We are saddened to share the news that Professor Graham Richards CBE died yesterday in his sleep. He was a towering figure in the College and University.
Graham won a scholarship to study Chemistry at Brasenose matriculating in 1958 and graduating in 1961 with first class honours. He then went on to earn his DPhil in 1964 and, from 1966 was awarded the Official Fellowship in Physical Chemistry. Graham’s impactful work on electronic spectroscopy and computational chemistry fuelled his promotion to Professor in 1996. He served as Head of the Department of Chemistry from 1997 until 2006, celebrating his formal retirement from the University of Oxford in May 2007. As Emeritus Fellow of Brasenose since 2008, Graham has been a regular and well-beloved visitor to the College.
Our heartfelt condolences are sent to his wife Mary Phillips and his wider family.
Details of a memorial service will follow in ue course.
We welcome messages, memories, and tributes which we hope to publish on the College website. Please send them to [email protected]
Tributes for Graham Richards by Friends & Family:
Bernard Richards: I first met Graham in Michaelmas Term 1959. He and Martin Fox came round to my room to buy a bottle-green bulbous portabale radio. Their only stipulation was that it should get Radio Luxembourg.
The most vivid memory of Graham is when he and I were on the team for University Challenge. The other two were Brian Dowse and Christopher Butler. We were just chosen at random. Nowadays there is an elaborate selection process, with challenging dummy runs. We drove up to Manchester for the recording. This was before the M6 was built. I have a memory of A roads over moorland, the scent of Oxford wallflowers left behind, and late Winter or early Spring asserting itself, ash trees thrashing in the wind like the ‘terrible whips’ of D.H. Lawrence’s ‘Discord in Childhood’. So this was the North. We were beaten by King’s College London. Bamber Gascoigne was incredibly charming and welcoming. Afterwards Graham accused me of getting his fan-mail. We were told to wear dark shirts, so as not to dazzle the cameras. Christopher wore a black shirt. This was when students looked like people, rather than like students. I can’t remember what the score was. I wonder if the programme has been wiped ? Graham answered the scientific questions. When one watches the programme at home one is yelling answers at the screen. In the studio though one’s brain is frazzled and all mental faculties are atrophied. In the rehearsal I managed to forget the title of As You Like It. One question in the rehearsal was ‘What is the meaning of the initials R.S.G. (Regional Seat of Government). I pushed the buzzer and said, ‘We are not supposed to know that.’ It was established to offer administration in the event of a Nuclear War. Officials were given four pennies, so that they could phone from a call-box if a bomb landed.
Graham and Jessamie came to a little cabaret that a friend and I put on when we were lecturers at Christ Church. Graham was by then at Balliol. One of the cabaret songs alluded to him: ‘youth’s inspiration where the port is mellow’. To the tune of ‘These foolish things’. Then we sloped off to the Brasenose Ball. I saw a lot of Graham when I became a Fellow of Brasenose. He was already ensconced. After a year or two he looked more and more like Steve Austin, the ‘Six Million Dollar Man.’
He was a great sportsman, which I never was. He was very interested in sport, and suggested that football could be made more interesting if the goal-posts were further apart. Michael Berendt remembers him as an effective hockey player, and I remember him as an accomplished bowler when the SCR played against the Staff. He was the picture of health, sunburnt through political campaigning in Blackbird Leys with an open-top Triumph Herald. The prospective voters complained to him that the garages in their council houses were too small for their Jensens and Jaguars. A few years later the children of those citizens were stealing cars, joyriding round the estate and burning them at the end of the evening.
One day Graham was outraged that someone was blocking the entrance to Radcliffe Square with a car. So he nudged it gently out of the way, but was spotted and almost prosecuted, I think, by the Law. Barry Nicholas was much perturbed, and told Graham that this threatened his chances of becoming the Chancellor of a provincial University. Graham told him he had no intention of becoming the Chancellor of a provincial University.
