Edward VIII: The Plot to Topple a King

Matthew Grimley, Mark Reynolds Fellow in History, will be appearing in a Channel 4 programme, Edward VIII: The Plot to Topple a King, at 9pm on Wednesday 9 May.

The film examines the pivotal role played by Archbishop of Canterbury, Cosmo Gordon Lang, in forcing the Abdication of Edward VIII in 1936, because of the King’s intention to marry the twice-divorced American Wallis Simpson. It uses archive and diary material, some of it recently discovered, to build up a detailed picture of the events leading up to Edward’s sensational decision to abdicate.

Dr Grimley says: "The key role played by Cosmo Lang in the Abdication crisis demonstrates just how powerful the Church still was as an arbiter of public morality in 1930s Britain. In my next book, I’ll be charting the dramatic decline of this power in the years after the Second World War."

[Back to Top]

Talk With RSC Actor Jonathan Slinger

One of the leading actors of Royal Shakespeare Company, Jonathan Slinger, wil be speaking at the T S Eliot Theatre in an Oxford University Drama Society event on Sunday, 6th May, 2012 (Sunday 3rd week).

Jonathan has been involved with RSC since 2005, playing Puck, Richard II and Richard III and Macbeth. He is taking on two leading roles as Prospero (The Tempest) and Malvolio (The Twelfth Night) in the World Shakespeare Festival which is starting out in Stratford-upon-Avon this spring and is on till October 2012.

All aspiring actors, directors, theatre goers and other people interested in Shakespeare, acting and RSC are welcome to attend this talk and ask Jonathan for insights into his profession and RSC work.

Time: 3.00 pm-5.00 pm (talk and questions); 5.00 pm-5.30 pm (refreshments)

For more information, contact Yulia Savikovskaya

[Back to Top]

Professor Dame Jessica Rawson Elected to American Academy

Former Warden, Professor Dame Jessica Rawson, has been elected to join one of America’s most prestigious honorary societies, The American Academy of Arts and Sciences. She has been elected as a Foreign Honorary Member for her work in Chinese art and archaeology.

The American Academy is a leading centre for independent policy research. Members contribute to Academy studies of science and technology policy, global security, social policy and American institutions, the humanities, and education.

Professor Rawson said: "The election to the Academy is a very great honour and I am happy that research on China past and present is receiving much attention around the world".

[Back to Top]

Passiontide at Merton 2012

The College holds the third Passiontide at Merton Festival on Saturday 31 March and Sunday 1 April. The six events include concerts, services and a lecture and artists include the Choir of Merton College and Charivari Agréable. A special feature is the music of J S Bach: the opening concert is an organ concert which also includes a performance of the motet Jesu, meine Freude, and the festival concludes with a performance of the St John Passion.

Composer Gabriel Jackson sees his 50th birthday celebrated with the premiere of a short organ work (with organist William Whitehead) and a performance of his Mass at the Palm Sunday Eucharist. The Oxford-based chamber choir, Sospiri, give the late-night concert on Saturday 31 March, and Robin Griffith-Jones, Master of The Temple, gives the Festival Lecture.

Visitors to the Festival can book tickets for individual events (through the Oxford Playhouse) or can purchase a 'Festival Ticket' and be resident in the College for the weekend. For 'Festival Tickets' please email Rachel Fright or ring 01865 616724.

A PDF of the full programme of events is available for download.

[Back to Top]

New Malaria Vaccine Breakthrough

Hopes for a vaccine against malaria have grown after a team of Oxford University scientists, led by Merton’s own Dr Simon Draper, appear to have made a crucial breakthrough. The team have conducted successful animal trials and are now ready to manufacture clinical grade vaccine, in order to progress this work to human volunteers in clinical trials.

The initial success is down to the discovery of a critical route malaria parasites take when entering blood cells. The new vaccine exploits this pathway, creating antibodies that neutralise the many different malaria strains.

