The First Decade

Abstract

F.W.D. (‘Bill’) Deakin turned out to be the ideal Warden for St Antony’s, but he was not the university’s first choice. In January 1950 the university Committee on the Affairs of St Antony’s College drew up a list of possible names, on which were Dr James Mountford (Vice- Chancellor of Liverpool University), Sir Bernard Paget, Professor Robert Mynors, John Sparrow, and Roy Harrod.¹ At the next meeting on 9 February the name of E.T. Williams of Balliol was added to the list. The committee eliminated Mynors and Harrod and delegated Maurice Bowra, one of its members, to ask informally whether Mountford would take the job.² On 16 February the committee met again, to be told that Mountford was friendly but non-committal.³ At a further meeting on 28 February it was agreed to offer the wardenship to F.W.D. Deakin, a fellow of Wadham. There is no indication of why his name had come up or what had happened to the other names.⁴ Maurice Bowra, who as Warden of Deakin’s college, Wadham, would have known him well, was probably influential in the choice. According to Deakin, Bowra ‘bullied’ him into taking the job, maintaining that it was his duty. Thus Deakin was plunged into the ‘tiresome situation’ of dealing with the complicated negotiations to transfer Besse’s money to Oxford.⁵