ABSTRACT
Being the head of an Oxford college wasn’t the same as directing an archaeological excavation. K couldn’t simply give orders as she was accustomed to doing. The principal of St. Hugh’s was no more than chairman of the Governing Body, which actually ran the college. To get anything done, she had to convince the Fellows of the College (who made up the Governing Body) by persuasion, using tact, negotiation, and compromise. The notoriously straightforward K excelled at none of these;she found this both frustrating and irritating. According to one of the college tutors Mary (later Baroness) Warnock, K “was inclined to lapse into talking to the Fellows as if we were native diggers,” 1 and to think them tiresome and recalcitrant when this did not work. Several members of the governing board later agreed that K could feel personally betrayed when Fellows she considered friends openly disagreed with her at meetings of the Governing Body. Although people who served with her on various archaeological committees believed that K respected people who stood up to her, she does seem to have expected the Fellows to follow her lead.
