Although the rules in no way suggest there is a preference for an alumnus or fellow of the college to be chosen, there have been few who were not. Only one in the twentieth century had no previous connection. A former student of the college, Baruch Blumberg, was the first American master and the first Nobel Laureate, receiving his prize in medicine for the identification of the hepatitis B virus. The former Master of Balliol, Sir Drummond Bone, was a post-graduate student there (Snell Exhibitioner from Glasgow University) and a scholar of the Romantic poet Lord Byron, and held the post from October 2011 to April 2018, following his retirement as Vice-Chancellor of the University of Liverpool in 2008.
Although the rules in no way suggest there is a preference for an alumnus or fellow of the college to be chosen, there have been few who were not. Only one in the twentieth century had no previous connection. A former student of the college, Baruch Blumberg, was the first American master and the first Nobel Laureate, receiving his prize in medicine for the identification of the hepatitis B virus. The former Master of Balliol, Sir Drummond Bone, was a post-graduate student there (Snell Exhibitioner from Glasgow University) and a scholar of the Romantic poet Lord Byron, and held the post from October 2011 to April 2018, following his retirement as Vice-Chancellor of the University of Liverpool in 2008.