Olive Gibbs
Year conferred: 1986
The first ever honorary degree to be awarded was in 1986 to the now late Olive Gibbs.
Born and brought up in Oxford, Olive was a former labour councillor who had retired in 1985 after two spells as Lord Mayor. In 1958, when the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament was formed, she established the Oxford CND Group, and went on to chair the national campaign.
Also a former lieutenant for Oxfordshire, she was active in many spheres of local life. She was a governor of Oxford Polytechnic (now Oxford Brookes) and the Gibbs Building at the university's Headington campus was named after, and opened by, Olive on 16 May 1975.
She died in 1995.
