Fellows, guests and family members of the late Dr Desmond Hawkins gathered in the Fellows’ Room yesterday to honour a “gentle, jovial” and caring man who was President of Hughes Hall from 1989 to 1993.
As President of Hughes Hall Desmond – having observed that the College could only accommodate one third of its intake – instituted the College’s largest building project in a century, Chancellor’s Court. He also expanded the Fellowship by introducing Research Fellows.
Described by one of his trainees as ‘gentle, jovial and genuinely interested in people as well as all sorts of eclectic stuff, a real Renaissance man’, he took an MPhil in Archaeology during retirement. Life Fellow Dr Ray Godwin said: ‘Desmond was my teacher when I started training in Neuroradiology and my mentor as a newly appointed consultant. A superb teacher he was renowned for his dedication, working at nights and weekends with the junior staff’.
Desmond was fondly remembered last night and we are delighted to pay tribute to him by naming the Fellows’ Room in his memory. The plaque on the door now reads ‘Desmond Hawkins Room’.
