Christ's College Choir Association was launched on Saturday 13 November 2010, with a special service of Choral Evensong followed by dinner in Hall.
The Choir Association has been set up to bring former members of the Choir together. Following the immense success of the inaugural Choir Association Dinner on Saturday 13th november 2010, a second event took place on 3rd November 2012, and a third event on the 1st November 2014. We were delighted that so many former members of the Choir were able to join its current members for singing, fine food, wine and general merriment. In September 2016, a new format was trialled with a lunch and afternoon tea laid on either side of evensong.
The most recent Choir Association Festal Evensong and Dinner took place on Saturday 12th October, 2019. If you require any further information, did not receive the information or know of anyone else who did not receive an invite, do not hesitate to contact the Choir Administrator Simon Fraser on choir.admin@christs.cam.ac.uk.
The Choir Association also provides continued support for the current Choir. The College funds the choir as far as the services in Chapel are concerned. Activities which support the choir in that capacity, such as singing lessons, organ lessons and the like, are funded partly from donations by alumni and partly by the College. Similarly, tours are an incredible experience but come at significant expense; for example, a tour to the US costs around £30,000. We try to be self-funding on these tours through ticket sales and collections during the tour itself, as well as through concerts at other times of the year and through CD sales, but in recent years this has become more challenging.
If you would like to make a one-off gift or a regular donation to ensure that the current and future generations of the Choir can have the same experiences, please contact the College's Development Director.
John Philipps Kenyon
1927-1996
John Kenyon was Lecturer in History at Cambridge (1956-62), and Professor of Modern History at the Universities of Hull (1962-1981), St Andrews (1981-7) and Kansas (1987-94). He authored nine books, a number of essays and twice edited titles, his work focussing on the early and late seventeenth century and the first half of the eighteenth century. An elegant and witty prose stylist he contributed essays and reviews to titles such as The Observer and The Spectator. At the early age of thirty-five he was granted the G.F. Grant Chair at Hull and a Fellowship of the British Academy in 1981.
John Kenyon was born in Sheffield on 18 June 1927 and maintained the manner of a blunt, sceptical Yorkshireman throughout his life, but he could also be a lively conversationalist and drinking companion. He attended King Edward VII Grammar School in Sheffield and progressed to Sheffield University receiving a First Class Degree in 1949. He habitually attended Anglican worship, often reading the lessons and was a member of the Prayer Book Society. He once successfully defended the 1701 Act of Settlement on the Radio 4 Programme You the Jury.
After graduating he began research on seventeenth-century history at Sheffield under Professor George Potter. His research focussed on the political career of the Second Earl of Sunderland. After interest from Dante Campailla and Professor Jack Plumb, Kenyon received the Lloyd studentship and took his place at Christ’s College in October 1950. Plumb quickly promoted him for a Research Fellowship at Christ’s and shortly he was granted a University Assistant Lectureship. He later became Director of Studies in History and in 1961-62 was Christ's nominee as Junior Proctor.
During his seven years in the Cambridge History Faculty Kenyon lectured mainly on 'English Constitutional History 1603-1760', material from which was disseminated to several generations of students in his volume 'The Stuart Constitution: Documents and Commentary' (1966). He also taught a final-year special subject on'James II and the Revolution of 1688-9'
According to John Morrill, Fellow of the British Academy, in his biography of John Philipps Kenyon in the Proceedings of the British Academy (1999):
‘John Kenyon had the best historical intelligence of his generation. He understood men and women in the past and he wrote about them with a rare precision, clarity and conviction. He was a productive scholar and all his works except one wore their learning with a deceptive lightness. He fitted into no school, reacted against fashion, came to look old-fashioned in his interests. He was a magnificent historian who could not quite build on the brilliance of his early promise, but who greatly underestimated the magnitude of his own achievement and the continuing appeal of his writing’ (p.460)
Kenyon was best known to the wider public through 'The Stuarts' (1958), in its day an influential general history, and 'The History Men: The Historical Profession in England since the Renaissance' (1983), whose vivid pen-pictures grew out of earlier writings for The Observer.
John Harold Plumb (known as Jack) was born in Leicester on 20 August 1911. He was educated in Leicester before coming to Christ's College in 1934 to work for his PhD under G M Trevelyan. Following war service at Bletchley Park, he returned to Christ's in 1946 as Fellow and Tutor. He was appointed a University Lecturer in History, rising by 1966 to a personal Chair as Professor of Modern English History. He was elected a Fellow of the British Academy in 1968 and was knighted in 1982.
