Perham, Richard Nelson (1937-2015)

Person

Perham, Richard Nelson (1937-2015)

1937-2015

Professor Richard Nelson Perham (1937-2015) was the quintessential 'man of St John's'. Coming up to the College in 1958, following a glittering career at Latymer Upper School and National Service in the Royal Navy, he was awarded a double first in Natural Sciences, and then pursued doctoral research at the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology, Cambridge, under the guidance of Ieuan Harris and Fred Sanger. Richard was elected to a Research Fellowship in the College in 1964, was awarded his PhD in 1965, and subsequently served as a Tutor, as Director of Studies, as President of the College from 1983 to 1987, and as Master from 2004 to 2007. His love of the place, its traditions, its sport and social life, was profound. Richard was a strong supporter of rowing through the Lady Margaret Boat Club, served as Senior Treasurer and later President of the Eagles, the society for elite-level sportsmen at St John's, and for several years carried, as Chairman of the May Ball Committee, responsibility for the prestigious College May Ball, ably assisted as Senior Treasurer by his colleague on the Fellowship John Leake. Alongside his commitments to St John's, Richard pursued a highly successful career in Biochemistry. Among many other distinctions he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1984, and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts in 1988, and was Head of the University's Department of Biochemistry from 1985 to 1996. Richard was awarded a higher doctorate, the ScD, in 1975.

Richard married Nancy Lane, herself a distinguished zoologist and Fellow of Girton College, in 1969. They have two children, Temple and Quentin.

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