Catz People

Here's a selection of students, alumni, friends and Fellows. We aim to cover a complete cross section of what we've been up to in presenting these to you. They will change from time to time so check back soon to find out about more Catz people.

 

Caroline Bird

Caroline Bird (2007, English Language and Literature) was born in 1986 and grew up in Leeds before moving to London in 2001, and is currently studying English Literature at Oxford University.

Caroline was recently shortlisted for the Dylan Thomas Prize, and was the youngest writer on the list at 22. She has also won an Eric Gregory Award (2002) and the Foyle Young Poet of the Year award two years running (1999, 2000), and was a winner of the Poetry London Competition in 2007, the Peterloo Poetry Competition in 2004, 2003 and 2002.

Caroline has had two collections of poetry published by Carcanet. Her first collection Looking Through Letterboxes (published in 2002 when she was only 15) is a topical, zesty and formally delightful collection of poems built on the traditions of fairy tale, fantasy and romance. Her second collection, Trouble Came to the Turnip, was published in September 2006 to critical acclaim.

Caroline’s poems have been published in several anthologies, including Oxford Poetry 2008, and are published regularly in PN Review, Poetry Review, The North Magazine. Several of her poems and a commissioned short story, 'Sucking Eggs', have been broadcast on BBC Radio 4 and BBC Radio 3.

In recent years, Caroline has given poetry readings at Latitude Festival, the Manchester Literature Festival, the Wellcome Collection (with Don Paterson), the Royal Festival Hall (with Elaine Feinstein), St Hilda's College (with Wendy Cope), the Wordsworth Trust (with Gillian Allnutt), Cheltenham Festival (with Clare Pollard) and Ledbury Festival, amongst others.

A member of the Royal Court Young Writers Programme, Caroline has also written several plays: Nothing to Say (shortlisted for the National Student Drama Festival 2005), The Pie, Lumberjills, A Hymn With Drums, Student Play and A Special Boy, which was performed at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in 2009.

Caroline is also an enthusiastic leader of poetry workshops. In addition to working in primary and secondary schools, she has hosted two week-long student poetry courses at the Arvon Foundation.

 

Melba Mwanje

Melba Mwanje is studying Human Sciences at Catz. Born in Uganda, Melba grew up in South-East London, where, frustrated by high crime rates and a lack of facilities for young people, she – with the help of friends – started an organisation called ‘SE1 United’. The core mission of SE1 United is the provision of safe, creative and stimulating places for young people to meet: places where those who attend are encouraged to realise their potential, and where there is an emphasis upon the promotion of a positive image of young people. Melba was heavily involved with fundraising for SE1 United, and helped to secure in excess of £230,000 with which a plot of land was bought and ‘The Living Space’ constructed. Since its opening, The Living Space has hosted a wide-range of events, from dance and drama workshops (one led by actor and director Kevin Spacey) through to mentoring classes. In 2007, Melba was awarded the Princess Diana Award for her ability to improve and inspire the lives of others.

At Oxford, Melba plays an active role in the life of the student community, and has served as Domestic Liaison Officer at Catz and also as president of the African Caribbean Society. This summer she spent two months in Kathmandu, Nepal, volunteering in an orphanage. She regularly attends speaker events at the Oxford Union and is a member of a wide variety of societies, including the Oxford Portuguese Society, Oxford Women in Politics, and Oxford Hub: Community Volunteers. In the first annual Rare Rising Stars list, Melba was named one of the UK’s top sixteen black students of 2009 (http://www.rarerecruitment.co.uk/rare/pdf/rising_stars.pdf).

Away from Oxford, Melba has danced for the Rambert Dance Company, Britain’s oldest School of Ballet and Contemporary Dance. She also designs, choreographs and leads her own section in the Mayor’s Thames Festival Night Carnival.

