John Wing's funeral will be held at 1pm on Wednesday 10 September at Oxford Crematorium, Bayswater Rd, Headington, Oxford OX3 9RZ.

Following his retirement, John Wing wrote a memoir about his time at Christ Church, having been Library Clerk from 1954-57 and Assistant Librarian from 1962-95. The account, which appeared in the 1995 Annual Report, is reproduced here:

As a scholarship boy at Magdalen College School, I had pounded the graveled paths of the Meadows on compulsory early morning runs before chapel after having cycled the five miles from home to school. However, it was not until January 1954 that I opened the door into the Wonderland of Christ Church and in particular into the mausoleum, for that was how the Library appeared then, that was to be my place of work for nearly 40 years.

On the first day I arrived at Canterbury Gate in my 1930 MG Midget which my father had bought for £100, two years earlier, for the sole purpose of taking my younger brother to school. I was greeted by Fred Mitchell, the porter, with the words "You can't park there, Sir" but when I explained that I was the new Library Clerk he reserved that space for me thereafter. Sadly, it is now subject to the City Council's double yellow line parking restriction even though 'Mitch' assured me that the Council's responsibility ended with the setts and that the cobbled space belonged to Christ Church.

I arrived at the Library to find George James polishing the brass knob and lock on the door which were the only bright objects on an otherwise black exterior where the windows on the first floor had not been cleaned since the war because of the crumbling masonry. Inside, the impressive statue of Dean Jackson dominated the entrance hall. On his left was the Picture Gallery and, on his right, the working library. I entered the latter to see an austere Deputy Librarian, W. G. Hiscock, checking the obituary column in The Times for deaths of old members. He abandoned this task to explain to me what my job as Library Clerk would entail. I had to record the arrival of periodicals, classify and catalogue all new accessions and enter them in the register. They were then passed on to George James for stamping, plating and labelling. A slip was filled in and left in a box for each book borrowed. These loans were entered in a register each day either by George James or myself and the slips put on the shelves in place of the books. When the books were returned the slips were removed and the relevant entries deleted from the borrowing register. Slip on shelves, however, were often misplaced or lost so after a few weeks I persuaded Mr Hiscock to let us keep the slips in shelf order in a box held by the staff.

I was the third and penultimate Library Clerk in the post-war era. My predecessors were William Dienemann and Philip James and my successor was Michael Collins. The position was an anachronism dating back to the servitors of the 19th century whereby the holder became a member of the House and received free tuition and £1.13s.3d. a week supplemented, in my case, by a hardship grant of £25 per annum from the Governing Body in return for working in the Library in the mornings and from 7pm to 9 pm on weekday evenings in term. A similar system was operating in the Bodleian Library and there is no doubt that some of us would have been deprived of a university education without it.

Unfortunately, I had missed Michaelmas Term, so college and university matriculation were solitary affairs with an obligatory visit to the Proctors Office to purchase a green lamp for my car. This was supposed to be part of the lighting circuit so that the bulldog could spot an undergraduate car being driven after midnight but I expect that most, like mine, were operated by a separate switch. During my first week I was summoned to Tom.7. There, seated in Dodgson’s old room behind a baize covered screen yellowed by the nicotine of an aged chain smoker, was 'D' (R. H. Dundas). His face, cragged from the contrasting climates of Scotland and the Middle East, managed a sardonic smile as he bade me be seated. I did not remain seated for long as I had to get back to the Library – that, at any rate, was my excuse for my hurried departure!As I dashed across Tom Quad I noticed the Regius Professor of Ecclesiastical History picking up cigarette-ends dropped by the tourists.I thought to myself that if 'D' is my moral tutor and Canon Jenkins is the quadman then I am really in the 'Looking-Glass House'. Back in the safety of the Library, Mr Hiscock greeted me with a wry smile and all I could say was "You could have told me".

As I lived at home which, as the crow flies, was just within the university accommodation limits, I stayed in college each day in term until I closed the Library at 9 o'clock at night. Until 1957 the Library was officially closed to undergraduates in the afternoons but the Picture Gallery, now the West Library, and the Upper Library were open to the public on weekdays from 2.30pm to 4.30pm with an admission charge of 3d. In addition, the Evelyn Collection and Dr Lee's Gallery were open to the public under the custodianship of Percy Fowler, a retired foreman of Symm & Co. from whom George James had been seconded as Cleaner/Attendant just after the war. Mr Hiscock worked in the Library from 9am to 1 pm and from 5pm to 7pm mostly on his Christ Church Supplement to Wing's Short­ Title Catalogue 1641-1700 which was published in 1956.