Dr Draper says: “Vaccines against malaria are notoriously difficult to develop because the parasite covers itself in proteins (the targets of a vaccine) that are highly variable and diverse. The exciting and surprising result here is that we have identified a protein that is not only highly vulnerable, but is one that doesn’t show this diversity, making it a particularly good target for a vaccine to exploit. We are yet to find a strain of human malaria that this vaccine cannot stop in laboratory experiments. Our next step will be to seek funding to secure the development of clinical grade vaccine, so that we can hopefully begin clinical trials within the next two years.”

Malaria is responsible for the deaths of just under a million people each year and, as yet, there is no available vaccine.

[Back to Top]

Warden Leads Team Tasked with Improving Maths and Science Education

A new project, Vision for Science and Mathematics Education 5-19, has been launched by the Royal Society and is to be chaired by Sir Martin Taylor.

The purpose of the project is to produce a new evidence-based vision for the future of science and mathematics education in this country.

Sir Martin said: “Young people today recognise that science and mathematics lie at the heart of their future and are starting to flock to these advantageous and inspiring subjects. We must provide them with an exemplary education system that supports their ambition and nurtures the great minds of the future. The Royal Society’s new project aims to do just that.”

The project has identified and will focus on five specific areas that are seen as essential components of a high-performing school and college science and mathematics education system: teachers and the wider workforce; leadership and ethos; infrastructure; skills, curriculum and assessment; and accountability.

As part of the project, members of the public are being asked to submit their views of these key areas via the Royal Society website.

The panel working with Sir Martin includes two previous Secretaries of State for Education, two scientist-media stars and a Nobel Prize-winning academic, alongside leading teachers and educationalists.

[Back to Top]

Joshua Rozenberg to Give Halsbury Society Lecture

The UK’s leading legal commentator, Joshua Rozenberg, is to give this year’s Halsbury Society speech on Wednesday 8 February.

Mr Rozenberg, who is also a Guardian columnist and presenter of BBC radio 4’s Law In Action, will give a lecture titled “Strasbourg: Last Rites or Rights at Last”. The lecture will examine recent cases from the European Court of Human Rights and the future of the court, including possible reforms. In light of recent political events, this proves to be an interesting and topical presentation.

The lecture starts at 6pm in the T S Eliot Theatre and is open to all Mertonians, and the wider University, and will include an opportunity to pose questions to Mr Rozenberg.

[Back to Top]

How the World Cup Affects GCSE Results

Could the England football team’s qualification for the 2012 European Championships have an adverse effect on next summer’s GCSE results?

That is the question that a team from Oxford and Bristol universities, including Fitzjames Research Fellow in the Economics of the Environment, Dr Robert Metcalfe, sought to answer. They analysed the results of 3.5 million pupils between 2002 and 2008, and the study revealed a significant dip in results each summer a major football tournament was played.

“Time spent watching and talking about football is clearly time not spent studying, so our findings give an indication of just how much student effort matters for achievement at GCSE,” says Dr Metcalfe.

Their findings provide evidence to support the theory that students putting in effort up until the last minute of their exams were more likely to achieve higher grades.

Dr Metcalfe appeared on Channel 4 News to explain the study’s findings. The footage can be viewed on the Channel 4 website.

[Back to Top]

College Advent Carol Services

The College's Advent Carol Services take place on Saturday 26 November and Sunday 27 November at 5.45pm.

In addition to traditional carols, the services will feature the world premiere of an 'Advent Antiphon' by the composer Rihards Dubra commissioned especially for the Choir of Merton College this year.

The Carol Services complete a very busy year for the Choir, which has seem them broadcast on the BBC, give concerts in the USA and France, and record their debut CD. The most recent edition of Gramophone describes the College Choir as one of "the UK's finest choral ensembles".

All are welcome at these services.

[Back to Top]

Mertonians Develop Gene Therapy for Blindness

A revolutionary new treatment for blindness is currently being assessed in a clinical trial led by Robert MacLaren, Lecturer in Human Anatomy and Bodley Fellow at Merton.

