Oxford's Stallybrass

The young London barrister had no intention of switching careers when he went back to Oxford, that day in 1912, to visit his old tutor. But the fellows of Brasenose College asked him to lunch. "It was a marvelous lunch," W.T.S. Stallybrass remembers, "with Château Yquem and green Chartreuse." When it was over, the fellows asked him to stay and join them. He said yes—if he could always dine that well.

He stayed to become an authority on criminal law, Principal of B.N.C. (Brasenose College) and one of Oxford's better hosts. This week, at 63, he became Vice Chancellor, the nearest...