OXFORD & CAMBRIDGE ARMS: Martlets

L to R: Your blogger (Trinity, Oxon.) and Cheryl-Lisa Hearne-
McGuiness, Hon. Sec. of the Oxford University Society's London
Branch. Photo by branding expert Paul C. Walton (BNC, Oxon.).

Oxford, U.K., Wednesday, April 18, 2018 – Yesterday, and the day before, Alice and I stayed at the fine Oxford and Cambridge Club in London.

On Monday I spoke there to 70 members of the Oxford University Society, London Branch, about the 38 coats of arms of the Oxford colleges and the six coats of the Permanent Private Halls.

On Tuesday I was speaker at a "Discussion Supper" of the Oxford and Cambridge Club and I added in most of the 31 Cambridge colleges.

My objective was to make the college coats of arms more accessible to students, alumni, tourists and anyone else curious about Oxford and Cambridge.

Dropping the usual baggage of lists of tinctures, furs, metals, ordinaries, subordinaries and so forth, I also skipped past explanation of the history of coats of arms, how they were brought over by the Normans with William the Conqueror and became widespread through the growth of tournaments among the knights in the 12th century, etc.

Instead, I dove right in to the Oxford (and Cambridge) coats of arms by selecting two or more college shields at a time that have a device in common, such as a form of cross or a species of bird (big or small), and focusing on the meaning of the device and of significant differences.

I used each set of shields as a prompt to tell stories about how the devices relate to the history of the colleges, and inevitably the history of England. Along the way I slipped in a few comments about relevant heraldic conventions.

To illustrate my approach, consider a little footless bird on the arms of three colleges and one permanent private hall – three of them at Oxford and one at Cambridge.

The bird is the MARTLET, which is important in heraldry because it is a brisure, a mark of cadency on a coat of arms indicating that it is being carried by a fourth son of the owner of the arms. The discussion below is amplified, and a few references added, from my remarks yesterday.

The perfect venue was the Oxford and Cambridge 

Club room named after Queen Victoria's grand-

daughter, Princess Marie Louise of Schleswig-

Holstein, Germany's northernmost state.

University College's shield shows four (on its website) or often five golden martlets around a cross on a blue (azure) field. The St Benet's shield includes an almost identical coat of arms on its top right (the sinister side in chief). The difference between the two crosses (Univ's is a cross patonce, while St Benet's is a cross fleury) is not significant, as both crosses have been used interchangeably in the posthumously attributed arms of Edward the Confessor. Edward was of course the last of the great Anglo-Saxon kings, whose death in 1066 precipitated a nine-month succession battle that culminated in the death of Harold Godwinson and victory of William, Duke of Normandy at Hastings. With the accession of William I, Norman nobles arrived with their knights and heraldry. Univ has claimed the arms attributed to Edward the Confessor, although the founding in 1249 was by William of Durham, long after Edward the Confessor. As the Univ website explains, "a legend grew up in the 1380s that we were actually founded even earlier, by King Alfred in 872, and, understandably enough, this became widely accepted as the truth." (The Univ martlets are a possible origin of the four martlets in the St Peter's College coat of arms.)

St Benet’s Hall seems to have more claim to the arms of Edward the Confessor than Univ because the Hall is a foundation of Ampleforth College [full disclosure: I was a pupil there in 1952-55], which was created by the same English Benedictines who occupied Westminster Abbey at its inception. When Edward the Confessor built the original Benedictine Abbey and Church, he decided that English monarchs should be crowned there [all but two subsequent monarchs have been]. The other half of the top of the shield (the chief) shows the imputed coat of arms of St Peter, to whom Westminster Abbey is dedicated; the bottom of the shield is from the original Abbey. Henry III built the Gothic Abbey Church in honor of Edward, who by then had been canonized.

Pembroke College, Cambridge is the owner of the third shield. The five red (gules) martlets look dissimilar from the martlets in the previous two shields, but they are meant to be the same bird, in that they have no feet. Pembroke was founded by Aylmer de Valence, Earl of Pembroke, a man of importance in the reigns of Edwards I and II. The left side (dexter to the bearer) of the shield is half of his arms, which are split (impaled or dimidiated) with his wife Mary de St Pol, who came from Brittany.

Worcester College, represented by the fourth shield, has two chevrons and six martlets, which are blazoned as black (sable) or sometimes red (gules). The coat of arms is that of Sir Thomas Cookes [someone at the meeting at the Oxford and Cambridge Club said it should be Crookes, but he was being funny, I think], a Worcestershire baronet, whose bequest of £10,000 back in 1698, when a pound sterling was really worth something, founded the college. The Worcester College shield is almost always shown, as here, with black (sable) martlets, but the blazon often calls for red (gules) as in the Pembroke arms. [Sir Thomas also founded Bromsgrove School, which uses the arms with red (gules) martlets, corresponding to its blazon.] 

