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FLOREAT DOMUS
NEWS AND FEATURES FROM THE BALLIOL COMMUNITY | JUNE 2022
Balliol’s biodiversity audit 12 Building community 10
Pandemic reflections 13
Bees’ needs: food for thought 18 The road to Genomics plc 20
Working on environmental issues 34 Was Raphael secretly at Balliol? 32
FLOREAT DOMUS
CONTENTS
12
From the Master 1
NEWS HIGHLIGHTS 2
Awards 2
Buildings named after Balliol ‘greats’ 4
‘Slavery in the Age of Revolution’ 6
32
Naomi Tiley & Aishah Olubaji
10
Building a stronger community 10
Laura Durrant
Biodiversity at Balliol 12
Max Spokes & Kajuli Claeys
PAST AND PRESENT 13 6
Pandemic reflections 13
Keturah Sergeant, Evelina Griniute,
Poppy Sowerby & Petros Spanou
George Mallory and ‘Sligger’ 16
Stephen Golding
BOOKS AND RESEARCH 18
Food for thought 18 13
Ellen Baker
Transforming the future of healthcare 20
27
Professor Sir Peter Donnelly
Bookshelf 22
ALUMNI STORIES 24
The taming of an 18th‑century virus 24
Lucy Ward
What happens after freedom? 26
Eleanor Shearer
Restoring nature’s balance 27
Geoffrey William Evatt
Treasure hunting 30 34
Sir Richard Heygate
Raphael at the National Gallery 32
Professor Tom Henry & Professor David Ekserdjian
Global Balliol 34
Special feature by alumni
18
Balliol College, Oxford OX1 3BJ We are enormously grateful to everyone who has contributed to
www.balliol.ox.ac.uk this magazine by writing an article, agreeing to be interviewed,
providing photographs or information, or otherwise assisting the
Copyright © Balliol College, Oxford, 2022 Editor. We are always pleased to receive feedback, and suggestions
Editor: Anne Askwith (Publications and Web Officer) for articles: please send these to the Editor by email to
Editorial Adviser: Nicola Trott (Senior Tutor) anne.askwith@balliol.ox.ac.uk or at the address opposite.
Design and printing: Ciconi Ltd
Front and back cover: Balliol alumni reunite with friends for their
graduation day, which was delayed by the pandemic. Photographs
by Stuart Bebb.
From the Master
FROM THE MASTER
Dame Helen Ghosh DCB
If I am ever asked which was my In February, we were able to invite
Stuart Bebb
favourite job in the course of my Civil a distinguished group of guests here
Service career, I always say that it was for the Snell Dinner, which marks
working on local regeneration projects John Snell’s 17th-century donation
in some of the most disadvantaged to create the Snell Exhibitioners and
areas of East London in the late 1990s. our resulting historic links to the
Not only did the experience teach me a University of Glasgow. The Hall was
lot about the impact that Government full, the silver gleamed and the candles
policies have on people’s everyday lives: spluttered. The fact that it was the first
it also made me very thoughtful about time in three years we had been able
the notion of ‘community’. to hold the event gave the evening a
In such a diverse and historically particular sense of celebration and, yes,
fluid part of the capital city, so many community.
‘communities’ overlapped, whether I commented on this when I stood
defined by ethnicity, religion, politics, up to speak after dinner. I also took
wealth, employment or whatever the opportunity to comment on an
people chose. This often led to disputes element of community that I felt we
in local meetings about who were the need to regain. The last two and a half
true representatives of the community. years have been ones in which the
I realised that the real ‘community’ sense of a single community within
were almost certainly not visible at all, the College walls has come under
too busy caring for their families or stress. Students have come and gone,
earning money to pay the bills to come in and out of residence, staff have
along to a meeting. worked remotely, tutors have been
Fast forward a quarter of the teaching their students at the other
century, and the idea of ‘community’ think?’). Then there is linear algebra, end of a webcam. When we have been
still fascinates me. A college is made which gets a lot of mentions. But most all together, we have been operating
up in the same way as Tower Hamlets importantly, lots of talk of making within the tight constraints of Covid
or Hackney of many overlapping friends, because ‘It’s a very friendly regulation. So it has been hard to
communities: not just the four estates College’ is the comment I probably hear maintain (and for new students,
of academics, students, staff and more often than any other. develop) the sense that there is
alumni but a myriad of other identities By the end of Hilary Term, many of something about a college that is more
defining their own community. I them have spread their wings and joined than just a collection of heterogeneous
feel this strongly when I meet all all sorts of other communities. This groups and interests. We have also
our Freshers one-to-one towards the year, there was an enormous amount missed our face-to-face contact with
end of Michaelmas Term, and then of novice rowing, bird-watching, rugby, alumni here and around the world and
catch up with them again at Master’s theatre production, football, singing, I’m looking forward in the coming year
Handshaking at the end of Hilary. dancing, volunteering and just reading a to the chance to meet up again.
In Michaelmas Term, there is a good book going on. ‘Bouldering’, on the We are lucky at Balliol that we have
strong sense of a single ‘community climbing wall at Oxford Brookes, seems historically a strong sense of what we
of Freshers’. The same themes recur. to be very much a Thing. stand for. Academic rigour, engaging
When I ask to what people have found Our formal College events celebrate with the world, the freedom to express
it most difficult to adjust, the answer different facets of our College contrary views, independence of
is almost always ‘How hard you have community as we move through the thought and social action are all things
to work’ and the associated challenge calendar. This year with – we hope – which people – alumni or not - would
of organising yourself and meeting the most constraining elements of the recognise as part of our ‘brand’. The
deadlines. pandemic behind us, it was a treat to Ukrainian flag is flying from our
The next most frequent answer is be able to hold in real life our Freshers flagpole as I write.
how different it feels – by contrast Dinners for Undergraduates and This is a wonderful basis on which
to school – to be asked to express an Graduates (and a catch-up version for to rebuild a single community in which
opinion, when your tutor is far more those who missed them last year), and all sorts of others may flourish. I feel it
expert in the subject than you are (‘Why then our St Catherine’s Day Dinner in a privilege to have my part to play.
should they be interested in what I November for this year’s finalists.
FLOREAT DOMUS JUNE 2022 1
Awards
NEWS HIGHLIGHTS
New Year Honours 2021 Australia Day Honour 2022
Peter Usborne (1958), John Wylie AC (1983): awarded the Companion of
Copyright © 2018 Martin Usborne
founder and Managing the Order of Australia, for eminent service to the
Director, Usborne community through leadership in the sporting,
Publishing: Commander of cultural, philanthropic and business sectors.
the Order of the British
Empire (CBE) for services
to literature.
