We recently received the very sad news that Dr Hazel Rossotti died peacefully at her care home on Christmas Eve, a few weeks short of her 94th birthday.
As older Members of College will know very well, Hazel was the Chemistry Fellow and tutor at St Anne’s from 1961 until 1997, and before the appointment of a Biochemistry Fellow also oversaw that subject, as well as being the personal tutor for Fine Art students between 1977 and 1997. She was a warm, kind, clever and committed member of the College, an active photographer, and she designed and made the timeless stained glass windows in Hartland House library.
While she led a rich and fulfilling life until the very end of her eighties, continuing to visit and lunch in College regularly, she had become extremely frail over the last four or five years following the death of her husband Francis in 2019.
St Anne’s Tutorial Fellow in Physics, Professor Patrick Irwin, recalls: “I am very saddened to hear of Hazel’s passing. She was a wonderful colleague and I remember her with great affection. She was very welcoming when I first joined the college, way back in 1996, and we had many very interesting chats over lunch. Her legacy will live on in many areas, not least in the individual photos she took of the Fellowship, but also in all the stained glass panels that decorate the college. One of these panels was based on a NASA Infrared Telescope Facility image of Saturn I showed to her, which caused Hazel quite a bit of bother, I believe, requiring pieces of glass to be cut with tricky curved edges. I’ll remember Hazel fondly and will raise a glass to her memory this evening.”
We will circulate details of how Hazel’s life is to be commemorated once we know more in the New Year.
Update 28/02/2024: If you would like to read more details of Hazel’s memorial service and how we now plan to commemorate her in College, please see this page.