A tribute from George Smith to his wife, Teresa Smith Collingwood (1941-2024)
Teresa Smith Collingwood 1941-2024
Beginnings
We met in our first term at Oxford in 1960, at some very dry lectures on the often passionate love poems of Catullus. Four of us (including Teresa and me) always met for coffee afterwards in Queen’s Lane coffee house to recover. Teresa and I then joined the Arts and Reviews page of the bi-weekly student newspaper Cherwell. Teresa wrote a weekly column called ‘Trend’ - about food and drink, rather than clothes. I was the theatre critic, often had two free tickets, shared of course with Teresa, though I had to rush back to write my review.
In the summer we set out for the first of many sailing trips, meeting on Yarmouth quay, sliding down the mast into the open boat way below, with old salts muttering ‘you can’t moor here!’. So, we sailed away.
What’s in a Name?
After working separately in India and Thailand and travelling around India and Nepal together, it was back to the UK, and marriage in 1966 in a five minute ceremony, costing 13s 4p (66p). ‘Teresa Collingwood’ instantly became ‘Teresa Smith’.
Teresa put a lifetime of effort into her Collingwood legacy. In 1978 we lugged two large suitcases full of her father’s unpublished manuscripts into the Bodleian, launching a major industry of Collingwood scholarship across the world. Teresa from then was the key person to contact or visit, as Collingwood studies boomed with a centre at Swansea and then Cardiff University, annual conferences and a new academic journal. Her grandfather WG Collingwood, as Ruskin’s secretary, painter, writer and archaeologist in his own right also experienced a strong revival. With David Boucher, Teresa produced the magnificent new OUP 2013 edition of her father’s 1939 An Autobiography. Her final - sadly unfinished - contribution was the collection of her father’s very many letters.
Teresa: ‘the long distance runner’
Kate, her mother, once described to me, Teresa’s ‘long unhurried stride’ at school sports, somehow ending up at the front, as everybody else flagged.
Teresa joined Barnett House as a part time lecturer in 1974 and formally retired, after nearly ten years as Head of Department, in 2007, though she worked on for many more years supervising doctoral students and giving seminars. Almost by accident, she became, probably the first woman to chair the university’s powerful Social Studies Board in the mid-1990s, and was rewarded with a full-time post and a Fellowship at St Hilda’s.
Teresa: ‘the non-Feminist Feminist’
From the age of 10, Teresa, Kate and her Granny joined forces with another family in another extraordinary rambling house in Kelvedon, Essex, a Bloomsbury offshoot, full of art and artists. There were seven all told, with only the youngest, Jim, a boy. The commanding Kate, who you would find rehearsing a play in the barn right outside Teresa’s room, and the formidable Ann, then the local GP and later Chief Medical Officer of Health for Essex, were the unquestioned heads. Teresa’s Granny held court in a small, secluded study giving calming advice or support when needed. Women were wholly in charge.
It formed, I think, the basis of Teresa’s unspoken ‘feminism’ – that women not just ‘could’ or ‘should’, but often were in charge.
Teresa the foreign relations specialist
Teresa was often the person we all (not just me) pushed forward in a tricky situation – crossing borders with illicit money in one’s shoes or dealing with angry or difficult officials. She had a way of disarming and defusing tense situations. For me she was always our ‘foreign secretary’ while I handled the finances.
In Japan, after some rather formal visits, she met up with a small group of powerful Japanese women who were challenging male dominance in universities, local and national politics. Teresa’s examples of work in the UK had great impact. One of the most powerful tributes we received was from her very close friend, a university professor, but now the elected mayor of Hita city in southern Japan. Very similar messages from former students came too from China, of the way that Teresa had influenced not just their academic work but their outlook.
‘The Ladies that Lunch’
From the late 1960s Teresa’s research and action was on early education. Kathy Sylva joined her in the mid-1970s. With Gillian Pugh and Naomi Eisenstadt, this group of four, who did indeed meet regularly for lunch, had enormous influence on the development of early education in this country from the 1990s onwards. They covered every base from research and evaluation through to programme development and national implementation - Sure Start and Children’s Centres among them.
Versatile Teresa
Like a skilled politician Teresa had the capacity to switch from one role to another very rapidly. One day she had two clashing events – as HoD appearing as a witness in a court in Wolverhampton in a very stressful case, and an invitation to 11 Downing St to celebrate early education. The case collapsed just as Teresa was about to be called as a key witness, so she rushed for the train, and just got into Downing St as a booming Gordon Brown begun to speak.
Teresa the fearless
Driving back up Walton St very late one night in the 1990s. We noticed some kind of fracas on the pavement. ‘It’s just some students larking about’. I said. But Teresa ordered me to stop. She shot out of her seat and dashed across the road shouting at three young men who were viciously beating up someone on the ground, with an iron bar it later turned out. Being more cautious, I hoped we would get some help. So blocked the road, putting the hazard lights on. As other drivers arrived, we advanced behind Teresa. The attackers backed off and finally ran.
Teresa the tough cookie
Our last major trek was up the Nubri valley in Nepal under the 8000m Manaslu peak in 2017, visiting mountain health posts funded by Community Action Nepal. For Teresa this was very hard, with some very long days, her guide always with her and helping her up the steepest bits, while she learnt Nepali words for plants and flowers. But she was back on form when we met health workers, stayed in many health posts, and discussed with local people the needs of very young children growing up in these remote high altitude mountain villages.
Teresa the soft centred
A group of 30 of us visited Iceland in 2012 to retrace Teresa’s grandfather WG Collingwood’s epic journey on horseback and foot round Iceland in 1897 – we were in a coach. We ended at Borg church where WG had stayed at the end of his journey, after missing the boat back to Reykjavik. On return home he painted an altar piece for the church in thanks. It is still there – ‘Christ blessing the children’ a group of children in the foreground. Teresa was standing close to the picture explaining to the group why WG had painted it. She suddenly stopped mid talk, as she had realised that the children in the picture were almost all WG’s own family (then aged from 5-11) - her father, and her three aunts. Teresa was visibly and deeply moved, but after a short pause she continued her talk.
The Three Things a Good Teacher Needs
Our favourite guru, Harry Ree, then Professor of Education at York, had a story about his interview before the war to be a teacher. What were the key skills a secondary teacher needed, he was asked; “three things” he replied: “Be able to teach” and “Know the subject”, of course. They pressed him for the third. “Generosity” he said. Harry was extraordinarily generous.
Teresa too had this gift of being generous to very many people with her time, continuing support and love, to me above all.
To end almost where I began: Teresa and I first met nearly 64 years ago, we were married for 58 years. For most of our lives we worked very closely together, as well as enjoying the same activities: theatre, sailing, trekking, travel, museums, history, archaeology. We sometimes had to remind colleagues that we were not actually one person; messages to one were not automatically passed to the other.
Now it has ended. The limitations of language make it too difficult to put my feelings into words. I fall back on the closing line of Wittgenstein’s challenging Tractatus, wrestling with the limits of language:
Of which we cannot speak, of that we must pass over in silence
