek,(directed by Joel Schumacher) will bereleased early next year. David is currentlyworking on some arrangements for OliverStone’s controversial George Bush biopic, W.

31...Always a Caian

Up on the RoofJimmy Altham (1965), Chairman of the Works Committee, writes... In the Summer of 2008, partof “N” staircase of the Waterhouse Building in Tree Court was re-roofed. This is one phase of aprogramme that will eventually result in a new roof for the entire building. There is an oldtradition that when a roofing job is done, the workmen leave a coin under a slate as a memento.

During the reroofing, we found what Mark Blackburn (1982), Keeper of Coins and Medals atthe Fitzwilliam Museum has identified as: “A Victorian brass gaming counter. It has on the obverse

the head of the Queen and reads VICTORIA QUEEN OF GREAT BRITAIN1869. On the reverse it has the Prince of Wales’ feathers in a pseudo-

crowned wreath, and THE PRINCE OF WALES MODEL HALFSOV^RN. It has been pierced, perhaps for a child to wear on astring round her neck. It was probably thought a suitable objectto put in the roof, being rather coin-like, but of no value.”

We may infer that this is the first time the roof has neededreplacing since the building was completed in 1870. It has thuslasted over 130 years. The coin will be preserved, either in the

College archives or in the College coin collection, which hasbeen housed at the Fitzwilliam Museum since 1938. The next

decision for the Works Committee is what coin or token to placebetween two tiles in the new roof, for our successors to find in 2147. . .

Carol by Peter Tranchell(1960)Peter Tranchell (1960) was Precentor andDirector of Studies in Music at Caius fornearly thirty years. His successor, Dr GeoffreyWebber (1989) advised the Church MusicSociety that the Tranchell MSS had beendeposited in the Cambridge UniversityLibrary and suggested that they might like topublish the sheet music for a carol composedby Peter in 1965, “If Ye Would Hear theAngels Sing”. The committee agreedunanimously and the carol is about to bepublished on behalf of the Church MusicSociety by the Music Department ofOxford University Press. Copies willsoon be available through any OUPmusic stockist, priced £1-80, or fromBanks Music Publications, TheGranary, Wath Court, Hovingham,York YO62 4NN. Further informationfrom Richard Lyne, email:Rlyne1@aol.com or from JohnGwinnell (1970), who looks after thePeter Tranchell website, email:admin@patranchell.info

Dick Jarrett (1929) writes:I have two vivid and pleasurable

recollections of Tony Seymour-Jones, whodied earlier this year. The first was set in theLong Vac term of 1930, when we dated twotrapeze artistes from the visiting Barnum’sCircus. The second was a week’s grouseshooting as guests of the Duke of Atholl athis Blair Castle shoot in 1931.

Two very contrasting social occasionswith which, I like to think, our Caiuseducation ensured that we copedunflinchingly!

Anthony Seymour-Jones (1929)Tony Seymour-Jones(1929) (left) as ayoung Army officerand (right) in thewords of his daughter,Carole: “aged 97, athis granddaughter’swedding, stillenjoying himself!”.

Peter Tranchell (1960)with his recentlypublished Carol.

32 Once a Caian...

Cai

Mem

ori

es

We are alwayspleased to receive

CaiMemoriesfor publication at:

caimemories@cai.cam.ac.uk

Professor Louis Arnold (1965)I came to Caius for one year on a Rotary Foundation Fellowship.I wrote to Professor Neville Mott (1930), who was both CavendishProfessor and Master of Caius, stating that I had been offered thisgrant and that I would like to come to Cambridge. He responded sayingthat I should be a member of Caius and that he would find a place forme in the laboratory. I lived in College (Tree Court) over the summer of‘65, and moved to a hostel at 25 Green Street. for the rest of my time.Hall at the time was a temporary building in one of the courts. So Ihave never dined in the “real” Hall. I hope to rectify that some day.

One of my fondest memories is of playing croquet with Yao Liang(1963), Tom Blaney (1963) and David Hardy (1960) on a late springafternoon. As I recall, we left the Cavendish (old) for lunch on the Cam(probably a baked potato and a pint) and decided to continue ourresearch at a place near Harvey Court rather than return to the lab.I think we did return to the Cavendish in time for tea!

Professor Louis Arnold (1965)(who is sure his croquet was notup to English standards!).

Louis Arnold

Ian Smith (1955)It was a viciously cold winter’s day in 1955. I stood by Bowes & Bowesbookshop and looked up King’s Parade. I remember wondering what anunsophisticated, northern grammar school boy like me was doing in thisaugust, historic and beautiful place of learning.

I had come up to take the Caius Entrance Exam and interview. The exam waspainless enough. At the interview I was seated at the long side of a lengthy,narrow table. There was an inquisitor sitting opposite me and another at eitherend of the table. It felt like the third degree.