He gave a science lecture in Brasenose College Hall, and shone a laser beam round about. Must have been the first time in almost 500 years of history that this had happened. I did not discuss Graham’s scientific work very much with him, but I do recall him telling me that he could have made a large sum of money if he had got more involved with animal welfare organisations, and sold them the idea that a good deal of experiments with animals could be avoided if one conducted computer tests.
Graham was the Senior Member of the Phoenix Common Room, tracing its origins to Sir Francis Dashwood’s Hellfire Club at Medmenham Abbey near High Wycombe. He took members on a tour there. I wonder if they wore their eighteenth-century uniforms with the silver PCR buttons ? If they had we could have had a recrudescence of the occasion when Charlotte Anne Moberly (the first Principal of St. Hugh’s College) and Eleanor Jourdain thought they saw ghosts at the Petit Trianon, Versailles, including Marie Antoinette. Either they were deluded or they stumbled on a tableau vivant organised by the decadent French poet Robert de Montesquiou. One member of the Phoenix was Ron Laura, who had done so much body-building exercise that a special uniform had to be made. He would arm-wrestle opponents with one arm, when they were allowed to use two. Graham loved to tell the story of how Ron’s wife met him. She was on a raft off-shore, when this figure with an enormous torso appeared. However he had mainly developed his upper body, so that his legs looked thin by comparison. She told her parents, ‘I’ve just met this guy with withered legs.’
When Queen Mary predicted her death she said that when her body was cut open ‘Calais’ would be found graven on her heart. I predicted that when Graham died ‘Julianstow’ would be found graven on his heart. Julianstow was a nice house on the slope of Headington Hill. It was said to be sliding down the slope, so the Governing Body was anxious to sell it. Graham was very anxious to keep it, and often stood up for its retention during Governing Body Meetings. When I die ‘The Eckersley Room’ will be found graven on my heart. It was in the south-west corner of Old Quad, but is now part of the Kitchen.
Graham’s best intervention in Governing Body was when there was a scheme to put blue plaques on the doors of rooms which had once housed interesting people. He was opposed to it. As was I. Indeed, I am opposed to blue plaques anyway – they spoil the facades of nice old houses. He said ‘Non plaquet’ (a pun on the Proctorial Non placet).
Little incidents come back. There was the Fellows’s Christmas Dinner hosted by Nicholas Kurti, who was a gastrophysicist: inverted baked Alaskas, that kind of thing. For dessert the mince pies came with hypodermic syringes filled with some cocktail. Graham: ‘Should I just go for a main vein ?’ He was at some Chemistry conference, and a Northern Chemist introduced Professor Alain Fuchs to the audience as ‘Professor Fuchs’ – to rhyme with Fucks. Graham took him to task, and said it should be Fooks. Northern Chemist: ‘But I couldn’t say that, could I !’
He was so often witty and to the point. He said finely cut cold meat for lunch made him think of Raymond Lucas (the German don and Curator Hortorum). Raymond was very elusive. When Simon Schama was appointed he wrote asking if he could have a corner of the College in which to grow herbs. Graham said, ‘Let him find Raymond Lucas; that can be his first initiative test.’ He once played a splendid practical joke on Richard Griffiths. At lunch he heard Robert Shackleton saying that he was going up to London in the University Car. Richard overheard it, and asked if he could cadge a lift. He went back to his room, and Graham rang up, pretending to be someone from the University Offices: ‘I understand you are going up to London in the University Car with Dr. Shackleton. Unfortunately the employee who normally sits in the front seat to open the passenger door is unable to attend, so we are wondering if you could stand in for him ?’ I think Graham probably stopped short of suggesting that Richard should wear a peaked cap.
Graham had an enormous repertoire of anecdotes about former members of the College and former Fellows, which he would relay with glee. There was, for instance, the Professor who was also a male stripper. I wish I could remember his name, and now that Graham has gone it might not be recoverable. He had a number of Ronald Syme anecdotes, of which the best was rushing away to read David Copperfield in German: ‘Dickens is so much better in German.’ He also told us how Syme had informed him that ‘gluttony isn’t possible with fruit.’ His constant delight in life is summed up in this picture I took at a Gaudy (in a marquee, because major work was going on in the College). Our old friend the poet Michael Horovitz is playing the kazoo – probably the first kazoo to be played at a gaudy anywhere.
