The Second World War caused terrible suffering, and the people of Oxford and St Mary’s were anxious to do more to help the people affected by the fighting. They were particularly troubled by the Nazi occupation of Greece and the consequent Allied naval blockade, which led to acute famine for the Greek people. Early in the 1940s, fund-raising Committees for famine relief were set up in London and several other British cities, and in 1942 an Oxford Committee for Famine Relief met in the Old Library of the University Church. It was chaired by the Vicar, Dick Milford. This was the first meeting of what would later become OXFAM, the major international relief agency we know today.
