University of Oxford Botanic Garden Middle-earth. In the Evelyn Waugh novel "Brideshead Revisited", Lord Sebastian Flyte takes Charles Ryder "to see the ivy" soon after they first meet. As he says, "Oh, Charles, what a lot you have to learn! There's a beautiful arch there and more different kinds of ivy than I knew existed. I don't know where I should be without the Botanical gardens" (Chapter One). In Philip Pullman's trilogy of novels "His Dark Materials", a bench in the back of the garden is one of the locations/objects that stand parallel in the two different worlds that the protagonists, Lyra Belacqua and Will
Charles W. Ryder Ryder served as commanding general of the IX Corps, preparing for the invasion of Japan. After the Japanese surrender, he continued to serve as commanding general of the IX Corps during the occupation of Japan. Ryder retired from the Army in 1950 and died on August 17, 1960, at the age of 68. His son, Charles Wolcott Ryder, Jr. was a USMA graduate in the Class of 1941 who served with the 90th Infantry Division, had an equally distinguished career and, like his father, also rose to the rank of major general. Charles W. Ryder Major General Charles Wolcott Ryder