• First undergraduates admitted, numbering 75
• Sheppard Flats – the first building on site – completed, which provides college facilities until 1964, with dining in a neighbouring portacabin
• Building of North Court and central buildings commences
• Foundation stone laid by Lord Tedder (a College trustee)
• Joint Fellows-students committee created
• Bitter controversy over a chapel: Francis Crick resigns Fellowship
• Boat Club founded
• Socratic Society founded by D. McCormack Smyth
• ‘Lady guests’ (but not wives) permitted at High Table
• General de Gaulle gifts the tapestry ‘Etoile de Paris’

The College was not immune from divisive argument, there was the question of the place of religion in a ‘scientific age’. Historically, the universities had been the seminaries of the church, and chapel attendance was still compulsory until the Second World War. Some Fellows were deeply hostile to a proposal to build a chapel, and Francis Crick, the discoverer of DNA, resigned his Fellowship in protest. His letter to Winston Churchill explaining himself is one of the most bizarre ever sent by a great scientist to a great statesman: Crick opined that a College brothel might be more worthwhile than a chapel. The outcome of the controversy was that a chapel was built in the grounds but is not an official part of the College. A preposition saved the day: it was agreed there would be a chapel at Churchill, but not of Churchill.

Christopher Poulton (U62) comments:

I arrived at Churchill in October 1962 – the college was a building site and during my first year I was in digs at 22 Ferry Path, and as the very first undergraduate to read Economics at the college there were no other fellow students until my second year when I was finally in College rooms. My tutor in Economics was Professor Frank Hahn and my Director of Studies in Sociology was Professor Michael Young who had written The Rise of the Meritocracy among many other books – some of my supervisions took place in London at the Institute of Community Studies he had founded in Bethnal Green. I co-founded The Gods , Churchill’s first dramatic society which began as a play reading society chaired by Professor George Steiner and we put on a number of plays the first of which I produced in the nissen huts which were our first year’s ‘hall’ accommodation. The winter of 1962/3 was bitterly cold and the Cam froze over completely.

When I graduated in 1965, I really did not know what I wanted to do but by happy coincidence a senior member of staff from Sevenoaks School was on a Schoolmaster Fellowship at Churchill and he encouraged me to apply as Head of a new department at Sevenoaks to teach Economics. I stayed for three years and co-launched Business Studies as an A Level with Marlborough College and Gordonstoun.

After three years I knew I wanted to broaden my career and embarked on a series of appointments with the Anglo American Corporation including a spell in South Africa, followed by a number of investment banking moves in the City, of London, which has changed so very much since I was there.

At 81 I am now very much retired but look back with gratitude to my formative years at Churchill which prepared me for a happy and rewarding career.

First Rugby Team photo: