Page 54 - Mansfield 2019/20

Obituaries
Pearl Aldridge
19 September 2020
Mansfield College Porters’ Lodge was a whole new world to me when I started work there in 1989, and, though everybody was friendly and helpful, none was more so than Pearl Aldridge. Pearl, through her practical experience and knowledge of the workings of the College, had many roles and titles during her long career, but early on it was as the Bursar’s secretary that she came to my aid as a rookie Porter.
I had so much to learn, both in dealing with the students and conference delegates
- not to mention the other members of staff, in remembering names, where the millions of keys were, sorting and franking the mail, etc. Pearl was always available when I was despairing over a broken down photocopier, by my side as I panicked during my first fire drill, or patiently helping me sort a mix up with guest rooms.
To say that Pearl was my guiding light during those first few months of my life as College Porter would be an understatement. She also became my friend. She could sometimes become stressed - as we all
did, especially during freshers’ week, or
a particularly busy conference - but she always found time to smile and hang in the Lodge with me for a few minutes’ gossip.
I have so many fond memories of my time at Mansfield and that lovely lady, Pearl,
is high up there among them. I thank you Pearl, and, with love, bid you farewell.
Hugh Flint, Retired Mansfield Porter
Dr Alice MacKenzie Bamford
MSt English & American Studies, 2010
9 September 1988 – 7 May 2020
Our daughter Alice, who died suddenly but peacefully in the spring, spent 2010/11 at Mansfield, studying for an MSt in English & American Studies. She had graduated
in English Literature in 2010 from the University of Edinburgh, and went on to a PhD at Cambridge.
As she put it in her own words, her Cambridge thesis, ‘Chalk and the Architrave: Mathematics and Modern Literature’, ‘analysed literature’s engagement with mathematics and the cultural history of quantification. I traced the story of our world becoming numerical: uncovering the cultural histories of the graphs, statistics, models and algorithms that are woven into
modern life and modernist literature.’
After Cambridge, an editorial internship at Verso Books led to her appointment in 2017 as Assistant Editor of New Left Review.
In addition to commissioning, editing, translating and typesetting work by others, she herself wrote for NLR, our favourite piece being 2018’s ‘Intaglio as Philosophy’, an elegant reflection on Hans-Jörg Rheinberger’s, Le graveur et le philosophe: Albert Flocon rencontre Gaston Bachelard.
Alice’s time in Oxford remained hugely important to her. It gave her, among
many other things, some of her closest friendships – friendships that lasted for the remainder of her all too short life.
Caroline Bamford and Donald MacKenzie
Professor Stephen Gourley
Mathematics, 1985
7 November 1966 – 15 September 2020
Stephen was an undergraduate at Mansfield in the mid-1980s. From the very start it was clear that he was exceptional. He was one of the first Mansfield mathematicians to get a first-class degree and I think the first to get a doctorate.
He obtained his PhD from Bath University in 1993 and started as a lecturer at the University of Surrey that same year. He was promoted to Professor in 2012.
A prolific researcher, Stephen had almost 100 papers to his name. He was a
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