A Farewell Message from Professor Mary Fowler
Master from October 2012 to October 2020
Darwin College is a wonderful community: it was an unbelievable honour to have been the Master. The eight years gave time to meet and to listen, time to build, time to hope: to every thing a season, and time for every purpose.
In 2011 when Darwin advertised for their next Master, my memories of being a Darwin student in the 1970s came to the fore. Back then the College was little-known and small, but warm, humming with energy. The first college just for graduates and the first for both women and men, it was interdisciplinary and international, such a different place.
My hope in applying was that I could help keep and enhance what was so special about Darwin, its ethos, informality and friendliness, its happiness - yet at the same time fostering its excellence, its quality. Quite simply, I wanted the established Darwin College to continue as one of the best places on the planet to be a graduate student, a post-doc, a Fellow or an Associate Member.
Looking back to my application, I said:
Darwin College is a lovely place, a remarkable college. In many ways it feels hardly different from when I was a student, welcoming and comfortable –changes and improvements have not altered the feel of the place. Nowhere else in Cambridge can quite claim so strongly this wonderful combination of youth and wisdom, history and modesty working together in a lovely setting.
As a place it has created a welcoming beauty, and this is of great value towards hosting a real community of thought, of academe, which will attract some of the best minds of each generation. As a community, Darwin has a remarkable reputation. More perhaps than any college you excel in Cambridge’s special skill: fostering cross-disciplinary and inter-generational discussion, whether in lunch or garden or punt, or a setpiece event. I pay much tribute to a fine succession of Masters and Fellows. This has always been a happy and welcoming place, and that shows.
My thoughts then still stand today.
I didn’t at first appreciate quite the full range of a Master’s responsibilities. But even once settled in, one worry remained – conferring degrees in Latin, not a language I knew. So I practised and learnt to recite parrot fashion, since some degrees like Magistri in Jure Negotiationes Societatum are real tonguetwisters. Degree Congregations and the celebrations with you and your families and friends were such happy events and the innovation of a large marquee in the garden for a served sit-down lunch gave us plenty of space sheltered from sun, wind and rain.
I must also record the deep sorrows of these years too. Darwin is now over 50 years old, and as time passes, so do treasured friends and colleagues. We’ve lost Fellows who helped build and sustain the foundations of our College: John Bradfield, Derek Bendall, Philip McNair, Patrick Sissons, David MacKay, Stephen Keynes, Kiyoshi Nagai, Willy Brown and Richard King, along with many others in the wider Darwinian community. They are all valued, missed and mourned.
In 1962 a document, “Notes on Possible Establishment and Finance of a Very Modest Graduate College”, was written by John Bradfield, Senior Bursar of Trinity College. The note was a gem – setting out everything for a College of 40 Fellows and 40 students. But John did more – he helped guide Darwin for the next half-century. In his memory, with much support from Darwinians and very generously from Trinity, we’ve done two things. As we were very short of study, seminar and social space, we have built the Bradfield Room. Moreover, the beloved Old Granary that was so desperately in need of refurbishment has been beautifully renovated and is now good for another century – it remains the student accommodation with the wonderful view. Our close connections with the Darwin family are much cherished. Advice and support from Stephen Keynes was invaluable when we were considering the restoration work; he was the nephew of Gwen Raverat and had lived in the Old Granary with her.
We haven’t just been busy on our main site. We’ve been improving and adding to our residential accommodation with new additions: 26 rooms at Hardwick House, 10 rooms at 51 Newnham Road, 32 rooms and 12 studios at Mount Pleasant, and 4 more f lats in Newnham. There are also further plans and I hope some important new additions that are still in the pipeline.
Darwin members like Dame Jane Francis, Director of the British Antarctic Survey, and Sir David MacKay, author of Sustainable Energy - Without The Hot Air, have played a crucial role in making society aware of climate change, not just in the UK but worldwide; and that means we must put our own house in order. We are developing and implementing plans to cut the environmental footprint of all our activities, from energy and heating to our wider holdings. Food is important. They say an army marches on its stomach, but colleges do too. Our catering team serves great food under Ivan Higney’s splendid leadership. Breakfast, lunch, supper and dinners, brunch at weekends, BBQs in the summer, superb formal halls, grand events - we are so well looked after. The chefs have been winning prizes and what’s more Darwin Kitchens have earned a Gold Green Impact award, leading the way with sustainable and ethical policies.
The people we see most day to day are the marvellous College staff. I’d especially like to thank them for their extraordinary efforts since March when they kept everyone looked after with kindness, unselfish help, effective and rapid responses to unexpected challenges. Of all the colleges, Darwin had the most people in residence through the spring and summer lockdown.
Much of my day-to-day work has been with the Bursar, Vice-Masters, Development Director, Dean, Praelector, Archivist and so many others. To them my deep thanks for their friendship, for putting up with me, even when I was lost in a packed pre-Christmas New York without a hotel, or triple booked for meetings or had lost my papers. We have a truly superb management team – calm, competent and far-sighted.
It has been a pleasure to get to know Mike Rands, our new Master, with whom I have worked closely in our handover period. Mike is very experienced, wise and dedicated, and I’m sure he will be an excellent leader in these complex and difficult times. He has my very best wishes and support and I am sure that you will all support him too. I’m going to end by going back to my remarks when I applied for the post.
…. In a graduate college you have the chance to help and shape the next generation of our global society…. You have some of the best and brightest in the world here – what could be a better challenge than making it work well?”
This is a time of change. My parents and grandparents saw the fearsome conflicts of the 20th Century. Society came through those and built a better world. Today there is still human conflict and misery, new technical advances such as artificial intelligence loom, while the planetary environment is in trouble. Now more than ever Darwin’s special skills and global scope can help. Our wonderful community can truly make the world better - in this fractious world, a still small voice of hope.
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