First graduate students receive scholarships funded by Anne Hudson’s legacy

Last year, we were honoured to receive an extremely generous donation from Professor Anne Hudson’s legacy. Professor Hudson, who sadly died in 2021, donated £2.6 million to the English Faculty for endowing scholarships for graduate students working on Middle English. The legacy funded several scholarships, the first two of which have been awarded this year: the Anne Hudson scholarship, held at Lady Margaret Hall, and the Pamela Gradon scholarship, held at St Hugh's College, named after another important female medieval scholar from our faculty, who was Professor Hudson’s tutor, colleague, friend and close collaborator on the enormous Wycliffite sermons project. 

We’re delighted to introduce the first recipients of these scholarships. 

Charlotte Ross was awarded the Anne Hudson scholarship. She commented: “I am both honoured and deeply grateful to be the first recipient of Professor Anne Hudson's scholarship. It is a privilege to be associated with Professor Hudson's legacy, not only for her ground-breaking work on medieval literary culture, but also for her eminence as a distinguished female academic. My own research concerns the transmission and circulation of medieval manuscripts in late medieval England, and I owe a sincere debt of gratitude to her generous funding, and to the Faculty, for enabling me to complete my studies at Oxford.”

Hanna Baker was awarded the Pamela Gradon scholarship. She commented: ‘Receiving the Pamela Gradon studentship is an honour that will extend far beyond the duration of my DPhil. The generosity of Professor Anne Hudson is testament to the impact this field has on the lives of its scholars, and I am endlessly grateful that my research has been recognised in line with her extraordinary legacy and love for medieval studies. My work explores how western ideologies have been shaped by characters described as 'Enemies of Christ', by comparing literary and visual representations of monstrosity against discriminatory depictions of religious, cultural, and ethnic identities.'

Anne Hudson was a University Lecturer in the English Faculty and Tutorial Fellow at Lady Margaret Hall from 1963 and then became Professor of Medieval English at the English Faculty from 1989 to 2003 with a Professorial Fellowship at Lady Margaret Hall. 

Some of our current Faculty members were lucky enough to be supervised by Professor Hudson. Professor Annie Sutherland commented: “Anne was the most generous and rigorous DPhil supervisor that anyone could ask for. She was unfailingly interesting – and interested, and her knowledge of the field was astonishing; there was nothing that she had not read or thought about. She invested a great deal in her graduate students and was meticulous in reading and commenting on our work. Her high standards were sometimes daunting, but even when her feedback was critical, it was delivered with kindness. It was a privilege to be her student.”

Dr Kantik Ghosh, who was also supervised by Professor Hudson, said: 'Anne Hudson was a scholar of formidable distinction who combined the highest standards of rigour and erudition with exceptionally supportive mentorship of graduate students and young academics.  She was inexhaustibly generous with her time, expertise, and her personal collection of books and microfilms, as well as her own work in progress, and many generations of students relied on her exacting yet intellectually sensitive and kind oversight of their occasionally faltering steps.'

Professor Hudson was a beloved member of the Faculty and we're honoured that she chose to offer such generous support to our students. Her legacy will have a transformational impact for years to come.