George Alfred Kolkhorst

Who was George Alfred Kolkhorst?

George Alfred Kolkhorst was an Oxford don.

Kolkhorst was a member of Exeter College, Oxford. He was appointed University Lecturer in Spanish in 1921 and Reader in Spanish in 1931, holding office until his death in 1958. He used to wear a cube of sugar on a string around his neck "to sweeten my conversation", and was universally known among Oxford undergraduates as "Colonel" Kolkhorst — allegedly because he looked and behaved so utterly unlike a colonel.

His immortality is guaranteed by his friendship with John Betjeman, in whose verse autobiography Summoned by Bells Kolkhorst is affectionately recollected.