The Bursary, Dining Hall, Buttery and Social Life

Abstract

The university appointed the first Bursar of St Antony’s, Major R.C. (‘Peter’) Hailey in 1950. He had a struggle to get the college ready for its opening in October (described in Chapter 2), with the assistance of Fred Wheatley, the college steward. He established the Bursary in a wooden hut in the garden – formerly the nuns’ laundry – by a mulberry tree in which squirrels lived, near the flower garden and vegetable patch. It was heated by an evil-smelling and dangerous paraffin stove.¹ The Bursar was responsible for the college accounts and finances, the buildings and their contents, catering and the kitchen and wine cellar, the college administrative and secretarial staff and taking the minutes of college meetings.