Callard, Pauline Mary
1917-2016

Principal of Southlands College, born in Torquay on 28 May 1917. She was educated at Lauriston Hall and Queenswood School, where she became head girl, and graduated at the University College of the South-West, Exeter in both Commerce and Social Studies. During World War II she worked for the National Savings Movement and in the Ministry of Reconstruction as an economist and statistician; then as Assistant Principal in the Office of Reconstruction, 1942-44. Immediately after the war she served with UNRRA in its Mission to Austria, then became a lecturer then senior lecturer in Statistics and in Sociology at Exeter University, where she was also warden of one of the women's halls of residence for eighteen years. In 1965 she was appointed Principal of Southlands College seeing it through a period of significant change, including government policy that saw smaller teacher training institutes as being untenable. Under her guidance, Southlands became part of the Roehampton Institute in 1977 and then a university. She became an Honorary Fellow of the Roehampton Institute and of the University of Roehampton.

She was a member of Farnham Methodist Church for four decades and was an active Local Preacher 1977 to 1997. In retirement she served as an Honorary Treasurer of MCOD, on the Connexional Boards of Education and of Ministries and on the Candidates' Committee. Her ecumenical spirit was demonstrated especially in her role as secretary of the Farnham Council of Churches. Her last five years were spent in Wye Valley House, where she died on 23 March 2016.

Sources
  • Methodist Recorder, 28 April 2016
  • The Southlander, 2017, p.21