Born in Paddington, London, the son of Ernest Jay, a character actor, and Catherine. He was educated at St Paul's School and Magdalene College, Cambridge, graduating with first-class honours in Classics and comparative philology. With Jonathan Lynn, he co-wrote the British political comedies Yes Minister and Yes, Prime Minister (1980–88). He was knighted in the 1988 New Years Honours.
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.
The workshop of Benedetto Boschetti (1820-1870) was renowned for the exceptional quality of its marble work 'after the antique'. From his premises at 74 via Condotti in Rome, Boschetti supplied extremely high quality works of art to satisfy the academic and sophisticated tastes of young Englishmen on the Grand Tour. His work was widely praised and he was awarded a medal at the Great Exhibition of 1851 in London. The most celebrated examples of his work today are a mosaic table depicting the Triumph of Cupid in the Gilbert Collection, London, and the fine reductions of the Warwick Vase, in rosso antico now in the Toledo Museum, Ohio.
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.
Noel Odell was a member of the 1924 British Mount Everest Expedition and last person to see George Mallory and Andrew Irvine alive.
In 1924 Odell was an oxygen officer on the Everest expedition. He spent two weeks living above 23,000 ft and twice climbed to 26,800 ft and higher, without supplemental oxygen. In 1936 Noel Odell with Bill Tilman climbed Nanda Devi, at the time the highest mountain climbed.
On 8 June 1924 George Mallory and Andrew Irvine attempted to summit Mount Everest via the Northeast Ridge route. Odell reported seeing them at 12:50 p.m. ascending one of the major "steps" on the North-East ridge, "the last step but one from the base of the final pyramid" and "going strongly for the top." The is no evidence to prove reached the summit, or that they ascended above the major second step. They never returned and died on the mountain.
In his first two accounts, written between June and November 1924, Odell was certain he had seen Mallory and Irvine climbing the second step, but in the expedition account published in 1925, and after mounting skepticism from members of the climbing community as to whether it was the second step or the lower first step, Odell conceded it might have been the first step. After he had been rejected as too old for the next Everest expedition, he recanted his change of mind and returned to the belief that he had seen the two climbers on the second step. Had they done climbed this, there would have been a fair chance that one of them, at least, might have reached the summit.
Speaker of the House of Commons, 1529; Lord Keeper, 1532-1533; Lord Chancellor, 1533-1544, who presided over the trials of Sir Thomas More and Bishop Fisher. Regarded as the founder of Magdalene College, by virtue of securing its re-foundation through Letters Patent granted by the King, almost certainly choosing the dedication as a pun on his own name. He has the reputation of being not a very nice man (a heart as black as marble).
Matriculated in 1927 and achieved a first class in all parts of the Mathematical Tripos.
Chief Cryptographer at Bletchley Park, during the Second World War, where ‘the outstanding skill and inventiveness of Dennis Babbage and his team’ is now acknowledged (D. Taunt), together with his legendary skill at billiards (Michael Smith, Station X: the code-breakers of Bletchley Park (2000) p 41).
Bye-Fellow, 1931 - 1933
Fellow, 1933 - 1991
Director of Studies in Mathematics, 1934 - 1977
Tutor, 1946
Senior Tutor, 1964 - 1973
President 1973 - 1979 (Acting Master, Michaelmas, 1978)
University Lecturer, 1936 - 1976
Senior Proctor, 1953 - 1954
In March 1962 he married Stephana Gaselee, daughter of Lady Gaselee and the late Sir Stephen Gaselee (Fellow of Magdalene, 1908 - 1943).
He was a distant relative of the 19th century mathematician Charles Babbage but was not a descendant.
Matriculated from Magdalene College, 1929. Bye-fellow, 1935-1936; College lecturer in history, 1936-1982; Official Fellow, 1938; Tutor, 1952 - 1980; President, 1979-1982.
During the Second World War, he served at Bletchley Park as an intelligence analyst, translating and evaluating the Ultra decrypts of the German Enigma cipher.
As a historian, he achieved eminence in two unrelated fields: medieval ecclesiastical history and modern military history.
College Magazine
Obituary by R. Hyam, College Magazine, vol. 46 (2001-02) pp 12-17
Hugh Dalton studied mathematics at King's College, Cambridge changing to Economics part way through his undergraduate studies. He was close friends with Rupert Brooke and President of the University's Fabian Society of which George Mallory was a member. He later served in the post war Labour Government including serving two years as the Chancellor of the Exchequer.
French sculptor in a modified Neoclassical tradition who was known for his use of allegory in his work. In 1850 he began working and studying with a well-known sculptor James Pradier. Following Pradier's death in 1852 Chapu began studying with another sculptor, Francisque Duret. After coming in second in 1851, he won the Prix de Rome in 1855, then spent five years in Italy. His statues Mercury of 1861 and Jeanne d'Arc of 1870 (in which she was represented as a peasant girl) were his first big successes, and led to many commissions thereafter. He is also known for his medals, and led the French revival in the medal as an artistic form.
