On Wednesday we were delighted to welcome Professor Peter Goddard (OE 1957-63) back to school for a tour and to look at the archives. Peter was also delighted to meet the Headmaster Mr Rob Milne, several Science and Maths teachers and some Sixth Form students studying these two subjects at A level.

Peter is one of our most distinguished alumni who works in the area of Theoretical Physics. His long career includes lecturing positions at both Durham and Cambridge University (Master of St John’s) and more recently Princeton in the USA. He has been awarded many honours, including the CBE, and was elected Fellow of the Royal Society, the highest honour which can be bestowed upon a scientist, joining other OEs Sir Tim Berners-Lee and Professor Dennis Noble.

Peter has always spoken very fondly of his time as a pupil at Emanuel and previously wrote: “I have always been deeply grateful for the start in Mathematics given to me at Emanuel by Aeron Rogers and Francis Grundy, and conscious of their continuing influence on my work in Mathematical Physics. And I feel the stimulation I received from teachers in other subjects, like Bill Hyde and particularly, Dolly Mearns.”  It also of note, given the school’s social mobility ambitions, that Peter was here on a fully-funded place.

Peter returned as a School Governor in the 1990s and worked with three headteachers: Peter Thomson, Tristam Jones-Parry and Anne-Marie Sutcliffe. He was also on the board when Emanuel went co-educational and the period in which the school started to revitalise its buildings, beginning with the sports centre in 2002. Although he was no longer a Governor when the new library was completed in 2007, he had been in discussion with Anne-Marie Sutcliffe when the possibility was first raised many years earlier, so he was delighted to officially open it in 2007 and the main study space, the Goddard Room, is named after him.

The new series of Goddard Lectures are also named after Peter; when he eventually relocates back to the UK we hope he returns for the occasional guest lecture or visit. The pupils who met him this week really enjoyed chatting about Physics and Maths and potentially studying these subjects at university.

Mr Jones (Senior Librarian and Archivist)