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Vendler, Helen [née Hennessy], (1933-2024), academic, writer and literary critic
Person · 30 April 1933 - 23 April 2024

Professor Helen Vendler was an American academic, writer and literary critic. She was a professor of English language and history at Boston University, Cornell, Harvard, and other universities. Her academic focus was critical analysis of poetry and she studied poets from Shakespeare and George Herbert to modern poets such as Wallace Stevens and Seamus Heaney. Her technique was close reading, which she described as "reading from the point of view of a writer".

She was the Parnell Fellow at Magdalene College from 1994-1995 and was elected as an Honorary Fellow in 1997.

Her portrait, by Mrs Mary Minifie, is the first of a female Fellow to hang in Hall (2024).

Obituary - College Magazine, No. 68 (2023-24)
Van de Weyer, Jean Sylvain (1802-1874), diplomat
Person · 19 January 1802 – 23 May 1874

Van de Weyer served as Belgium’s Prime minister from July 1845 to March 1846. However, he lived for the majority of his life in London (17 Fitzroy Square, 50 Portland Place) and Windsor (New Lodge), and held the office of Belgian Minister at the Court of St. James’s under Queen Victoria, an ambassadorial role. Van de Weyer was close friends with Lord Palmerston. In addition to being a member of the Roxburghe Club, Van de Weyer was a founder member of the Philobiblon Society, the Vice President of the London Library, a Member of the Société des Bibliophiles de Belgique and the Head of the Royal Library of Brussels.
Pierre Henri Laurent said of Van de Weyer: 'His manners, taste, and savoir-faire brought him into the vital center of the intellectual, diplomatic, and financial communities. His home became the meeting place of writers, artists, and scientists’.
Tyndall, John (1820-1893), Irish physicist
Person · 2 August 1820 – 4 December 1893

John Tyndall's scientific fame arose in the 1850s from his study of diamagnetism. Later he made discoveries in the realms of infrared radiation and the physical properties of air, proving the connection between atmospheric CO2 and what is now known as the greenhouse effect in 1859.

Tyndall also published more than a dozen science books which brought state-of-the-art 19th century experimental physics to a wide audience.

In 1853, he attained the prestigious appointment of Professor of Natural Philosophy (Physics) at the Royal Institution in London, due in no small part to the esteem his work had garnered from Michael Faraday, the leader of magnetic investigations at the Royal Institution. About a decade later Tyndall was appointed the successor to the positions held by Michael Faraday at the Royal Institution on Faraday's retirement.