Senior Members
Recognition of Distinction by Oxford University:
Coralia Cartis (Fellow and
Thomas Cookson (1961), Chairman, Physics Partners,
Ian Taylor
Tutor in Mathematics,
Kent: Member of the Order of the British Empire
pictured left) gained the title
(MBE) for services to education.
Professor of Numerical
Optimisation.
Professor Jonathan Michie (1976), Professor of
Innovation and Knowledge Exchange and President John-Paul Ghobrial (Lucas
of Kellogg College, Oxford: Officer of the Order of the Fellow and Tutor in History)
British Empire (OBE) for services to education. gained the title Professor of
Modern and Global History.
Jeremy Mayhew (1977), Member of the Court of
Sebastian Shimeld (Julian
Common Council and lately Chairman, Finance
Huxley Fellow and Tutor
Committee, City of London: Officer of the Order of the
in Zoology) gained the title
British Empire (OBE) for public and voluntary service.
Professor of Evolutionary
Developmental Biology.
Adrian Bird (1988), Director General, Foreign,
Commonwealth and Development Office: Companion
of the Order of the Bath (CB), for services to British Coralia Cartis (Fellow and Tutor in Mathematics): named a
foreign policy. Fellow of the Alan Turing Institute.
Black Spartacus: The Epic Life of Toussaint Louverture (Allen Lane,
2020) by Sudhir Hazareesingh (CUF Lecturer in Politics
Fellows of the British Academy and Tutorial Fellow in Politics): awarded the 2021 American
Library in Paris Book Award, given annually to the most
Professor Helen Steward distinguished book, published in English and encompassing
(Fellow and Tutor in all genres, about France or the French.
Philosophy 1993–2007),
Professor of Philosophy of Professor Jason Lotay
Stuart Bebb
Mind and Action in the (Professor of Pure Mathematics
Faculty of Arts, Humanities and Fellow and Tutor in
and Cultures (School of Mathematics, pictured right):
Philosophy, Religion and selected for the role of the
History of Science) at Chancellor’s Professor at UC
Leeds University. Berkeley for 2022–2023.
Professor Gregory Hutchinson (1975), Regius Professor Professor Adam Smyth
of Greek in the Faculty of Classics at Oxford University. (Professor of English Literature
and the History of the Book,
Professor Paul Roberts (1987), Professor of Criminal A.C. Bradley–J.C. Maxwell
Jurisprudence in the Faculty of Social Sciences at Fellow and Tutor in English
Nottingham University. Literature): elected as a Fellow
of the Society of Antiquaries.
2 FLOREAT DOMUS JUNE 2022
NEWS HIGHLIGHTS
Professor Frances Kirwan (1981 and Emeritus Fellow), Junior Members
Savilian Professor of Geometry at Oxford University:
awarded the Royal Society’s Sylvester Medal ‘for her research Eugenia Beldarrain Gutierrez (2018, MEng): recognised as
on quotients in algebraic geometry, including links with one of the top 10 students across Spain in the ‘Civil, Other
symplectic geometry and topology, which has had many Engineering & Technology’ category of the Nova 111 Student
applications’. List.
Professor Tom Melham (Professor of Computer Science Filip Mihov (2018, MCompSci, Computer Science): was in
and Fellow and Tutor in Computation): awarded a £3m the Oxford University team that won the 139th Varsity chess
Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) match between Oxford and Cambridge.
grant to direct RoaRQ, a programme that will establish a
cross-disciplinary community of researchers in quantum Henry West (2018, DPhil
Tony Lomas
computing and computer science, who will address the global Medical Sciences, pictured right):
challenge of delivering quantum computing that is robust, won the British Atherosclerosis
reliable, and trustworthy. Society’s Early Career
Investigator Competition 2021.
Professor Chris Minkowski (Emeritus Fellow): Principal
Investigator on an Oriental Studies project that won a Petros Spanou (2018, DPhil
Leverhulme Trust Research Project Grant entitled ‘The History): awarded a 2021 Royal
Mahābhārata’s Supporting Texts in Literary Culture and Historical Society/Institute of
History’. Historical Research Centenary
Fellowship for doctoral research.
Professor Gillian
Carol Higgins
Morriss-Kay Mathias Gjesdal Hammer (2020, MPhil International
(Emeritus Fellow, Relations): was shortlisted for the Observer/Anthony Burgess
pictured left): prize for arts journalism 2022 with his review of You Have
awarded the Not Yet Been Defeated by Alaa Abdel el-Fattah.
biennial Anatomical
Society Prize Medal
for 2020–2021.
Old Members
Professor Sir Drummond Bone (1968, Master 2011–2018
and Honorary Fellow): appointed Chair of the National Professor Jonathan Meakins
Library of Scotland. (Nuffield Professor of Surgery
and Professorial Fellow 2002–
Professor Sir Peter Donnelly FRS, FMedSci (1980 and 2008): selected for induction into
Honorary Fellow), co-founder and CEO of Genomics: the Canadian Medical Hall of
awarded the Royal Society’s 2021 Gabor Medal for ‘pioneering Fame for 2022 for his outstanding
work in the genomic revolution in human disease research, contributions to medicine and
transforming the understanding of meiotic recombination, the health sciences.
and for developing new statistical methods’.
Professor David Clifton (Research Fellow in the
Atul Gawande (1987 and Honorary Fellow): appointed Sciences and Lecturer in Engineering Science 2014–
Assistant Administrator for Global Health at the United 2018): named a Fellow of the Alan Turing Institute.
States Agency for International Development (USAID).
Professor Dilip Menon (1984): awarded a Science
Andrew Graham (Master 2001–2011 and Honorary Fellow): Breakthrough of the Year 2021 in Social Sciences and
awarded a Gold Medal by Charles University, Prague, for his Humanities prize by the Falling Walls Foundation, for
contribution to reinvigorating the Europaeum, a network of his work on theory from the global south.
Europe’s leading universities.
Robin Walker (1997): appointed Minister of State for
School Standards.
Martin Pinkas, Charles University
David Johnston (2000):
London Portrait Photographer/
David Woolfall
appointed Parliamentary Private
Secretary at the Department of
Education.
See more awards for Old
Members in News and Notes, a
supplement to this magazine.