 

Eric Williams

Born in Trinidad in 1911, Eric Williams, first Prime Minister of Trinidad and Tobago, came up to St Catherine’s in 1932, taking a first in Modern History before embarking upon doctoral studies. He is remembered today as an international statesman and a renowned scholar. He received his doctorate in 1938 and his thesis was later expanded and published as the book Capitalism and Slavery, a groundbreaking study which argued that economic realities rather than humanistic concerns dictated the demise of the West Indian slave-trade. On leaving Oxford he taught at Howard University, Washington, DC where he became Professor of Political Science.

In 1955, back in Trinidad and Tobago, Dr Williams founded the People’s National Movement which, in the following year, emerged as the majority party in the legislature. Williams himself became the colony's first Chief Minister and was to remain Head of Government until his death in 1981. When Trinidad and Tobago were granted their independence from Great Britain in 1962, he became the new country’s first Prime Minister, thus earning himself the epithet of ‘Father of the Nation’.

Dr Williams was made an Honorary Fellow of St Catherine’s during his visit to witness the official opening of the College on 16 October 1964.  In the same year he was made a member of Her Majesty's Privy Council and in 1965 he was awarded an honorary DCL by the University. He was made a Companion of Honour in 1969.

Following his death, his daughter, Erica Connell Williams, began the task of establishing an on-going entity to honour the legacy and scholarship of her father. On 22 March 1998 the Eric Williams Memorial Collection was inaugurated at the Library of the University of the West Indies, St Augustine. The library and archives of Dr Williams, which include copies of papers from St Catherine’s archives, have been placed on deposit with the University of the West Indies for the benefit of the people of Trinidad and Tobago and the wider Caribbean. Housed in three rooms, the Collection includes an exhibition of Dr Williams’ life, a recreation of his personal study and, his collection of over 7 000 books. The Collection was inaugurated at an historic ceremony that was televised live across Trinidad and Tobago. In a passionate speech the former Secretary of State for the United States of America, General Colin Powell, heralded Dr Williams as a tireless warrior in the battle against colonialism, and cited his many other achievements as a scholar, politician and international statesman.

In 2007, Mrs Connell Williams accepted South Africa’s highest national award on behalf of Dr Williams. President Thabo Mbeki presented her with The Order of the companions of O R Tambo (Gold), an order of merit which is reserved for foreign nationals who have ‘made an exceptional contribution to the struggle against apartheid and non-racial democracy in south Africa, and who have established their active expression of friendship towards the Republic.’

For more information about the Eric Williams Collection, please follow the link below:

www.mainlib.uwi.tt/divisions/wi/collsp/ericwilliams/ericwilliams.htm

 

Joseph Heller

The famous writer, the late Joseph Heller, known especially for his novel Catch-22 (1961), spent a postgraduate year at Catz as a Fulbright Scholar between 1949 and 1950. Before that he had flown sixty combat missions in World War II in the US Army Air Forces and then studied at Columbia University in New York. He returned with his wife Valerie on many occasions to Catz, not least as a Christensen Visiting Fellow in 1991. Here they found a new home and a new group of friends. Their last visit was in 1998 and they attended several alumni reunions together in America.

The numerous literary awards that Mr. Heller won include the University of South Carolina’s Thomas Cooper Medal in 1996. Catz gained a mention at the end of his autobiographical work Now and Then (1998): “It is sometimes hard now to look back, to take stock, and to realize, to truly believe, that I have been to college… to know further that I have taught at colleges - daydreaming of that would have been a lunatic fantasy at the beginning; and that, further yet, I studied on a scholarship at Oxford University for one year, at St Catherine's College, and that after a term there in 1991 as a Christensen Fellow, I was appointed an Honorary Fellow. Just think: I am an Honorary Fellow of St Catherine's College of Oxford University!”

Photo: Doug Elbiner

 

Sir Grantley Adams

Born in 1898, Grantley Adams was educated at Harrison Academy, Barbados, before he came to Oxford in 1919 to read Law. While a student, he became Secretary of the Justinian Law Society, JCR President and President of the St Catherine’s Debating Society. Grantley Adams left Oxford in 1923 and was called to the Bar at Gray’s Inn, London. In 1925 he returned to Barbados, where he became the island’s leading Labour politician. Adams served as Leader of the Barbados Labour Party, was President of the Barbados Workers’ Union, and became the first Premier of Barbados and the first and only Prime Minister of the West Indies Federation. In 1952 he was made a Companion in the Most Distinguished Order of St Michael and St George and in 1966 he led his country to independence. He is honoured today as a National Hero of Barbados and remembered as a man who worked tirelessly to establish social justice across all ethnic and economic classes.

