Francis MacCarthy Willis Bund

The Reverend Francis Leader MacCarthy Willis Bund (1906-1980) was an Anglican cleric and Chaplain, Dean and Fellow of Balliol College, Oxford.

Life

He was born Francis Leader MacCarthy on the 19th, March 1906 in Goldington, Bedford. His father was John Leader MacCarthy, a local engineer, and his mother was Mary Susanna Willis Bund, the daughter of John William Willis Bund, a Worcestershire landowner and historian of the Celtic Church. He adopted the additional surnames of Willis Bund by Royal Licence in 1950 in compliance with a condition set out by his maternal grandfather to allow him to inherit family property in Herefordshire.^[1][2]

He was educated at Bedford Modern School and Emmanuel College, Cambridge and became an assistant master at Shrewsbury School.^[3][4] He was appointed Chaplain and Fellow of Balliol in 1945, and after serving as a college proctor also became Dean. In this role a position appears to have displayed a great deal of patience and tolerance amidst the growing rebelliousness of student life in the 1960s. Howard Marks, the notorious user and later smuggler of cannabis was an undergraduate at Balliol, and was frequently summoned to see the Dean. In his autobiography Marks recalls developing 'an enormous liking and respect' for MacCarthy Willis Bund.^[5]

MacCarthy Willis Bund also became a Fellow of All Souls College, Oxford.^[6]

He married first, Joan Mildred Elton Carey and secondly, Roberta J Dalkin.^[7] His daughter, Alison MacCarthy Willis Bund married the distinguished American academic L. Perry Curtis who became Emeritus Professor of History at Brown University.^[8][9]

Franis Leader MacCarthy Willis Bund died in 1980 and was buried at Combe, Oxfordshire. ^[10]

References