MEANING: So what does the martlet signify? All sources I have consulted agree that the lack of feet means that they can't land, so they are always aloft. This suggests that the martlets are always searching and is a good symbol for the search for knowledge. A lovely idea – although when you think about it, it makes the intellectual life sound tiring. (Tiring, but surely not as discouraging as the fates of Sisyphus or Tantalus.)

Another interpretation is that the martlet is a symbol of the self-made man, someone without foundation. But to impute such arms to a King like Edward the Confessor would hardly be appropriate with that interpretation, unless one was imputing modesty.

Links to Further Reading: Use of Star-Like Devices in the Oxford Colleges . Creation of Arms in the Newer Colleges at Oxford (Oxford Today, Michaelmas 2015)

Set of 46 Newly Design Coats of Arms: Oxford City and Oxford University coats of arms, 38 colleges, and six Permanent Private Halls. Below is a low-resolution version of an original set of shields drawn for me by heraldic artist Lee Lumbley. I plan to be at the 2018 BookExpo America at the Javits Center in New York City, May 31-June 2 and will be looking for appointments to talk with publishers at this event. My email address is teppermarlin at aol dot com.

R.I.P.: Jan. 25–Paul Nevill, O.S.B. (Updated June 22, 2016)

Dom Paul Nevill, OSB. Portrait by
James Gunn, R.A.

This day in 1954 died Dom Valentine Paul Nevill, Headmaster of Ampleforth College in Yorkshire for 30 years. 

He was and is widely viewed as one of Britain's great 20th-century headmasters.

I was at that time a student at Ampleforth and the news was reported to us as if a giant revered ancient oak had fallen. 

Nevill went up to St. Benet's Hall, Oxford as Brother Paul in 1902 and graduated with a B.A. in History. He was a parish priest in the Village of Ampleforth for a decade, 1914-24. From then until his death he was in a leadership position at the school.

My brother Randal Marlin was at Ampleforth a year longer than me, and was older and remembers more. He says:

I remember Father Paul very well. I was studying science and he had a special class for science students in which he taught them history. 

He and my Housemaster (St Thomas’s), Father Denis, were very close. Father Paul was very keen on the political reformer William Cobbett and his book Rural Rides. He saw that America was the new power and he wanted to make sure I, as an American, knew the kinds of issues that were ingrained in the British psyche. He explained the Monroe doctrine, without imposing on us any judgement about the absurdity of it. 

Through his historical expositions I got the idea that he favoured beer over tea and coffee. He believed in big plans. Cobbett apparently championed America because there were "no Wilberforces" there. 

Father Paul could be quite terrifying. I remember that one of the Irish boys had played the prank of turning on all the water taps just before our bus left, causing flooding. Father Paul got to the bus before it left and found out who the culprit was and gave him a thorough dressing down. I could be wrong, but I think the idea was that the bus would be going nowhere until the perpetrator 'fessed up.

Father Paul must have been a good teacher for me to remember as much as I do.
It is said that at a Headmasters’ conference he was the last speaker. Others had been saying in so many ways that at their school they prepared boys for life, for good citizenry, etc. The legend is that Father Paul said: "At Ampleforth, on the contrary, our mission is to prepare boys for death, to live a good Christian life in preparation for the final day of judgement."

I should note that not all Ampleforth alumni view Dom Paul Nevill as the very model of a modern headmaster. Someone has written to me to argue that his views were  "reactionary". Certainly they were, by today's standards, and even by the standards of post-WW2 Britain. But he was a good exemplar of the kind of person who gave spine to the British Empire in its heyday.

OXONIAN: John Micklethwait of Bloomberg News

John Micklethwait

John Micklethwait was featured in The NY Times print edition today (yesterday online) as Editor in Chief of Bloomberg News. He has been in his job now for more than a year, having spanned Michael Bloomberg's 73rd and 74th birthdays.

Mr. Micklethwait was educated at Ampleforth College, an upscale English boarding school, and subsequently at the University of Oxford. He worked for Chase Manhattan Bank before switching to journalism and joining The Economist in 1987. By 2006, he was editing The Economist, famed for lively and collegial discussions at its weekly meetings – discussions that form the basis for some of its distinctive articles. If the World Economic Forum, held each year in Davos, Switzerland, decided to elect a mayor, the highly connected Mr. Micklethwait might be considered.

Micklethwait was born August 11, 1962, in London, England. At Oxford he read history at Magdalen College.