He was Master of Christ's College from 1978 to 1982 and remained a Fellow until his death on 21 October 2001 at the age of 90.
Although best known as an historian, he was also an entrepeneur, a bob viveur, a connoisseur of food and wine and a collector of fine silver and porcelain.
A biography can be found here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Plumb
J H Plumb Centenary Dinner
On Monday 31 October 2011 a gala fundraising dinner was held at the National Portrait Gallery, where Plumb was a Trustee for many years. On arrival guests were greeted by a string quartet before making their way to the Tudor Gallery for a champagne reception. We were delighted that Mr Sandy Nairn, Director of the National Portrait Gallery, was able to attend the reception and welcome alumni and guests to the Gallery.
Dinner was served in the Weldon Galleries, surrounded by portraits of the peope Plumb wrote about. Professor Sir David Cannadine (Honorary Fellow) and Professor Frank Kelly (Master) welcomed guests and spoke about Plumb. The Master introduced the new J H Plumb Fellow whose appointment had been secured thanks to those attending the event.
After dinner Professor Simon Schama gave an entertaining and though-provoking speech about Plumb and history.
The speeches are now available on-line.
We would like to thank all those who supported this event and the J H Plumb Fellowship.
Photos from the event are available on line. The photos taken by Miranda Parry Associates are here and photos taken by Tamsin Astbury of the Development Office are here.
J H Plumb Symposium
On Saturday 2 July 2011 the College held a symposium to commemorate the 100th anniversary of J H Plumb. The programme was as follows:
Welcome and introduction by Professor David Reynolds
Plumb and the 18th century by Professor Linda Colley and Professor Paul Langford
Plumb and Social/Cultural History by Mr Neil McKendrick and Professor Roey Sweet
Plumb and the historian as public intellectual by Professor Sir David Cannadine and Professor Stefan Collini
Recordings of the talks are available:
Plumb and Social/Cultural History by Mr Neil McKendrick and Professor Roey Sweet
John Kenyon was Lecturer in History at Cambridge (1956-62), and Professor of Modern History at the Universities of Hull (1962-1981), St Andrews (1981-7) and Kansas (1987-94). He authored nine books, a number of essays and twice edited titles, his work focussing on the early and late seventeenth century and the first half of the eighteenth century. An elegant and witty prose stylist he contributed essays and reviews to titles such as The Observer and The Spectator. At the early age of thirty-five he was granted the G.F. Grant Chair at Hull and a Fellowship of the British Academy in 1981.
John Kenyon was born in Sheffield on 18 June 1927 and maintained the manner of a blunt, sceptical Yorkshireman throughout his life, but he could also be a lively conversationalist and drinking companion. He attended King Edward VII Grammar School in Sheffield and progressed to Sheffield University receiving a First Class Degree in 1949. He habitually attended Anglican worship, often reading the lessons and was a member of the Prayer Book Society. He once successfully defended the 1701 Act of Settlement on the Radio 4 Programme You the Jury.
After graduating he began research on seventeenth-century history at Sheffield under Professor George Potter. His research focussed on the political career of the Second Earl of Sunderland. After interest from Dante Campailla and Professor Jack Plumb, Kenyon received the Lloyd studentship and took his place at Christ’s College in October 1950. Plumb quickly promoted him for a Research Fellowship at Christ’s and shortly he was granted a University Assistant Lectureship. He later became Director of Studies in History and in 1961-62 was Christ's nominee as Junior Proctor.
During his seven years in the Cambridge History Faculty Kenyon lectured mainly on 'English Constitutional History 1603-1760', material from which was disseminated to several generations of students in his volume 'The Stuart Constitution: Documents and Commentary' (1966). He also taught a final-year special subject on'James II and the Revolution of 1688-9'
According to John Morrill, Fellow of the British Academy, in his biography of John Philipps Kenyon in the Proceedings of the British Academy (1999):
‘John Kenyon had the best historical intelligence of his generation. He understood men and women in the past and he wrote about them with a rare precision, clarity and conviction. He was a productive scholar and all his works except one wore their learning with a deceptive lightness. He fitted into no school, reacted against fashion, came to look old-fashioned in his interests. He was a magnificent historian who could not quite build on the brilliance of his early promise, but who greatly underestimated the magnitude of his own achievement and the continuing appeal of his writing’ (p.460)
Kenyon was best known to the wider public through 'The Stuarts' (1958), in its day an influential general history, and 'The History Men: The Historical Profession in England since the Renaissance' (1983), whose vivid pen-pictures grew out of earlier writings for The Observer.