Photo: Courtesy of Barbados Government Information Service

 

Sir Cameron Mackintosh

The theatrical producer Sir Cameron Mackintosh is an Honorary Fellow of Catz and a member of the Development Council. After working on Stephen Sondheim productions in his early career, he hit the world scene as the producer of Cats in 1981, which holds the record for the longest running musical in both the West End and on Broadway. His first solo effort, Les Miserables in 1985, became an international success and had taken £1.5bn at the box office by October 1999 and is estimated to have been seen by around 50m people worldwide. It also topped the BBC Online survey for the best musical of all time. These two shows, along with the Phantom of the Opera and Miss Saigon, have made Mackintosh become one of the most significant figures in postwar theatre.

The Mackintosh Foundation was founded in 1988 to promote and develop theatre and the performing arts; to provide relief for the homeless; to relieve suffering of and promote research into the causes and treatment of AIDS; and to provide for medical research and relief of sickness. It donated £1.75m for a Cameron Mackintosh Visiting Professor in Contemporary Theatre at Oxford University. In 2008-2009, the Chair was held by the actor and director Kevin Spacey. Previous holders of the post include Patrick Marber, Diana Rigg, Phyllida Lloyd, Sir Ian McKellen, Arthur Miller, and Lord Richard Attenborough.

 

Peter Mandelson

Lord Mandelson, now the First Secretary of State and the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills  (formerly European Commissioner for Trade), is an alumnus of Catz. He completed an Undergraduate degree here in PPE and matriculated in 1973. A close ally of Tony Blair, he is widely regarded as one of the key architects of the repositioning of the Labour Party and its rebranding as ‘New Labour’. Elected to the House of Commons in 1992 as MP for Hartlepool, he directed Labour’s successful general election campaign in 1997, and has served in different roles in the Cabinet as Secretary of State for Trade and Industry and Secretary of State for Nothern Ireland.

A year before his appointment as European Commissioner for Trade, he returned to Catz to give the Sir Patrick Nairne Lecture in November 2003, entitled 'Our Future in Europe: What’s the Problem?'

 

Ahmed H. Zewail

The Nobel Prize in Chemistry winner from 1999, Professor Ahmed Zewail, is an Honorary Fellow of Catz. Elected in 2004, he had already been a Visiting Fellow as the Oxford University Sir Cyril Hinshelwood Chair in 1991. He is currently the Linus Pauling Professor of Chemical Physics, Professor of Physics and Director of the NSR Laboratory for Molecular Sciences at the California Institute of Technology. His many honorary degrees in various fields from universities around the world include two from Oxford – a Master of Arts in 1991 and a Doctor of Science in 2004.

His Nobel Prize-winning work showed that it is possible to see how atoms in a molecule move during a chemical reaction using femtosecond spectroscopy. Zewail’s technique uses what may be described as the world’s fastest camera. This uses laser flashes of such short duration that we are down to the time scale on which the reactions actually happen – femtoseconds (10-15 seconds). For this achievement he received the most prestigious prize of his native country, Egypt: the Nile Necklace, and in 2010, was announced as being selected to receive the 2011 Priestley Medal by the American Chemical Society.

 

Sir Matthew Pinsent

Catz alumnus and Olympic rower, Sir Matthew Pinsent, is one of only five athletes ever to have won a gold medal at four consecutive Olympic Games. His third, coming in the coxless fours in Sydney 2000 along with Stephen Redgrave, James Cracknell and Tim Foster, was voted ‘Britain’s Greatest Sporting Moment’. During his time studying Geography from 1989 to 1992 at Catz, Sir Matthew was the Captain of the Catz Boat Club (SCCBC), and the President of the Oxford Rowing Club. He participated in the Oxbridge Boat Race in 1990 and 1991, with Oxford wining on both occasions by substantial distances.

