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John Barron, President of The College

John Penrose Barron died on 16 August 2008 after a short illness. The funeral service in the chapel of St Peter's College, Oxford, is on Wednesday 27 August 2008 at 2.30pm and all are welcome. There will be a private burial later in St Just in Penwith, Cornwall. Family flowers only please but for those wishing to, please donate to Lambeth Palace Library Trust Fund, London SE1 7JU.

John was immensely fond and proud of Clifton College. He was President of the College, succeeding Lord (Patrick) Jenkin. He presided with great presence: the combination of a powerful intellect, grace and ease in manner, and a fund of wisdom and kindness characterised all that he did. His association with the College was lifelong, from boy to man, and the school meant a great deal to him; it was after all where he learned to love and to study the classical world.

Although a most distinguished research academic, his enthusiasm and excitement for the education of young people was undimmed and he took great delight in their successes, as was the case at St Peter's College, Oxford too.

Though he might have seemed a natural conservative in so many ways, he was in fact a quite radical thinker on education; he would gladly consider any ideas that advanced the cause of the greatest number of young people gaining access to the best education possible. Above all he was in the proper sense of the phrase "a lovely man" and that is the phrase that comes to the lips of all those who knew him when they hear of his passing.

26 August 2008

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