TEXT:
To: Professor Sir Peter Hirsch, St. Edmund Hall, Oxford
Professor J. Barr, Christ Church College, Oxford
Professor J. Boardman, Lincoln College, Oxford
Professor (now Sir) D. J. Weatherall, Magdalen College, Oxford
Professor (now Sir) R. J. Elliott, New College, Oxford
Professor I. Brownlie, All Souls College, Oxford
Professor Sir Richard Southwood, Merton College, Oxford
K. V. Thomas, Corpus Christi College, Oxford
Doctor A. J. P. Kenny, Balliol College, Oxford
Doctor G. A. Holmes, St. Catherine's College, Oxford
Professor R. J. P. Williams, Wadham College, Oxford
Professor L. Weiskrantz, Magdalen College, Oxford
Doctor G. Marshall, Queen's College, Oxford
I. C. Butler, Christ Church College, Oxford
P. M. Oppenheimer, Christ Church College, Oxford
From: Andrew Malcolm, 7, Southover Street, Brighton BN2 2UA. telephone 0273 688930
Dear Professor Hirsch,
I am writing to you in your capacity as a Delegate of Oxford University Press. As I presume you know, for the past 15 months I have been suing the Press for breach of contract and Richard Charkin, the managing director of its academic and general division, for wrongful procurement thereof. The Press's breach of contract consists of its non-publication of a philosophical text called Making Names which, after eight months' negotiation, I was commissioned to revise in May l985 by Mr Henry Hardy, the then senior General Books editor. The solicitor who has been acting for me throughout is a Mr Richard White, telephone 0273 206638.
I realise that in these delicate circumstances it is irregular for me to write to you directly and I do so only with great reluctance, but something has occurred which is itself somewhat irregular and which begs clarification from the Delegates themselves. My solicitor is professionally constrained from writing to you and has therefore suggested that I do so. This letter has been checked for accuracy and approved by him.
In the course of the action against Mr Charkin, various questions have been raised about his conduct of the Press's business. In brief, in an Order entered on 28th January 1988, Master Barratt, who is presiding over the proceedings, ruled that upon the production of a letter signed for and on behalf of the Delegates stating that Mr Charkin was at all material times acting bona fide within the scope of his authority within the Press, he be struck out of the action. [Page 2]
During the discussions that preceded this ruling, my solicitor learned from Master Barratt that in a telephone conversation with him on or about January l9th, the solicitor acting for the Press and for Mr Charkin (a Mr Shaw of Dallas Brett) had asked him not to trouble the Delegates, whom he characterised as being, quote, "a body of distinguished old gentlemen who meet only once a year". We find this most surprising, firstly because we had been led to believe that the Delegates meet rather more frequently, and secondly because we have since received a letter signed by Mr Robin Denniston and dated 2nd February which indicates that the Delegates have after all now ratified Mr Charkin's actions. It would be an extraordinary coincidence if the Delegates' one meeting of 1988 happened to take place between 28th January and 2nd February, as Mr Shaw's communications appear to suggest.
I therefore feel bound to write to you firstly to discover whether Mr Shaw's above-quoted characterisation of the Delegates' role is strictly correct and secondly to confirm that the Delegates have indeed retrospectively ratified all of Mr Charkin's actions. If Mr Shaw's characterisation is not correct, I would be grateful for your permission to pass on to Master Barratt your own account of the Delegates' involvement in the Press's business.
Thirdly, another matter which begs your clarification concerns a letter dated 23rd July l986 which I received from Mr Charkin. In this letter he indicates that the decision not to publish Making Names was taken by the Delegates, yet in a telephone conversation my solicitor had on 7th September 1987 with Alan Ryan, the Delegate who originally recommended the book's publication, Ryan assured him that there had been no Delegatorial involvement in the decision. Also, I notice from the list which we have just received from the Press's solicitors that there is no documentation of any such Delegatorial decision. Again, I would be grateful for your own account of what happened.
Once more, please forgive me for taking the unusual step of writing to you directly, but as you may now appreciate, these strange events put us in a most unusual position.
Yours sincerely, Andrew Malcolm
Go to the next item in this series, or to the previous item in the Evidence (red) file.
Go to Malcolm's Statement of Claim, to the Case History, to the Affidavits: Ivon Asquith (1), Asquith (2), Henry Hardy, William Shaw (solicitor) (1), Sir Roger Elliott (1), Margaret Goodall, to the Witness Statements: Elliott, Hardy, Richard Charkin, Nicola Bion, Goodall, to the courtroom testimony of the Oxford Six, 14/3/1990: Elliott, Goodall, Bion, Asquith, Charkin, Hardy, to the testimony of Andrew Malcolm 13/3/1990, to the Chancery Court Judgment, to the Appeal Court Judgment, to Malcolm's Points of Claim (the first item in the damages series), to the Damages assessment, or to the Settlement agreement.
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