Paul Dawson-Bowling: Like many others, I was desolated by the news that Graham Richards had died.
Graham Richards was loved as much as he was admired, and so he always had been. He came up in 1958, and during my four years at Brasenose reading 'Mods' and 'Greats', I knew him first as an undergraduate three years my senior and then as a postgraduate with glittering prospects. At that time two or three years age difference meant little, partly because National Service had blurred and annulled age stratifications, but Graham in any case seemed to be known and liked by everybody. If I was privileged to be part of his circle, it was actually an enormous circle. Everybody was drawn to his easy charm and boyish enthusiasm, and he maintained his all-embracing affability across the years to the end of his time.
His ready appeal could partly disguise his formidable intellect. He was in fact one of those rare people who fulfilled the promise of his early youth: he became a towering academic, and in his co-creation and success with Oxford Molecular, he also became an astute and successful entrepreneur. He was always a wonderful friend and a great people person. It is typical that I had not seen him for a couple of years and yet when I was unexpectedly in Oxford and encountered him in Radcliffe Square, he remembered my son Sebastian by name, and was asking about his welfare.
Although Graham was a towering figure within the University he was even more a college man. He declined the offer of 'master' at a College in Cambridge, because of his preferred and well-founded expectation that he would soon be elected Principal of Brasenose. This did not happen, but the esteem of his position among college alumina was borne out at the Society's next AGM. This was a packed gathering which passed a resolution unanimously deploring the college's failure to elect him. He must be the greatest college principal that we never had.
The news of his death brings an irreparable sense of loss and sadness for me and countless others. But we are all richer, better and happier people for having known Graham Richards.
David Lawday: Among Graham’s many natural gifts, one truly astonished me. Finals loomed in 1961 and we were chatting in his room in college. `Here,’ he said, handing me three fat volumes of handwritten notes assembled from his Chemistry lectures and experiments over the past three years. `I know everything in these by heart.’ I turned at random to somewhere in the bulging second volume, covered it to prevent him taking a look, and said, all right, this experiment on page 213, what is it about? He recited the experiment and its outcome to the letter. The photographic memory astonished me at the time because Graham was nothing of a science `nerd’, he was a true all-rounder – sportsman, socialiser, unassuming big brain -- whose talents would come to serve Brasenose and Oxford University to the full.
We played hockey together, he the lanky, intrepid goalkeeper for the college in the days when goalkeepers were far less protected than they are today. He afterwards enjoyed recalling that his BNC team won hockey Cuppers in 1962 -- the year after a gang of Blues, myself included, went down, Cupperless. Besides hockey, he was a competitive athlete, a high jumper close to Blue level. He ranged Oxford on a Vespa, frequently in the direction of St Clare’s, the finishing school for foreign girls where he seemed to have an open welcome. It was no surprise to me, after holidaying with him in the South of France where acquaintances from his Vespa rounds had summer homes, that he first came to marry a French girl. By then he was a confirmed Francophile, though his wife Nicole was to die tragically young. No surprise either that when the time came a decade later and he was a Brasenose don, he was a pioneering force in the revolution that brought women students into BNC and soon into all men’s colleges. The surprise for me, if you can call it that, was that this modest, ever good-natured man who seemed to conceal his scientific brilliance as an undergraduate (I don’t believe he ever mentioned chemistry to me, a modern linguist, until that day he asked me to test him) was the same man who would rebuild and modernise the School of Chemistry at Oxford, hold its chair as Professor and start to employ its high-tech research for the University’s commercial gain.