The major event of this period was the redecoration of the Library entrance hall and stairwell in burnt orange with the architectural features picked out in gold leaf under the supervision of Sibyl Colefax and John Fowler. The herculean task of removing Dean Jackson to the Ante-Hall was left to the expertise of Tony Walker (M.B.E.) and his men from Symm & Co. Epstein's bronze bust of Dean Lowe, now relegated to the foot of the stairs, took Jackson's place. While this work was going on in the vacation I spent most of my time reorganising the Law Library in Tom. 4 under the guidance of the new tutor in law, Mr E H Burn. In the following year the Lindemann Science Reading Room, now part of the Morris Library, was opened in Tom. 4.3 to free space for readers in the working library.

Having passed sufficient groups for a degree, I left the House and the Library in August 1957 to do my National Service. I was rejected by the Royal Air Force due to poor eyesight although, even now, I do not wear spectacles and I was posted to Catterick Garrison with the Royal Corps of Signals. The basic training there lasted three months which was no picnic in winter with Richard Harries, now Bishop of Oxford, as Platoon Commander. In the spring of 1958 I was one of a select band sent to Brighton for a further three months which was paradisaical after Catterick. One afternoon, which was supposed to be devoted to sporting activity, I went to the races in civvies only to be spotted by my Company Commander who was also in civvies. I expected a severe reprimand but I heard nothing so I assumed that either the CO was playing truant too or that he considered horse-racing a legitimate sporting activity. After Brighton I volunteered for the Far East but was sent to Gloucester (No. 1 Signal Centre) where I remained for the rest of my National Service.

As a result of my work in the Library at Christ Church, I was accepted for the postgraduate course in librarianship at University College London in 1959 and I obtained Part I of the Diploma in the July of the following year. In September there was a vacancy for an Assistant Librarian at the History Faculty Library in Oxford. I applied and was short-listed but I was not the Librarian's first choice. The Chairman of the Library Committee, however, was the Regius Professor of Modem History whom, five years previously, I had driven to the railway station when his taxi had failed to arrive at Canterbury Gate. He just caught the train but I was left with the luggage which I labelled and arranged to be transported by rail to Melrose. Evidently he had not forgotten this good deed and I returned to Oxford.

During my second year at the History Faculty Library, in which I completed A Bibliography of Dr Thomas Willis (1621-1675) for Part II of the Diploma, I was approached by Eric Gray, the Librarian of Christ Church following Frank Taylor's death, to discuss the possibility of succeeding Mr Hiscock. I was offered £600 a year instead of the £800 which I was earning at the History Faculty Library. Eventually Christ Church matched the £800 and I became Assistant Librarian in 1962 overlapping for a few months with Mr Hiscock who retired after 34 years. At the same time John Mason became Librarian and the new era in the Library began with the removal of the scaffolding, which had enshrouded it for two years, to reveal the splendour of the two-tone external restoration.

The post of Assistant Librarian then included the duties of what is now the Assistant Curatorship of Pictures and there was much activity under both hats. The pictures were removed to storage racks in the Lee Building and the bookcases in the former Picture Gallery, now the West Library, were increased in height and made uniform with those housing the Burton collection. The opportunity was taken with this new shelving to transmogrify the fixed location arrangement, which is still used in the Upper Library but which had become unwieldy in the working library, into a more flexible shelf classification system. At the same time duplicate borrowing slips were introduced, the top copy (white) was filed in shelf order and the bottom copy (yellow) was filed under the borrower's name. The re-shelving was done with the help of Mrs M B Nicholson, the new Library Assistant, whose primary task was to complete the card catalogue. Space for books, however, was still at a premium despite the additional shelving so the library of Robert Burton was removed to a specially constructed bookcase in Arch. Sup. and the cellars under Peck. 9, first fitted with mobile shelving in 1928, were investigated for further expansion. During this exploratory work it was discovered that the seal had been broken on some material which Drs. Collie and Russell had been working on in 1949 and that it might be radioactive.Geiger counter readings were positive and the decontamination squad from AERE Harwell was summoned to make the area safe. As soon as the news broke all the heads of the geraniums in the window boxes of Peckwater fell off never to reappear.