The story in The NY Times focused on the issues faced by Bloomberg News' Editor in Chief in covering the principal owner of his news medium, Michael Bloomberg, should Bloomberg decide to be a candidate for the presidency of the United States.

Oxford Birthdays

HERALDRY: St Benet's (Updated May 13, 2018)

Shield of Ampleforth Abbey and
College, and of St Benet's Hall,
Oxford.

Blazon: Per fesse dancetté Or and Azure a chief per pale Gules and of the second charged on the dexter with two keys in saltire Or and Argent and on the sinister with a Cross Flory between five martlets of the first.

Authority: Granted to the Abbey by the College of Arms in 1922 [seeking confirmation and date]. The Abbey applied to the College of Arms for the grant to conform to proper authority and thus secure its place among other post-Reformation bodies bearing variants of the Westminster arms. The Abbey arms in their full achievement include the abbot’s crozier and his valero (ecclesiastical hat with tassels). The Ampleforth College and St. Benet's arms include only the shield. In Ampleforth and Its Origins (p. 261), then-Guestmaster Fr James Forbes writes that "In medieval times this coat [of arms] was used with a crozier dexter and a mitre sinister in the chief, both gules, as "on the [Abbey] tombs of Abbot Fascet and Cardinal Langham." (Thanks to my brother Randal Marlin for this reference.)

Nominees of Arms: The name St Benet is an abbreviation of St. Benedict, referring to St Benedict of Nursia, born in A.D. 480 in what is today called Norcia, near Perugia in Umbria, Italy. He died in 547 in Monte Cassino. He is recognized as a saint by both the Roman Catholic and Anglican churches and is the patron saint of students and of Europe; he is the person after whom the 16 popes called Benedict are named. The arms  refer not to St Benedict but, using the terminology of my Oxford Today article, they reference two revered persons (saints) and a revered group of people (abbots):

• St Peter, the apostle of Jesus who is considered the first leader of the Christian Church after the death of Jesus, is signified, as he is in the pre-Reformation arms of the City of Westminster, by his keys at top left (i.e., dexter in heraldic terminology, from the perspective of the person carrying the shield). He is the person to whom Westminster Abbey is dedicated.
• St Edward the Confessor, the last Anglo-Saxon King of England (1042-1066) is signified at top right (sinister) by the gold cross flory and the five martlets (arms attributed to Edward) for being the chief patron and founder of Westminster Abbey. Since 1066 all of England kings have been crowned in Westminster Abbey. Westminster is so called to distinguish it from St Paul's Cathedral, which is the East Minster.
• The Pre-Reformation Benedictine Abbots of Westminster, signified by the gold and blue divided dancetté (the zigzag line), which were the base of the arms of the pre-Reformation Abbots of Westminster, who placed their personal coat of arms in the chief. The last Benedictine Abbot of Westminster to use this coat of arms was John Feckenham (c. 1515-1584), whose abbey was suppressed finally by Elizabeth I in 1560; minus the abbey, the abbey church became officially known as the Collegiate Church of St Peter, Westminster.

Institutional History: Ampleforth Abbey claims direct succession from the monks of Westminster Abbey because of the dies mirabilis when the last surviving monk of Westminster ordained a priest who continued the English Benedictine tradition first in France and then at Ampleforth Abbey. The English Benedictines were dissolved by Henry VIII in the 1530s, but a monastery was re-established in Westminster Abbey by the Catholic Mary Tudor, 20 years later. After a few years, her half-sister Queen Elizabeth dissolved this monastery and by 1607 only one of the Westminster monks was left alive – Fr Sigebert Buckley. On the dies mirabilis he professed a group of English monks (described to me multiple times by monks over the last 63 years as an event that seems to have occurred either in an English prison or in France) before he died, and so passed onto them the rights and privileges of the English Benedictine Congregation. In 1615, these monks established themselves in an abandoned church of St Lawrence at Dieulouard, near Nancy, the one-time capital of the Duchy of Lorraine in France. Catholic priests were illegal in England, but many of the monks were allowed to leave their monasteries in France to work secretly in England as priests. One such monk was St Alban Roe, executed in 1642.  In 1792 the monks were expelled from France by leaders of post-Revolutionary France and they moved to Ampleforth, in 1803 opening a monastery school. English Catholics had sent their boys to France to be educated during penal times, and many of these boys became monks and priests. During the next century the monks worked both in Ampleforth College (which started with about 70 boys), and on missions to town parishes. In 1900 the major monastic houses became independent, with their own elected abbots. Ampleforth Abbey was by then a community of nearly 100 monks. The first Abbot was Fr Oswald Smith, who died in office in 1924. He was succeeded as Abbot by Fr Edmund Matthews, who appointed Fr Paul Nevill as the college's Headmaster. These two men together made the college a great public school. At its height in the mid-1960s the community had 169 monks; the number at the Abbey has since fallen to about 60. The eighth Abbot of Ampleforth, Fr Cuthbert Madden, OSB was elected in 2005. St. Benet's Hall, administered by the St. Benet's Trust, is a wholly owned subsidiary of Ampleforth Abbey. The Chairman of the Trust is Abbot Cuthbert. I have had the privilege of getting to know Professor Werner Jeanrond, since as an alumnus of Ampleforth College (1952-55), I have met with incumbent St. Benet's Hall and Ampleforth College officials when they come to New York to renew their contacts with alumni and to seek contributions.

