Rachel Trickett
Mabel Rachel Trickett, known as Rachel Trickett, was an English novelist, non‑fiction writer, literary scholar, and a British academic; she was Principal of St Hugh's College, Oxford, for nearly twenty years, between 1973 and 1991.
Early life and education
Trickett's father was a postman. She studied at Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford. She became a lecturer in English at the University of Hull in 1946 and in 1954 she returned to Oxford as a fellow and tutor at St Hugh's College.Principal of St. Hugh's College
As Principal of St. Hugh's College, Trickett often showed a side of gaiety: on her instruction, the chapel at the college was redecorated in 18th-century colours.Her friend Laurence Whistler designed the college's gilded wrought iron Swan gates, which are now by the Principal's house on Canterbury Road.
Other work
Trickett was the author of the novels The Return Home and The Course of Love. Her The Honest Muse: A Study in Augustan Verse was published by Clarendon Press, Oxford, in 1967.Michael Gearin-Tosh wrote in her obituary for The Independent that "she had a wicked eye for the conceit of academics, their insularity and devious manipulations", an attitude which made her a soul‑mate of Erich Heller.