Those who came up to BNC in 1958 were in Graham’s words a special breed. He made a memorable speech about this to celebrate the 50th anniversary of our matriculation at a dinner in Hall. The intake was special, he said, because it was the last year that those who completed their two-year military service (National Service having ended) came up with those straight out of school. The unique fifty-fifty blend was pivotal, he believed, for the good of college society and, in particular, for college sport. He held many college offices over the years and was in line for Principal not so long ago. It did not happen. Take a poll of survivors of our 1958 intake and you will most often hear: ‘Graham was the best Principal we never had.’
Alexandra Marks: I’m so very shocked and saddened by this news: Graham was (even using the past tense feels wrong) a constant feature of my Brasenose life for over 40 years. I arrived as an undergraduate in 1977 to discover that Graham’s room was at the top of the staircase where I was allocated for my first year (XVII). The Staircase shower-room was located directly opposite Graham’s door. On one memorable occasion – to his embarrassment as much as mine – whilst dressed in just a bath-towel and shower-cap, I passed him on the stairs. Needless to say, I was more careful with my timing and attire from then onwards!
At the Brasenose Society, during my 25 years as Secretary, as then Editor of the Brazen Nose and ex officio member of the Society, he attended virtually every meeting. He was a steadfast supporter of our activities, a continuous presence at our meetings and events, as well as a fantastic ally for female students – once strikingly remarking that as a single parent to his two sons, he fully understood the plight of young working mothers.
I and many others will miss him greatly – and send deepest condolences to his lovely wife, Mary, whom I had the pleasure of meeting on several occasions, including Graham’s 80th birthday party.
Graham Dransfield: I have many fond memories of Graham, some of them very funny. Here is one of the more repeatable ones.
Graham was a great believer in economy of effort. In this respect, he encouraged his students to avoid repetitious measurements when they were doing their laboratory practicals. Best to learn the fundamentals, then copy the rest off a previous year’s student’s notebook. Sadly, this was subject to a degree of ‘mission creep’, in the case of some students, whose hectic social lives exerted time pressures of their own. One day, Graham was invigilating in the Physical Chemistry Laboratory, when a certain 3rd year student, who will remain nameless, came to get his latest practical signed off.
The student concerned was under great pressure to fulfil his quota of completed practicals to avoid the dreaded practical exam (a fiendishly difficult experiment, for which only negative marks could be awarded, to be carried out in Sub Fusc - no namby pamby concerns about Health and Safety in those days!)
His write-up was immaculately copied from that of an older student’s. He was even prepared to answer one or two theoretical questions about the experiment, on this occasion. What could possibly go wrong? Graham’s first words to the student will be long remembered. ‘Show me where the equipment is!’
Fortunately, I had checked this out. It is just as well that I was not asked to switch on the apparatus. The work was duly marked off (being a kindly man, he understood the student’s predicament) with a stern warning not to approach that particular invigilator ever again! They changed the rules of practical labs, thereafter… Students were henceforth required to sign an attendance book, I can’t think why.
Alan Everest: My links with Graham were oddly both close and tenuous. We stood next to each other in that infamous 1958 floury freshman photograph and we regularly breakfasted together in Hall with James Flecker and Peter Rowe. More recently, I discovered that he had spent some time as a child at Gregynog Hall, the home of the Davies sisters, founders of the Gregynog Press – my particular interest – and donors of a magnificent art collection to the Principality. His aunt had been the cook there, and, apart from having a child’s view of their French Impressionists, Graham had once sat on Miss Daisy’s lap.
I think that I can claim, in all modesty, that it was I who was responsible for Graham reading Chemistry. During my National Service I decided that having been given a place to read Chemistry and already being older than most, a four-year course was not appropriate, so I requested to read Physics instead. I was surprised that this suggestion was accepted with such alacrity.
Edward Hodgkin: I was a Graham Richards DPhil student from 1985 to 1987. It was a great lab to work in – cutting edge science in an emerging field (computational drug design) with one of its pioneers. Graham was an inspirational leader, with a finely balanced mix of providing guidance and letting you pursue your own ideas.