FLOREAT DOMUS JUNE 2022 3
NEWS HIGHLIGHTS
Buildings named after
Balliol ‘greats’
The eight new accommodation blocks at the Master’s Field – which
provide over 200 study bedrooms for undergraduate and graduate
students – have been named after historic Balliol alumni and academics
who reflect the diversity, values and history of the College.
Emmanuelle Purdon
Courtesy of the Clark family
Sir Cyril Norman Hinshelwood by Walter Stoneman
bromide print, 1931 NPG x168326
© National Portrait Gallery, London
Lord (Tom) Bingham Professor Baruch Dr Carol Clark Sir Cyril Hinshelwood
of Cornhill PC KG (Barry) Blumberg Tutorial Fellow 1973–2004 OM, PRS
1954, Visitor 1986–2010 and 1955, George Eastman 1919, Fellow 1920–1921
Carol Clark (1940–2015)
Honorary Fellow 1989–2010 Professor 1983–1994,
was the first woman to Cyril Hinshelwood (1897–
Master 1989–1994
Tom Bingham (1933–2010) be appointed a Fellow 1967) won the Nobel Prize
was an eminent British Barry Blumberg (1925–2011) of Balliol, and the first for Chemistry in 1956. It was
judge and jurist who was won the Nobel Prize for woman to be a Fellow of as a tutor at Trinity College
successively Master of the Medicine in 1976 for his any of the formerly all-male from 1921 to 1937 that he
Rolls, Lord Chief Justice work on the Hepatitis Oxford colleges. She wrote performed his fundamental
of England and Wales, B virus. Having laid the extensively on Montaigne, work on chemical kinetics
and the Senior Law Lord. foundations at the National Rabelais and Baudelaire, and in the Balliol–Trinity
He played a key role in Institute for Health, published a translation of Laboratories. He studied
the establishment of Blumberg and his team at Proust’s La Prisonnière. Of all the explosive reaction of
the UK Supreme Court. the Institute for Cancer her publications, she was hydrogen and oxygen, and
In that role, he wrote a Research in Philadelphia most proud of her French described the phenomenon
number of judgements, in the mid-1960s enabled Literature: A Beginner’s Guide, of chain reactions (work
defining the place of the first screening test published in 2012, since she for which he shared the
individual rights and the for the Hepatitis B virus, knew it would be of great Nobel Prize with N.N.
relationship between to prevent its spread in practical use to her students. Semenov). His subsequent
long-established principles blood donations, and the work on chemical changes
of common law with the development of a vaccine. in the bacterial cell was of
more recent obligations Blumberg later freely great importance in later
of international law. His distributed his vaccine work on antibiotics and
lectures and writings, and patent in order to promote therapeutic agents. The
in particular his book its distribution by drug Langmuir–Hinshelwood
The Rule of Law (2010), companies. He was the first process in heterogeneous
continue to be seminal. Jewish Master of the College catalysis is named after him.
and the first American.
4 FLOREAT DOMUS JUNE 2022
NEWS HIGHLIGHTS
Balliol Portrait No. 13.
The Dervorguilla site
The buildings at the Master’s Field and
Jowett Walk are to be known collectively
as the ‘Dervorguilla site’, in honour of
Dervorguilla of Galloway, Balliol’s co-
founder and first benefactor. After the
death of her husband, John de Balliol, who
established the ‘House of the Scholars of
Balliol’ around 1263, Dervorguilla endowed
the College in 1269, so guaranteeing its
future financially; and she gave Balliol its
first Statutes in 1282, setting out rules for
the daily life and work of the scholars.
Portrait of Dervorguilla, c.17th century.
Aldous Huxley by Bassano Ltd
bromide print, September 1931 NPG x84301
© National Portrait Gallery, London
Sir Seretse Khama by Bassano Ltd
vintage bromide print, 1940s NPG x125354
© National Portrait Gallery, London
Aldous Huxley Sir Seretse Khama Professor Dame Dr Lakshman Sarup
1913 Honorary Fellow 1969–1980 Frances Kirwan DBE 1916
1981 and Fellow and Tutor in
Aldous Huxley (1894–1963) Seretse Khama (1921–1980) Lakshman Sarup (1894–
Mathematics 1986–2017
was an English writer and was the first President of 1946) was the first Oxford
philosopher, best known for the Republic of Botswana, Frances Kirwan was in student to submit for a
the dystopian novel Brave from 1966 until his death in 2017 the first woman to DPhil degree, which he
New World (1932). As well as 1980. After gaining his BA be appointed Savilian was awarded in 1919 on the
fiction, he published poetry, from Fort Hare University Professor of Geometry in subject of Yaska’s Nirukta, the
journalism and screenplays. College in South Africa, Oxford University, and oldest Sanskrit treatise on
His novels and journalism he came to Balliol in 1945 the first to be elected to etymology. Born in Lahore,
increasingly expressed his to pursue studies in law any of the historic Oxford he came to Balliol on an
pacifist views and he became and politics. He went on chairs in mathematics. Indian state scholarship,
interested in mysticism to train as a barrister in She was elected a Fellow having obtained his MA
and universalism. These one of the British Inns of of the Royal Society in in Sanskrit from Lahore’s
themes are reflected in his Court. As founder of the 2001 (only the third female Oriental College. He
novel Eyeless in Gaza (1936). Bechuanaland Democratic mathematician to attain this was appointed Professor
In The Perennial Philosophy Party and later as Prime honour) and President of of Sanskrit Literature
(1945), he discussed the Minister of what was then the London Mathematical at Punjab University in
links between Western and a British Protectorate, Society from 2003 to 2005 1920. In 1942 he was the
Eastern mysticism, and The Khama played a key role in (only the second woman first Indian scholar to be
Doors of Perception (1954) gaining the freedom of his ever to be elected). She appointed Principal of the
describes his experience country from colonial rule. was awarded a DBE in 2014 Oriental College of the
of taking psychedelic and, in 2021, received the University of the Punjab.
drugs. He was nominated very distinguished Royal
for the Nobel Prize for Society Sylvester Medal.
Literature nine times.
To read more about each of these people, visit www.balliol.ox.ac.uk/naming. FLOREAT DOMUS JUNE 2022 5
per stellas Ltd/ Laura Hinski Photography
NEWS HIGHLIGHTS
Paper artist Nicola Dobrowolski
(left) and researcher Tamyah Jones
collaborate in Nicola’s studio.
