Peter Jay and the Union

I should like the Union to be the place to which people instinctively turn when they want to discuss any ideas of topical or permanent interest. I should like it to be the accepted forum of exchange of all kinds of disagreement. - Peter Jay, 1960 (interview to Isis)

An Unfinished Life

The sad news of Peter Jay’s passing reached Frewin Court very aptly on the rainiest day of the past 56 years. At the age of 87, the esteemed economist, broadcaster, diplomat and Oxford Union president (TT 1960) passed away peacefully, surrounded by family, in Woodstock (where he had also served as Mayor), on the 22nd of September 2024. Though one can easily discover the details of a life well-lived by ‘the cleverest young man in England’, as he was once dubbed by his school peers, it is for his service, loyalty and gracious leadership that the Oxford Union will remember Peter Jay.

Peter Jay's roles in the Standing Committee consecutively were: Member of the Floor Speakers Committee - MT 1958, Member of the Standing Committee - HT 1959, Librarian - TT 1959 and, finally, President - Trinity Term 1960.

What was his experience at the Oxford Union like? In his self-published autobiography, ‘An Unfinished life’, which one can find at the Oxford Union library, he offered some snippets of his own experiences at Frewin Court. Looking back at his student years from the perspective of his 75-year-old self, he writes: “In my first term I joined the Union, hoping to extend the enjoyment of debating both at Dragon and Winchester. There were still plenty of Tories to provoke and disdain. The President at the moment was Brian Walden, in my estimation with only one exception the most formidable debater I ever heard. (…) I once asked him how he prepared for a debate; and he told me he sat all night in an armchair thinking of every possible challenge he might encounter and how he would use it, judo-style, to mount the most crushing counter-attack. (…) I had of course acquired more political education than the average student from my father, who had been a Member of Parliament since I was 9 years old. But I acquired a lot more – and of a different kind from Ron (Owen), frequently over long nicotine-fuelled arguments in the Union’s dark, beer-scented and smoke-filled cellars. (…) A term earlier Alan Haselhurst and I squared up for the debate on the eve of the poll in which one of us would become President. The motion we agreed was the traditional ‘confidence’ debate, modified to confidence in the Conservative Party’… I am proud to say that the motion was defeated, showing that the Union was not always pro-Tory, even in its votes, still less in the debating dominance’. And that was the start of his Presidential Term.

After Oxford, Peter went on to a distinguished Public Service career, culminating in his appointment as British Ambassador to the United States from 1977 to 1979. He was to become the founding chairman of the breakfast television station TV-am. He was a non-executive director of the Bank of England from 2003 to 2009 and remained active with the Oxford Union until his death. For that the Oxford Union is immensely grateful. He will never be forgotten - a life well-lived is truly unfinished.

Ebrahim Osman-Mowafy

President TT24

St Edmund Hall