Old Headington, Oxford

Image: © David Hallam-Jones Taken: 1 Aug 2013

St Andrew's Church appears in the distance on St Andrew's Road. These three storey brick houses are dated to the early C18th. A blue plaque affixed to the wall of the house behind the telegraph pole indicates that Salvador de Madariaga y Rojo (1886-1978) a Spanish diplomat, writer, historian and pacifist lived here between 1929-31 and 1940-73. He graduated with a degree in engineering in Paris before gaining a M.A. at Oxford University. During 1928-31 he was Professor of Spanish at Oxford University and then in 1931 he was appointed ambassador to the United States of America and a permanent delegate to the League of Nations, a post he kept for 5 years. Between 1932-34 he was Ambassador to France. In 1933 he was elected to the National Congress, serving as Minister for Education and Minister for Justice. In July 1936 he came to England to escape the Spanish civil war and from here he was a vocal opponent of, and he organised resistance to, the dictatorship of General Francisco Franco. In 1947, he was one of the principal authors of the Oxford Manifesto on liberalism. In 1949 he was one of the co-founders of the College of Europe. Following the death of Franco in 1976 he returned to Spain with his second wife.

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