The interview was quite enjoyable though. Since I was hoping to read English,the questions eventually turned to what writers I liked. I think I was talking aboutPope when the man opposite me said, “Rather like Edith Sitwell,” and laughedhugely. He clearly expected me to laugh too, so I did. He then stopped laughingabruptly, leaned forward on his elbows and with a cold stare asked, “And what doyou know about Edith Sitwell?”

Oh God! I was rumbled for the phoney I was. I knew nothing significant about Edith Sitwell. This man had laid atrap and I had blundered into it. I had been correct to feel I had no right to be in Cambridge.

But hang on – the Divine Providence was coming to my rescue. The man on the left was saying “I see you wereborn in Mexico. Do you remember much about it?” I knew the answer to this question. I gratefully latched onto itand milked my reply for as long as I possibly could. By the time I had finished, the Sitwell question seemed to havebeen forgotten. Sometime later, the fateful envelope arrived. Caius offered me a place.

Ian Smith (1955) as a gilded youth,reflecting deeply.

Dr David Hardy (1960), Dr Thomas Blaney (1963), Professor Yao Liang (1963) on thecroquet lawn at Harvey Court, together with the future Mrs Choo Liang.

33...Always a Caian

Nicholas Prowse (1957)The current issue of Once a Caian... has justreached the remote eastern shores ofVancouver Island where I have lived eversince I graduated in 1960. The memories ofBrian Whitaker (1957) of the dinner for the1958 Caius team that won AthleticCuppers (of which I was also a member)were particularly poignant for me as myfather, CB Prowse (1923), was a member ofthat previously victorious Caius team withHarold Abrahams (1919).

The other unforgettable memory of myCaius days was canoeing the Tarn RiverGorge in south central France in August 1959with Doug Myers (1958). With no previousexperience and armed only with a copy ofR.L.Stevenson’s ‘Travels With A Donkey’, acollapsible kayak which we carried on ourbacks, a Canoe Club de France map of all therapids (mostly level 3 or 4) we naively set off

via train, bus and hitch-hiking to the sourceof the river, which turned out to be in one ofthe most remote areas of France!

Two weeks later we were spewed outinto the now calm waters of the river nearMillau much battered and bruised and half-drowned, with our kayak destroyed, anddeclared to any who would listen that thejourney had been an outstanding success!Oh, the impetuousness of youth! Sadly I havenot seen Doug since I graduated (though myfamily kept in touch for a number of yearsafter he returned to New Zealand), but Ihave read in The Caian of his generosity tothe College.

As for me, I am merely one of thecolleges ‘lost souls’, though my memories ofmy three years are all good – the best timeof my life, when anything and everythingseemed possible!

Michael Maunsell (1960)I was one of the first occupants of Harvey Court and, as a result of being there a few days before term began, made (as far as I know) myonly TV appearance. Two of us were interviewed by the BBC East Anglian service and I heard that some friends in Norfolk had seen me and

commented on my rather naïve remarks about the original furniture.I am glad Gabriel Byng seems to share some of what we, the early occupants,

felt about the building. We were not really interested in its artistic merit butwhether it worked as a building. I wonder what reaction David Kunzle (1954) wouldhave had to it if he had lived in it as an undergraduate and not first encountered itfifty years after his student days.

What was described shows there was a fair amount of architects’ trial and errorwith Harvey Court, with a view to developing other buildings later, but we 1963occupants felt very privileged. We had good-sized, well-lit rooms which were warmwith some limited private facilities, none of which was that common elsewhere at thattime. The other amenities were all within easy reach: I even took to ironing my shirts(fronts and cuffs only), which I had certainly not done when in College or lodgings!

Nick Prowse recalls being a member of Ye Ancient Order of Gonville Loungers, one of the oldest and mostprestigious College Clubs, whose members were required to lounge beside the Gate of Humility at leastonce a week, wearing the club tie, “to observe ye strange creatures that the Lord hath made”! Loungers inthe photograph are (standing) l to r: William Chancellor (1956), Geoffrey Cobbold (1956), Richard Halliwell(1955), Christopher Helm (1957), Nicholas Alwyn (1957), Geoffrey Edge (1956), Jeremy Procter (1956),Anthony Fuller (1958), Bruce Webster (1956) and (sitting) l to r: David Balfour (1957), James Watson(1956), Euan Geddes (1958), Nick Prowse (1957) and Richard Morgan (1958). Sadly, three members,Chancellor, Edge and Helm are no longer with us.

Professor Anthony Edwards (1968) with Michael Maunsell (1960).

Keith Arrowsmith (1942) and his son Gregory (1997).

Keith Arrowsmith (1942)I went up to Caius to read French andGerman in the middle of the War, so atthe end of my first academic year Ijoined the Indian Army, serving in India,Singapore and Malaya. I returned to mystudies in 1947 and in the followingyear the College celebrated its 600thAnniversary. To mark the occasion, aspecial dinner was given in the Hall, atwhich Fellows and undergraduates sattogether. To my surprise, I was seatednext to the Master, Dr John Cameron(1895), then in the twentieth and finalyear of his Mastership. I suspect thehonour thus paid me was not due toany distinction on my part but becausehe had been Tutor to my father, Revd.George Arrowsmith (1908)!

