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Jon Ridgeon is an English former athlete who competed in the 110 metres hurdles and the 400 metres hurdles. In the 110m hurdles, he won the silver medal at the 1987 World Championships. He represented Great Britain at the 1988 Seoul Olympics and the 1996 Atlanta Olympics. He was at Magdalene between 1986-1989.

See: College Magazine, vol. 32 1987-88 for an article when he won a silver medal in the 110m hurdles at the World Athletic Championships in Rome in September 1987. Includes a black and white photograph of him clearing a hurdle.

Ivor Richards was born at Hillside, Sandbach, Cheshire , and was he son of William Armstrong Richards, a chemical engineer originally from Swansea, and his wife, Mary Anne, daughter of William Haigh, a Yorkshire wool manufacturer. On his father's death in 1902 Richards moved with his mother and brothers to Bristol, where he attended Clifton College from 1905 to 1911. In 1907 he had an attack of tuberculos which kept him away from school for over a year.

In 1911 he matriculated from Magdalene College with an exhibition to study history. Within a few months he switched to moral sciences and studied ethics, logic, and psychology.

In 1922 he became a College Lecturer in English and Moral Sciences.

In 1926, when a separate English faculty was created as part of a general restructuring of the University's teaching arrangements, he was appointed a University Lecturer. In the same year he was made a Fellow. He immediately took a year's leave and travelled to America, Japan, and China. In Honolulu, on 31 December 1926, he married Dorothy Eleanor (1894–1986). The couple had first met on a climbing holiday in Wales in 1917, and they shared a lifelong passion for mountaineering.

In 1944 he became a Professor at Harvard, but returned to Magdalene in his retirement. He became an Honorary Fellow in 1964.

In 1979 he returned to China again for a lecture tour, but was taken seriously ill there and had to be flown back to England. He died in Cambridge on 7 September 1979.

He was a founding father of the English Faculty and originator of ‘practical criticism’. He was a brilliant literary critic and linguistic philosopher, a very good poet, a distinguished mountaineer, a tireless promoter of ‘Basic’ English (on which he collaborated with C. K. Ogden, a Magdalene man slightly his senior), and something of an intellectual guru in the USA.

Commemorative tablet at Wentworth House.

Further reading:
College Magazine, No. 23 (1978-79) pp. 1-7 (Sir William Empson, W. Hamilton)
Book Review, College Magazine, No. 34 (1989-90) pp. 60-63 (R. Luckett and J. E. Stevens)

Born in Camberwell, London, daughter of John James Pilley, science lecturer, and his wife, Annie Maria Young.

Her first exposure climbing was on a family holiday in north Wales, but her parents were not dedicated climbers and felt the activity was dangerous.

She was introduced to rock climbing by Herbert Carr in 1915 and climbed in Wales with mostly male companions. She also climbed in the Lake District and joined the Fell and Rock Climbing Club in 1918. She was quickly elected a committee member, and in 1920 was a founder of its London section. The club was unusual being mixed, and her membership brought her closer to other innovative female climbers.

She climbed in the French Alps and qualified for membership of the Ladies' Alpine Club. During her second season in 1921 she made guideless ascents of the Egginergrat and the Portjengrat with two other female climbers. It was very unusual for women to lead an alpine climb, let alone do so as part of an all-female party. She was also involved with the founding movement of the Pinnacle Club in 1921 which was predominantly a rock climbing club and exclusively for women, it was dedicated to nurturing the skills of female climbers.

Throughout the 1920s she climbed extensively in Britain and Europe. During a two-year world tour, 1925–7, she climbed in the Canadian Rockies, the Selkirks, the Bugaboo, and the American Rockies. In 1926 first ascents of Mount Baker and Mount Shuksau, Washington, were made with Ivor Richards who she married on 31 December that year in Honolulu.
The high point of her climbing career came in 1928, when she made the celebrated first ascent of the north ridge of the Dent Blanche, with her husband, the guide Joseph Georges, and Antoine Georges. This was acknowledged as one of the last great alpine climbing problems.

She wrote Climbing Days (1935; 2nd edn, 1965) which is a comprehensive account of her climbing exploits.