The treatment involves correcting a gene defect in a retinal degeneration known as choroideraemia, which was first described in 1872 and is prevalent worldwide.  The disease starts in childhood and leads to total blindness, usually by the age of 40. Working with Professor Miguel Seabra from Imperial College London, Professor MacLaren developed a modified virus capable of infecting cells of the retina after being injected into the eye. The virus carries a replacement copy of the missing gene, which is designed to provide a permanent genetic correction and stop further degeneration. Jonathan Wyatt from Bristol was the first person in the world to undergo this new treatment at the Oxford University Hospitals NHS Trust last week in a landmark operation covered by BBC News. Dan Lipinski, a third year Merton DPhil student, was also interviewed by the BBC about his gene therapy research.

Professor MacLaren said, “I was initially introduced to gene therapy during my DPhil studies at Merton over 15 years ago and I am absolutely delighted to see it now applied to eye diseases that were at the time considered incurable. We now have several eye specialists undertaking full time DPhil studies at Merton in order to develop new treatments for blindness which we aim to bring to clinical trial over the next five years.”

[Back to Top]

Choir to Perform Live on BBC Radio 3

The Choir of Merton College will be featured live on BBC Radio 3 on Wednesday 26 October. At 3.30pm Choral Evensong will be broadcast from the Chapel.

Those who would like to attend are asked to be seated by 3.15pm. It will be broadcast again on Sunday 30 October at 4.00pm, and will also be available on the BBC iPlayer.

More details about the programme can be found on the BBC Radio 3 website.

[Back to Top]

Merton's 9th Telephone Campaign a Success

The 2011 Merton telethon ended on Thursday 29th September and raised over £160,000. This success has been bolstered by a matching gift of £150,000 from one generous Mertonian.

A committed and enthusiastic team of twelve student callers spent two weeks calling Mertonians all around the world. During the campaign they managed to speak with some 564 Mertonians of whom 64% chose to make a gift to the College, leaving the callers with a strong sense of a Mertonian community far beyond Oxford and graduation.

Student caller, Jennifer de Beyer commented: “The Telethon was a chance to connect with our network of alumni. It was fascinating hearing alumni's memories of the College and the variety of career paths they have taken from a single starting degree was eye-opening and so many were gracious enough to share advice as well."

We would like to express our heartfelt thanks to everyone who helped to achieve such a wonderful result. If our callers didn’t manage to speak with you but you would still like to make a donation, you can do so online.

Read about how the Annual Fund supports current students.

[Back to Top]

Hunt the Higgs Boson From Your Phone

If you are fascinated by the Large Hadron Collider at CERN, you can now access information on the experiments in real-time via your Android smartphone.

Merton’s Dr Alan Barr is one of the developers of the new app called LHSee. The app allows you to view, via 3D graphics beamed to your phone, collisions occurring at the LHC at CERN. You could be there at the moment the Higgs Boson is discovered.

The app, which has been attracting attention in the national press, also allows the user to access interactive information about the experiments at CERN, including videos and animated tutorials.

Dr Barr says of the app: “I love the detail in the live displays. Iit’s amazing to see that you can pick out the different individual proton collisions.”

The app is available via the Google Android Store. For more information on the project, check out the University’s Science Blog.

[Back to Top]

Choir of Merton College Releases Debut CD

"A worthy rival to the other mixed-voice Oxbridge ensembles that have flourished in recent times" The Sunday Times

The College Choir has released its debut CD on the Delphian label. Entitled In the beginning, Peter Phillips and Benjamin Nicholas direct the choir in music by Gombert, Palestrina, Weelkes, Holst, Copland, Lukaszewski, Whitacre and Jackson. This attractive programme shows the choir at its best, and the disc has already attracted very favourable reviews and has been played on BBC Radio 3.

To order the disc, please visit the OU Shop. The CD is also available from High Street music stores.

BBC review of In the beginning.

[Back to Top]

Urgent Information for Freshers - Email Problems (UPDATE)

UPDATE – The email issue has now been resolved, but there remains a backlog of email deliveries that will very soon be dealt with.

Please be aware that if you use Hotmail, MSN, Live and some other providers for email, your messages were delivered to Merton College but we were unable to reply to addresses with these providers because of an Oxford-wide problem.  Where we have an alternative address we have tried to use it. 

