Eric Ashby

1904–1992

Breaking centuries of tradition, Eric Ashby became the first Master of Clare not to have studied at Cambridge. This unprecedented appointment paved the way for a period of reform and renewal that created the College we know today.  

Ashby first established himself as a hard-working scholar at Imperial College London, from where he graduated in 1926 with a first-class Bachelor of Science. He then threw himself into his research on the Lemna plant. Following his tenure as Professor of Botany at Manchester, his leadership qualities were recognised in 1950 by his appointment as President and Vice-Chancellor of Queen’s University Belfast.  

Elected Master of Clare in 1958, Ashby (now Sir Eric) was a dedicated reformer. With the support of the Senior Tutor, John Northam, he encouraged students from more diverse backgrounds to enter the College. Ashby worked tirelessly for more than a decade to secure the Fellowship’s support for co-education, enabling Clare to become one of the first three co-residential colleges in Cambridge in 1972. (A year earlier, Ashby had supported the foundation of a mixed Chapel Choir.) Concerned to increase the number of fellowships available for academic staff, Ashby worked with Clare Fellow Richard Eden to initiate the establishment of Clare Hall in 1964 as an institute for advanced study. (Clare Hall became an independent college two decades later.) Ashby was created a life peer in 1973, two years before his retirement from the Mastership. Today his portrait hangs in Hall, a lasting memorial to one of the great Masters of the twentieth century.