After her marriage she continued climbing inclucing in China, Japan, Korea, Burma and America.

Following a car accident in 1958 the scale of her climbing was reduced but she continued to endorse mountain activity through support of the clubs she had joined in her youth and in 1975 was appointed the first vice-president of the Alpine Club (the amalgamated Ladies' Alpine Club and all-male Alpine Club).

Her achievements all over the world marked her as one of the most outstanding mountaineers of the inter-war and post-war periods. One of mountaineering’s most irrepressible personalities, she spent her last new year, aged ninety-one, at the climbers' hut at Glen Brittle, Skye, drinking whisky and talking mountains with a party of Scottish climbers. She died in Cambridge, on 24 September 1986.

At Magdalene
Although born Dorothy she was known at Magdalene as Dorothea. She was the first woman to have High Table dining privileges (from 1979).
She was a major benefactor to leaving the College her entire estate of £1.3 million which puts her alongside the major benefactors - the Founder of the College, Peter Peckard (Master, 1781-1997) and A. C. Benson (Master, 1915-1925). She also left to the College a remarkable diary, running from 1912 to 1986.

Obituary: College Magazine No. 31 (1986-87) pp. iv (two photographs) and p. 16

Educated at Hemel Hempstead Grammar School and Aldenham School. Matric 1957; PhD 1964, ScD 2001. Bye-Fellow 1962–1963, Fellow 1964 (Emeritus 2003), Tutor 1974, Senior Tutor 1980–1984, Joint Director of Studies in Natural Sciences. University Lecturer in Biochemistry 1968–2003; Visiting Fellow, Pasteur Institute, Paris, 1996; Hon Member, Société Française de Microbiologie.

Alasdair Rennie is an award winning artist who paints portraits, landscapes and still-life, he is an accomplished figurative sculptor and muralist.

Montague John Rendall served Winchester College for thirty-seven years as classical master, Second Master and Headmaster (1911-1924) at a time when the school was at the height of its reputation. He strongly promoted the literary, moral and religious standards which he deemed of ultimate worth in the changing world and was considered by his contemporaries at Winchester to be among the greatest and best influences upon them.

Gerald Rendall was born at Harrow, where his father was assistant master. He was educated at Harrow and at Trinity College, Cambridge, graduating BA as 4th Classic in 1874.

He was a fellow and assistant tutor at Trinity from 1875 to 1880. He was principal of University College, Liverpool, and Gladstone Professor of Greek in 1880-97, and then the headmaster of Charterhouse School 1897-1911. From 1891 to 1895 he was also Vice-Chancellor of the Victoria University.

His most important publications were on early Christian authors writing during the Roman empire and on their late pagan opponents such as Julian the Apostate and Marcus Aurelius.

Rendall was George Mallory's first Headmaster at Charterhouse, followed by Frank Fletcher.

Belgium writer and keeper of the Royal Library of Belgium.

Climbing friend of George Mallory (mentioned in 1911 and 1923)

Son of Rev'd Adam Averell Ramsey of Dewsbury, a Congregational minister, and his wife Hephzibah. He was educated at Batley Grammar School and Magdalene College where he read Mathematics (1886-1889, 6th Wrangler, M.A. 1893). After University he became an Assistant Master at Fettes College between 1890 and 1897.

1897 - made a Fellow of Magdalene College
1900 - Steward
1904-1913 - Bursar
1912-1917 - Tutor
1915-1937 - President
1926-1932 - University Lecturer in Mathematics

He was responsible for improving the financial position ofthe College and adopting a sound admissions policy. During A. C. Benson’s breakdowns he also kept the College running smoothly. He was the author of a successful and series of textbooks in applied mathematics.

In 1902 he married (Mary) Agnes. Mary was academically accomplished, having earned a Class II Honours Certificate in Modern History from St Hugh's College, Oxford. In April 1913, Mary was elected to the Cambridge Board of Guardians in Bridge Ward.

They had two daughters, Bridget and Margaret, and two sons, Frank Plumpton Ramsey (1903–1930), philosopher and mathematician, and Michael Ramsey (1904–1988) who was the Archbishop of Canterbury for thirteen years. Mary Agnes was killed in 1927 in a road traffic accident.