James Meade was one of the great economists of the 20th century. It was Keynes’s vision and genius which underlay the reconstruction of economics in the interwar period, and provided the basic analytical framework which economists have used since for understanding macroeconomic growth and fluctuations. But James Meade’s contribution was almost as important: he helped to make Keynes’s framework operational, by developing the first modern set of national accounts, and he extended it to incorporate the international trade and capital flows which characterise the late 20th century globalised economy. It was his work on the Theory of International Economic Policy, published in 1951-55 when he was teaching at LSE, which was cited when he was awarded a share of the 1977 Nobel Prize in Economics.
James began his academic career in traditional fashion, studying Classics at Oxford. Appalled by the intractable problem of high unemployment in interwar Britain, he switched to Economics (then a very new subject in Oxford), and graduated in 1930 with a First in PPE. He was elected immediately to a Fellowship at Hertford (his undergraduate College), and sent to Cambridge for a year ‘to learn my subject before I began to teach it’. While in Cambridge he became a member of the famous ‘Circus’ of young economists which was trying to think through and develop the ideas which Keynes had just published in the Treatise on Money. James made a fundamental contribution to this process, in the form of what was then known as ‘Mr Meade’s Relation’, which forms the basis (with due acknowledgement) of much of Richard Kahn’s original explanation of the Keynesian multiplier. With typical modesty James downplayed his ideas, described by Kahn in 1931 as ‘as yet unpublished’, and they only appeared in print in 1993.
James returned to Oxford in 1931, and spent the next six years teaching Economics, developing and publishing his ideas about what is now called macroeconomics, and writing an early and very sophisticated textbook on modern economics. He was also involved in formulating policy proposals for the Labour party (then a tiny minority in parliament) and in the League of Nations Union. It was through his work for the League of Nations that he met Margaret Wilson, and they married in 1933. In 1937 James took leave of absence from Oxford to work in Geneva writing the League’s annual World Economic Survey: this was an opportunity to use his theoretical ideas to evaluate the varied policy strategies which governments had adopted in the turmoil of the Great Depression.
James and his family returned to England with much drama in May 1940, just as the German army was conquering France, and he took up a job in what became the Economic Section of the War Cabinet. During the next six years, working closely with Keynes and others, he made three major practical contributions to the new economic thinking which would underly the post-war world. With Richard Stone he developed the first modern system of national accounts, the essential information needed for coherent economic policy-making. He played a vital role in the complicated process which led to the famous White Paper on Employment Policy: this established full employment as an objective of Government policy in the UK, a symbolic rejection of the ‘do-nothing’ approach to unemployment which had led James to become an economist fifteen years earlier. Finally, he took the leading role from the British side in the Anglo American discussions on post-war commercial policy, working for the establishment of an International Trade Organisation which would foster a return to multilateral trade in place of the damaging experiments with bilateralism and autarchy which had characterised the 1930’s. The ITO was intended to complement the two ‘Bretton Woods’ organisations (the IMF and World Bank), but political complications meant that the treaty establishing it was not ratified. However many of the key principles were incorporated in the GATT, and the original vision of an international organisation ultimately led to the establishment of the World Trade Organisation in 1995.
Although James continued as a government adviser in the immediate post-war period, he found it difficult to work with Ministers who were, for a variety of reasons, strongly attached to the continuation of wartime controls and rationing, and he resigned in 1947 to take up a Chair at the London School of Economics. The books which he published while at LSE, for which he was subsequently awarded the Nobel Prize, form the basis for much of what is now taught as International Economics: they cover the relationships between domestic and international balance in the economy, the rationale for preferential trade agreements such as those which led to the formation of the EU, and many other topics which are still relevant today.
