| AdminHistory | Dr Robert F Rattray was appointed as Acting Principal of the Leicester, Leicestershire and Rutland College in May 1921. He was born in 1886 and educated at Glasgow University (1904 - 08) where he took his MA and was president of the Dialectic Society. From 1908-11 he studied at Manchester College, Oxford, and was awarded various scholarships, enabling him to study in Germany and the USA. His Harvard University PhD thesis was entitled "Samuel Butler and the Philosophy of Nature." On his return to England, he entered the Unitarian Ministry, becoming assistant pastor of Ullet Road Chapel, Liverpool. Rattray came to Leicester in 1917 as pastor of the Great Meeting Unitarian Chapel, East Bond Street. He remained at Leicester as Principal of the University College from 1921 - 1931 when he moved to Cambridge to become pastor of the Unitarian Memorial Chapel. He remained in Cambridge for the rest of his life.
Rattray was a member of the Executive Committee of the Cambridge Preservation Society and Vice-Chairman of Cambridgeshire Community Council. He was also a member of the Cambridge Committee for Education and the county Education Committee, and a Governor of hte College of Arts and Technology, and the High School for Boys. Rattray was also an active member of the RSPCA, becoming Vice-Chairman of the National Council in 1953. He was a prolific writer and contributor to the Quarterly Review and published books on Samuel Butler and George Bernard Shaw. He died in 1967. [Created by Jenny Clark, edited by Vicky Holmes]. |