Obituary - College Magazine, vol.86, pp. 41-44 (H U Willink, O F Morshead, D W Babbage)

Born at 71 Chesterton Road, Chesterton, Cambridge, on 14 November 1904, the son of Arthur Stanley Ramsey (1867–1954), mathematics fellow of Magdalene College and (Mary) Agnes (1875–1927). His elder brother, Frank Plumpton Ramsey, became an outstanding mathematical economist.

Matriculated 1923. Regius Professor of Divinity and Fellow, 1950-1952. Honorary Fellow, 1952. Bishop of Durham, 1952-1956; Archbishop of York, 1956-1961; Archbishop of Canterbury, 1961-1974. Life peer, 1974.

Memorial brass in Chapel.

Further Reading:
Reminiscences, 'Magdalene, 1923-1927', No. 30, (1985-86), pp. 19-21
Obituary, College Magazine, No. 32 (1987-88), pp. 4-9

Lettice Ramsey (née Baker, 1898 -1985) was a graduate of Newnham College, Cambridge, and she married Cambridge mathematician and philosopher, Frank Ramsey (son of A.S. Ramsey, President of Magdalene College) in 1926. Frank died in 1930 and Lettice looked for a new way to support herself and her two young daughters. In 1932 she set up in the photographic business with Helen Muspratt, a Dorset photographer who had trained at Regent Street Polytechnic in London. Lettice had the Cambridge contacts to get the firm work while Helen had the photographic skills and experience.

In 1937 Helen Muspratt moved to Oxford and set up a second studio for the firm there. While the partnership continued, Helen ran the Oxford Studio and Lettice the Cambridge one.

Nicholas Lee took over the business in 1978 when Lettice retired. The business was then purchased by Peter Lofts in 1980. There is an extensive indexed negative collection from the firm in the Cambridgeshire Collection, deposited by Peter Lofts after he bought up the business.

Ramsey and Muspratt are best known for their portrait work. Their sympathetic, well lit images quickly made the firm fashionable, photographing the up and coming and influential throughout the 1930s, including Anthony Blunt and Virginia Woolf. The firm also undertook a wide range of commercial photography.

Master of Magdalene College, 1925 - 1947

A schoolmaster at Eton, 1895-1925. Vice-Chancellor, 1929-1931. The antithesis of A. C. Benson in many ways, and ever the schoolmaster (he even retired into a preparatory school), he was more highly regarded by the Fellows than by the undergraduates. He had some facility as a Latin versifier.

Arms in hall glass, E3.

Obituary - College Magazine, No. 87, 1955-56
Article: 'A. B. R. - A Tribute', College Magazine, No. 79 (1948) pp. 8-9 (F. McD C. Turner)
Cunich, P., Hoyle, D., Duffy, E., Hyam, R., A History of Magdalene College Cambridge, 1428-1988 pp. 233-238
Oxford Dictionary of National Biography

Little is known about the French clockmaker and bronzier Raingo, who almost certainly apprenticed in Paris circa 1790. He moved to Belgium, circa 1800, probably for political reasons, and from the signatures on some of his clocks, it is known that he worked in Gand and Tournay. Later, in 1823, he is recorded as being clockmaker to the duc de Chartres. The company became Raingo Frères in 1825 and thereafter clocks bear their signature with various Paris addresses. They had a workshop workshop on Rue Vielle du Temple in 1829, and from 1840 to 1850 in Rue de Saintonge. After 1860 they moved again back to Rue Vielle du Temple where they started sell bronzes. noted for the quality of their gilding and chasing. The firm exhibited at many of the important exhibitions of the second half of the 19th century, including London in 1862, and was known for the fine quality of its ormolu in particular their superb gilding and chasing.

Master of Magdalene College, 1642 - 1650 (ejected), 1660 - 1664

Born at Blyton in Lindsey, Lincolnshire, son of Thomas Rainbow, the vicar, and his wife, Rebecca, daughter of David Allen, rector of the neighbouring parish of Ludborough.
Educated at school in Gainsborough and then in Peterborough under John Williams. In 1621 he transferred to Westminster School.
In July 1623 he obtained a scholarship at Corpus Christi College, Oxford, where his brother was a Fellow, but through the family of his godfather Edward Wray of Rycot, he received from Frances, Dowager Countess of Warwick, a nomination to one of the Wray scholarships founded at Magdalene College, Cambridge by her father.