In 1957 James moved to Cambridge to take up the Chair of Political Economy which had previously been held by Marshall, Pigou and Denis Robertson. At the same time he became a Professorial Fellow of Christ’s, and began his association of nearly 40 years with the College. The University Statutes of the time did not allow Professors to supervise undergraduates, so that for most Christ’s undergraduates he was inevitably a remote, though kindly and courteous, figure. James remained a Fellow of Christ’s until his retirement in 1974, and was then made an Honorary Fellow.
The move to Cambridge also brought James into the acrimonious politics of the Economics Faculty, a change which he did not enjoy. Looking back, it is clear that the debates reflected not only the combative personality of some of the key participants, but also deep intellectual differences about the ways in which Keynes’s original insights should be developed. For James, economics was about moderate and carefully designed reforms which would make a market economy fairer and more efficient, and which would allow growth with stable prices and full employment. But for others, who saw themselves as the guardians of the ‘Cambridge’ tradition, Keynes’s key contribution had been to show that, since financial markets could not allocate capital efficiently (either within a single country, or across international borders), most forms of investment should be the outcome of a government-led planning process.
Conflicts within the Economics Faculty, and the wish to focus on his research and writing, led James to resign his Chair in 1968, and to take up a Senior Research Fellowship at Christ’s. During his time in Cambridge he had started to write a comprehensive multi-volume Principles of Political Economy (perhaps the last book to use this traditional title), but the problems raised by the rapid expansion of the subject, together with a renewed interest in policy issues, meant that it was never completed. Instead James chaired a high-powered, but independent, committee on the reform of the UK tax system: many subsequent tax changes can be seen as (unacknowledged) moves towards implementing the reforms which the committee had suggested. And, in response to the mid-1970’s retreat from Keynesian demand management, at the age of 70 he gathered a group of young economists to work on new approaches to the formulation of macroeconomic policy, which would allow the control of inflation without generating unacceptable levels of unemployment or gross inequalities in income. The ideas which James and other members of this group developed have also had a major, though indirect, impact on the way in which policy makers in the UK operate.
Experimental studies of economists have, regrettably, suggested that they are disproportionately likely to follow the teachings of their subject and focus on individual rewards. James was always an outstanding counterexample to this tendency, seeing economics as a way of thinking about problems which should inform policy choices and foster the welfare of all. One of his last published works, Agathotopia, described his visit to ‘the island of Agathotopia . The inhabitants made no claim for perfection in their social arrangements, but they did claim the island to be a Good Place to live in. I studied their institutions closely, came to the conclusion that their social arrangements were indeed about as good as one could hope to achieve in this wicked world, and returned home to recommend Agathopian arrangements for my own country’. Sadly, it is hard to conduct this sort of social experiment in economics: so we will probably never know whether, in a wicked world where most of us lack James’s moral compass and integrity, Agathotopia is truly feasible.
History of Christ's College / Undergraduate Economics at Christ's
Daniel Matlin MA MPhil (Cambridge)
Fellow since 2007
AH Lloyd Junior Research Fellow
(intermitted for two years from 1st September 2010)
Chair of the College Green Committee 2010
Email: dpm27 "at" cam.ac.uk
My research focuses on the impact of race and identity on intellectual life, especially in the case of African-American intellectuals in the 1960s. I supervise undergraduates studying the history of the United States.
A brief History of the Visual Arts Centre at Christ’s College – by Alan Munro
In 1997, I was approached by the Director of Kettle’s Yard, Michael Harrison, enquiring if by any chance the College had space to house a Video artist called Marion Kalmus for a year. I had, for a long time, felt that the University and College provide outstanding opportunities for sport, music and drama, but very little for the visual arts. I had also identified the space on the first floor above the furniture shop on King Street as unsuitable for commercial letting. Kettle’s Yard were willing to pay a modest rent and our Maintenance Manager (then Tony Weaver) felt that it would be very easy to make part of the space suitable for Marion Kalmus’ work. In this way the Art Centre started.
Kettle’s Yard expressed an interest to rent space again for the next academic year, and the College Council agreed that the Maintenance Department could spend a modest sum working in the summer to convert the whole of the first floor into three large studios. Also at this time the College was extremely fortunate to receive a donation from Ruben Levy and Shelby White, which together with funds from Sir John Plumb, created the Levy Plumb fund, which agreed to fund a graduate studentship in the Visual Arts with the first appointment in the summer of 1998.
