As a keen supporter of CPRE, Jonathon Cohen served as Chairman and Vice-President of CPRE Oxfordshire. As a polymath, he was a codebreaker at Bletchley Park during the Second World War, and afterwards lauded as "a philosopher of extraordinary breadth of vision, [whose] insights took in international law, the nature of meaning, and belief". Jonathan moved to Oxfordshire in the late 1950s and became an enthusiastic supporter of the Council for the Protection of Rural England. He chaired at different times CPRE Oxfordshire and the CPRE Oxfordshire Buildings Trust. He had a keen mind and calm reasoning. At meetings, he spoke with a quiet, authoritative manner but always incisively. He was a tireless in his efforts to preserve the county's footpaths and is remembered for his convivial company when strolling through the landscape he so loved.

CPRE member Alun Jones remembers him well. "He was a lovely man. He listened carefully to other people. He did not speak until he had carefully considered all that was said. I see him now in my mind's eye. At times he looked like his mind was elsewhere but he was just gradually contemplating. When he spoke we listened to him as carefully as he listened to us. His words were always reasoned and balanced. He had a quiet sense of humour and a twinkle in his eye. He loved gardens and footpaths, but everything CPRE did he was part of."

Eulogy

• Alun Jones remembered Jonathan at the Memorial Service for Jonathan on 19 November 2006

Profile

The following profile appeared in CPRE Oxfordshire Bulletin, September 1989.

Jonathan Cohen has always been an active and committed member of CPRE, whose advice we could never afford to ignore. He was Chairman of the Burford/Witney Area for three years, and Branch Chairman for another three, during which he steered the Branch with great skill through the upheavals of the changeover from Branch to National Membership. He is now Chairman of CPRE Oxfordshire's Buildings Preservation Trust. He finds the constructive work of the Trust an enjoyable contrast with the necessarily more adversarial activities of other CPRE committees.

Born in London, and educated at St. Paul's and Balliol, Jonathan served in naval intelligence (mostly in South East Asia Command) to the rank of U.(sp.) R.N.V.R. during 1942-1945. He began his academic career by teaching philosophy at Edinburgh University and then at St. Andrews. Since 1957 he has been a Fellow of the Queen's College, Oxford, and is now Senior Tutor there. This is fortunate for his CPRE colleagues, who much appreciate the frequency with which beautiful meeting places are put at our disposal. He is also a Fellow of the British Academy, a past president of the International Union for History and Philosophy of Science. He has held visiting professorships at Columbia and Yale universities in the U.S.A., is an Honorary Professor of Northwestern University , Xien, China, and has lectured in many other countries.

CPRE has thus for many years enjoyed the benefits of his keen mind and calm and reasoned exposition of our problems.

But Jonathan feels at home only in West Oxfordshire, where he has lived for thirty two years and where he pursues his hobbies of gardening and walking. Again, CPRE has benefited from his hobbies -the garden has provided many a plant for CPRE plant sales, and his fieldpath walking has resulted in many aright of way being restored to better order.

Obituaries

• The Guardian
• The Times
• Oxford Mail & Times