Physical History:  Ampleforth Abbey is located where it is because of a gift just before she died from Lady Anne Fairfax of Gilling Castle to her chaplain, Fr Anselm Bolton, of a lodge at Ampleforth. The local pub in Gilling is the Fairfax Arms. Gilling is now the home of Ampleforth's prep school; I was a resident there for one year, and then was two more years at what was then called The Junior House. In 1802 Fr Anselm gave the lodge to his fellow monks to be their new monastery. and school. St Benet's Hall was founded in Oxford in 1897 as a place for the monks of Ampleforth and other monasteries to live while they read for Oxford degrees.

Intellectual and Religious History:  Abbot Cuthbert says:

Our journeys diverge, but we [Ampleforth and St. Benet's] walk in the same direction. (Source: St. Benet's Hall capital campaign "Joining Our Journey", p. 2.) 

 Prof. Jeanrond says:

In the twelfth century, students at Oxford gathered around a Master to grow in knowledge and wisdom. [...] Nine hundred years later, St Benet's Hall is an echo, perhaps the closest there is, of that way of life. [...] Today we are unique in Oxford – a vibrant Catholic Christian community that provides a Benedictine context for graduate and undergraduate study, yet welcomes students of all faiths and none. (Emphasis added. Source: St. Benet's Hall capital campaign "Joining Our Journey", p. 6.)

Until 2015, St Benet’s Hall admitted only male undergraduates. It now accepts applications from both male and female applicants – of any age – for entry in 2016 or deferred entry in 2017. (In autumn 2016 Alice and I attended the first brunch of the coeducational era  at St Benet's – JTM.) Ampleforth College has been coeducational for many years.

The Six PPHs. The physical or institutional origins of almost all of the 38 Oxford colleges are partly religious. Today the colleges are independent of religious control other than the Church of England. The six Permanent Private Halls (PPHs) maintain a current or historic religious affiliation. A number of Oxford colleges and all of the PPHs originated in a desire to support Oxford students of a particular religious belief, as did many universities in Britain and the United States. Some were created to prepare new ministers, priests or monks to participate in the intellectual life of their congregations, parishes or monasteries.

Unlike the colleges, which have evolved into institutions that are largely independent of their religious affiliation, the six PPHs have a strong religious origin and some degree of external control by, or affiliation with, a religious institution. In order to attract a strong pool of applications, all six of the PPHs make clear to prospective students that a particular religious affiliation is not required either for entrance or for full participation in college life.

The PPHs may therefore include a core of students who are there because their religious beliefs match the PPH's affiliation, but given the secular orientation of most of the Oxford student body the majority of students at the PPHs are not religious.

The existing six PPHs are all controlled by or affiliated with, as many colleges once were, a religious denomination:

1. St Benet's - Roman Catholic (Benedictine)
2. Regent's Park College - Baptist
3. Blackfriars - mature (21+) students, Roman Catholic (Dominican)
4. St Stephen’s House - mature students, Church of England (Anglo-Catholic)
5. Wycliffe Hall - mature students, Church of England (Evangelical)
6. Campion Hall - postgraduate students only, Roman Catholic (Jesuit) 

Sadly, a seventh PPH has recently fallen by the wayside – Greyfriars, with its important Roman Catholic Franciscan heritage. Ironically, if it had held on a few more years perhaps it might have survived under Pope Francis, who has made clear he named himself not for the Francis who founded his Jesuit order but for the man of Assisi. However, a commitment to poverty may not be a brand that competes well among current Oxford students.

