Rhubarb 2019

ST EDWARD’S r h u b a r b

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special interests in studying badgers and producing barbecue charcoal from coppiced woodland. For many years he had been the volunteer warden of BBOWT’s Fox Holes Nature Reserve near his home in Kingham and had introduced countless numbers of local people to wildlife and natural matters. His locally-produced charcoal was much in demand at Oxfordshire barbecues. He leaves a wife, Frances, and their four adult children: Anna, Katherine, Thomas and Robert. BEARD – On 27th June 2017, James Andrew Threlfall Beard, (F, 1945-1952) in Australia, aged 83 years. Royal Horse Artillery 1952-4. 1st at Mons Officer Cadet School 2nd Lt. University College Oxford 1954-8. Oxford BSc MA, University Hockey Club 1958. Hockey for Western Counties 1959-60. Assistant Master Sherborne School 1958-68, Second Master Canberra Grammar School, 1969-74, Principal St Anne’s and Gippsland Grammar School, Victoria 1975-89. Member of the Australian College of Educators. Loving husband of Bev. Adored father of Jonathan, Michael, Patricia, Robert and Penelope. Respected father- in-law of Clare, Lucy, Antony, Donna and Ashleigh. Cherished grandad of Harriet, Edward and Mathilda, Joshua, Daniel, Lois and April, Matthew and Ella, Haydn and Flynn. These details were provided by Hubert’s widow, Yvonne, via John Barker (F, 1948-1953) who was a lifelong friend of Hubert’s: Hubert read Mechanical Engineering at St Edmund Hall, Oxford. His first job after leaving Teddy Hall was as a management trainee for Wiggins BEAUMONT – On 12th May 2018, Hubert Preston Beaumont (F, 1948-1953).

Teape, a paper manufacturer in Beaconsfield and he later joined PA Management Consultants, with whom he undertook two assignments in the West Midlands. He went on to become Managing Director of Montgomerie Reid in Bramley, near Basingstoke. Montgomerie Reid were subsequently taken over by Hays Group and Hubert was made Group Chairman of two of their subsidiaries. Hubert also worked as a Management Consultant to a software company, which was later taken over by Microsoft and he was a member of the UK Shareholders’ Association, for whom he provided reports on small companies. His final professional role was as owner David was the younger son of my father Henry and his first wife Grace Lawry. He attended St Edward’s from 1945 to 1950 as a dayboy in Field House. He was in the Mathematics VIth (under Jack McMichael), and a 1st Class Cadet in the RAF Section of the CCF. David was a distinguished nuclear physicist and one of Her Majesty’s Principal Inspectors of Nuclear Installations. The Abstract of his Oxford DPhil Thesis in 1956 begins: ‘… this thesis describes work on the angular distributions and absolute cross sections of the reactions D(d,n)He3 and D(d,p) H3 between 40 and 90 keV. .. [and] the reactions N14(d,p)N15 and N14(d,d) between 600 and 1000 keV.’ All his working life he was an experts’ expert. He made no of F Church, a plumbing company in Abingdon. Hubert had two children. BOOTH – On 4th February 2019, David Lawry Booth (C, 1945-1950). The following tribute has kindly been provided by David’s half- brother, Richard Booth:

attempt to make his academic and later his genealogical research accessible to lay persons. But to his family and friends, notably to his godson, Francis Barnsley, he was kind and supportive. He was a skilled tennis player, a vegetable gardener and a raconteur. Safety regulation of nuclear plants is profoundly demanding. Inspectors must be even cleverer and more rigorous than those they regulate. In this work David excelled. He was always determined to get to the root of any matter. This applied above all to his work in assessing the risks of failures of nuclear reactors. David’s interest in risk was doubtless formed at an early age. He, with his brother Michael and his mother, were evacuated to Jamaica in September 1940 because of the looming threat of invasion. With hindsight they would have been safer to remain on Oxford’s Hinksey Hill. Their fast ship SS Cristalis sailed unescorted far north to Greenland to evade the U-boats. The ship was ‘blacked out’ and David remembered tripping over the huge ‘degaussing’ cables mines. The previous ship that had sailed to Jamaica was torpedoed on the return journey. His own ship was sunk later. They sailed through a hurricane. Two days after they landed in Jamaica, a children’s evacuee ship was torpedoed with tragic loss of life. All evacuation was immediately stopped so David was very lucky to return to England - and then to study at St Edward’s. David gained his MA at University College, Oxford, and his research was carried out at the Clarendon Laboratory under Lord Cherwell. His immediate supervisor was Dr Douglas Roaf. In the acknowledgements in his thesis he thanked the distinguished academics with whom he worked but, typically, on the deck that provided protection against magnetic

V A L E T E O B I T U A R I E S

David Lawry Booth

included the five technicians who built his experimental apparatus. David retired early and lived with, and supported, his mother all her life. After her death he married his lifelong friend Rosemary Schwerdt. Their marriage of nearly 30 years was a brilliant success, sharing enthusiasms for travel and their love of wild flowers. Rosemary sadly died in August 2018. David did nothing by halves. His meticulous research of the ancestry of his parents was carried out over many years with a computer language that none of us could understand. But the outcomes were remarkable. David discovered that we are all descended from Uncas, a Mohican chief. Amazingly, we also now know from David that the Booths are direct descendants of Alfred the Great, William the Conqueror, and no less than seven saints! In his final years David fought motor neurone disease, but retained all his enthusiasm, and was planning new projects, right to the end. BROOMHEAD – On 15th July 2018, John Peter Broomhead (C, 1946). Manchester University 1951- 54, BA. Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve 1954-56. Motor Agent. BUCKLE – On 7th October 2018, Ian Buckle (C, 1943- 1948). Ian’s son, Andrew, has kindly sent us this obituary: