Joseph Kirwan - the man who made Oxford's Plater College a reality and received honours from the Pope for his work - has died, aged 94.

When Mr Kirwan became principal of Plater in 1962, it was his drive and foresight which took the college, then the Catholic Workers' College, from its makeshift premises in Boars Hill and transformed it into Plater College, widening education opportunities for disadvantaged adults.

Despite a lack of funds, he managed to secure an accessible site at Headington and establish a purpose-built college.

Friends say it was with strange irony that news of his death coincided with a statement, issued by the college's trustees and governors, of their plan to close it later this year.

Campaigners have since launched a High Court bid to try to prevent closure. Created in 1921, it is the only Catholic residential college in England.

The Pope recognised Mr Kirwan's work when he made him a knight of the Pontifical Order of St Gregory the Great for his Catholic social teaching and promotion of adult education.

Born in India in 1910, Mr Kirwan's father was killed early in the First World War and his mother died a few years later, leaving him and his three siblings to be brought up by an aunt.

On leaving school, he became an apprentice draughtsman, but on completing his time he found himself unemployed.

He later secured a place at Oxford's Catholic Workers' College in 1933, of which he would later become principal, and was awarded the university's diploma in economics and politics two years later.

It was while at college that he displayed a particular aptitude for Catholic social teaching and economics - studies to which he would devote the rest of his life.

He began reading for a degree at St Catherine's College, Oxford, in 1937 but his studies were interrupted by war service. He later received the degrees of BA, MA and BLitt on the same day in 1947.

He served as tutor and bursar, acting principal and ultimately principal of Plater before retiring in 1977.