Dr Nicholas Richardson 1940 - 2026

With great sorrow, the College announces the death of Dr Nicholas Richardson, Emeritus Fellow.

Nicholas was Tutor in Classics from 1968 to 2004.  He had come to Oxford (Magdalen) from Winchester College in 1958 to read Mods and Greats, and after a brilliant undergraduate career, Lecturerships at Pembroke and Trinity, and a short interval working at H.M. Treasury, he succeeded Robert Levens as Merton’s Classics Tutor. At the time he was working on the doctoral thesis that would subsequently become his seminal commentary on the Homeric Hymn to Demeter.

During his tenure as a Tutor, Nicholas also served the College as Senior Tutor, Dean, Dean of Graduates and Tutor for Graduate Admissions, and Sub-Warden. His long tenure as Dean of Graduates enabled him to make a significant contribution to the integration of the College’s postgraduate students into college life.  He was also a Trustee of the Newman Trust, which supports the Catholic Chaplaincy to the University, and was a generous source of wise counsel for the chaplains and students alike.  On retiring from his Tutorship in 2004, he was elected an Emeritus Fellow of the College, and was appointed Warden of Greyfriars Hall (then a Permanent Private Hall of the University), where he remained until 2007.

In retirement, besides completing a commentary on the Homeric Hymns to Apollo, Hermes, and Aphrodite, Nicholas turned his attention to Latin hymns: he published a highly-praised verse translation of Prudentius’s Liber Cathemerinon with an introduction and commentary, and was one of the editors of the projected five-volume commentary on the hymns of the Catholic Church’s Liturgy of the Hours, the first volume of which was published last year.

A scholar of profound learning, with broad interests and an exceptional memory, Nicholas was also a Tutor whose expectation of high standards, both in language-learning and in scholarly endeavour, was underpinned by kindness, a quiet wit, the desire to encourage, a genuine interest in and respect for the young people he taught, and an amused tolerance of the vagaries of undergraduate life. His graduate students and younger colleagues, too, benefited from the time and care he committed to reading and commenting on their writing. Generations of Merton Classicists will recall with gratitude the generosity shown to them by Nicholas and Jenny, exemplified in the invitations before Mods or Greats to a lively lunch and a walk by the river at Sutton Courtenay to take the edge off their pre-exam anxiety.

The College remembers Nicholas with respect and affection and offers its deepest sympathy to his family and friends.

A memorial service will be arranged for later in the academic year and information will be posted on the College website.