‘Slavery in the Age of
Revolution’
Curators Naomi Tiley (Librarian) and Aishah Olubaji
(Early Career Librarian) reflect on the collaborative
work behind the College’s recent exhibition
How can an exhibition do justice to exhibition. But as we delved into the
the experience of 12.5 million African
‘How can we revive collections of manuscripts, archives
people taken from their families, the power stolen from and early printed books, we realised we
their homes and their communities, need not have hesitated.
and sold into brutal slavery? How,
those overlooked We did plenty of key word searching
especially, when those people and their or erased from the in our catalogues, from directly topical
experiences have been written out (slavery, plantation, revolution,
of the historical record by those who
historical record?’ rebellion, colonies), to geographical
sought to make them an expendable (Africa, Caribbean, Haiti, America), to
resource? These were some of the trade and economics (shells, cotton,
questions that came up as we curated Politics) on Toussaint Louverture and sugar, tin, coffee, shipping, maritime).
the Library’s autumn 2021 exhibition, the Haitian Revolution, challenged Inspired by Sudhir’s research, the
Slavery in the Age of Revolution. us to see what the College had in its exhibition focused on the ‘Age of
When Honorary Fellow Oliver historic collections to tell the story Revolution’, so we also searched by
Franklin (1967), enthused by the work of transatlantic slavery, we accepted, date, looking through material in our
of Sudhir Hazareesingh (CUF Lecturer with the proviso that there might not catalogues from the late 18th and early
in Politics and Tutorial Fellow in be enough relevant material for an 19th centuries. This was a particularly
6 FLOREAT DOMUS JUNE 2022
NEWS HIGHLIGHTS
‘ We came to further appreciate how integral
transatlantic slavery was to 18th-century
economies and social structures.’
useful way to search the College have been influenced by knowledge of
per stellas Ltd/ Laura Hinski Photography
archives: we were looking for evidence transatlantic shipping.
of attitudes to and involvement in In some cases, discoveries were due
transatlantic slavery in Balliol’s to luck. We almost missed a letter from
community, and we did not know a plantation owner in Saint-Domingue
where we would find it – in College describing events in the Haitian
meeting minutes, former Masters’ Revolution, as it was in a collection of
letters, or account books. As our letters dating outside our period and
searches yielded an abundance of items, described in our catalogue as ‘relating
from maps of Barbados and Jamaica to to the quartering of troops at St
travellers’ accounts of the Atlantic Domingo’. In a very sparingly described
world, receipts for cash crops to news collection, we were lucky that the
Blue shark from De Historia Piscium
articles about Tacky’s revolt, it became a cataloguer had even left that much of a
published by the Royal Society in 1686.
matter not of what we could find but of clue to guide us.
what we would have to leave out. Our research was supported by our
A lot of background reading (neither academic co-curators, one of whom, found was the absence of evidence in
of us were subject specialists), twinned Seamus Perry (Massey Fellow and the College archive about its 18th-
with prior knowledge of the collections, Tutor in English), informed us of the century community’s opinions of
brought other leads. For example, when anti-slavery poems by Robert Southey transatlantic slavery. Beyond the work
we read that sharks learnt to follow (Balliol 1792) and wrote an essay on of Southey, we were unable to find
slave ships, following trails of the many them for the exhibition catalogue. any evidence of discussion, let alone
discarded bodies of enslaved people, we Throughout the research process, dissension on the subject.
asked ourselves whether sharks featured we came to appreciate further how Our academic co-curators were
in the Royal Society’s striking book on integral transatlantic slavery was to crucial in making the final selection
fish from the late 17th century. The 18th-century economies and social and shaping the narrative of the
picture of the blue shark we found was structures. Consequently, perhaps exhibition. In particular, conversations
so frightening as to make us wonder more notable than the unexpected with Marisa Fuentes (Oliver Smithies
whether the artist’s impression could abundance of relevant materials we Visiting Fellow 2019–2020), author of
per stellas Ltd/ Laura Hinski Photography
1794 map of Jamaica showing maroon
towns, such as Moore Town and
Nanny Town, by underlining.
FLOREAT DOMUS JUNE 2022 7
NEWS HIGHLIGHTS
Dispossessed Lives: Enslaved Women, Violence, We consciously cut down the amount UK and the US to discuss teaching
and the Archive, and Adrienne Whalley of biographical information we included transatlantic slavery. To support this
(Director of Education and Community about the Beckfords, and turned the project, the College commissioned
Engagement, Museum of the American focus on to the people they exploited. innovative production company per
Revolution) helped us to form the Despite the absences in the archival stellas to create a film summarising
guiding tenets of the exhibition. records, we tried to trace the lives of the the exhibition that could be watched
Together we decided the exhibition people whose labour and pain built the by our geographically dispersed group
should foreground the experiences wealth and power held by families like of teachers and form a basis for the
of enslaved people; focus on the the Beckfords. We scoured the records seminar discussions.
role of resistance by enslaved and of plantation holdings to find the Working with the film crew was
formerly enslaved people in bringing threads of individual lives and families, an intense but rewarding experience.
about abolition; use the College’s in listings that recognised birth and The process influenced the whole
history as a lens through which to death as changes in stock levels. We also exhibition, from the beautiful stills
view British involvement in and foregrounded the experiences of those photography of Laura Hinski, featured
attitudes to transatlantic slavery; and who had been enslaved, in their own in the exhibition catalogue, to the
explore the bias of the sources. To words, drawn from rare first-person perspectives on the subject matter and
succeed, we had to resist treading accounts such as those of Olaudah creative approaches brought by the
well-worn documentary paths. For Equiano and Mary Prince. Oliver young professional photographers,
example, it is easy to find out a lot Franklin’s generous gift of the rare and cinematographers, artists and
about the Beckford family but it ephemeral first issue of the Anti-Slavery researchers, who were enabled to gain
was hard to uncover anything about Record, featuring a contemporary paid experience from the project by the
the individuals who were forced to likeness of Toussaint Louverture, gave us generosity of Ian Glick QC (1966). Most
labour on their plantations. We had to a striking visual with which to attend impactful of their contributions were
consider: how do we properly address to those who fought for freedom. the stunning scenes created by Nicola
the gross power held by these men As we worked on the exhibition, Dobrowolski of DobrowolskiDesigns.
without perpetuating that power in we also embarked on a project These were made primarily for the film
the narrative? How can we revive the with the Museum of the American but it became clear that their emotive
power stolen from those overlooked or Revolution in Philadelphia to host a power would enhance the experience
erased from the historical record? series of seminars for teachers in the of the physical exhibition.
per stellas Ltd/ Laura Hinski Photography
The crew from per stellas interview Sudhir Hazareesingh in the Master’s Dining Room.
