President of Germany to join list of seven honorands

Professor Roman Herzog

Professor Seamus Heaney

Seven distinguished people will receive honorary degrees, subject to the approval of Congregation, on the day of Encaenia, 25 June 1997, along with the President of the Federal Republic of Germany, Professor Roman Herzog, who will receive the DCL by Diploma (see Gazette, 3 October 1996). Sir Martin Jacomb, MA, who gave 24 years' valuable service as an external member of the Finance Committee of the Delegates of OUP, is proposed for the Degree of Doctor of Civil Law, honoris causa. A Law graduate of Worcester College, he was called to the Bar in 1955 and practised as a Barrister until 1968. He then spent seventeen years at Kleinwort Benson Ltd. before becoming Deputy Chairman of Barclays Bank plc from 1985 to 1993; and Chairman of Barclays de Zoete Wedd 1986–91 and of Postel Investment Management 1991–4. Sir Martin was appointed Chairman of the British Council in 1992, of the Prudential Corporation in 1995, and of Delta plc in 1994. The Rt. Hon. The Lord Taylor of Gosforth, PC, formerly Lord Chief Justice of England, who chaired the Inquiry into the Hillsborough Football Club Disaster in 1989, is proposed for the Degree of Doctor of Civil Law, honoris causa. A graduate of Pembroke College, Cambridge, he was called to the Bar in 1954 (and became a Bencher of the Inner Temple in 1975), taking silk in 1967. He held a number of posts as Recorder, and served as Vice-Chairman of the Bar for 1978–9 and as Chairman for 1979–80. In 1980, he was made a Judge of the High Court of Justice, Queen's Bench Division, and was awarded a knighthood. After serving as a Presiding Judge from 1984 to 1988, he was made a Lord Justice of Appeal and then appointed Lord Chief Justice until his retirement last year, when he was created a Life Baron. Professor Patrick Collinson, CBE, FBA, F.R.Hist.S., FAHA, a distinguished scholar of English Puritanism and Regius Professor of Modern History Emeritus, University of Cambridge, is proposed for the Degree of Doctor of Letters, honoris causa. He read History at Pembroke College, Cambridge, before being awarded a Ph.D. by the University of London in 1957. He has held chairs at Sydney, Kent, and Sheffield Universities. From 1988 until his retirement last year, he held the Regius Professorship of Modern History at the University of Cambridge, and he has been a Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge, since 1988. Professor Collinson's 1979 Ford Lectures at Oxford were published as The Religion of Protestants (1982). Professor Seamus Heaney, MA, Nobel Prize-winning poet and formerly Professor of Poetry (1989–94), is proposed for the Degree of Doctor of Letters, honoris causa. A graduate of The Queen's University, Belfast, he has published many volumes of poetry, as well as a number of prose works, and he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1995. After his Oxford chair, he published The Redress of Poetry (1995). Since 1985, he has held the Boylston Professorship of Rhetoric and Oratory at Harvard University. Professor Freeman Dyson, FRS, Professor Emeritus, Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton, is proposed for the Degree of Doctor of Science, honoris causa. A graduate of Cambridge, he was appointed to a professorship at Cornell in 1951. He moved to a chair at Princeton, which he held from 1953 until his retirement in 1994. He has made major contributions to the Quantum Theory of Electrodynamics, Number Theory, Statistical Mechanics, and to the nature of the universe and its future, including Origins of Life (1986) and From Eros to Gaia (1991). He was a designer of the ORION spaceship; the Tanner Lecturer at Brasenose College in 1982, and the Radcliffe Lecturer in 1990. Professor Anne McLaren, DBE, MA, D.Phil., FRS, FRCOG, who has made a major contribution to the study of the control of animal development, is proposed for the Degree of Doctor of Science, honoris causa. Principal Research Associate at the Wellcome/Cancer Research Campaign Institute, Cambridge since 1992, and Fullerian Professor of Physiology at the Royal Institution, she was educated at Lady Margaret Hall, where she gained an MA and D.Phil. After postdoctoral research at University College London and the Royal Veterinary College, London, she joined the Agricultural Research Council Unit of Animal Genetics, Edinburgh, in 1959, and from 1974 to 1992 was Director of the Medical Research Council Mammalian Development Unit. Her research combines Classical Genetics with aspects of Molecular Genetics and Immunology. She has been Foreign Secretary and a Vice-President of the Royal Society since 1992, and was President of the British Association for 1993–4. Sir Charles Mackerras, AC, CBE, Hon. RAM, FRCM, one of the most internationally admired conductors, is proposed for the Degree of Doctor of Music, honoris causa. Appointed Principal Oboist of the Sydney Symphony Orchestra in 1943 at the age of 17, he made his London debut conducting opera at Sadler's Wells. He has since conducted all over the world, including the inauguration of the Sydney Opera House in 1973. He was Musical Director of the English National Opera (1970–7); of the Welsh National Opera (1987–92); and Principal Guest Conductor of the Scottish Chamber Orchestra (1992–5).