Dorothy Scruton (1939-2021)

Dorothy at Nigel Llewellyn’s garden party in 2003

Dorothy came to the university in 1967 as the secretary to the newly-founded subject group of Art History.  She had worked for Hans Hess at the York City Art Gallery (Yorkshire was her ‘home’ part of the world) and moved south to join him and Quentin Bell at the start of what became a very distinguished group.  In the course of time she moved over to become the Slide Librarian, managing a collection that eventually reached 100,000 images.  She was highly proactive in her last years at the university getting everyone to think about the digital future.  After she retired in 1999 the university gave her an honorary degree and the presentation speech emphasised her role in Art History’s success in teaching and research (at that time standing as joint No 1 in the national research assessment).

Dorothy's mission, as it were, was a loyalty and affection for all her colleagues and the students.  She began as part of, and retained a fierce loyalty to, the School of European Studies and she made some close friendships with the teaching and administrative staff there whose origins were from other parts of Europe.  She helped to catalogue the university art collection and played a key role in identifying the university paintings that are on the national art register.  She helped Nicholas Antram in the revision of the Pevsner Buildings of England: Sussex East, and our Grade I listed Falmer House sits proudly on its cover.  Dorothy remained a very private person but one particularly close friendship led her to choose to spend more than twenty of her last years in her last home, a flat at Varndean, where she entertained her friends.  She died suddenly, unexpectedly, and we all miss her.

Maurice Howard, Emeritus Professor of Art History