8 FLOREAT DOMUS JUNE 2022NEWS HIGHLIGHTS
It was thanks to this collaboration Aishah Olubaji
per stellas Ltd/ Laura Hinski Photography
between a wide range of contributors (left) and Naomi
that Slavery in the Age of Revolution Tiley (right)
accomplished a nuanced portrayal of preparing an
a complex and distressing subject. The exhibit for
response to the exhibition from over photography.
600 people who visited and many
others who watched the film has been
overwhelmingly positive. Here are just
a few of the comments we received:
‘Thank you for this
exhibition, and I hope
that it has proved as
enlightening and moving
for other visitors as it has
Stuart Bebb
for me. The artwork is
particularly wrenching and
humanising and inspiring.
I will be thinking about
it for a long while’
Jeff Bowersox
‘Thank you. It’s about
time. We need more
of this. Might there
be hope other colleges
begin this reckoning’
‘I thought the exhibition
was great and I really People visiting the exhibition at the Historic Collections Centre.
liked the pop-ups/paper
cut out thingies. I would
Watching people absorb the exhibition of Revolution; and of course Sudhir
recommend it to lots of was a reminder of the power of historic Hazareesingh on Toussaint Louverture.
people. I really enjoyed collections to engage people in lives The teachers and per stellas have
past or distant from their own, and workshopped the amazing content
spending time in here!’
make connections to how we live today. created for the film to begin developing
Eleanor, age 11 As one visitor to the exhibition (Raja the high-quality classroom resources
Karthikeya, Fellow, Pembroke College) that teachers need to do justice to
said: ‘It is hard to believe that human the subject. The goal is to make these
‘Powerful and moving beings could treat fellow human beings resources freely available, so that as
exhibition. While it’s so brutally for so long. Slavery can many teachers and schoolchildren
something we’re all aware never be forgotten and it should serve as possible can benefit from them
as caution for the future, as a reason to and become aware of the importance
of, it’s so important to learn
counter prejudice.’ of the transatlantic slave trade and
of the lived experiences of At the time of writing, the teachers’ its lasting impact on society, but
those silenced peoples. A seminar group have so far heard from the creation of these resources is
speakers including Dr José Lingna dependent on further funding.
phenomenal and moving
Nafafé on his research on Lourenço
exhibition – and a fantastic da Silva Mendonça and the Black The exhibition film and catalogue are
starting point for delving Atlantic Abolitionist Movement in the available on the College website:
17th century; Professor Toby Green, www.balliol.ox.ac.uk/news/2021/
deeper into the past.’
author of A Fistful of Shells: West Africa september/new-exhibition-by-balliol-
Anonymous from the Rise of the Slave Trade to the Age library
FLOREAT DOMUS JUNE 2022 9NEWS HIGHLIGHTS
Building a stronger
community
Danish Malik (2019, Medical Sciences) interviewed Laura Durrant (1999)
about her career and her work with Balliol students
DM: Can you provide a little bit of racism at College and in Oxford, it
Workshops with of background about your time at
Balliol and your career?
got me thinking about my own time at
College and I offered my support.
students It’s really interesting, looking back
I matriculated in 1999 and studied now, to reflect that when I was at Balliol
In response to a report on
Jurisprudence. I had a brilliant time there were very few racial minorities,
behalf of Balliol’s BME Society
at Balliol, and I still see a lot of my let alone black people at the University.
detailing their experiences
contemporaries whenever I can. I’m mixed heritage (Caribbean/British),
of discrimination and
After College I trod the classic path and it wasn’t until I got to Balliol that I
harassment, in 2020 Balliol
of a commercial lawyer, qualifying felt the need to classify myself as black;
began a programme to explore
and working for Herbert Smith but, in that environment, it became
and understand how to build
(now Herbert Smith Freehills) in important to me, so I experienced
a resilient anti-racist culture
London, with the odd stint overseas. the process of racialisation at that
for the College community.
Then I moved in house to become point. There was also an interesting
Head of Litigation, Regulatory and dynamic with class and race that wasn’t
As a part of this programme it
Investigations at the Royal Bank of easy to articulate back then, but I
engaged Laura Durrant, who
Scotland, dealing with issues arising definitely struggled with it at times as
delivered a workshop for JCR
from the 2008 financial crisis. That was the first person in my family to go to
and MCR students of colour, to
a really interesting time. university. And I recognised a lot of the
help equip them with tools to
In 2019 I left law to think a bit experiences the students had reported.
navigate difficult situations in
more creatively about my career and
their time as a student and later
pursue some passion projects. One of DM: How did you approach the
in professional settings; and
those has been setting up a business discussions with the students?
more recently she facilitated
in 2021 called Equitura with another
four workshop sessions on
Balliol alumna, Jillian Naylor (1996). I try to move people beyond thinking
racism and discrimination for
Equitura works with a wide range that racism is the worst thing anyone
all Freshers in the JCR. Danish
of organisations to support cultural can do, to seeing that we are all
Malik, BME Society President,
change and effective diverse and complicit, often without any awareness
was one of the students
inclusive teams. or intention. We just don’t see it,
involved in the JCR workshops.
because it’s such a complicated area
DM: In 2021 you worked with the and every perspective is different,
College on issues related to anti- and made more opaque by cultural
racism. How did that project arise? and social differences. I’m currently
‘ I try to move people studying for an MA on Race, Ethnicity
beyond thinking that I had been working with a lot of and Postcolonial Studies at University
organisations following the resurgence College London, so I’m fully immersed
racism is the worst of the focus on Black Lives Matter after in that complexity from an academic
thing anyone can do, the killing of George Floyd in 2020. In standpoint, but obviously very few
particular, I’d been undertaking cultural people have the capacity to do the same!
to seeing that we are reviews, investigations, and training – Some racist behaviours are
all complicit, often often looking at issues associated with reprehensible, but the majority of the
race. When I saw an email from Dame day-to-day experiences people report
without any awareness Helen Ghosh (Master) to Old Members happen because we exist in a society
or intention.’ about the student report on experiences that racialises people in ways it’s hard
10 FLOREAT DOMUS JUNE 2022NEWS HIGHLIGHTS
to see. If people can see and accept One of the amazing things about DM: Through coming back and
their impact, rather than thinking ‘I being a student again myself is interacting with the student body
couldn’t possibly be racist because meeting (very much) more recent in the sessions you ran, how do you
I’m a good person’, that goes a long graduates and realising their different think Balliol has changed since you
way to progressing the discussion and generational perspectives. I was were a student there?
