At first glance, there would seem to be little linking the staff of twenty-first century Magdalen with their medieval and early modern predecessors. But, while much has certainly changed over the last 567 years, some roles and traditions have endured.
Thus, as at other colleges, Magdalen’s dedicated housekeepers are still referred to – and refer to themselves – as ‘scouts’, a term that dates back at least to 1708. Their work, like that of the chefs who prepare tens of thousands of meals each year, is as crucial to the smooth running of the college as it was in earlier centuries. Similarly, Magdalen’s team of gardeners follow their forbears in keeping the college’s grounds some of the finest in the city.
Things have also evolved, especially in terms of staff numbers and backgrounds. Whereas 1920s Magdalen had around 60 employees, mainly Oxford locals, today there are over 170 members of staff who trace their origins to over a dozen countries. Wider societal changes have also seen an influx of women and white-collar professionals into roles that either never existed (IT, Development, etc.) or were the exclusive preserve of men.
One other major change is in length of service. Whereas servants and staff of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries frequently committed their entire working lives to Magdalen, employment at college today, as elsewhere, is often a stepping stone. Staff institutional memory only therefore stretches back so far.
One disheartening continuity between today’s staff and their predecessors is that their lives and service are only scantily traceable in Magdalen’s institutional archive. As medieval accounts and Victorian ledgers have given way to spreadsheets and payroll systems, and staff sporting societies have fallen out of fashion, the impersonality of these official records has remained constant.
The contribution that staff make to this place is as important as ever. Their stories deserve to be part of the historical record, in all their richness. For this, the college archives must hope to receive more personal paper collections like some of those displayed here, to put flesh on the bare bones of an otherwise institutional story.
Old ‘Munday’
At first glance, the two tiny photographs pasted onto this page seem somewhat unprepossessing. They contain, however, the earliest known image of a member of Magdalen staff to whom we can put a name.
Pictured standing outside the chapel’s west door is ‘Munday’, who served as chapel porter until 1860. Like so many members of the college’s early staff, we do not know his first name, despite the fact that he would have been a familiar figure to generations of Magdalen men. Lewis Tuckwell, who was successively a chorister (1847–57), clerk (1857–63), and chaplain (1866–77), remembered Munday with schoolboy awe, claiming that ‘when in chapel his power was supreme over everybody and everything’.
Magdalen continued to employ a chapel porter well into the twentieth century, with B.G. Talboys retiring from the role in 1971 after more than fifty years of service.
MCA, MS/827 (ii), fol. 1
Chapel staff then and now
Today, the chapel is served by a dedicated staff. Among them is Mr Edmund Racher, who is Chapel Administrator and PA to the Dean of Divinity, in which role he is responsible for ensuring the smooth running of the chapel, from event bookings to the production of hundreds of service sheets each year.
The two images above show Munday standing outside the Chapel door in St John’s Quadrangle in the mid-19th century, and Edmund standing in the same spot in the year 2025.
Libraries and archives
Although Magdalen has been home to large and internationally significant library and archive collections since its foundation, it is only in the college’s very recent past that these have been professionally cared for. Until 1992, overall responsibility was delegated to one of the college’s academics, known as the Fellow Librarian, who was supported by a small handful of staff.
Some of these individuals are depicted in images 1 and 2 above, taken from a photograph album compiled in the 1980s. Image 1 shows Deputy Librarian Jasper Scovil, Assistant Librarian Anne Dunkerley, and Mai Thomas, who was responsible for cleaning the so-called ‘New Library’ (known today as the Longwall Library). Image 2 shows the Archives team at that time. Brenda Parry-Jones was Magdalen’s first Archivist from 1977 to 1987. Her post was then part-time, and remained so until 2017. Christopher Woolgar is now an emeritus professor at the University of Southampton. He listed Magdalen’s late medieval and early modern estate papers in the early 1980s.
Today, the college archive is cared for by three full-time professional archivists, shown in image 3: Dr Richard Allen, Dr Emily Jennings, and Ms Claudia Williams. Together, they manage one of the largest and richest archives of any Oxbridge college, with records stretching over more than a kilometre of shelving and dating from the 1120s to the present day.
MCA, NL/83/1 (images 1-2)
Golden Rain
Gardeners have been looking after Magdalen’s expansive grounds since its foundation.
Image 1 shows Jack Sawyer (left), who worked at Magdalen in various roles from 1925–1984, ending as Head Gardener. Here he is seen helping to plant a Golden Rain tree outside the President’s Lodgings in November 1979.
Image 2, taken in front of the same Golden Rain tree in 2025, shows our current Head Gardener, David Craft, with Sawyer’s daughters, Jacqui and Ann, his granddaughter, Frances, and great-granddaughter, Dulcie.
MCA, PH/P/144 (image 1)
Kitchen memories
Food and drink have played a central role in Magdalen’s life from its beginning. Today, staff in the college kitchens turn out tens of thousands of meals each year, from student lunches to high-profile dinners.
The image gallery above shows the reminiscences of Bill Jarvis (1913–2002), who was Magdalen’s Second Chef from 1932 to 1978. Jarvis spent his entire college career working in the old medieval kitchen, which was eventually turned into a student bar in the 1980s.
Beneath the reminiscences is a photograph of Jarvis holding a cake made for a reunion dinner in 1973.
Click the ‘play’ button below to hear an extract from an oral history interview with Bill Jarvis, recorded 13 July 2001. Jarvis recalls the gift given to Bill Miles, Head Gardener, for his 70th birthday.
MCA, MS/1025/6/5/7, P/153/MS1/1 & Acc2016/49
Photos
Magdalen’s kitchen and buttery staff have to prepare meals in all sorts of circumstances for all sorts of people, although rarely is a visual record of this work captured in the college archives.
The two photos above show college kitchen staff working in two very different circumstances.
In image 1, buttery staff pose on the Hall steps during a dinner held in 1977 for the British Road Services (BRS). In image 2, Salar Kashani and Mirek Krukowski deliver meals to students in quarantine in the New Building during the covid-19 pandemic.
MCA, B/3/9 & Acc2022/92
Staff photo
This photograph shows Keith Griffin (President, 1979–88) with Magdalen’s staff in 1988. Elected as a ‘moderniser’, Griffin instigated an energetic programme of changes, from building repair to staff recruitment. This image captures Magdalen’s staff at a moment of transition. Many of those pictured occupy positions that still exist today (Scout, Accountant), whereas others would soon disappear (Land Agent, Messenger). The arrival of others still (IT Manager) is just around the corner.
MCA, CF/1/56
‘Mrs R’
In an era when Magdalen undergraduates spent part of their time living outside college walls, many found themselves lodging in the homes of Oxford locals. Although not technically Magdalen staff, such individuals played a key role in shaping student lives.
One of the more remarkable was Mrs Eleanor Richardson, with whom generations of students lodged at 159 Iffley Road. Known affectionately as ‘Mrs R’, she made such a lasting impression on her wards that, when she turned 100 in 1981, over seventy of them returned to Magdalen to mark the occasion.
MCA, Acc2022/54
College spirit
In the late 1980s, the editor of the eighth volume of the History of the University of Oxford asked former students for their reflections on a range of subjects, from studies and tutors to class consciousness and college staff.
The typewritten extract above is from the comments submitted by Magdalen student Charles Arnold-Baker (1937). Speaking of college staff, he fondly recalls his scout, Reg Betnay, who embodied the general importance of staff to what Arnold-Baker calls Magdalen’s ‘spirit’. In the photograph, Betnay can be seen (far right) carrying gowns to Fellows involved in a graduation ceremony in 1961.
MCA, MS/1071 & Acc2025/47