My son, Gregory (1997) read NaturalSciences at Caius and in the course of histhree years, the College celebrated its650th Anniversary. Since graduating, hehas been working for the EuropeanUnion renewable Energy Centres Agencyin Brussels. I wonder whether there areany other Caian fathers and sons whowere undergraduates at the time of the600th and 650th Anniversaries?

Stearns of Cam

bridge

34

It is hard for us toimagine King’sParade withoutAlfred Waterhouse’sGreat Gate at the

end of it, but as recently as1868 the site was occupiedby a handsome town-house,as the photograph byRamsey and Muspratt shows.

The Waterhouse Buildingaround Tree Court,completed in 1870, replacedearlier buildingscommemorating StephenPerse (1565) and ThomasLegge, who succeeded DrCaius as Master in June1573. Note the Porter (highhat) keeping a watchful eyeon the photographer!

Waterhouse went on todesign even greaterstructures such as theNatural History Museum inSouth Kensington, besidewhich our Great Gate showsdistinct signs of humility.

Once a Caian...

From the Archives...

35...Always a Caian

...Then and Now

36 Once a Caian...

A Portrait ofGonville & CaiusPhotography by Dan WhiteWritten by Christopher BrookeEdited by Yao Liang & Mick Le Moignan

This magnificent pictorial record of the College at the startof the twenty-first century has just been published,celebrating two important anniversaries, 660 years afterthe first foundation by Edmund Gonville in 1348 and 450years after the second foundation by John Caius in 1558.

Dan White’s brilliantly idiosyncratic photographs of students, Fellowsand staff in familiar surroundings show the heart and vitality of theCollege community today. Christopher Brooke’s beautifully craftedhistory guides the reader through the fascinating development of a tiny,medieval religious foundation into an outstanding institution dedicatedto excellence in education and research.

Copies of the book are available to personal callers at the Porters’Lodge at £45 (cash or cheque only, please) or may be ordered online at£45 (+p&p) direct from the publishers, Third Millennium Information byvisiting www.tmiltd.com and clicking on “Universities and Colleges”under Book Categories. The publishers can also take orders by phone:+44 (0)20 7336 0144 or by email: caius@tmiltd.com

37...Always a Caian

Editor: Mick Le Moignan

Editorial Board:Dr Anne Lyon, Dr Jimmy Altham,Professor Wei-Yao Liang

Design Consultant: Tom Challis

Artwork and production: Cambridge Marketing Limited

Gonville & Caius CollegeTrinity StreetCambridgeCB2 1TAUnited Kingdom

Tel: +44 (0)1223 339676

Email: onceacaian@cai.cam.ac.ukcaimemories@cai.cam.ac.ukwww.cai.cam.ac.uk/CaiRing/

EVENTS & REUNIONS FOR 2008-2009

Michaelmas Full term begins. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Tuesday 7 October New York Reception . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Tuesday 28 October Toronto Reception. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Thursday 30 OctoberCommemoration of Benefactors Lecture. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Sunday 16 NovemberCommemoration of Benefactors Service . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Sunday 16 NovemberCommemoration Feast . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Sunday 16 NovemberFirst Christmas Carol Service (6pm) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Wednesday 3 DecemberSecond Christmas Carol Service (4.30pm). . . . . . . . . . . . . . Thursday 4 DecemberMichaelmas Full Term ends . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Friday 5 December

Lent Full Term begins . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Tuesday 13 January 2009Development Campaign Board Meeting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Tuesday 24 FebruarySecond Year Parents’ Hall . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Thursday 12 MarchLent Full Term ends . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Friday 13 March

Second Year Parents’ Hall . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Friday 13 MarchTelephone Campaign begins. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Friday 13 MarchMAs’ Dinner . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Friday 20 MarchAnnual Gathering (1987, 1988 & 1989) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Tuesday 24 MarchCaius Club Dinner. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Saturday 28 March

Easter Full Term begins. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Tuesday 21 AprilStephen Hawking Circle Dinner . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Saturday 9 MayEaster Full Term ends . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Friday 12 June

May Week Party for Benefactors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Saturday 13 JuneCaius Club Bumps Event. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Saturday 13 JuneCaius Medical Association Meeting & Dinner . . . . . . . . Saturday 20 JuneGraduation Tea . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Thursday 25 JuneAnnual Gathering (up to & including 1957). . . . . . . . . . . Tuesday 30 JuneAdmissions Open Days . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Thursday 2 & Friday 3 JulyAnnual Gathering (1996 & 1997) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Saturday 26 SeptemberCommemoration of BenefactorsLecture, Service & Feast . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Sunday 15 November 2009

Caian...always a

Cover Photographs:Aspects of the rich biodiversityof Ecuador illustrate the vitalconservation work of Dr Nigel Simpsonand the Jocotoco Foundation.