The don who embodies Oxford

Alan Duncan

07 June 2006

A tribute to Jeremy Catto, the legendary tutor

With university lecturers having so recently threatened to strike (‘Not so much red brick as breeze block’, some might say) and with even Oxbridge becoming more uniform and systematised, the example of Jeremy Catto is a powerful antidote to the modern transformation of our universities. Some dons become pundits and take to television; others forsake collegiate life and bicycle home every evening to north Oxford. Jeremy Catto, in contrast, is the focal point of college life and has devoted everything to the pastoral care of his charges. Rather like Fagin to the Artful Dodger, a tutorial might end with ‘Now shut up and drink your gin.’

‘Cousin Stephen’ was governor of the Bank of England and a scion of Morgan Grenfell. Jeremy, on the other hand, enjoyed no such riches. His father had for a time managed a rubber plantation in Malaya, and his schooling in Northumberland, where he befriended the young Bryan Ferry, took him by sheer merit to Balliol. His contemporaries included Chris Patten, now Oxford’s Chancellor, whose time in the Cabinet prompted many a Cattoesque quip about the lack of spine around the Great Lady.

Anyone wanting to read mediaeval history will naturally gravitate to Oriel. The subject comes alive in Catto’s tutorials and no undergraduate emerges from three years there unappreciative of what it means to know how to think. The first two volumes of the mammoth History of the University of Oxford bear his name, and his lasting friendship with the late Hugh Trevor-Roper saw a powerful, sometimes hilarious axis in the incessant scheming of university politics.

Jeremy embodies the best virtues of the best teacher. He delights in quoting Harold Macmillan, who said, ‘All Oxford need teach you is to know when someone is talking rot.’ His approach is one of profound intellectual rigour combined with a broader appreciation of society, conversation and personality. ‘The best bankers are historians, not economists. They know how to think strategically.’

Thus has Jeremy Catto always been a constant influence in other parts of university life. As a senior officer of the Oxford Union for 30 years he has steered countless ambitious students to greater things. ‘Well, Alan. I’ve pointed out to William Hague here that Pitt was already prime minister by 21.’ ‘Thank you — and bugger Pitt.’

Those who enjoyed drinking claret and hearing a weekly paper from one of their number would be invited to join the Canning. It was entirely natural that it would continue in Jeremy’s rooms late into the evening, rarely without some former student, now a figure of great influence somewhere, phoning for a chat above the din.