The College Record 2022

Obituaries
In 1977 he left ICI and moved to Windsor, taking up the role of Director of Studies
for St George's House in Windsor Castle where he combined his deep interests in
business, politics and religion. He was subsequently Warden of St. George's retiring
in 1987. He became a Lay Steward for St. George’s Chapel in 1984 and a Lay
Steward Emeritus from 2012. He was Chairman of Civil Servant Selection Boards
from 1984 until 1990. The Queen awarded him the Commander of the Victorian
Order (CVO) in the New Year Honours of 1988.
John Long was a devoted Methodist and a local preacher for 67 years, only retiring
from this at the age of 93. He lived in Windsor for 42 years and led an active
retirement, including being Chairman of the Windsor and Eton Society.
He was fiercely loyal to the institutions which helped form him: The Leys School,
Oxford, Princeton, MIT, ICI, St. Georges House, the Liberals, the Methodist Church,
all of which he supported and gave back much.
The last year of his life was spent in a care home in Bradford on Avon, close to his
daughter, Pam. He died on 13 October 2020.
Stephen Long
BRIAN MCGUINNESS
I knew the name of Brian McGuinness already when I was
an undergraduate in the United States in the mid-1960s
from his translation, with his colleague and friend David
Pears, of Wittgenstein’s Tractatus. I came to know Brian
personally in 1969, when we were both teaching at the
University of Washington in Seattle. Brian, then already
highly distinguished, was Visiting Professor for the fall
semester, and I was a one-year lecturer in my first university post. Brian was a
quintessential Oxford don, in tweed jackets and invariable tie, despite which he
absolutely fitted into 1960s West Coast America. He gave a seminar on Ryle’s
Concept of Mind, where I first encountered in person Brian’s brilliance as a
philosopher and scholar, which continued to instruct, and impress and delight me
over the next fifty years. I also delighted in his dry sense of humour. Not long after
the semester had ended, I was a passenger in the car Brian had bought for his time
in Seattle. Leaving campus, we had to drive through a police checkpoint. Rather
than stop to argue the toss over his University parking permit which had expired at
the end of the semester, Brian accelerated through the check point while instructing
me with mock urgency, “get down, get down”, as if anticipating a hail of bullets from
the campus police (who were of course armed, this being the USA).
116 The Queen’s College | College Record 2022