In 1965 the number of seats for readers was increased by the installation of five new tables and 30 chairs in the West Library and, in the following Long Vacation, the Physics and Engineering books were removed from the Lindemann Science Reading Room and shelved in the West Library, the remainder (Chemistry, Biochemistry and Physiology) followed three years later. In the meantime, new oil-fired central heating, a smoke-operated fire detection system and security alarm were installed with indirect fluorescent lighting on the tops of the bookcases on the ground floor. The Upper Library was redecorated in Italian pink with gilded highlights and the plasterwork picked out in three different shades of white to bring out the detail, the whole was illuminated by banks of indirect cold cathode lighting. The completion of the redecoration of the Upper Library, celebrated in David Gentleman's watercolour which was reproduced in the 1967 University Almanack, brought a flood of requests for receptions and recitals. The first, in honour of the XIIIth Congress of Byzantine Studies, attracted 700 people, far too many, and over 1,000 visitors came in National Library Week. These events, not to mention the moans of the staff, highlighted the lack of toilet facilities in the Library, the men having to trek across to Peck. 6 and the women to Tom. 8. The area under the stairs was excavated and toilets and washbasins installed in 1968. In the same year, Her Majesty the Queen took tea in the Upper Library after opening the new Blue Boar Quad and Picture Gallery. That same year saw the resignation of George James who, at the age of 81, was the oldest employee in the Library since the death of William Francis in 1938. It was decided to replace him with a graduate trainee who would work under my supervision for a year before going on to library school. The appointment of a full-time Assistant Curator of Pictures took an enormous weight off my shoulders. Christopher (now Sir Christopher) Lloyd, currently Surveyor of the Queen's Pictures, oversaw the removal of the pictures from the Lee Building and of the drawings and engravings from the Library to the new Picture Gallery.

As the Senior Common Room had set its sight on the Lee Building the Evelyn Collection had to be put into temporary storage in the basement of Cant. 3 & 4 with the overflow of books and manuscripts in the new shelved cellar below Peck. I. They were reunited the following year in the new Muniment Room on Blue Boar. 4.

In 1971 Marshal of the Royal Air Force Lord Portal, Chief of the Air Staff 1940-45, bequeathed his papers to the Library and Commander C H Drage presented the political papers of his father, Geoffrey Drage. The following year saw the major benefaction of Malcolm Fooshee, a former Rhodes Scholar of the House, for the purchase of American books of a non-specialist character. In addition, our American benefactors, the lawyers in particular, helped to finance the conversion of the old Steward's Office and Treasury below the Dining Hall into a new Law Library. This was not without controversy, however, and a public enquiry was held on 21 January 1975 into the repositioning of the doorway into Tom Quad. The Inspector upheld the House's appeal despite objections from an old member and the work was completed in October of that year. The books were moved from the Old Law Library, now the Music Room, in the following January with the formal opening by Sir Eric Sachs, Honorary Student, taking place on the 26 June 1976. During the conversion the remains of a Tudor fireplace were exposed and preserved in situ.

Unfortunately, this period was not always full of celebration. In July 1975, the Papers of the 3rd Marquess of Salisbury, which had been on deposit in the Library since 1952, were returned to Hatfield House at the request of the 6th Marquess and in the following year Jack Evelyn died making the agreement with the Evelyn Trustees voidable. Despite the efforts of the Dean and Librarian to prevent the dispersal of the Evelyn Library, the Trustees and the government remained intransigent and the books were sold at Christie's between 1977 and 1978 for £819,000 although the manuscripts, including the diary, remained on deposit with us. The loss of these two major collections was partly compensated by the arrival of the Phillinore Papers on deposit, the housing of the Hussey Library which, in 1856, had been bequeathed to the Dean and Chapter to be held in trust for the use of the Regius Professor of Ecclesiastical History, the bequest of the Papers of Lord Bradwell (Tom Driberg), and prints on the history of the theatre and, more recently, the gift by Bishop Peter Walker, of his collection of W. H. Auden.

Following the retirement of A. E. 'Bob' Wheatley who had succeeded Harcy Hall, both retired scouts, the conservation of the Library's leather bindings was taken on voluntarily by the National Association of Decorative and Fine Art Societies. Originally two groups worked two days each week but this has now been reduced to one group on Mondays. In an agreement with Harvester Microform the whole of our music manuscript collection was microfilmed which had the twofold benefit of increasing the Library's income through royalties and preventing wear and tear on the originals. A similar arrangement was made with World Microfilms on our medieval manuscripts.

