Dr Bill Dorey

The College was deeply saddened to learn of the recent death of Dr Bill Dorey (1949, Modern History), a Pembroke alumnus, Honorary Fellow and former Advisory Fellow.

Born in Guernsey and evacuated to Perthshire during the second world war, Dr Allan Jackson Dorey, always known to us as Bill, began his long association with Pembroke in 1949 when he came to Oxford as a King Charles I Scholar. As an undergraduate he excelled both academically and in his involvement in College and University rowing. Upon completion of his degree this success was recognised as he was awarded a Senior Studentship from the College, allowing him to complete his DPhil.

It was while working on his DPhil that Dorey joined the University’s clerical administration service. His wife, Colinette, was Assistant Registrar at the time, the first woman to hold the post. After serving in various positions including Deputy Registrar (General) and Secretary of the University Chest, Dorey was eventually appointed Registrar of Oxford University in 1979, a position he held alongside his Professorial Fellowship at Linacre College.

He served as Registrar for eighteen years, navigating the University through various challenges during a period of substantial change. Shortly after his retirement from the post in 1998, at his admission to an Honorary Degree of Doctor of Civil Law at Encaenia, Dorey was praised as ‘a man who has seasoned his authority with modesty, a pillar of the University, a paragon of wisdom, a Registrar extraordinary’. He was thanked by the then Chancellor for his ‘wise advice’ which had ‘constantly sustained the University’, earning him ‘many individual debts of gratitude, as well as the collective esteem of Oxford.’

In 1987 Dorey had been elected to an Honorary Fellowship at Pembroke, and in 1998, following his retirement as Registrar, he was appointed one of the College’s first three Advisory Fellows. He sat on Governing Body in this capacity for nine years, brining valuable expertise and experience. He was particularly supportive of the development of a longer-term Strategic Plan. On his retirement in 2007, Sir Robert Clarke (1949), who had studied alongside Dorey and was appointed Advisory Fellow in the same year, wrote: “Having always mastered the paperwork before the meetings, none of which he ever missed, he was well placed to contribute to the discussions. In this his intimate knowledge of the University and its workings has been of great value to the College.” Dorey’s committed service to and support for Pembroke is made clear as Clarke concludes that “one thing is certain, we can always count on him.”

We are immensely grateful for Bill’s dedicated service to the University and College over several decades. He will be greatly missed as a life-long friend of Pembroke.