Other Posts on the Arms of Oxford Colleges and PPHs: Original Article in Oxford Today . Heraldry as Branding . Heraldry as Fun .  Coat of Arms vs. Crest . Sinister Questions . Visit to the College of Arms . Windsor Herald Talks to New Yorkers . Shaming of Harvard Law Shield :: Rapid Expansion of Oxford's Colleges and Halls . Oxford Stars . Links to Heraldry, Oxford, GW . Harris Manchester College . Linacre College . St Catherine's . St Cross College . St Edmund Hall . Trinity College :: Regent's Park College . St Benet's Hall . 

BOAT RACE: 80th NYC BRD, 2013

Queen Elizabeth II, Coronation, Official Photo, 1953

80th NYC Oxford-Cambridge Boat Race Dinner, April 11, 2013

Toast to the Queen by Dr. John Tepper Marlin (Trinity, Oxford):

King George VI died in his sleep on February 6, 1952, after 16 years on the throne - including the Depression Years and World War II. 

His 25-year-old daughter Elizabeth was crowned the following year, 60 years ago. Her official photographs show her confident and brave. 

On June 2, 1953, Queen Elizabeth II took her oath at Westminster Abbey before 8,000 guests, including many heads of state. She bound herself to serve her people and to maintain the laws of God. 

Millions more watched as the BBC set up a live broadcast of unprecedented size. Many purchased a television set for the first time. Others came to parties held throughout Britain.

I attended one of those parties as a ten-year-old boarder at Ampleforth College in Yorkshire. We were excited about being part of the event as it happened. The small screen was laughably inadequate for the large number of monks and teachers and staff and boys who wanted to watch. But never will I forget it. 

The Queen said:

Throughout all my life and with all my heart I shall strive to be worthy of your trust.

Queen Elizabeth II

My sister Elisabeth met the Queen last year when she was awarded the OBE. She was very impressed.

I think after 60 years we can all pronounce Her Majesty worthy indeed. So I have composed a six-line toast in her honor:

We raise our glasses to the Queen, none finer 
Who gave her name to an ocean liner. 

With Treasury markets at zero bound,
The Federal Reserve two programs found.
 

And they named their policies, brave and few, 
The QE1… and the QE2.

Ladies and Gentlemen - The Queen.

[Link here to story on what is likely to happen when the unthinkable occurs and Queen Elizabeth II dies.]

Response from the Universities - Sir Ivor Roberts Introduced by Dr. Marlin

Sir Ivor Roberts is President of Trinity College, Oxford. For 25 years I served as the College’s American Representative. When a predecessor of Sir Ivor’s took office, I went to see him and introduced myself as the college’s American Rep. The incoming President asked me in return: “What does a College Rep… do?” So I explained: “I write a letter every November asking other alumni of Trinity to give money.” And he look at me, puzzled and he asked: “Why do you that?”

Since the Prime Ministership of the late Iron Lady, Margaret Thatcher, I am assured that no Oxford or Cambridge college president would ask that question today.

Sir Ivor was born in Liverpool, and is with us close to the 50th anniversary of the first visit to America of another touring group, the Beatles. Sir Ivor was educated at St. Mary's College, Crosby and was a Scholar at Keble College. He graduated in Modern Languages in 1968, and entered the Diplomatic Service, where he earned the four letters of his knighthood. 

He started in the Middle East Centre for Arab Studies in Lebanon, then Paris, then Luxembourg and back to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and Canberra. Sir Ivor was sent to Madrid to be Minister in the British Embassy, then to Belgrade, first as Chargé d'Affaires, and after recognition of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia by the United Kingdom, as Ambassador. In Belgrade he conducted negotiations on behalf of the international mediators with both the Yugoslav authorities and the Bosnian Serbs and manged not to be shot dead by either side. You might say it was not a good sign if Sir Ivor was assigned to your country. It means Her Majesty is expecting trouble.

From 1998 to 1999 he was on a sabbatical as a Senior Associate Member of St. Antony's College, Oxford. Next he served as British Ambassador to the Republic of Ireland, then Ambassador to Italy and to San Marino. He retired from the Diplomatic Service in 2006 upon the happy day for Trinity College, Oxford when he was elected President.

Since 1974 he has been married to Elizabeth Smith, now Lady Roberts, a scholar of French poetry and former diplomat in the Australian Foreign Service. She has been a University lecturer in Balkan history and has written a history of Montenegro published in 2006, the same year as the remake of the Montenegro-based James Bond movie, “Casino Royale”.

Sir Ivor speaks fluent Italian, French and Spanish and, he says -- and I have no basis for questioning his assertion– “passable Serbo-Croat". His hobbies include Italian opera, theatre, photography, skiing, golf and tennis.

Recognizing his distinguished career, in the 1995 Queen's Birthday Honours List he was named Companion of the Order of St. Michael and St. George (CMG). In the 2000 List his honor was raised to Knight Commander of the Order of St. Michael and St. George (KCMG).  Please join me in welcoming Sir Ivor.