But it was after I left WGR’s group that I truly understood his great qualities. He was a remarkable supporter of everyone who’s life he had touched. He launched me and many others into fascinating careers and continued to help us and advise us in a totally unselfish manner. He helped me secure a research position in a top lab in the US, then played a key role in getting me my first job in industry on returning to the UK. There were several other moments after that when a well-timed recommendation smoothed the path in some other way. In recent years, I was lucky enough to see Graham on several occasions, including at birthday parties in Oxford and London.
Graham was also a leading light in the world of entrepreneurship, not just in Oxford, but in the UK more generally. He championed a relationship between the University and IP Group that became a model for commercialisation of academic research and founded Oxford Molecular and Oxford Drug Design. He also found time to write several books. His was truly a life well spent.
For his leadership both in research and enterprise, he was awarded a CBE and later elected FRS. This recognition was never so highly deserved. We will sorely miss Graham, a truly wonderful person.
David Bradbury: I was so sorry to hear the sad news of Graham Richard's death. I'm sure those who studied chemistry can comment much better than I on his academic prowess, but I should like to pay tribute to his dedication towards the life of the college. One small example: in the early 80s, when I was an undergraduate, he had rooms at the top of staircase XVII, in the penthouse suite there on one of these modern staircases. This gave him access to his own private rooftop patio; it was his habit every Trinity Term to invite all the undergraduates on that staircase (of whom I was one) to a pre-hall drinks party one evening, an occasion I still remember fondly. He acted as a link to an earlier era of college life, too: as he reminded us, he had been a junior research fellow when the then Jeffrey Archer was in residence, though alas I don't know whether he was there on the memorable occasion when the latter arranged for the Beatles to dine in College. I was glad to be able to catch up with him at one of the 'Breakfast with Brasenose' events in London shortly before the pandemic.
Nigel Jones: In my time as an undergraduate, Graham tried to teach me physical chemistry and retain a degree of order at Phoenix Common Room dinners (as its Senior Member). For reasons beyond his control, his efforts on those fronts weren’t entirely successful. But in all other areas, he excelled - academic, commercial (being one of the first, and most successful, UK academics to realise the potential of commercialising the results of university research) and, for me and many others, as a mentor at later stages of our lives. I particularly valued his generous and valuable guidance as I planned my transition from full time work to a portfolio career - making introductions through his extensive network, acting as a sounding board, and sharing his insights on the world of start-up companies. I enjoyed his company, learned a great deal from him (not just about physical chemistry) and will miss our conversations. My condolences to Mary, his extended family and those who were close to him.
Gerard Churchhouse: Thank you for your very timely notice of Graham’s death. One of his son’s was at Jesus reading law with the son of a ex colleague of mine, and so I was able to convey our condolences on the day without delay.
The deaths of Tony Marchington (M73) in 2011 and Steve Moore (M72) in 2014, both of whom were Graham’s students and my friends, brought me naturally close to Graham at a mutually otherwise sad time. He was ever industrious and quite a writer and he asked me to review his book re. Oxford Molecular which I was privileged to do. Ever gracious he offered me joint authorship, which was flattering, but as I explained I was but a mere fly on the wall over many years.
He was an outstanding Tutor and Supervisor of his day, and much loved, who maintained links with his students throughout his life. I had the great good fortune to hitch a lift with him and my life has been much richer for it.
Polly Louise Arnold: Graham taught me to be excited about interviews, rather than fear them. During my oxford entrance interview, Graham wandered the conversation into a topic that was well beyond chemistry A-level, but something I’d seen mentioned in our school textbook. Together, we reasoned our way through phase diagrams and what the axes ought to be on my half-remembered drawings. I had a blast and have spent my 25-year-old academic career trying to convey to my students that an interview to get into somewhere that you want to be, somewhere that fits you, should feel like this. It should feel exciting. I've tried to carry this sense of excitement in my continued learning as an academic and am grateful to Graham for this.
Andrew Mason: Yes, Graham and Mary kindly accepted my invitation to our BNC gathering in France where a group of early sixties matriculands gathered every two years on the occasion of the France-England rugby match. We had a private room and, with wives and some adult children also present, we were some thirty presents that year. And to the astonishment of all, and to the restaurant staff, we were entertained to the full BNC Latin grace from Graham delivered without hesitation, something we had not heard for more than 40 years. Nostalgia was in the air!!
