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Chaplain Stella Aldwinckle: A Biographical Sketch Of The Spiritual Foundation Of The Oxford University Socratic Club (Forthcoming), Jim Stockton

Jim Stockton

Although the Oxford University Socratic Club is most often identified with its first faculty advisor and president, C. S. Lewis, the club itself grew out of the philosophical and theological curiosities that were felt, in large part, by the undergraduate class of the early 1940s. In a 1985 audio interview [AI] the club’s founder, Chaplain Stella Aldwinckle, would recall that the inception for the Socratic Club began at a ‘fresher’s tea’ at the rectory of St. Aldate’s toward the end of Michaelmas term of 1941. It was then that a young Somervillean woman by the name of Monica Shorten told …