Download PDF - St. Catherine's College - University of Oxford
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MESSAGES<br />
Master’s Report<br />
In our fiftieth anniversary year as a <strong>College</strong>, it is worth<br />
reflecting on the paths that have drawn the community<br />
<strong>of</strong> <strong>St</strong> Catherine’s together. Our roots lie in the founding<br />
<strong>of</strong> the Delegacy for Unattached <strong>St</strong>udents in 1868,<br />
following the Royal Commission <strong>of</strong> 1852, which had<br />
concluded that <strong>Oxford</strong> and Cambridge needed opening up<br />
to a broader based clientele.<br />
George Kitchin, later Dean Kitchin, Dean <strong>of</strong> Winchester<br />
and then <strong>of</strong> Durham, had the privilege <strong>of</strong> being the<br />
pilot <strong>of</strong> this great experiment, taking on the role <strong>of</strong> first<br />
Censor. As part <strong>of</strong> the research for the book we have<br />
recently published about <strong>St</strong> Catherine’s, we uncovered<br />
his portrait lying in a basement in Christ Church. He can<br />
now be seen in our book alongside his five successors,<br />
Censor Bullock being the last <strong>of</strong> them.<br />
The book also <strong>of</strong>fers a glimpse <strong>of</strong> the character <strong>of</strong> JB<br />
Baker – known as ‘The Jibber’ – in the photograph <strong>of</strong> the<br />
1899 Torpids Four. He appears there as the scruffiest,<br />
most nondescript coach, and together with an equally<br />
flea-bitten mongrel, poses alongside the proud winners <strong>of</strong><br />
a prize pewter tankard for their performance on the river.<br />
The Jibber was actually a very popular Senior Tutor from<br />
1891 and, later in the book, he may be seen thirty<br />
years on, sporting the same unmistakable luxuriant<br />
moustache, but now in smarter attire, as Censor, a post<br />
he held from 1919 until 1930. He conducted a much<br />
needed reorganisation <strong>of</strong> the tutors and sowed the<br />
seeds for our taking the name ‘<strong>St</strong> Catherine’s’.<br />
The moving finger <strong>of</strong> time shifts now to the last Censor,<br />
Bullock, appointed sixty years ago, becoming the first<br />
Master eight years later, and the orchestrator <strong>of</strong> all we<br />
see around us today. The Bullock years and characters<br />
seem so vibrantly familiar to my generation that it<br />
In our fiftieth<br />
anniversary<br />
year as a<br />
<strong>College</strong>, it<br />
is worth<br />
reflecting on<br />
the paths that<br />
have drawn the<br />
community <strong>of</strong><br />
<strong>St</strong> Catherine’s<br />
together<br />
2 /ST /A MESSAGE CATHERINE’S FROM COLLEGE THE MASTER 2012