He matriculated in 1624; BA in 1627; MA in 1630.

He was ordained in April 1632.

1633 made a Fellow.
1637 he accepted the small vicarage of Childerley, near Cambridge, and became Dean of Magdalene.
1642 he was appointed Master in succession to Henry Smyth. He was an effective Master, putting College registers in order, ably managing finances and increasing student numbers.
He served as Master twice, having been ejected for Royalist principles in 1650. He was restored in 1660 and resigned in 1664.
He was appointed Chaplain to the King.
1661 he was made Dean of Peterborough.
1662 appointed Vice-Chancellor of Cambridge University.
1664 became Bishop of Carlisle.

Arms in Hall glass, E3.

Member of the National Congress of Belgium.

Born on 21 July 1865 in Edinburgh, the fourth son of William Raeburn, a brewer, and his wife, Jessie, née Ramsay. In 1896 Raeburn joined the Scottish Mountaineering Club, which had been founded in 1889, and within a few years he became its leading climber, recording many classic routes throughout Scotland. He climbed further afield too including the first British guideless ascent of the Zmutt ridge of the Matterhorn in 1906, as well as first ascents in Norway and the Caucasus. In 1904 he joined the Alpine Club (London).

Raeburn was vice-president of the Scottish Mountaineering Club from 1909 to 1911, but later turned down the presidency.

1921 he was appointed lead climber on the the First Everest expedition. By the time the expedition reached Tibet, dysentery had broken out. One member of the party, Alexander Mitchell Kellas, died, and Raeburn himself had to be carried down and spent two months in hospital. Against common sense he returned to the expedition, but he was exhausted and never really recovered. Declining health eventually led to his death five years later. He died, unmarried, at Craig House, Edinburgh, on 21 December 1926.

Belgium astronomer, mathematician, statistician and sociologist. Founded and directed the Royal Observatory of Belgium in Brussels.

Master of Magdalene College, 1690-1713

Came up to Magdalene probably from Alford School in 1657. His brother William had matriculated in 1652
Also Rector of Dry Drayton
His Mastership was dominated by fund reaining for the new building [now known as the Pepys Building] and he made little or no impact in the university at large

Friend and Biographer of George Mallory.

Born on 29 April 1886 in Hampstead, London, the sixth of the seven children of William Arthur Pye, wine merchant, and his wife, Margaret Thompson. Educated at Tonbridge School and Trinity College, Cambridge and was placed in the first class of the mechanical sciences tripos in 1908. In 1909 C. F. Jenkin invited Pye to join him in Oxford and he was elected a fellow of New College in 1911.

During the First World War, Pye taught at Winchester College (1915–16), then worked as an experimental officer in the Royal Flying Corps on design and testing, and learned to fly as a pilot. In 1919 he returned to Cambridge as a lecturer, and became a fellow of Trinity where he met Henry Tizard and Harry Ricardo. This association led to important pioneer work on the internal combustion engine.

In 1926 Pye married Virginia Frances, daughter of Charles Moore Kennedy, barrister. They had two sons and a daughter.

Pye's The Internal Combustion Engine (2 vols., 1931–4) was published in the Oxford Engineering Science series, of which he became an editor. In 1925 he was appointed deputy director of scientific research at the Air Ministry. He succeeded him as director in 1937 and in the same year was appointed CB and elected FRS. During the early war years he became closely associated with the development of the new jet propulsion aircraft engine which he did much to encourage.

In 1943 Pye accepted the provostship of University College, London. Serious illness forced him to resign in 1951. He was knighted in 1952 and in the same year became president of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers.

Pye was an enthusiastic climber and in 1922 was elected to the Alpine Club of which he became vice-president in 1956. He was a friend of George Mallory's and on his and Andrew Irvine's loss he wrote: Those two black specks, scarcely visible among the vast eccentricities of nature, but moving up slowly, intelligently, into regions of unknown striving, remain for us a symbol of the invincibility of the human spirit.

Belgian colonel and politician.