New Honorary Fellows elected

New Honorary Fellows elected

Hugh Grant and Sir Peter Westmacott were elected Honorary Fellows of New College at a recent meeting of the Governing Body.  Limited to 40 living persons, Honorary Fellowship is the College's highest award and is bestowed upon distinguished Old Members.

Hugh Grant won the Galsworthy Scholarship and read English at New College from 1979 to 1982.  He abandoned doctoral studies in art history and soon became one of the most preeminent and successful actors of his generation.  His first notable role was in Four Weddings and a Funeral, for which he won a Golden Globe Best Performance by an Actor in a Motion Pictures award as well as a BAFTA Best Actor award.  Roles in Notting Hill, Bridget Jones's Diary, and About a Boy firmly established his career.  More recently, Mr Grant co-founded a national campaign against journalistic excess, criticised News International in an article published in the New Statesman and gave trenchant evidence to the Leveson Inquiry into the Culture, Practice and Ethics of the Press.

Sir Peter Westmacott, KCMG, LVO, has served in the Foreign Office since 1972 and is presently HM Ambassador to the United States of America.  He read History and Modern Languages at New College from 1969 to 1972.   He was Deputy Private Secretary to HRH The Prince of Wales, having previously served as Second Secretary in Tehran.  From 2002 to 2009, Sir Peter was HM Ambassador to Turkey where he had to deal with a suicide bomb attack on the British Consulate in Istanbul in 2003.  He became Ambassador in Paris in 2007, where he hosted New College Society events, including a performance of the New Chamber Opera in the Embassy.   His posting to Washington is widely regarded as the highest rung on the diplomatic ladder.

(photo from Getty Images)