Peter Sunderland: I am not a chemist but of the same undergraduate generation as Graham and our connection was sport. Graham was a member of two Cuppers winning teams in 1961, Athletics and Hockey, and was one of the thirteen who attended the lunch to mark its 60th anniversary, the photo of which was in Volume 55 of The Brazen Nose. He also once joined the BNC group in Paris for the France England rugby international, arranged by fellow chemist Andrew Mason. Graham will be well remembered apart from his professional successes.
Ruth Deech: I hope the age of such devoted and long-serving Oxford Fellows has not passed. Graham was an exceptional chemist, an innovator, a builder, an entrepreneur, an author, a great tutor, a reforming Fellow and above all a genial and hospitable host and family man. He was the best of an older more relaxed Oxford where colleges and tutors could "spot potential" in candidates and were not too hidebound by grades and scoring grids. He will be much missed by his college, his department, the scientific world and forever remembered by his friends, who feel his loss deeply.
Pedro J. Ballester: I am saddened by the passing of Graham Richards. Graham introduced me to computational drug discovery 20 years ago. When I joined him, he was nearing the end of his term as chairman of Oxford’s Department of Chemistry. At the time, I was the only one left in his group at the central chemistry lab, which meant we interacted regularly. What stands out most from those three years is how every scientific discussion seamlessly turned into a fascinating anecdote about researchers in other labs or companies. He was incredibly generous and took the greatest pride in the people he mentored. RIP.
Adrian H. Elcock: I got my D.Phil. working in Graham's lab in the early 1990s, having done my undergraduate work at UEA. Graham was a kind, sensitive, and supportive boss and a thoroughly decent man. I will always be grateful to him for bringing me into his lab, for fostering the interactive and often hilarious environment in which we all worked, and for encouraging me in subsequent years. The structure of my own lab is modelled on Graham's, and if I am half the mentor to my students that he was to his then I will consider myself a decent boss.
Ruth Deech: I hope the age of such devoted and long-serving Oxford Fellows has not passed. Graham was an exceptional chemist, an innovator, a builder, an entrepreneur, an author, a great tutor, a reforming Fellow and above all a genial and hospitable host and family man. He was the best of an older more relaxed Oxford where colleges and tutors could "spot potential" in candidates and were not too hidebound by grades and scoring grids. He will be much missed by his college, his department, the scientific world and forever remembered by his friends, who feel his loss deeply.
Ian Jessel: Graham and I both went up to Brasenose in 1958 and became firm friends in our first week at college. We have remained friends for over 60 years.
I re-located to California in 1982 but have visited Oxford every year since. On every visit I met with Graham, and we reminisced about our years as undergraduates at Brasenose.
I remember Graham as an undergraduate, always with a twinkle in his eye, always ready with a joke or ready to share beers at the Kings Head. Upon graduating, Graham embarked on a stellar career in the field of Chemistry, and we kept in close touch over the years, meeting up in Oxford, California and once even in Saint Tropez.
Graham will be deeply missed but I shall forever remember his radiant smile and warm embrace whenever we met.
Fiona Cummings: I was saddened to hear of his death. Even though I wasn't reading Chemistry, he made a point to be friendly and welcoming to the female undergraduates, a relatively new commodity at Brasenose. If I remember correctly, he had a room at the top of our Staircase (XVIII? one of the new ones) and gathered us all together early in the term to make sure we all knew each other, were faring well and enjoying ourselves.
I treasure a super photo of me and him that featured FRONT PAGE on the college magazine at an event in New York in 2004/2005 and recall the fascinating conversation about his many achievements and patents.
Wai Shun Lau: I am saddened to learn of Professor Graham Richards’ passing. The very first book I read on quantum chemistry was his “Structure and Spectra of Atoms”. I was a nervous first-year undergraduate in 1993 and will always remember the kindness and patience he had shown me in the PCL teaching lab. I offer his family my sincere condolences.
