The Vice-chancellor of Oxford University is ex officio a Delegate of the University Press and therefore receives the Agenda and Minutes of all the Delegates' meetings. In July 1985 the Vice-chancellor of the University was Sir Geoffery Warnock, then the Principal of Hertford College. In July 1985 the secretary to the Vice-chancellor was a Mrs. Ann Smallwood.
Without mentioning any litigation, I introduced myself as Andrew Malcolm and explained that I was trying to trace the complete Minutes of a Delegates' meeting of 1985. The recording begins:
Smallwood: I think you'd have to go to the Secretary to the Delegates to inquire about them [the Minutes].
Malcolm: Well I've been through all that and they seem to have mislaid the particular records that I'm after.
Smallwood: They haven't got the minutes?! They surely would have the minutes?
Malcolm: Apparently not, or not complete,
Smallwood: They must have minutes! They must keep minute books at the Press. Have you spoken to the Secretary of the Delegates, Sir Roger Elliott?
Malcolm: Yes, yes. Well, I have been in touch with him via the secretary and it seems that... they have the general minutes but they don't have the complete set of papers that would have been discussed.
Smallwood: No, well, we don't keep them because they are very massive blocks of paper that came to each meeting and it's just impossible to keep them. I'm surprised they haven't got them at the Press and that's the only place I'm afraid where...
Malcolm: Is that really the only place? I mean the Proctors' office keeps them for six months or something.
Smallwood: That's right, and we do too, but that's a very big wadge of paper and if we kept all that it would all get out of hand and we assume that it's kept at the Press.
Malcolm: Good heavens, so there's no other office you can think of?
Smallwood: I'm very surprised that there isn't some record somewhere in the Press.
Malcolm: Well it's been very surprising to me as well.
Smallwood: What is it you wanted?
Malcolm: Well it concerns a particular book that I wrote which was considered by the Press in 1984/5 and I believe came before the Delegates at a meeting - I can give you the date, 23rd July 1985 - and, as I believe, was approved for publication and then subsequently fell foul of some funny business that was going on at the Press itself. I'm trying to piece together the story of exactly what happened.
Smallwood: I'm afraid from that point of view... They must surely keep some record, but perhaps they don't.
Malcolm: They are saying that they have no records of what books were approved or not approved, you see, which is obviously surprising.
Smallwood: It would be the Secretary to the Delegates who would be responsible for keeping records.
Malcolm: But no-one in the University side would keep things going back that distance?
Smallwood: No, because that is what the Secretary to the Delegates is for, to look after that.
Malcolm: Ah, yes, I see. Okay, well, that's at least closed off... I think you're my last avenue of enquiry,
Smallwood: You may find that individual Delegates keep their papers, but I would be very surprised, because, as I say, they are very massive. It's about six inches thick of paper every time.
Malcolm: Is that right? On a general point... at each meeting there are hundreds of books discussed presumably.
Smallwood: Yes.
Malcolm: Roughly speaking, how many, what proportion, to your knowledge, are books for the General List? Would you say 10 or 20 or 30?
Smallwood: Well I think it varies from time to time. Obviously sometimes there will be a bigger list of science books and less General Books and none on music and then another day there may be several on music, you know, it varies.
Paragraph 26
Malcolm: Sure. And just a final question: if assuming that there were half-a-dozen or ten General Books under discussion, besides the Academic ones, how would they have arrived at the meeting? Would they have come on a list? Would a list have been compiled?
Smallwood: Yes, they are listed with reports, you know, various referees' reports.
Malcolm: Yes. And at the time they definitely appear on a list, in a document?
Smallwood: Yes, they would be.
Malcolm: Yes. Well that's the paper that has mysteriously gone missing.
Smallwood: I'm awfully sorry, but I know we wouldn't have it going back that far, because, as I say, of the amount of paper involved.
Malcolm: I see. Okay, fine, thanks very much, bye.
Last item in this (Delegates' evidence) series. Now go to the first item in the post-trial New Evidence (green) File or to the previous item in this series or to Ann Smallwood's Subsequent Affidavit.
Go to Malcolm's Statement of Claim, to the Case History, to the Affidavits: Ivon Asquith (1), Asquith (2), Henry Hardy, William Shaw (solicitor) (1), Sir Roger Elliott (1), Margaret Goodall, to the Witness Statements: Elliott, Hardy, Richard Charkin, Nicola Bion, Goodall, to the courtroom testimony of the Oxford Six, 14/3/1990: Elliott, Goodall, Bion, Asquith, Charkin, Hardy, to the testimony of Andrew Malcolm 13/3/1990, to the Chancery Court Judgment, to the Appeal Court Judgment, to Malcolm's Points of Claim (the first item in the damages series), to the Damages assessment, or to the Settlement agreement.
Return to the Malcolm vs. Oxford I (1984-92) Index or to the Malcolm vs. Oxford II (2001-02) Index or to the SITE INDEX.