Sir Ivor Roberts, KCMG, FCIL

Sir Ivor Roberts, KCMG FCIL President, Trinity College, Oxford

Oxonians, Cantabridgians, spouses, partners, friends and associates.

Thank you John, your welcome was more generous than that of the last person who introduced me with the simple words: “Pray for the silence of the President of Trinity.”


Indeed it was the sort of introduction that my father would have loved and my mother would have believed.

The human brain starts working the moment you are born and never stops until you stand up to speak in public.

I was born in Liverpool the seaport on the west of the UK which has had most interconnection with the US from its colonial days. Despite having been a home to William Gladstone, it has not recently been thought of as the natural home of aesthetes and academics, statesmen and poets, rather a vigorous robust seaport with the usual concomitance of drink and violence.

Its contemporary fame rests on its music makers extraordinaire and its football team, and concomitant violence.

So in an attempt to provide a fresh softer focus for Liverpool, the city Elders recently decided on a plan to put into one of the tougher areas of Liverpool, a safari park to make the city more family friendly.

At a planning meeting with the city council and the town planners one of the town planners pointed out that the location of the park was in the middle of the most heavily residential area of the city.

“What,” asked the town planner, “would happen if one of the lions were to escape?” Quick as a flash one of the town councillors replied: “It’ll just have to take its chance like the rest of us."

There is always, as the Boat Race demonstrates, keen competition between the universities, but this is also reflected at college level. Trinity College Cambridge is, of course, the larger of the two Trinities And as a result we have to use our wits to hold our heads up in the presence of our richer and larger counterparts.

This was best illustrated to me by a story our Estates Bursar told about a lunch that he had with his opposite number at Cambridge. He was describing to him the fact that our College retained a modest estate in North Oxfordshire – the Wroxton Estate – as part of its original endowment, and it took him a couple of hours to stroll around it.

His opposite number gave a derisive laugh. “If I get into my car in the morning,” he said, “I can drive it as fast as it can do all the hours of daylight for two consecutive days, and I still would not have completed a tour of half our estates.”

Our Estates Bursar looked at him sympathetically and said: “Yes, I had a car like that once too”.

You are, I am sure, mainly interested in the reforms since you went down. Though your attitude to change might be like that of the 19th century statesman Lord Salisbury, who said “Change, change, why do we want more change? Aren't things bad enough as they are?”

Let us start with the...

DONS.

In the old days they had a certain aversion to excessive labour, on your part or on theirs. My tutor gave me my first lecture list with the comment: "Nothing there that need detain you”!

One used to decline to give tutorials on Wednesdays because it spoilt both his weekends.

Another, when asked what precisely he was that he did, by a Government Inspector, replied “I give an annual lecture – but not you understand every year”.

They had a certain waspish style of speech. It was a former President of my College whose obituary said that “his biting wit was much admired by his ever-decreasing circle of friends.”

EXAMS.

We are, of course, very much an academic institution. At the end of the road still lie the dreaded Finals. We have, alas, abolished the Fourth Class, traditionally awarded to candidates who gave long and brilliant answers to questions examiners had not asked.

One candidate who should surely have qualified for a Fourth wrote these words only on his paper: Macbeth Act 5, Scene 5.

The curious examiner looked it up in his Collected Shakespeare. It said: “I cannot do this bloody thing.”

THE BOAT RACE.

While we are here to celebrate the Boat Race, I read recently about another boat race on the Seine River in Paris between Toyota and the Peugeot motor companies. Both teams practised long and hard to reach their peak performance before the race.

On the big day, the Japanese won by a mile. The French, very discouraged and depressed, decided to investigate the reason for the crushing defeat.

A management team made up of senior management was formed to investigate and recommend appropriate action. Their conclusion was Toyota had 8 people rowing and 1 person steering, while the Peugeot team had 8 people steering and 1 person rowing.

So, Peugeot hired a consulting company and paid them a large amount of money for a second opinion. They advised that too many people were steering the boat, while not enough people were rowing.

So to prevent another loss to the Japanese, the rowing team’s management structure was totally reorganized to 4 steering supervisors, 3 area steering superintendents and 1 assistant superintendent steering manager.

They also implemented a new performance system that would give the 1 person rowing the boat greater incentive to work harder, with meetings with celebrities, dinners and free pens for the rower. There was agreement on getting new oars, a new boat and other equipment, extra vacation days for practices, and a big bonus.