He was awarded an MBE in 1993, a CBE in 2000 and most recently received a Knighthood in the New Year’s Honours List at the beginning of 2005. He served for three years from 2001 on the International Olympic Committee’s Athletics Commission. His retirement towards the end of last year brought to an end a glittering rowing career, which aside from his Olympic successes saw him win 10 World Championship gold medals. Sir Matthew’s final sporting glory came in the 2004 Athens Olympics coxless fours, where his boat won the exciting final race by a mere eight one hundredths of a second. This achievement earned him and his teammates the BBC Sports Team of the Year 2004 award.

 

Nick Lykiardopulo

The 2004 Rolex Sydney Hobart Yacht Race was won by Catz alumnus Nick Lykiardopulo, who studied PPE from 1977. His boat, Aera, a Jason Ker-designed 55-footer, was only the third British boat ever to have won the coveted handicap trophy, described by Nick as 'truly the Everest of yacht racing'. He joins the prestigious company of Captain John Illingworth and former prime minister Ted Heath who won the race in 1945 and 1968 respectively. As the Overall Winner of the race, by 4 hours, 26 minutes and 46 seconds over the second-placed boat, Nick and his crew were presented the Tattersall’s Trophy and a Rolex timepiece. This was not his first attempt at the race; his first Rolex Sydney Hobart was the tragic 1998 edition (in which 6 sailors died), saw his boat win its handicap division. Nick said, 'We compete to overcome the challenge of the sea, but we also respect it; every competitor and yacht in this race is a winner.'

 

Simon Winchester

Simon Winchester (1963, Geology) is an award-winning journalist and writer. His latest book, Bomb, Book and Compass: Joseph Needham and the Great Secrets of China tells the story of Joseph Needham, a man relatively unknown today in the west, but renowned in China as perhaps the greatest westerner ever to have lived. Needham was a man whose thirst for knowledge led him to record, at a time when there was a very real threat that such knowledge might be lost forever, the extraordinary history of Chinese civilisation. Sent to China during the Second World War by the British Government to assess the needs of the beleaguered Chinese intellectual community, Needham became fascinated with all aspects of Chinese society and began collecting material that would eventually be published in one of the twenty-four volumes of Science and Civilisation in China – a work that remains unparalleled even today.

Simon's previous book, The Meaning of Everything, was a fascinating history of the Oxford English Dictionary, telling the magnificent story of one of the most ambitious projects in lexicography ever undertaken. A story of obsession, scholarship, madness and misplaced word slips, in it, Simon returned to the ground of his best seller, The Surgeon of Crowthorne, to tell an eventful and personality-filled history of a remarkable enterprise.

Simon's other works include Krakatoa, The Day the World Exploded: August 27, 1883, which examines the enduring and world-changing effects of the catastrophic eruption off the coast of Java of the earth's most dangerous volcano; and The Map that Changed the World, a fascinating story of William Smith, the orphaned son of an English country blacksmith, who became obsessed with creating the world's first geological map and ultimately became the father of modern geology. Simon Winchester lives in Massachusetts and in the Western Isles of Scotland.

 

James Marsh

James Marsh, who read English at St Catherine’s in the early 1980s, is an award-winning writer, director and producer. He was, until recently, best known as the writer and director of the cult film Wisconsin Death Trip (1999). He wrote and directed The King, which starred William Hurt and Gael Garcia Bernal and premiered at the Cannes Film Festival in 2006. In 2008, his documentary about Philippe Petit’s breath-taking high-wire walk between the New York Trade Center’s Twin Towers in 1974, Man on Wire, opened to international critical acclaim. Amongst other awards, Man on Wire won the Grand Jury Prize: World Cinema Documentary, and the World Cinema Audience Award: Documentary, at the 2008 Sundance Film Festival and, in 2009, the BAFTA award for Outstanding British Film and the Academy Award for Best Documentary. One of his most recent projects has been directing part of the Red Riding Trilogy (Red Riding:1980) for Channel 4.