THE first woman to be appointed senior assistant registrar at Oxford University has died, aged 89.

Rosalind Brain spent 30 years working at the university, receiving Emeritus Fellow status in 1989. She also achieved a double first in classics at the age of 21, at Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford.

She was a member of Oxford Harmonic Choir for 20 years; five of them as chairman.

The wife of a former Oxford Mail journalist, Mrs Brain was known as a caring person, looking after elderly members of her family and volunteering to help others.

Rosalind Brain (née Noyce) was born in Beacon Hill, Surrey, in 1926, to parents Sir Frank and Enid Noyce, who worked for the Indian civil service. She had two older brothers, Wilfrid and Ronald.

Her parents lived in India, so when she was a baby Mrs Brain and her brothers were sent to live with a woman they called their aunt in Grayshott, Surrey.

Mrs Brain went to St Ursula’s School, Grayshott, until she was 13, before moving to Hawnes boarding school in Bedfordshire until she was 18. She then studied at Lady Margaret Hall.

In 1949, Mrs Brain moved to Glasgow to teach Latin and started working in administration. She was secretary to Glasgow University principal Sir Hector Hetherington for five years.

In 1956, Mrs Brain returned to Oxford to work as assistant officer in the university registry. In 1961, she became an assistant registrar and then a senior assistant registrar in 1969; the first woman at the university ever to do so.

She was a fellow of Linacre College from 1966 to 1989 and an Emeritus fellow from 1989. She retired from administrative work in 1986.

Mrs Brain met her husband, Ralph Brain, a former Oxford Mail journalist and they married in 1971, when she was 45. They never had children together, but Ralph had one son, Peter, who died last June from bowel cancer.

The couple lived with Mrs Brain’s elderly mother for 14 years, when she needed care. When her mother died in 1978 the couple moved to Five Mile Drive in Oxford, until Mr Brain died in 1992.

In 1996, Mrs Brain moved to Banbury Road, where she stayed until several years ago. She spent the last few years of her life in Dorchester Court.

Mrs Brain loved cats and had a blind pet named Polo and another called Pushkina. She also volunteered at the animal sanctuary shop in Summertown.

Mrs Brain died on September 16 and a funeral was at Oxford Crematorium. She is survived by four nephews, one niece, her two grandchildren – Peter’s children – and great-grandchildren.