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 Oxford equivalent to a U.S. university president (the Chancellorship of Oxford, at present held by the Earl of Halifax, is strictly honorary).
Cordial & Remote. Over the years, hundreds of B.N.C. students have learned to know and respect the man they refer to as The Principal. Only a few intimates call him by his nickname, "Sonners," which is derived from his pre-1917 name, William Sonnenschein ("my father changed his name at the same time that the then King changed his").*
Stallybrass is unfailingly cordial to undergraduates when they first "come up," unfailingly remote for some time after. Yet he often stays up late at night, writing letters that follow his favorites—to imperial outposts, to careers in politics and science. When they come back for a visit, he insists on snapping their pictures and putting the pictures in his already cluttered study. His dinners, embellished with gleaming silver from three huge chests and the best of wines, are famous. Over such a dinner, paunchy W.T.S. Stallybrass, with a puff on his filter-tip cigaret, likes to repeat the words of one of his predecessors: "It's a good thing to keep all old traditions—especially the bad ones."
In the past 35 years, Sonners has become something of a tradition himself. A former cricketer, though he never won his blue, he wrote the chapter on sport in the Oxford handbook. A confirmed bachelor, he accepted an invitation to a B.N.C. ball, with the stipulation that he be allowed to bring his own date. He arrived with his date on his arm: the Lord Chief Justice Baron Goddard.
As Vice Chancellor, Sonners will be busy dashing off to London on errands, attending university committee meetings, and running his own college as well. He also wants to carry on work in his own field and to continue to play host to fellows and students. "It's quite impossible to do all these," says Sonners placidly; but he will enjoy trying.
Time for Another Look. Though no classicist like Sir Richard, Sonners is dismayed by much of modern education. He loathes overcrowding ("I'd weep permanently if I thought Oxford were to be kept at its present size of around 6,000"). He detests vocational specialization: "When universities take up brewing and call it 'industrial fermentation,' it is time to take another look." He has misgivings about psychology, which has recently been made an Honors school at Oxford, snorts that "economics isn't a science, but a political engine. Many economists simply fit their science to their political ideas." His idea of a college education is closer to Cardinal Newman's: "A University should teach universal knowledge."