Page 23 - Luce 2017

College Fellows

I could never have envisaged at the outset of my academic
career, when I battled with anxiety, self-doubt, and fairly
regular bouts of writer’s block.

Since then, my work on the religious and cultural history of
Britain in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, especially
the impact of the English Reformation, has taken me all over
the world – from Durham and Dublin to Denmark, and
from California to Canada and China. I relish my research
and associated roles within the historical profession and
publishing, but teaching remains the most rewarding part
of my job. It has been a privilege to work with a series of
wonderful research students of my own, as well as with
successive cohorts of undergraduates studying history. There
is nothing quite like the buzz of the classroom and lecture
Professor Alexandra Walsham CBE hall, or the one-to-one supervision, in which I always learn
just as much as the other person in the room. The journey
(Tutor 1989) of discovery continues, in private study, but also in lively
conversation.
I am honoured and delighted to have been elected a Fellow
of Janet Clarke Hall. JCH was my home for a comparatively I greatly look forward to visiting JCH when I next come to
short time, but it left a lasting impression upon me, and it is Australia, to meeting its current staff and students, and to
an enormous pleasure to become an official part of the JCH contributing to the life of the College in the coming years. In
community once more. the meantime, visitors to Cambridge who would like a glimpse
behind the scenes are welcome to get in touch.
I came to the College as resident tutor in History in 1989
and lived there for eighteen months while I was enrolled Alexandra Walsham (amw23@cam.ac.uk)
in an MA by research at the University of Melbourne. I
remember well my first meeting with the legendary Phyllis
Fry to discuss this possibility. I immediately warmed to such
a friendly little college with its proud heritage as a pioneer
in educating women. Like so many others, I quickly felt at Recollections
home. Then, as now, JCH was a supportive and nurturing
community, filled with students eager to learn and with from newly-
staff committed to helping them to grow intellectually and appointed
personally. It was a special place, filled with commitment,
kindness and laughter, in which I formed important College
friendships and took crucial decisions that shaped my future. Fellow, Mr Tim

One of those was to apply to study towards a PhD in the Thwaites (1973)
UK. I can still clearly recall the day on which I found in
my JCH pigeonhole a letter offering me a Commonwealth How could I feel
Scholarship to the University of Cambridge – a wonderful anything but immense
surprise. This was soon followed by formal correspondence pride and humility at
from Trinity College, including a little white book of being the first male
regulations, the most memorable of which was that, elected a Fellow of Janet Clarke Hall – to be asked to join
although Lord Byron had kept a bear in Trinity, junior a band of Amazons that includes a Nobel Prize winner, a
members in statu pupillari were no longer permitted to have highly-regarded writer, and eminent lawyers, physicians and
pets! academics? But in more ways than one, I also feel the odd
man out. I suppose I’m used to that.
In October 1990, I took up my place in Cambridge, an
inspiring but also (at first) an intimidating environment, It all began in 1971 with two things – escaping the
completing my doctorate there, under the supervision of unappetising offerings of food at Trinity College on Sunday
the late and great historian of English puritanism, Patrick evenings and building a mud-brick studio in the bush near
Collinson, in 1994. I was fortunate enough to be elected as Hurstbridge. They led me to becoming one of the first male
a Research Fellow at Emmanuel College between 1993 and undergraduates in Janet Clarke Hall, to more than 25 years
1996 and then to a lectureship at the University of Exeter, as a member of the College Council, and to the honour of
where I spent fourteen happy years. becoming a Fellow.

In 2010, I returned from beautiful Devon to (lamentably) Almost from our first week in Trinity College a group of
flat East Anglia, and to Cambridge as the first female holder us religiously ate at JCH on Sunday evenings, where the
of the Chair of Modern History. Simultaneously I rejoined incomparable Mrs Dodd provided us with delights we could
Trinity as a Professorial Fellow. It was a turn of events that only dream about in our own accommodation. Our hosts in
(continued overleaf)

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