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Who's Who
Fr George joined Pusey House in August 2013. He grew up near Halifax, Nova Scotia, on the East coast of Canada. He studied philosophy and anthropology at McGill University, Montreal, and International Development Studies at St Mary's University in Halifax. He then read for a Master of Divinity degree at Wycliffe College, one of the member colleges of the Toronto School of Theology.
After ordination in 1997 George served in Cherry Hinton with Teversham and in the Ramseys and Upwood (Diocese of Ely), then in Oxford as Assistant Minister at St Michael at the North Gate and Lincoln College Chaplain.
George completed a PhD at the University of Durham under the supervision of Professor Andrew Louth, on E. B. Pusey’s unpublished lectures, ‘Types and Prophecies of the Old Testament’. His research interests include E. B. Pusey and the Oxford Movement, the allegorical interpretation of the Bible, and the artistic expression of Christian doctrine. George is married to Karen and they have two daughters, Clara and Charlotte.
The Revd Dr George Westhaver
The Principal
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Fr Mark joined Pusey House in September 2014. After graduating from Liverpool University in Modern Languages, and from National Circus Schools in Paris and Bristol, he spent the best part of a decade as a Circus Performer, before running away from the Circus to join the Church. Mark trained for Ordination at Ripon College, Cuddesdon, and has served as Assistant Curate in the Parish of St. Barnabas and St. Paul, Jericho, and as Junior Chaplain at Merton College, since being ordained. Before coming to Oxford, Mark was the founder and Director of the Youth Charity 'redthread', and lists among his interests football, duelling weapons of the 18th Century, and Group Analytic Psychotherapy.
The Revd Mark Stafford
The Chaplain
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Jonathan joined Pusey House in October 2020. For the previous fifteen years he had been completing an annual scholarly circuit between Leiden, Warsaw, and Oxford, teaching and researching. In Oxford, he was junior research fellow at Blackfriars Hall and DPhil candidate, reading law, at Oriel College. In Leiden, he was PhD Fellow and lecturer in jurisprudence at the Leiden University Law School. And in Warsaw he was a sometime assistant professor in the faculty of philosophy. Now he is wholly involved in the work of Pusey House, and that of the broader university, as a Pusey Fellow of St Cross College, Oxford.
Dr Jonathan Price
The Matraszek Fellow
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Mehmet joined Pusey House in 2024 to become Custodian of the Library. In this role, he manages and directs the Library and Archives to serve the mission of the House to be a House of Sacred Learning.
He completed his DPhil at Trinity College, Oxford, before becoming the Étienne Gilson Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of St. Michael’s College in the University of Toronto. Since then, he has been a Research Assistant at the McDonald Centre in the Faculty of Theology & Religion at the University of Oxford, and the Public Bioethics Fellow for the Anscombe Bioethics Centre, Oxford.
He is able to talk at length about the liturgy or Ronald Knox to anyone willing to listen. He is married with two children.
Dr Mehmet Ciftci
Custodian of the Library
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The Revd Prof Nigel Biggar CBE is Emeritus Regius Professor of Moral Theology at the University of Oxford and Distinguished Scholar in Residence at Pusey House, Oxford. He holds a B.A. in Modern History from Oxford and a Ph.D. in Christian Theology & Ethics from the University of Chicago. He was appointed C.B.E. “for services to Higher Education” in the 2021 Queen’s Birthday Honours list.
His most recent books are Colonialism: A Moral Reckoning (2023), What’s Wrong with Rights? (2020), In Defence of War (2013), and Between Kin and Cosmopolis: An Ethic of the Nation (2014). In the press he has written articles for the Financial Times, the (London) Times, the Daily Telegraph, the Spectator, the (Glasgow} Herald, the Irish Times, Standpoint, The Critic, The Article, Unherd and Quillette.
He served on the Committee on Ethical Issues in Medicine at the Royal College of Physicians (London) from 2000 to 2014, the Royal Society’s Working Group on People and the Planet from 2010 to 2012, and the Pontifical Academy for Life from 2017 to 2022. He now chairs the board of trustees of the Free Speech Union.
He has lectured at the Royal College of Defence Studies, London; the UK Defence Academy, Shrivenham; the Führungsakademie der Bundeswehr, Hamburg; the US Military Academy, West Point; and the National Defense University, Washington, DC.
His hobbies include visiting battlefields. In 1973 he drove from Scotland via Iran and Afghanistan to India. And in 2015 and 2017 he trekked across the mountains of central Crete in the footsteps of Patrick Leigh-Fermor and his comrades, when they abducted General Kreipe in April-May 1944.
The Revd Professor Nigel Biggar
Distinguished Scholar-in-Residence
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Alongside his work at the house, Edward is the Senior Organ Scholar at Keble College, Oxford, accompanying the college choir for their weekly services. He is also organist to Campion Hall, Oxford. Ed is an undergraduate in his final year of a Music degree. A keen singer, he is a part of the early music ensemble, Antiquum Documentum, for whom he also plays the organ. He studies conducting with Will Dawes and organ with Stephen Farr and David Ponsford, as part of the Oxford-RAM scheme. He is an Associate of the Royal College of Organists.
