TONY HONORÉ
30th March 1921 - 26th February, 2019
(in the photo above: Tony as Head Prefect in 1939, Tony as he was a few months ago and, right, the flag of All Souls flying at half-mast on Saturday marking the passing of one of their - and Bishops - greats)
Why do we give to Bishops? Perhaps to have our names memorialised vaingloriously on new and necessary buildings around the School campus or attached to prizes, bursaries and scholarships. For posterity. Ours and the School.
Or we do so that Bishops may continue to produce boys - men - like Anthony Honoré (F, 1939) who died aged ninety-six in Oxford in February this year.
I have written several times in the UK newsletters about Tony and do so now for the last time. On Saturday 8th June, six ODs - Chris Winearls (W, 1967), Mark Charnock (O, 1962), Tim Bravington (S, 1951), Bruce McGregor (F, 1965), Matthew Golesworthy (K, 2011) and I - sat, bursting with pride, listening to great legal luminaries speak in awe about the life and work of Tony Honoré, the brightest star of them all, at his memorial service held in the Coddrington Library of All Souls, Oxford, to celebrate his life.
Four speakers, including Judge Edwin Cameron, paid tribute not just to the immense breadth and depth of Tony's intellect, already recognised in Bishops 150 by Donald McIntyre ("... probably the greatest of all ODs for sheer scholarship...") but, and above all, to his humanity, and the great thrill he took in seeing protegees of his rise to great heights in the world of law to which he devoted his life. His teaching career was at Oxford and spanned an incredible seventy years. He was the thinker and writer on causation, trusts and jurisprudence, combining both a deep knowledge and understanding of the purpose of the law as it should apply to everyman. He was, in the early 1990s, central to the decision to develop a new - and arguably the boldest and most far-reaching of all constitutions - South African constitution to which he himself contributed.
The Coddrington Library was packed with the good and the great of British (and German) Law. The celebrated international concert pianist, Piotr Anderszewski, played J.S. Bach, Tony's composer of choice (and Piotr his preferred interpreter).
And there were we, six ODs listening spellbound to how one of our own had had such an impact and been such a force for good in a life devoted to the betterment of humanity, as far as he was able to influence it. One wonders whether today's Bishops boys even know who Tony was, let alone whether those who went on to study law fully appreciated his monumental contribution to the field.
This is why we invest in Bishops and why those who came before Anthony made him (and so many others) possible. They did this to support a school where boys can flourish in the unique environment which is Bishops, in a way that they would not have done anywhere else. Tony, but not only he (a couple of Months ago, John Joubert's (O, 1944) name was inscribed into the British Book of Muscicians) is a massive return for those whose generosity to Bishops measures return on potential rather than investment.
Tony's life was quite remarkable. His memorial quite an experience.
He was one of us!
Nicky Bicket (F, 1973)
ODU Secretary (UK Branch)
