RIP Simpkin III

1 August 2016

It is with sadness that we announce the death of our College cat, Simpkin, who passed away peacefully over the weekend. He was sixteen, and the third Hertford College cat to bear the name.

Simpkin joined Hertford College in 2000, and has been a familiar face around Oxford ever since, except for the day when he climbed into the back of a milk delivery van, and accidentally ended up in Gloucester. During Simpkin’s lifetime, Hertford has had three principals, more than twenty attendant porters to look after him, and over three thousand students and staff, to provide the rubs which undoubtedly contributed a great deal to his very long and perfectly happy life. He was a truly terrible mouser, a sometime successful bird-catcher, and a loyal and faithful companion to many students, fellows and staff. He never married.

Simpkin will be greatly missed, but we fully expect that he will not be the last of his name.