Yvonne Pye
Honorary fellowship
Year conferred: 2005
Yvonne Pye was born in India and educated at Doveton Corrie School in Madras. She left for Kuala Lumpur as a young teenager after her mother died. Working first as secretary to the director of electrical engineering at Harrison and Crossfield, she then moved to Singapore as secretary to the managing director of Shell. Moving to London in 1963 for a sabbatical she worked as secretary to the estates director for Charles Forte at the Café Royal and met Graham Pye. They were married in 1966.
In Oxford Yvonne worked first at the Museum of Modern Art before becoming a secretary at the Ditchley Foundation. She then worked at the Indian Institute, before being persuaded to work at Pyes.
Charitable interests have included membership of fund raising committees for the Radcliffe Medical Foundation, The Ashmolean Museum and Marie Curie Cancer Care.