[Back to Top]

Merton Strikes Gold at World Rowing Championships

Merton saw international sporting success as Kathryn Twyman (second from right), won a gold medal as part of the British women’s lightweight quadruple sculls team at the World Rowing Championships in Slovenia.

The British team dominated the final from start to finish in impressive style, finishing comfortably ahead of China and the USA.

Kathryn, who is originally from Canada, is studying at Merton for a DPhil in Physical and Theoretical Chemistry on a Rhodes Scholarship.

“You could really feel the energy and excitement building throughout the World Championships,” says Kathryn, “As the best crews from all over the world - with all their different languages, flags, and uniforms - gathered in Bled to battle it out on the water. And it was an incredible feeling to cross the finish line first, winning the gold medal.”

The final is temporarily available to watch on the BBC Sport website.

[Back to Top]

Bernard Hogan-Howe New Metropolitan Police Commissioner

Bernard Hogan-Howe was appointed as the new Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police yesterday.

He had been acting as temporary Deputy Commissioner, following Sir Paul Stephenson’s resignation as Commissioner earlier this year. He takes over the position at a time when the Metropolitan Police have been in the media spotlight, following the News of the World phone-hacking allegations and the August riots. He will also have to manage large budget cuts in the build-up to policing next year’s Olympic Games.

Speaking after his appointment, he said: “It is my intention to build on public trust in the Metropolitan Police service and lead a service that criminals will fear and staff will be proud to work for.”

Hogan-Howe was Chief Constable of Merseyside Police between 2004 and 2009, and has been widely praised for tackling and reducing the level of gun crime in Liverpool during that period. He read Jurisprudence at Merton, matriculating in 1988.

[Back to Top]

2012 Calendar and Christmas Cards on Sale

The 2012 Merton College Calendar is now available to buy from the Development Office. The calendar costs £10, plus postage and packing for overseas.

A new Christmas Card featuring the Chapel is also on sale, along with a few designs from previous years.

For more information on the Calendar, Christmas Cards and other Merton merchandise, please visit our merchandise page.

[Back to Top]

Study Reveals Secrets Behind Puffin Migration

Professor Tim Guilford’s latest research project has been featured in the national press and also on the BBC. The Zoology Fellow has been using geo-location technology to track the migration patterns of puffins, and the data retrieved from the devices has produced some surprising results.

The studies have discovered that, unlike with many other migratory birds, the routes the puffins were taking were not genetically predetermined. It appears that young puffins use reconnaissance flights to determine effective routes.

“We think it’s likely that, before they start breeding, young puffins explore the resources the ocean has to offer and come up with their own individual, often radically different, migration routes,” says Tim.

However, it appears that once a puffin has chosen its personal optimum route, it sticks to it for life.

[Back to Top]

Mertonian to Head Phone Hacking Inquiries

Merton alumnus and President of the Merton Society, Lord Justice Leveson, has been appointed as the judge in charge of the Inquiry announced by Prime Minister, David Cameron, as a result of the recent revelations about phone-hacking in the British press.

Lord Justice Leveson was formerly the Senior Presiding Judge for England and Wales and is Chairman of the Sentencing Council for England and Wales. At the bar and on the bench he has conducted and a number of famous cases during his career.

He will now oversee the inquiries looking into the culture, practices and ethics practices within the press, in addition to the extent of any unlawful or improper conduct including phone-hacking undertaken by the News of the World or others and the involvement of the police force in both the original investigation and the accusations of illegal payments being made.

Speaking about his appointment, Lord Justice Leveson said "The press provides an essential check on all aspects of public life. That is why any failure within the media affects all of us. At the heart of this inquiry, therefore, may be one simple question: who guards the guardians?"

[Back to Top]

New Generation Thinkers

Former Welfare Dean, Dr Corin Throsby, has been selected as a finalist in a new initiative being run by the Arts & Humanities Research Council and BBC Radio 3.

New Generation Thinkers is designed to seek out the best young academics in the UK and provide them with a platform to communicate with as wide an audience as possible. Having been selected, the finalists will have the opportunity to develop their own programme for radio 3, as well as take part in on-air debates and deliver lectures.