The 150th anniversary of Dodgson's birth was commemorated with an exhibition in the Upper Library. This benefited from the recent loan of the Dodgson Family Collection and attracted the deposit of the Alice Collection by her granddaughter, Mrs M J St Clair. Its success suggests that the installation of a permanent "Lewis Carroll Room" on the tourist route through Christ Church would be of considerable benefit, not only by easing the burden of the Library staff in dealing with Carroll queries from the general public.

During the Easter break of 1985 the Librarian, John Mason, suffered a stroke while on holiday in South Africa. When he failed to appear at the beginning of Trinity Term the Dean phoned me at home to enquire where he was. When I said "South Africa" Eric rejoined "Don't you mean Southampton?". After an operation and his return to England, the Librarian made a remarkable recovery and resumed office in Michaelmas Term where he remained for two more years. Although the Upper Library had been used for many unusual events including the advertisement for the Volvo 700 series, and for the filming of 'Dream Child', none was more spectacular than Dr Mason's grand finale, a fashion show organised by Campus in aid of Cancer Research. His departure marked the end of 25 demanding years in the Library in which he had organised everything from the redecoration of the Upper Library to initiating the series of Christ Church Papers, the first three of which he had seen through the press.

He was succeeded as Librarian by Richard Hamer whose primary task has been to organise the computerisation of the 'working' library catalogue. The committee decided not to join OLIS, the University system, but to opt for an 'in-House' system and Logical Choice's Bookshelf was chosen after it was seen in operation at University College. Both the company and software has now been renamed Inheritance Systems 'Heritage'. The Library was fortunate to have the services of Gill PeMock who did most of the retrospective inputting which was finally completed in 1992.

In the meantime the Archivist, Dr Geoffrey Bill, whose monumental Calendar of Estate Papers is a model of its kind, and his Assistant, June Wells, had retired to be succeeded by Dr Mark Curthoys and his wife, Judith. Jennie Bradshaw retired too and was succeeded by Janet McMullin who had been an Assistant to Dr Bill at Lambeth Palace Library. I was reminded of Jennie's remark when, a week before my retirement, the former Wykeham Professor of Logic returned Band I of Schopenhauer's Werke which he had borrowed as an undergraduate on my first day in the Library in 1954. If there are any members who still have Library books borrowed before 1995 in their possession, Janet would like to hear from them!

My final year at the Library was marred by two unfortunate events. The first was the sale of the Evelyn manuscripts to the British Library for £1.45 million with most of the money coming from the National Heritage Memorial Fund. It is a pity that the whole of the Evelyn library could not have been saved for the nation in a similar way. For those interested, the Summer 1995 issue of The Book Collector is devoted to the Evelyn saga. The second was the discovery of a major theft which, like that at the Vatican Library, was committed by a trusted scholar who had gained the confidence of the Library staff. Most of the books have been recovered and the criminal received a custodial sentence. As a consequence, however, old members visiting the Library will find that security has been strengthened and that they now have to sign a book before entering the Upper Library.

During my time in the Library, accessions have increased from about 200 to over 1,000 books per annum and borrowings have gone up from about 8,000 to over 25,000 a year. Annual expenditure on books has increased inexorably, from £350 in 1946 to £60,000 in 1993. This last figure so alarmed the Library Committee that we were sadly compelled, in my penultimate year, to cancel several periodicals including The Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London which, although rarely used, the Library had subscribed to since its commencement in 1665. It is gratifying to learn that some old members, on hearing this news, have signed covenants with the Treasurer in favour of the Library.

Four full-time members of staff and seven computers now do the work which George James and I did 34 years ago – not forgetting that in those days it included the running of the Picture Gallery. It is hardly surprising, therefore, that my desk became one of the sights of Oxford and inspired the song:

"On yonder desk there stand some papers, What they are we do not know.

Will you ever get to sort them, Will we find out where they go?

Oh no, John, no John, no John, no!"

This was sung, with three more verses, by the Library staff on my last day in the Library, much to my embarrassment. It was written by Matthew Phillips, our graduate trainee in 1993-4, who has succeeded Janet who, in turn, has succeeded me. Both are professional librarians with Oxford degrees, Janet in Greats and Matthew in Mathematics. They make a brilliant team and will ensure that the Library provides an even better service now that it has entered the computer age.

I would like to take this opportunity to thank Dr Mason, Mr Hamer and all those who deputised for them during their sabbaticals for putting up with an Assistant who was not the tidiest of people. Thanks too to all those Library Assistants and Library Clerks (even the one who booby-trapped a pile of books on my desk) who have helped me to run a great library.

John Henry Richard Wing