Christopher Thomas Tower (1915-1998), came from a diplomatic family and was educated at Eton and Christ Church, Oxford (reading history from 1934-1937).  At Eton he won numerous school prizes for poetry, English literature and allied subjects, and was a founder and first secretary of the Eton College Archaeological Society.  These interests first took him to the Middle East where he studied Arabic and Persian.  After holding a number of appointments in that area he retired from official life in order to be able to devote more time to his writing.  A collection of the Tower family portraits is on view at the Ashridge Business School.

He wrote nine illustrated books of poetry, mainly of Persian and Arab legends -  a first volume of verse in 1975 (Firuz of Isfahan published by Weidenfeld and Nicolson as were his subsequent titles); A Distant Fluting (1977); Oultre Jourdain (1980); Victoria the Good (1982); Arcesilayus at Tocra (1992).

He left a legacy of £5m to be used, by Christ Church, to endow two teaching posts: a Poetry Studentship and a tutorial fellowship, with an associated University Lecturership plus a Junior Research Fellowship in Greek mythology.  The benefaction also funded the Christopher Tower Poetry Prize, an annual competition open to sixth-formers.  The oration, delivered in 2005, is reproduced here.