improving the experiences of people asked by one of my UCL peers if my
of colour day to day. undergraduate years had been a tough Apart from the new furniture in the
experience for a woman of colour and JCR, I’d say not at all! I enjoyed being
DM: What examples of discrimination the answer was ‘not really’. It was a challenged in the sessions – it’s always
have you faced in your life? completely different time. We were good to be disagreed with. I hope we
just coming through the 1990s and the created an environment in which there
That’s a hard question to answer because economy was growing. Everyone was were no right or wrong views, and that
you never know what you would sure to get a job and we were being everyone felt able to raise whatever was
experience if you were different. I’ve courted by big organisations. There on their minds.
definitely experienced microaggressions wasn’t a sense of critical analysis of
and bias as a woman, a mother, and the world in the same way that there DM: What do you think student
a person of colour in my life. But it’s is for today’s generation. Sure, there and corporate diversity training
interesting how important context is to would have been moments and issues, currently gets wrong?
reactions in those moments – whether but none of it sits that heavily with
something has been experienced you when your wider world is actually Too often there’s this tick-the-box,
repeatedly, how confident one feels in quite a positive place; I was also in ‘This is good, this is bad’ approach
a particular context, or whether there’s a position of huge privilege being at and once people attend training they
a concern that the discrimination Balliol. I think we need to recognise think ‘Great, I’m anti-racist!’ There’s
indicates a fundamental challenge to how different things can seem now very little recognition of the huge
what can be achieved. and why activism has come so much shades of grey and the complex history
more to the fore for undergraduates involved which we can’t unwind. In
and new arrivals in the workplace. order to progress, we have to see that
It can be challenging for leaders history and equip ourselves to analyse
but it’s not a bad thing. it critically for ourselves.
‘ I enjoyed being
challenged in the
sessions – it’s always
good to be disagreed
with. I hope we created
an environment in
which there were no
right or wrong views.’
Laura Durrant
FLOREAT DOMUS JUNE 2022 11Biodiversity at Balliol
NEWS HIGHLIGHTS
Max Spokes (2019) and Kajuli Claeys (2019) report on
doing an audit at the Broad Street site
When the College was selected to take part in a biodiversity
Zack Miodownik
audit as a pilot trial conducted by the Conference of
Colleges, the Master asked us, as JCR Environment and ‘ Balliol has an important
Ethics Representatives at the time, if we could coordinate
the undergraduate contribution. The aim of the audit,
role in ensuring that its
which took place in 9th and 10th weeks of Trinity Term sites provide rich and varied
2021, was to produce a baseline of the biodiversity of
Balliol’s sites: Broad Street, Jowett Walk, the Master’s
habitats for wildlife in Oxford.’
Field and Holywell Manor. It is hoped that the metrics
used in the audit will be repeated in future years in order
to indicate trends, as well as provide data against which
targets can be set, as the College looks to improve the
biodiversity on its sites.
With the help of volunteers from the undergraduate
community, over the two weeks we took measurements and
made surveys of several aspects of Balliol’s biodiversity on the
Broad Street site, collecting data on land cover types, trees,
birds, insects and earthworms. This work involved:
• Surveying the land to gauge how much is covered by trees,
lawn and herbaceous borders. From this the amount of
accumulated carbon stored in the vegetation biomass
could be determined, as well as the amount of carbon to be
sequestered from the atmosphere each year.
• Measuring the number of trees, as well as the circumference
of their trunks. This was an enjoyable if slightly perilous
task involving a multitude of thorns, awkward branches and
attempting to fit a tape measure around some of our oldest
trees on the Broad Street site. Special thanks at this point
Max Spokes surveying land cover in the Back Quad of Balliol
should go to Zack Miodownik for enthusiastically offering
College
his services as an excellent tree hugger!
• Getting up in the crisp early hours of bright June mornings • Digging into Balliol grounds themselves to search for
to watch and listen to the dawn chorus as the rest of various types of earthworm – soil feeding, deep living, and
College was taking a well-earned rest after the examination surface feeding.
season. On these outings we saw and heard a variety
of birds, many of which are of conservation concern, The data collected at all Balliol’s sites was passed on to Dr
including the song thrush. A special mention should be Jonathan Green at the Department of Zoology, as well as
given to Levi Arden and Matilda Gettins for helping us on Blanche Delaney from the Conference of Colleges, and
the Broad Street site with these audits, and sacrificing their over the summer it was collated and analysed to produce a
sleep for the cause! baseline from which we as a College can produce biodiversity
targets for all our sites. The biodiversity crisis facing our
• Setting out various coloured trays, dotted around College planet is equally as grave as the climate crisis, yet it has been
grounds, in order to measure numbers and species of given far less attention. Balliol has an important role in
beetles, flies, bees and wasps. The results from this aspect ensuring that its sites provide rich and varied habitats for
of the audit were particularly pleasing: Balliol ranked wildlife in Oxford, and the undergraduate body has shown
second out of the 20 colleges in the trial in terms of insect a keen interest in supporting the College in working to
abundance, with the Master’s Garden on Broad Street improve our biodiversity.
hosting the most parasitoid wasps of any of the 58 sites
across the 20 colleges. The report is available at www.balliol.ox.ac.uk/biodiversity.
12 FLOREAT DOMUS JUNE 2022PAST AND PRESENT
Petros Spanou
Radcliffe Square during the first
lockdown of 2020.
Pandemic reflections
Students and a recent alumna recall how the lockdowns at the
height of the pandemic affected their university experience
Keturah Sergeant (2020, Classical Archaeology and Ancient History)
When the Covid-19 pandemic hit, in my second year of A one person my age and that helped me greatly. Once my
levels, it prevented me from taking my exams and following grades had come through, I was also able to look forward to
a natural progression to university. Even my first planned university, which gave me a purpose again, rather than just
goodbyes, those intended for my friends and tutors at college, getting through day by day.
were put on hold. I was extremely fortunate to have a friend Unfortunately, my transition to university wasn’t what I
from church, who is only a year older than me, living with had expected. My entire first year ended up being online and
us. I was able to have normal interactions with at least in Hilary Term I couldn’t return to Oxford. It hasn’t been
easy to go through several transitions, to a new academic
environment as well as a new physical one, alongside the
pandemic. However, I have a new drive to appreciate the
‘It hasn’t been easy to go through opportunities I am given as we slowly learn to live with this
several transitions, to a new academic new, permanent obstacle. Like me, I am sure the community
at Balliol College have a new energy to change how we think
environment as well as a new physical and move forward towards becoming better versions of
one, alongside the pandemic.’ ourselves. We have learnt that we can change and adapt when
situations become hard, that sometimes we need to take
initiative and move forward because we need to make the
most of every day we are given.