The next year the Japanese won by two miles. Humiliated, Peugeot management laid off the rower for poor performance, halted development of a new boat, sold the oars, and cancelled all capital investment in new equipment. The money saved was distributed to the Senior Executives as bonuses and the next year’s racing team was outsourced to India.

So much for rowing!

CREATION OF THE US.

Oxford and Cambridge have, I'm sure you all know, played their part in the creation of the US. Oxonians made it both possible and inevitable for the American colonies to become independent. All of the eight colonies between New York and Florida were founded or once owned by an Oxonian.

Sir Walter Raleigh from Oriel founded the first colony, Virginia.

George Calvert, earl of Baltimore from Trinity Oxford, founded Maryland as a Catholic haven. Earl Granville from Christ Church founded the Carolinas and two of my college’s three Prime Ministers, who were bitterly opposed to each other, contributed in their respective ways to the creation of the US:

• William Pitt the Elder chased the French out of Canada and ultimately out of the whole of North America, while 
• Lord North so alienated the colonists by overtaxing them to pay for Pitt's wars, that he made their rebellion inevitable. (Pitt, incidentally, was vehemently opposed to making the colonies pay.)

William Penn of Christ Church founded Pennsylvania, of course.

And John Harvard of Emmanuel Cambridge gave his name to the incomparable Harvard, donating to it his library.

If the pioneering spirit of the Raleighs and the Pitts was evident in the 16th and 18th centuries, it has fully been taken over by the modern descendants of the original colonists.

What we most need in Oxford and Cambridge is an infusion of the best

qualities of this country -

• a can-do spirit
• an optimism which says that the goals of fairness and equality are achieved by leveling up and not by leveling down
• a generosity of spirit and of substance to the institutions which nurtured us in our youth. 

It's this generosity, and not just of spirit, that has helped Oxford and Cambridge so much in recent years as our US alumni have so often stepped in as we become progressively more orphaned by the British state. We are collectively enormously indebted to our US alumni.

My college was Head of the River at Oxford for 17 years between 1938 and 1951. The College was then divided into three distinct groups of undergraduates.

• The first group consisted of those who thought that the College was a boat club,
•  the second group consisted of those who thought that the College ought to be a boat club, and 
• the third group was a statistically insignificant number.

Matters have become more difficult, now that ability on the river counts for less than ability in the library or lab. in the admissions process.

Our Chaplain was questioning one aspirant theologian and oarsman, whose muscles were more obvious than his Christianity, and who appeared to have only a tenuous grasp of the New Testament, and a still lesser one of the Old.

So finally he asked him “what was it” in the book of Genesis of which it was said “it moveth slowly upon the face of the waters and is filled with all manner of strange beasts?”

And the schoolboy replied hopefully “The Balliol Schools VIII”?

Rowers don't always get the best press. You may remember reading about the rower who was down at the sea one day and saw a girl swimming a good distance out but circling her was an unmistakeable shark fin.

Without a moment's hesitation our intrepid oarsman threw himself in the sea, swam out to the girl, karate chopped the shark to death and swam back to land with the girl.

A man on the beach came up to our hero and said "that's the bravest thing I've ever seen. I'm a reporter for the local paper, I'd like to write that up. Tell me, what's your job?" "I'm a rower" said our hero.

The next day, the local paper carried the headline: "Rower kills girl's pet."

Wait, it's not over. Our hero is so disconsolate at this bad publicity that he decides to give up rowing and enter a Trappist monastery. The rules were very strict. A monk was only allowed to speak once every ten years and then only to utter two words. At the end of ten years, our hero said to the Abbot. "Bed hard". Another ten years went by and he then told the Abbot "food bad". Finally after another ten long years, he said to the Abbot "I quit".

The Abbot was very angry. "I knew this was coming" he said. "You've done nothing but complain for the last 30 years."

Well we've had nothing to complain about tonight. We've had a wonderful evening and are hugely grateful to our hosts.

I give you the toast. To our sponsors.

More Boat Race Dinner Information
Past BRDs  This Year's BRDs

Boat Race News - "The Oarsmen Weigh In" 

Danielle Rossingh of Bloomberg Sports reports on March 5 that American Steve Dudek will be rowing again in 2013 after winning over Oxford in the "interrupted" Boat Race on the Thames. The race is being called the BNY Mellon Boat Race, after its new sponsor, which for the first time ever will be a U.S.-based company.

Here are some highlights from her story:

Cambridge has an 81-76 lead in the series. 

Dudek is one of five returning Cambridge crew members. Acknowledging that the 2012 victory was "hollow" given the disruption, Dudek is looking forward to the Easter Sunday race on March 31. 

The race started in 1829 with a Cambridge student's challenge. This is the first time the Boat Race will have four U.S. crew members. Cambridge will have just one Brit on board. 