Ian Jauncey: I was saddened to learn that Graham Richards had passed away on Tuesday. I can't pretend to be able to compose a tribute to him, but one anecdote is that Graham Richards was the first one I met when I went up to BNC and it was, he who hosted my first Oxford party - by illegally getting the key to the unsafe rooftop terrace on our staircase XVII and plying us with champagne. It was a great lesson in learning which rules you can bend, and you don't always have to play it safe. I remember him fondly.
Richard Piper: In his time as Junior Dean, Graham fined me several times for minor misdemeanours but compensated by inviting me to one of his famous parties with rock ‘n roll music and plenty to drink, enabling me to get off with one of his pupils, a nice young lady from LMH. Meeting him on subsequent occasions was always a pleasure because of his friendly personal style and commitment to the college.
Trevor Snow: I too was very sad to learn that Graham Richards had died. We both played in the team that won the Hockey Cup in 1961, beating the strong favourites, St Edmund Hall, in the final. I still have the photo of that youthful looking team and having met Graham at College events in recent years, he still managed to look rather more youthful than me!
David Winkler: It is so sad to hear of Graham’s passing. He was a most important mentor right from the beginning of my career. I was fortunate to work in his group in Oxford on several occasions and also remember fondly the high table dinners with him at Brasenose. He had a massive impact in the computational drug design field.
Paul Dawson-Bowling: I am desolated by this utterly unwelcome news. Graham was a lovely man, a wonderful friend and the greatest college principal that we never had. His death brings a terrible sense of loss and sadness. I will endeavour to contribute something worthwhile about him in the next few days.
Declan Kelleher: I was saddened by the news of the passing of Graham Richards. He was a towering and distinguished scientist and a genuinely decent and kind individual. Two great BNC figures have passed on in the last five years, Peter Sinclair and now Graham Richards. I extended my deepest condolences to Graham’s widow and family.
John Kent: Thank you for passing on the sad news of Graham’s death. As you say “He was a towering figure in the College and University.” Given his numerous achievements over forty-nine years, it will continue to be a source of continuing bewilderment to forty-nine generations of Brasenose alumni that the fellows of the college declined to elect him Principal by more than one vote. His disappointment: BNC’s loss.
Joseph Roulston: Graham was my tutor from 1970-1974. I was a biochemist without A level maths. His patience was incredible. I came to love quantum mechanics without ever being able to understand it. Rather like a foreign film which looked exciting but missing subtitles. May he rest in peace.
Paula Carter: That is very sad news indeed. Please let me know when you have the memorial service details. I would be happy to speak if you are looking for previous students of Graham to say something at the service.
John Pritchard: I was at BNC from 1958 to 1961 after having completed National Service in the Royal Artillery. I made an immediate friendship with Graham and looked out for him whenever attending a reunion.
I recall that BNC won Athletics and Rugby Cuppers in my final year. I was the college second string in the One Mile. Graham ran (if I recall correctly) in the High Hurdles. Sixty years later in 2021 I attended a commemorative lunch in Hall.
Kieran Clarke: I am very sorry to hear that Graham Richards died on the 11th of February. I knew Graham quite well - he was the first director of my University of Oxford spin-out company, TdeltaS Ltd (see https://www.deltaGketones.com). Graham was also one of the original shareholders (and remains so).
Robert Krainer: Thanks for this sad news. Graham was one of the first friends I had in the College when I first came to Oxford back in 1968.
Shaukat Hameed Khan: Saddened to hear the news of his departure to his eternal abode. May he rest in peace and may his family have the strength to bear the loss. Amen.
Simon Borwick: I was sad to see on LinkedIn this morning that Graham died earlier this week. I read Chemistry so he taught me for a couple of years.
John Pritchard: I was at BNC from 1958 to 1961. I made an immediate friendship with Graham.
Tim Cooke: Thank you for this sad news. Graham had a very strong influence on my life post BNC.