Obituaries

Peter John Barrett passed away on 28 June 2022 while briefly hospitalised in his home town of Durban, South Africa. Predeceased by his wife Ann, he is survived by two daughters, Sue and Jenny, two granddaughters, Leonie and Keira, and sadly missed by them, by his three younger siblings, and by nine nephews and nieces.

Peter was born on 1 January 1934 in Bulawayo, Southern Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) and raised in Plumtree, Southern Rhodesia, where his parents were school teachers. From age 11 he attended Plumtree School, a highly acclaimed boarding school where he was an exceptional all-rounder. A fine scholar, he was also good at games – cricket, hockey, tennis and golf – and a good enough pianist to accompany a school Gilbert and 
Sullivan production. In 1950, his final year, he was captain of the Rhodesian Schools cricket team.

Canon Bryan Greene’s mission to the University of Cape Town (UCT) in the early 1950s completely changed Peter’s life. A strong influence too was the University’s YMCA, at which he would later meet his future wife, Ann Tyrrell. In 1955, he entered Worcester College as a Rhodes Scholar. He aimed at a doctorate in physics, but, due to his background in electrical engineering and diverse interests, finished with a BA. In 1962, however, he returned to England from lecturing in physics at UCT to complete a doctorate in experimental 
physics at Imperial College London and work on plasma physics, first at Culham Laboratory and then at UCLA. In 1972, he embarked on a successful career at the University of Natal (now Kwazulu-Natal, UKZN). Sabbaticals included two years at Princeton, three months in Alaska and a spell in Japan.

All this time, Peter’s Christian faith governed his life. This showed in his interest in people, wide circle of friends, and unwavering kind and gentle behaviour. On retiring from UKZN’s Physics Department at the age of 60, he continued with research, now in science and theology, related to the work of John Polkinghorne. Into his eighties, his research papers funded annual trips to conferences in England, where typically he spent 
a week or two at St John’s College, Oxford and at Gladstone’s Library near Chester. In recent years, Peter was increasingly frail and unable to travel, his last two and a half years spent in Caister Lodge, an attractive retirement complex in Durban. To the end his mind was still sharp and his concern for others still strong.

Read full obituary here.

Roger won the Natal Rhodes Scholarship, and embarked on his doctoral studies in Oxford, where he had the good fortune to come under the supervision of AD (David) Buckingham (FRS, 1975; CBE, 1997). Roger was David’s first graduate student, and he obtained his D. Phil. from Oxford in 1959, with three joint papers on the dielectric properties of liquids. David and Roger’s deep friendship and highly creative academic collaboration would prove to last a lifetime. Roger continued research in molecular physics in Oxford as a post-doctoral fellow, and was then appointed Lecturer in the Pietermaritzburg Physics Department of the University of Natal in 1960. He was rapidly promoted to Senior Lecturer in 1961, Professor in 1968, and Head of Department in 1974. He subsequently served two threeyear terms as Dean of the Faculty of Science on the Pietermaritzburg Campus, and as Pro-Vice Principal of the Medical School in Durban from 1992 to 1996.

Read the full obituary here. 

Sterling E. Soderlind (known as Jim), a retired executive of Dow Jones & Co. and a former Managing Editor of The Wall Street Journal, died on May 11, 2022. He was a longtime resident of Short Hills NJ, moving to West Caldwell NJ in 2008. He was born Sept. 6, 1926, in Rapelje MT, the son of William J. and Florence Soderlind. His father founded a bank in Rapelje.

Selected as a Rhodes Scholar in 1949, he attended Oxford University, 1950-52, studying Philosophy, Politics and Economics at Keble College. At the University of Montana he earned a B.A. degree in journalism and history in 1950.

Mr. Soderlind began his newspaper career as a reporter for the Minneapolis Tribune in 1952. He joined The Wall Street Journal as a reporter in Chicago in 1955 and a year later became head of the Journal’s Southeast News Bureau in Jacksonville FL. He was transferred in 1957 to New York where he served successively as Journal Page One Editor, Managing Editor, a Page One Journal columnist and Economics Editor for all Dow Jones publications.

He was named Vice President for Planning at Dow Jones in 1977 and played a role in starting Wall Street Journal editions in Asia and Europe. He also was active in the company’s acquisition of community newspapers throughout the United States. He retired in 1992.

Mr. Soderlind served in World War II as an electrician aboard the USS Wasp, an aircraft carrier, in the Pacific. He was a member of the American Association of Rhodes Scholars and Community Congregational Church in Short Hills. He also had a summer residence in Minocqua WI.

He is survived by his wife, the former Helen Boyce, and two daughters, Lori and Sarah, who reside in New York City. A son, Steven, died in 1987.