A Monaco sculptor who achieved distinction in the first quarter of the nineteenth century with his work for Napoleon and for the restored French monarchy.Apart from the imperial busts and the statue of Louis XVI, other important works included the quadriga of the Arc de Triomphe du Carrousel and the statue of Hercules fighting Acheloos transformed into a snake in the Louvre. Many of his most important sculptures and statues can today be found in the Louvre museum in Paris.
Gregoire trained under the celebrated sculptor Jean Jules Salmson at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts and his work was first exhibited at the Paris Salon in 1867. His bronze sculptures were often classical in nature and commonly took war and music as their themes, typical of the Academic style in which he was trained.
A French sculptor. He was one of the founding members of the Société Nationale des Beaux-Arts, and was made an officer of the Legion of Honour. His work encompassed all manner of sculptural subjects and materials, and his naturalism incorporated a breadth of styles: unembellished Realism, neo-Baroque exuberance, and Rococo elegance
A French sculptor. He was born in Lille, France, and died in Paris. He studied at the Accademia Albertina in Turin. One of his teachers was Odoardo Tabacchi. From 1885, Villanis lived in Paris and became one of the most productive sculptors towards the end of the 19th century. His female bronze busts, cast by the Society de Bronze de Paris, were exported all over the world from Paris, particularly to the United States. Today his sculptures can be found regularly in auctions.
Eden was born in Newington Green in 1812. He enrolled at the Royal Academy Schools in 1828 and between 1837 and 1881 his work was regularly exhibited at the Royal Academy.
He is best known for his portraits, which included many of well-known people. The National Portrait Gallery in London holds a drawing of him by Walker Hodgson.
Among the subjects of his portraits were the historian Lord Macaulay, Bishop Charles James Blomfield, Archbishop Sumner, the essayist and fashionable cleric Sydney Smith, the sculptor Francis Leggatt Chantrey and Peter Mark Roget the compiler of the original thesaurus. He died in 1901 at Shalford near Guildford.
Matriculated in 1619 from Magdalene College probably aged about 13. His father was John Bridgman (also Magdalene) who was chaplain to James I and became Bishop of Chester in 1619.
BA in 1623 and elected Fellow in 1624. His father wouldn't let him accept the Fellowship on the grounds that they should be reserved for men of more modest means.
MP for Wigan, 1640; University Counsel, 1642; Kt, 1643, Baronet, 1660.
A lawyer who specialised in conveyancing (a critical concern in the aftermath of the Civil War) and was a prominent Royalist. He presided in the trial of the regicides. Chief Justice of the Common Pleas, 1660; Lord Keeper of the Great Seal, 1667-1672 (in effect Lord Chancellor). In Pepys’s view ‘a mighty able man’ (Diary vol 8, p 421), and probably the College’s most eminent lawyer. Patron of the poet Traherne.
Bridgeman's reports, spanning his time as chief justice of the common pleas, are in the British Library (BL, Hargrave MSS 55–58).
Personal papers - there are notebooks and letters relating to Bridgeman family and public affairs in the Staffordshire Record Office, and some miscellaneous correspondence at Longleat.
Arms in Hall glass, W3.
In the College Magazine
Article: 'Sir Orlando Bridgman: the College's seventeenth century legal star'. by N. G. Jones, College Magazine vol. 40 (1995-96) pp 31-36
An English painter active in the later part of Elizabeth I's reign and for most of the reign of James I. In 1604, he was appointed picture maker to the heir to the throne, Prince Henry; and in 1607, serjeant-painter to King James I – a post he shared with John De Critz. Peake is often called "the elder", to distinguish him from his son, the painter and print seller William Peake (c. 1580–1639) and from his grandson, Sir Robert Peake (c. 1605–67), who followed his father into the family print-selling business.
Benefactor of Buckingham College, who built part of First Court, probably including the Hall, 1519, but thereafter got into serious debt. ‘Formidable alike by his descent, his wealth, his wide estates, and his connections’ (Oxford Dictionary of National Biography), he was a possible contender for the throne, leading to his trial and execution for treason, on very flimsy grounds.
Educated at Christ’s College. Bursar of St George’s Choir School, Windsor.
Fellow, 1949-1989; Bursar, 1949-1977.
Director of A & C Black, publishers. For forty years editor of the Public and Preparatory Schools Yearbook/Independent Schools Yearbook. A bibliophile who was well read in the history of the Victorian church. The University Fives Courts are named after him.
Obituary by R. Hyam in the College Magazine vol. 34 (1989-90) pp 2-6
Admitted to Magdalene as a sizar in 1647, aged 15.
Made a Fellow in 1654 on Parliamentary authority, in place of the ejected John Dacres. He was respected and well liked and his contemporaries considered him an 'eminent tutor' [Cunich, P., Hoyle, D., Duffy, E., Hyam, R., *A History of Magdalene College Cambridge8, 1428-1988, pp. 128-129]
Chaplain to Lord Keeper Bridgeman; Canon of Norwich; Rector of St George’s Southwark, 1668-1680; Vicar of Barnes, 1680.
He died aged 49. Archbishop Tillotson described Burton as of ‘incomparable sweetness of temper’ (Preface to Discourses, 1684).