Before going up to Oxford, he spent a year at the Royal Academy of Music, where he studied with Anne Page and David Titterington. Ed grew up in Sevenoaks, attending St Luke’s, and began his organ studies with Peter Young. He was later a music scholar at The King’s School, Canterbury, where he studied the organ with Adrian Bawtree.
He has upcoming recitals at Hampstead Parish Church, St Michael’s Church, Croydon and Keble College, Oxford, and will be training the chorus and playing continuo for upcoming performances of Haydn’s Paukenmesse on the 2nd/3rd November at St John the Evangelist Cowley, and in the context of the Mass at Pusey House the following day. The performances are a collaboration between the Oxford Baroque Players and The Choir of Pusey House, Oxford, with soloists drawn in part from Pusey choir alumni.
Edward Gaut
The Master of Music
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Ian joined Pusey House in January 2022, having been a regular worshipper since 2013. He read English at Magdalene College, Cambridge before working for the Diocese of St Albans for a number of years, managing its trust and glebe portfolio. After this he worked in international supply chain for a US multinational enterprise and then became Head of Global Business Development for a leading UK-based designer and manufacturer, setting up distribution networks across multiple continents. Following a break over the pandemic, (during which he helped to set up and run a local grocery business) his career came full circle, back to the Church of England, by offering his services to Pusey House, where he now works closely with the Principal and Chapter both in the daily administration and management of the House and also in considering its future development.
Ian plays piano and organ and enjoys the opera and ballet and gardening. He is a member of the Critics' Circle.
Ian Palmer
The Administrator
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Alexander was raised in South London and started his musical training as a chorister at Southwark Cathedral. He continued music-making at City of London School where he was heavily involved in the orchestras and choirs as well as a number of student-run chamber-ensembles. Whilst still at school, Alexander studied at Junior Guildhall with joint-first-study singing and composition and second study violin/viola, held a Junior Choral Scholarship at Southwark Cathedral, the Organ Scholarship at All Saints, West Dulwich, and was a member of the London Youth Choir, the National Youth Choir and the Temple Church Youth Choir. During his gap-year, Alexander was organ scholar at St. Mary Magdalene, Richmond. Alexander is in his fourth year reading for a degree in Classics at Corpus Christi College, where he was previously the Organ Scholar. Alexander now holds a choral scholarship at Keble College, he is the cantor at Campion Hall, and directs Oxford-based early music ensemble, Antiquum Documentum. He was formerly a member of The Schola Cantorum of Oxford and was cast as Dr. Daly in the Oxford University Gilbert and Sullivan production of The Sorcerer in Trinity Term 2023. He currently studies singing with Luise Horrocks having previously studied with Sam Queen, Rachel Sherry and Kate Mapp. He has studied the organ with Stephen Disley and Peter Wright.
Alexander has been a member of the Pusey House Choir since January 2023.
Alexander Trowell
The Musician-in-residence
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Cathy attained a BA Modern Languages degree in French and German from the University of East Anglia and a Postgraduate Diploma in Library and Information Management at the University of Northumbria at Newcastle. She achieved chartered membership of the Chartered Institute of Information and Library Management while working in Baker Tilly, Chartered Accountants in London.
Coming to Oxford in 2002, she has worked in the Bodleian Law Library’s European Documentation Centre and then for over 20 years in Merton College Library, first responsible for the day to day running of the undergraduate library, then, to balance childcare, cataloguing and preserving post-1820 special collections, such as the large collections on T.S. Eliot and the Sitwell siblings. She has recently assisted St. Peter’s College with their modern cataloguing. She is looking forward to being the interim librarian at Pusey House Library.
She is also a photographer; you can see some of her photographs at www.cathylewisphotos.com.
Her hobbies are singing in choir and folk settings, tennis and dog walking.
Cathy Lewis
Assistant Librarian
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Obum is from a place called Umuobom, a village in Imo state, the South Eastern part of Nigeria. In 2015, he graduated from Abia State University in Uturu, Nigeria, with a BA in Library and Information Science, before completing the mandatory one-year National Youth Service program, during which he tutored junior high school students in English.
He moved to London to investigate his calling with the Lambeth Palace Community of St. Anselm (CoSA) and in 2023 relocated to the Isle of Man to work as a Ministerial Intern carrying out various pastoral duties. He came to Pusey House as a Chapel intern 2024.
Obum is passionate about Anglo-Catholicism and, like +Frank Weston, considers himself to be a defender of the faith. His interest lie in pastoral and sacramental theology, with a special emphasis on the Magnificat as a paradigm for Christians and a picture of God's magnanimity in the world. Aside from hobnobbing around the “smells and bells”, he enjoys mobile soccer, exploring ideas on a wide range of topics from social media and talking to family and friends.
Obumneke Ejezie
Chapel Intern
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