FLOREAT DOMUS JUNE 2022 13PAST AND PRESENT
Evelina Griniute (2019, PPE)
Studying during the height of the pandemic was undeniably might think that internship opportunities would have been
difficult, strongly altering my university experience. Perhaps severely depleted, but I was still able to engage in several
the most prominent effect was the weakened sense that I was fascinating and rewarding placements remotely; tutoring
part of the Balliol community. That feeling of togetherness for Schools Plus, for example, changed to tutoring a student
that comes from being near other undergraduates in your one-on-one remotely, which I found even more effective
college, from living together, sharing social spaces as well as than going into schools to work with groups and achieved
learning together, is incredibly strong at Balliol. It immerses more. Societies also did a wonderful job of maintaining their
you in university life and staying at home for periods of the activities during lockdown.
pandemic seriously reduced that immersion. I also keenly felt
the loss of alternative places to study. Pre-Covid-19, I took
full advantage of the plethora of study spaces open to me:
different libraries, coffee shops, the JCR … When the only
option is the desk in your bedroom, the scenery gets old – ‘That feeling of togetherness
fast – and I found that quite demotivating.
Yet despite these difficulties, it is remarkable how resilient
that comes from … living
most aspects of university life have been to the obstacles the together … as well as learning
pandemic has posed. Social opportunities were very limited
during lockdown, but my roommates and I (we were living
together … is incredibly strong
out) compensated by ordering take-out and having game at Balliol, and staying at home
nights, taking turns to cook Sunday breakfasts and dinners
for each other and becoming extremely invested in that
seriously reduced that.’
year’s Great British Bake Off, which we watched together. One
Poppy Sowerby (2017)
I finished university in summer 2020. I was at my kitchen
table at home where, after a four-hour exam, I closed my
laptop and walked like a zombie back to my bedroom. The
exam panic had gone, but the full weight of a missed final
term suddenly took over.
A few weeks later, I drove some mates down into a drizzly
Oxford, where we sat in pubs and parks and talked. It was
strange, like coming back as a tourist; in Cowley, the second-
years zoomed around on their bikes, stressed about this essay
or that tute or any number of things that would never apply
to us again.
The next afternoon, we walked into College to find the
gardens in full bloom. When we’d left just before the first
lockdown, spring was only just arriving. I remembered the
last day. We’d sat around in cold sunshine by the Buttery;
the greatest impact of Covid we could envision was our
dissertations (‘fingers crossed’) being cancelled. Silly children.
There was a creeping irony to that moment, seeing the
Garden Quad in eerie silence. Some of the best moments of
Poppy Sowerby my life, now unreachable, had been in this deserted space. It
was hard to talk, something I don’t usually struggle with.
More than anything else, I remember lots of laughter and
‘ I finished university in summer 2020 affection at Balliol. As an undergrad, I wouldn’t be caught
dead being sentimental, but as we slumped quietly out of
… at my kitchen table at home after College and on to whatever was next, I had to chokingly
a four-hour exam.’ admit to myself that I missed it – all of it.
14 FLOREAT DOMUS JUNE 2022PAST AND PRESENT
The first photo that I took was in mid-March 2020,
Petros Spanou
right before the UK went into the first lockdown. It was
captured from the steps leading to Balliol’s magnificent
Victorian hall. Although it was the end of term, the College
was quieter than usual. Only two people appear in the
background. This was the photo that gave me the idea
of documenting the impact of the pandemic on Oxford,
particularly its transformation from a place bustling with
life to one which was rapidly falling into stillness.
guiding people, and the council advice posted all over the
centre made the experience of living in Oxford surreal. The
most heart-breaking aspect was ‘encountering’ the town’s
‘emptiness’: silent streets, little or no traffic, closed shops,
the shut door of the Bodleian. In a way the city’s emptiness
reflected the feeling of emptiness that I was experiencing.
Being away from my family and friends for more than a year,
and experiencing anxiety about the impact of the pandemic
on my academic progress, created a void within me.
I have always loved photography. From a young age I
would collect photographs from newspapers and magazines.
I was particularly fascinated by photographing nature
and architecture. But this time it was different: taking
photographs was more than just an act of capturing my
Petros Spanou (2018, DPhil History) surroundings. During the lockdown, it also became a
coping mechanism. At a fundamental level, it helped me
I spent the whole of the first national lockdown living in digest and rationalise the situation; in a more general
Holywell Manor. sense, it allowed me to be reconciled with the internal
For me the year 2020 began with the most exciting and external manifestations of ‘emptiness’. The absence of
prospects: I started writing the first chapter of my thesis, movement in the town and the prolonged absence of human
and I was working as a graduate teaching assistant in the interaction rendered the ‘familiar’ into the ‘unfamiliar’.
History Faculty. I will never forget how happy I was and how Capturing the ‘unfamiliar’ in a visual manner was a way
rewarding I found my experience of tutorials and classes. But for me to come to terms with what was happening.
it was also a time of uncertainty and concern: Britain was My photographs document the town’s emptiness,
leaving the European Union (something which had a direct purposefully juxtaposing it with the loveliness and splendour
impact on me as a citizen from an EU country), and the of Oxford’s architecture. In my eyes the ancient buildings of
global health situation was spiralling out of control. Oxford, which have witnessed many historic events including
By the end of the term, it was clear that the world was at a plagues, as well as the changing seasons, are visual reminders
critical point. Then came the lockdown in March. Whatever that life continues, that this too shall pass and that
joy, intellectual excitement, and strength I had gathered in ‘emptiness’ will once again give way to fullness.
the first months of the year vanished. It did not help that
most people I knew in Oxford left before the lockdown.
Loneliness gave way to sadness, and sadness to anxiety, ‘ It was my
Stuart Bebb
which in turn became so crippling that I could not work
properly. My productivity declined and the necessary focus for
passion for
academic work was just not there. The closure of libraries, the photography
lack of human contact, and the inability to see my supervisors
face to face all had a negative impact on my progress. But
that did more
amidst everything that was going on, I would gain strength than anything
from the spirit of community that was being fostered, even in
a socially distanced way, in the Graduate Centre.
else to reconcile
It was my passion for photography, however, that did more me to the new
than anything else to reconcile me to the new situation.
I started my own little project entitled ‘Documenting
situation.’