“It has been a fantastic experience so far,” says Corin. “I have always been interested in making my research accessible to non-academic readers, and I would encourage all Merton MCR members and recent DPhil graduates to apply next year.”

Corin’s first programme, looking at ninetenth-century commonplace books as an early equivalent to Facebook, airs on Night Waves tonight, Thursday 14th July at 10pm.

[Back to Top]

Tudor Coroners’ Reports Reveal Possible Shakespeare Link

History Fellow, Dr Steven Gunn, is leading a team undertaking a four-year project studying coroners’ reports of accidental deaths in Tudor England.

Amongst the tragi-comic tales of misfortune, such as standing too near to archery targets or indeed performing bears, lies an incident that may shed light on one of the most iconic moments in the works of Shakespeare.

Two-and-a-half-year old Jane Shaxspere drowned in a millpond whilst picking flowers, not twenty miles from William Shakespeare’s home town of Stratford-upon-Avon. William would have been five at the time of the incident and it is possible that Jane was his cousin. The parallels between this incident and the death of Ophelia in Hamlet are striking.

“It might just be a coincidence, but the links to Ophelia are certainly tantalising,” commented Dr Gunn. “Coroners’ reports of fatal accidents are a useful and hitherto under-studied way of exploring everyday life in Tudor England.”

More information can be found on the BBC's News website.

[Back to Top]

Enthusiastic Response Greets the Launch of Merton’s 750th Campaign

£15.75 million already raised/pledged

Merton’s 750th Anniversary Campaign, Sustaining Excellence, was  launched on Tuesday, May 24th at a reception at Drapers’ Hall, London. The College is planning to raise £30 million for three key areas: to secure the Tutorial System, to support Students and to preserve and resource its Historical Environment.

Professor Martin Rees (Lord Rees of Ludlow) spoke about: The Future of Higher Education: Whither Oxbridge? He argued: “It is the distinctive excellence of Oxbridge that we should be unabashed to proclaim, and should struggle to preserve so that they remain not just the best universities in the UK, but high in the world league too.”

The Campaign was launched by the Warden, Professor Sir Martin Taylor, and the two Co-Chairs of the Campaign, John Booth and Charles Manby (1976). In one of the most significant reunions of recent times, some 300 alumni, friends, Fellows, staff, and students gathered to celebrate the Launch of Sustaining Excellence. 

At the time of the launch, £15.75 million has been raised in gifts and pledges since the start of the quiet phase in August 2007.  19% of the money donated towards the Campaign has come in via the Annual Fund (gifts under £25,000) and we are grateful to the hundreds of contributors who have made donations during this time. We aim to increase the overall participation level from 20% to 30% of all College members during the course of the Campaign and before the 750th Anniversary in 2014.  

Speaking at the launch, Charles Manby (1976) Co-Chair of the Campaign Board said, “We have no hesitation therefore in asking you to support this crucial campaign.  If, like us, you value your College and believe that it played an important role in shaping your life and career, then we know that you will respond positively.”

A copy of the campaign brochure will be sent during June to every Mertonian, Parent and Friend for whom we have contact details.

Visit our 750th Anniversary Campaign pages for more information and news.

[Back to Top]

The Sandy Irvine Archive

The disappearance of Mallory and Irvine close to the summit of Mount Everest in June 1924 is perhaps the most fascinating unsolved mountaineering mystery of all time. What happened to the two men, last seeing going strong for the top, has never been resolved. Were they coming down from the summit or had they turned back, defeated?

Merton College has recently received as a donation from the Sandy Irvine Trust the records of Andrew Comyn (‘Sandy’) Irvine.

The Sandy Irvine Archive includes letters, photographs, artefacts and other records relating to Sandy’s life and the Everest expedition, many of which were only rediscovered in an Irvine family home in 2000.

The donation of the collection will be marked by a talk at Merton by Irvine’s biographer and great-niece, Julie Summers. The talk takes place at 5.15pm on Wednesay 1 June in the T. S. Eliot Theatre - all are welcome.

[Back to Top]