The women’s boat race is moving toward equal status with the men's race. It will this year be held a week earlier at Henley. Starting in 2015 they will be one the same day over the same course. 

Last year's demonstrator from Australia was protesting budget cuts in the UK. He has been adding to the UK's prison expenditure since September 2012, with a six-month sentence for creating a public nuisance. 

The event will be watched by 250,000 on the banks of the Thames and millions on television. [In 2012 A group of New Yorkers watched at a bar in Chelsea.] 

The Oxford crew outweighed Cambridge by 21 kilos, first time since 2009 that Oxford has been heavier. But the Cambridge women outweighed Oxford by 28.4 kilos. 
Oxford's crew is looking for vindication after last year's bizarre defeat. Oxford coach Sean Bowden has had eight victories since he started coaching in 1998. Two rowers return from last year. 

Contact: Danielle Rossingh on the London sports desk at drossingh@bloomberg.net. Tip of the hat to Russell Dallen for alerting us to the London weigh-in.

CALENDAR OF OXFORD-CAMBRIDGE BOAT RACE DINNERS, APRIL 2013

Scheduled dates for 2013 dinners are provided below along with Oxford Alumni Networks listings for 2012/13. To add to or correct this list, contact jtmarlin@post.harvard.edu.

ARIZONA
Phoenix - jonathan.rose@asu.edu -

CALIFORNIA
San Francisco - m.kaser@comcast.net - www.oxcam.org

DAKOTAS AND MINNESOTA
Joel Pace pacejf@uwec.edu

DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA -- WASHINGTON DINNER (66th) - April 18, 2013
Dinner chair George Keys (Balliol, Oxford)  gkeys@jordankeys.com
Emcee James Fallows (Queen's, Oxford), Atlantic.

Toast to the Universities  by Katty Kay (Oxford), Lead anchor at BBC World News America

Response from the Universities by Gillian Tett (Clare, Cambridge), Financial Times

ILLINOIS - CHICAGO DINNER (74th) - April 12, 2013
Secretary-Treasurer John H. Morrison, OBE (Univ., Oxford)  johnhmorrison@outlook.com
John Morrison@BoatRace US.www.boatrace.us
Emcee Paul Svoboda (Queens' College, Cambridge)

Mr. Michael J. Dickenson (Christ's College, Cambridge) will report on the 159th Boat Race

Speakers Dr. Robin H. Walker (Queens' College, Cambridge)

Mr. Robert Chatterton Dickson (Magdalene, Cambridge), H.M. Consult General

Musical selections by the Chicago Gilbert & Sullivan Opera Company

LOUISIANA

Philip Kirk Jones, Jr. joski@liskow.com

MISSOURI
- Kansas City
Brandon Baeur bhunterb@gmail.com
- St. Louis
David Pollack missouri@ousoc.oson.org

MASSACHUSETTS
Neil Malcolm
newengland@ousoc.oxon.org www.oxcamne.org

NEW YORK - NYC DINNER (80th Anniversary Gala) - April 11, 2013

Grace, Archbishop Peter Carnley (Emmanuel and St. John's, Cambridge)

Mr. Claude Prince (Kellogg, Oxford) will report on the 159th BNY Mellon Boat Race

Toast to the President, Dr. Julia Gog (Queens', Cambridge)

Toast to the Queen, Dr. John Tepper Marlin (Trinity, Oxford)

Toast to the Universities, H.M. Ambassador to the U.S. Sir Peter Westmacott (New, Oxford)(tbc)

Response from the Universities, Sir Ivor Roberts (Keble, Oxford), President, Trinity, Oxford

The dinner is sponsored by BNY Mellon.

OREGON
cgondek@heronandcrane.com www.oxbridgenw.ning.com

UTAH
Russell Fisher utah.oxford@gmail.com

TENNESSEE
Nashville
Donald McKenzie dmckenzie@dmckenzielaw.com

VIRGINIA
Charlottesville n@hild.org

WASHINGTON
Michael Brunet brunetm@gmail.com

OTHER POSTS 

Obituary, Denis B. Woodfield, second Chairman of the NYC Dinner (after Bruce Harvey), active in the running of the British Schools and Universities Foundation. http://ox-cam-nyc.blogspot.co.uk/2013/04/denis-b.html

Photos of 80th Dinner by Peter Sealy https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10151436457831297.1073741827.676196296&type=1

Program for 80th NYC Dinner April 11, 2013 and other North American Boat Race events  http://ox-cam-nyc.blogspot.co.uk/2013/03/ox-cam-dinners-april-2013-nyc-chicago-dc.html