Somehow I felt that we should be able to use the third studio to make sure that Christ’s students would get the opportunity, and be encouraged, to try life drawing. Again, I was approached by Issam Kourbaj, a Cambridge artist who was looking for studio space to rent. Issam has had many years experience as a teacher to people at all levels of ability. The Council agreed that I could offer Issam one of the studios free of rent on condition that he provided life drawing classes for Christ's College students. Much has changed since then, but the College is delighted to have Issam still working in one of its studios.
In addition the Centre has been used for exhibitions and for the student picture loan scheme. Later the only usable room on the second floor has been let commercially either for storage or for creative artists.
Kettle’s Yard Artist’s in Residence
1997-98 Marion Kalmus http://www.marionkalmus.com/
1998-99 Stephen Chamers RA http://stephenchambers.com/
1999-00 Jaun Cruz
2000-01 Jane Dixon ; ; ; http://www.janedixon.net/
2001-02 Claude Heath http://www.claudeheath.com/texts/article7.php
2002-03 Marion Coutts http://www.marioncoutts.com/cv.html
Since 2003, there have not been funds from Kettle’s Yard to support an artist in residence. The studio space that Kettle’s Yard had used is now let by the College – from 2009 to Anthony Smith a sculptor and Christ’s alumnus (m. 2004).
Past and present Levy-Plumb Visual Arts Studentship Holders
2010-2011: Anna Trench
2009-2010: Naomi Grant
2008-2009: Tom de Freston
2007-2008: Verica Kovacevska
2006-2007: Beatrice Priest
2005-2006: Vanessa Hodgkinson
2004-2005: Sarah Howe
2003-2004: Anton Burdakov
2002-2003: Steve Jamison
2001-2002: S J Mockler
2000-2001: S McMillan
1999-2000: J J F Wilenius
1998-1999: Lachlan Goudie
Past and present Visual Arts Award Holders
2011-2012: Rachel Briggs, Helen Taylour, Rosa Uddoh
Charles Darwin and Galapagos Islands Fund
Charles Darwin was one of the most distinguished alumni of Christ’s College, and the most important visitor to the Galapagos Islands. Prior to his five-year voyage on HMS Beagle, Darwin was an undergraduate at Christ’s, and returned to the College in the period immediately afterwards. It was from observations made on this voyage, especially of the Galapagos mockingbirds, that Darwin later drew the evidence to support his theory of evolution by means of natural selection.
Christ’s College and the Galapagos Conservation Trust are establishing a lasting partnership between distinguished scientists and researchers with a fund intended to provide support for the activities of people who have shown evidence of distinction in their chosen research field, relevant to present-day aspects of the work originally undertaken by Charles Darwin and which will help to promote the scientific understanding, conservation and long-term welfare of the Galapagos Islands. We work with the Charles Darwin Foundation and the initiative recognises and wishes to commemorate the immense importance of Darwin’s time spent collecting and observing on the archipelago.
The first Charles Darwin and Galapagos Islands Fellow was Dr Mike Stock, a volcanologist, who was in post from 2016 to 2019, and who is now Assistant Professor in Geochemistry and Director of the Earth Surface Research Laboratory, at Trinity College, Dublin. The current Charles Darwin and Galapagos Islands Fellow is Dr Katie Dunkley, a behavioural ecologist, based in the Department of Zoology, who aims to understand the dynamics of animal interactions and ecological networks. Her research focuses on behavioural interactions at a community level to explore how and why animals interact. She is passionate about the marine environment and its conservation, with her previous and future research focusing on coral reefs.
Charles Darwin had a rare genius, nurtured to a considerable extent by his experiences and the friendships generated during his time at Christ’s and during his voyages on the Beagle.
As well as the Fellowship, the Fund supports a Scholarship Scheme (application form).
Pierre-Louis CURIEN 
Distinguished Visiting Scholar April to June 2010
Founder and director of the laboratory "Proofs, Progrtams and Systems", joint between CNRS and University Paris Diderot
Email: curien "at" pps.jussieu.fra
Website: http://www.pps.univ-paris-diderot.fr/~curien/
Professor Curient is a former student of Ecole Normale Supérieure, where he studied mathematics before specialising in the field of theoretical computer science. He is a senior CNRS reseacher.
His main interests lie in the semantics of programming languages, with applications to the verification and certification of software, and to the desgin and implementation of programming languages, using tools from mathematical logic, algebra, and topology.