Emptiness’. When I arrived in Oxford in 2017, I was struck by
how full the streets were, brimming with life and all kinds
of sounds. The pandemic radically transformed the city. The
warning health signs in the streets, the arrows on pavements
FLOREAT DOMUS JUNE 2022 15PAST AND PRESENT
George Mallory and ‘Sligger’
Stephen Golding (Emeritus Fellow, University College) discovered a
friendship between the mountaineer and a Balliol don
In 2012 the journalist Peter Gillman (Univ, 1961) visited the
Balliol Historic Collections, Urquhart Album 6, FFU06.05E
Chalet des Anglais in the French Alps for the first time. A
mountain writer and biographer of George Mallory (who
famously disappeared while climbing Everest in 1924),
Peter was excited to find in the chalet library a number of
books from George’s early climbing partner, Cottie Sanders,
later Lady Mary O’Malley and the novelist Ann Bridge. The
sense of history unfolding was increased by the discovery of
Cottie’s marginal note in her copy of The Climbs on Lliwedd: ‘Jan
5, 1911, with GHL Mallory’.
The chalet library is that of Francis Urquhart (Balliol 1890
and Fellow 1896–1934), known as ‘Sligger’, who began the
tradition of annual summer reading parties at the Chalet des
Anglais near Mont Blanc in 1891 – parties that continue to be
enjoyed by students at Balliol, Univ and New Colleges, who
share the use of the chalet today. Sligger was a keen amateur
photographer and he developed his prints in his rooms in
College. As well as photographs he put in the diaries of the
chalet parties, Balliol Archives hold extensive photograph
albums that record his life at Balliol, the chalet parties and
his vacation tours, all carefully annotated with dates, places
and names of individuals. While preparing my book on
the history of the chalet, I found in these albums – which
might be justifiably entitled ‘good-looking young men I
have known’ (this is not the place to debate the homosocial
aspects of Edwardian college life) – evidence of a friendship
between Sligger and George Mallory.
A series from 1911 shows that George visited Balliol and
George Mallory photographed in 1911 by Sligger while Sligger took him rowing. George had captained rowing
rowing on the Thames (Arthur Kirby behind). at his Cambridge college, so this is not surprising. A 1913
photograph shows George in contemplative and wistful
mode in the bay window of Sligger’s room in Balliol. Many
photographs of George Mallory suggest that he was very
camera-conscious, which may have resulted from his
‘ Photographs indicate a friendships with the Bloomsbury Group and especially a
period of nude modelling he did for the artist Duncan Grant.
close friendship between Both Balliol visits took place while George was travelling back
the two men, and … that from his traditional Easter climbing in Snowdonia. By 1915 he
had married and was teaching at Charterhouse, and Sligger’s
the friendship was still photographs record a weekend Sligger spent with George and
active the year before his wife. They include one of only two known photographs
showing George and Ruth Mallory together.
George died on Everest.’ How did Mallory and Sligger meet? Sligger gave
researchers a challenge when he instructed Cyril Bailey that
after his death his papers were to be either returned to the
author or destroyed. This was not unusual for the time: as
Dean of Balliol, Sligger had been responsible for discipline
and his records probably held accounts of incidents which
16 FLOREAT DOMUS JUNE 2022PAST AND PRESENT
‘Sligger was obsessional about his guests
signing the chalet diary and, exciting though
it would have been to find it there, the diaries
never acquired George’s signature.’
many of those who went on to be ‘good and great’ might have Finally, George’s friend David Pye reported that George
preferred to be suppressed. In George’s case his letters were had told him that Sligger was pressing him to become a don.
returned to Ruth Mallory, because George had died 10 years George’s academic record at Cambridge had not been that
before Sligger. impressive but in Sligger’s time dons were appointed as much
We know this and that the letters existed in the Mallory for their pastoral skills as for scholarship. In fact George
family collection because they are quoted by Mallory’s early decided that becoming a don was not his destiny, but it is
biographers, his friend David Pye and his son-in-law David intriguing to contemplate that if Sligger had prevailed and
Robertson. From them we learn that George was appointed George Mallory had ended up teaching history at Balliol the
to teach history at Charterhouse in 1910. His superior was stories of both the College and Everest exploration might
Frank Fletcher (Balliol 1885), a close friend of Sligger’s and have been very different.
a chaletite in 1894 and 1896. Fletcher was keen that his best
pupils should obtain Oxbridge entrance and gave George
the task of preparing them (Alan Bennett’s The History Boys To purchase Dr Golding’s book Oxford University on Mont
comes to mind). Since Sligger was the leading history tutor Blanc: The Life of the Chalet des Anglais (Profile, 2022), please
at Balliol, it was natural that Fletcher should put George in contact him at stephen.golding@nds.ox.ac.uk.
touch with him.
The 1911, 1913 and 1915 photographs indicate a close If you would like to make a gift to the Chalet Fund, please go
friendship between the two men, and an autographed to www.alumniweb.ox.ac.uk/balliol/support/chalet.
portrait photograph of Mallory taken in New York in 1923
when he was on a lecture tour and sent by him, also in
Sligger’s albums, indicates that the friendship was still active
the year before George died on Everest. Such a friendship
Balliol Historic Collections, Urquhart Album 6, FFU06.51D
was entirely characteristic of Sligger, who had a taste for
surrounding himself with athletic and good-looking young
men, and the young Mallory certainly met that description,
as Lytton Strachey expressed only too lyrically during his
time at Cambridge. However, it is notable that there was
nothing misogynistic in Sligger’s friendships; he was typically
welcoming and generous to the wives of colleagues and
friends who married.
So was Mallory ever invited to the chalet? In the case of
Cottie’s books, the trail does not lead to a connection between
George Mallory and the chalet. Some of the books date from
after 1924, when George died on Everest. Lady Mary and her
husband retired to Oxford and their son, who predeceased
them, was a Balliol alumnus, so it seems likely that the chalet
acquired the books through a Balliol connection.
Sligger always maintained that the chalet was never a
base for climbing and by the time the two men met George
had already become one of the most distinguished of young
British climbers. However, it is unthinkable that Sligger
would have allowed the opportunity to pass when for him
an invitation to the chalet was the ultimate gesture of
friendship. In my view it is probable that the invitation was
made and equally probable that it was politely declined.
Sligger was obsessional about his guests signing the chalet
diary and, exciting though it would have been to find it there,
the diaries never acquired George’s signature. George in the window of Sligger’s room in 1913.
FLOREAT DOMUS JUNE 2022 17You can also read
