for a time Florey's relationship with Ethel had deteriorated to the point where they were communicating in writing and contemplating a legal separation. This was regarded as a serious matter; no Oxford fellow divorced without resigning his fellowship until the 1950s. Oxford Despite his success in revitalising the pathology department at Sheffield, Florey had grander ambitions than following the example of Douglas and dying in office. An opportunity arose with the death on 17 August 1934 of Georges Dreyer, the holder of the chair of pathology in the Sir William Dunn School of Pathology at Oxford. Dreyer had overseen the construction of a palatial new laboratory, but by 1934 it had attracted few students and researchers. While Florey had reservations about leaving Sheffield for Guy's, he had none about Oxford. The electoral board met on 22 January 1935, and Florey was appointed Professor of Pathology and Fellow of Lincoln College, Oxford, which controlled the chair, effective 1 May 1935. The chair came with an annual salary of £1,700 (). The school's budget was £3,432 a year () for all equipment and salaries except Florey's. He enforced strict economy measures such as forbidding the use of the lift, which saved £25 a year. While the building could accommodate a staff of thirty researchers, twenty-five technicians and forty or fifty students, there was only a fraction of that number, and morale was low. Florey retained Jean Orr-Ewing and Margaret Campbell-Renton, who had been working with Dreyer, and brought Kent with him. Pullinger joined them soon after as demonstrator of pathology. Florey and Pullinger restructured the pathology course. He hired Margaret Jennings as a gastroenterologist in October 1936, and she worked with him on his studies of mucus secretion. She became Florey's mistress in 1940; their affair was a poorly-kept secret. He appointed P. J. Smart as the office administrator, and she remained in the role until she retired in 1976. He attracted Rhodes Scholars like Australian Brian Magraith and Americans Robert H. Ebert and Leslie Epstein to the Sir William Dunn School of Pathology; other doctoral students included Peter Medawar, Gordon Sanders and Jean Taylor. Arthur Duncan Gardner headed the Medical Research Council's Standards Laboratory, which was located on the premises, and Gardner expected that his unit would have to move out, but Florey moved to keep him, as he needed a good bacteriologist. He arranged for Gardner to become head his