Philip Bliss (academic)

After ordination in 1818, he was appointed curate of Newington, Oxfordshire and later rector of Avening, Gloucestershire, but had little interest in parish work.

[1] He spent some months in 1822, on the staff of the British Museum but returned to the Bodleian as junior sub-librarian at the prompting of his friend Bulkeley Bandinel (Bodley's Librarian 1813–1860), resigning in 1828 after his appointment in 1824 to the post of Registrar of the University of Oxford.

[1][2] According to one writer, his "prominence and diligence in university business and his polished manners made him the embodiment of the traditions of ancien régime Oxford".

But he retained to the last a certain sweet, old-fashioned courtesy, and a punctual and orderly devotion to his duties, which had not always marked the older ways.

Second, to raise the necessary funds he proposed that all members of Oxford University be entitled to buy life-membership of the Union for £10 (something like £800 today).