XClose

UCL Philosophy

Home
Menu

Appreciations

AJ Ayer
Professor Sir AJ Ayer
Freddy Ayer became Grote Professor in 1947 and was responsible for rebuilding the Department in the immediate post-war era. In 1959 he left to take up the Wykeham Chair of Logic at Oxford, dying in 1989 at the age of 79. Freddy published two volumes of memoirs Part of My Life (1977) and More of My Life (1985). An excellent biography, A.J. Ayer: A Life , written by Ben Rogers, was published in 2000.

Jerry Cohen
Professor Jerry Cohen
Jerry Cohen left the Department in 1984, having first joined in 1963, and took up the Chichele Chair of Political Thought at Oxford University. His work includes the acclaimed book If You're An Egalitarian, How Come You're So Rich?, which also contained some memoirs. Guardian Obituary

Stuart Hampshire
Professor Sir Stuart Hampshire
Stuart Hampshire was a member of the philosophy department from 1947-1950, returning to become Grote Professor from 1959-1963. In 1963 he took up a Professorship of Philosophy at Princeton. Stuart Hampshire died at the age of 89 on June 13 2004. Guardian Obituary

Bernard Williams
Professor Sir Bernard Williams
Bernard Williams lectured in UCL Philosophy from 1959 until 1964, then moved to Bedford College. He became Knightsbridge Professor at Cambridge in 1967 before serving as Provost of King's College Cambridge (1979-1987). In the late 1980's he took up a professorship at the University of California, Berkeley. He later returned and became White's Professor of Moral Philosophy at Oxford and a Fellow of Corpus Christi. Guardian Obituary

Ricahrd Wollheim
Professor Richard Wollheim
Richard Wollheim joined the department in 1949. He took early retirement as Grote Professor in 1982, and moved to Columbia University in New York. After a spell at University of California at Riverside and then Berkeley, he moved back to London and was scheduled to teach a graduate seminar at UCL in the 2003-04 academic year. Very sadly Richard became seriously ill and died in the winter of 2003. Guardian Obituary

Female Silhouette
Katherine Backhouse
Katherine Backhouse was Departmental Administrator from the early 1960's to the late 1980's. Obituary by Professor Jonathan Wolff.

Male Silhouette
Dr John Watling
John Watling joined the Department as a Research Assistant in 1949. He was appointed Reader in 1966 and in 1983 he became Head of the Philosophy Department until his retirement in September 1985. John Watling died, aged 80 years, on the 10 July 2004. Obituary by Peter Cave.