Thomas Farrant Higham

Higham was born in Kesari, Punjab, then part of the British Raj, to English parents Thomas and Eliza Higham. The family shortly thereafter returned to England and Thomas was educated at Clifton before going up to Trinity College, Oxford to read classics, gaining a First in Honour Moderations and the 1912 Gaisford Prize for Greek verse composition. (He submitted a translation, into Theocritean hexameters, of the first nine lines of George Meredith's Love in the Valley). He was subsequently elected a Fellow of his college in 1914. In 1915 he married Mary Elizabeth Rogers, who bore him one son and one daughter.[1]

During the First World War, Higham served with the British Forces in Salonika (1916–19). During the Second World War, he was attached to the Foreign Office (1940–45). From 1939 to 1958 he was Public Orator of Oxford University.[1][2] He died in retirement at Oxford on 29 January 1975.