In his career Jim served as a director of the Richard D. Irwin textbook publisher in Chicago and as a director of Creative Loafing, an alternative newspaper in Tampa.

Jim enjoyed reading nonfiction, keeping a private journal, researching investments and keeping up with the changing media industry. He and Helen met in Minneapolis, where she was a buyer at Dayton’s department store. For many years they vacationed at their lakeside cottage in northern Wisconsin. From 1991 to 2007 they often lived on nearby Little Ripley Island, which Jim bought in 1990. (He said two of his whims in life had worked out: owning an island and a 1966 Volkswagen Beetle.)

Among his newspaper reporter anecdotes, Jim recalled short interviews with President Harry Truman and Presidential candidate Dwight Eisenhower. When Jim was a college newspaper reporter in Missoula, MT, in 1948, Truman gave him three minutes on his train’s observation car after a campaign speech in his race against Thomas Dewey. In 1952 in Minneapolis, candidate Ike took Jim’s questions during a hotel elevator ride.

We are saddened by the news of Christopher's passing. He came to Oxford in 1950 to study Law.

Professor Derek de Sa studied for a DPhil in Pathology at Jesus College, Oxford, as a Rhodes Scholar. He went on to study at the Royal College of Pathologists, and the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada. Derek was a Professor of Pathology at the Children's & Women's Health Centre at the University of British Columbia.

Graduating with Honours in Engineering from the University of Western Australia, Ben then pursued doctoral studies at Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar. Subsequent to graduation, he joined ICI Australia in 1956, became General Manager in 1970 and later contributed to the development of the company in both Canada and the United States.

Upon retirement, Ben devoted his considerable business and management skills to a variety of community and charitable organisations, especially in health and welfare. He was a member of the Council of the University of Melbourne for over ten years and its Deputy Chancellor in 2005-06.

From 1996 to 2016 Ben was a member of the council of Newman College, renewing and consolidating his association with the Jesuit tradition. A "man for other", and a gentleman to his fingertips, Ben will be fondly remembered for his wise and practical advice, especially during the challenges of the University’s transition to the Melbourne Model.

John was a 1958 graduate of West Point Academy and earned his BA and MA at Oxford University, where he was a Rhodes Scholar and rowed crew in the 107th (1961) famous boat race between Oxford and Cambridge.  John continued with a distinguished military career, serving in the United States Army for 33 years where he worked with NATO.  During his military career he earned several medals and awards including the Defense Distinguished Service Medal, the Army Distinguished Service Medal, the Defense Superior Service Medal, two Legion of Merit Awards, the Bronze Star Medal, and the Purple Heart Award. He retired as a Major General in 1991.  After his retirement, he continued a life of service in the Balkans helping Bosnia and Croatia to construct ministries of defense.  He had a strong desire for world peace and was intent on doing his part to improve international relations.

John had a fierce love for his family and friends.  He enjoyed meeting people and attending social functions.  After his retirement, he enjoyed watching sports, mostly football.  He will be missed by those he encountered and influenced throughout his life. 

Ravish Tiwari, National Political Editor and Chief of National Bureau at The Indian Express died on 19 February 2022 at the age of 40. He had been fighting cancer since June 2020. 

Growing up in Deoria in eastern Uttar Pradesh, Ravish studied at the Indian Institute of Technology, where he got his dual B.Tech- M.Tech in metallurgy and material sciences. His passion for questions that go to the heart of politics and society made him switch to social sciences and he studied at Oxford University in 2005-2006 as a Rhodes Scholar.

In a media ecosystem where self-promotion is almost a credo, Tiwari let his stories do the talking. Some of his most recent work included flagging the shifting political wind on the farm laws to the RSS disquiet over the farm protests; revealing how the Government reached out to Congress chief whip the night before it split Jammu and Kashmir to explaining why this year’s Budget kept an arm’s length from politics. His analytical work identified crucial trends including the importance of the first-time voter in 2014 and the political economy of the national rural employment guarantee scheme.

Previously, he was associated with The Economic Times and India Today. As a political reporter, Ravish was sui generis. He treated his job as a vocation, living and breathing politics, and was seldom happier than when reporting from the ground. He had an inexhaustible appetite for work, and an unflappable temperament. A down to earth person, Ravish was generous to a fault, and the public outpouring of grief on his untimely death was an indicator of the impact that he had in his short life. A scholarship for underprivileged students has been started in Ravish’s name at his alma mater IIT Bombay.

Col. Charles Ross Wallis, (US Army, Ret.) age 93 of Folsom, California, died February 17, 2022 in California.  He was born on July 19, 1928 in Little Rock, to the late James Christopher Wallis and Edith (Teta) McCormick Wallis.  Reared and receiving his early education in Malvern, Hope, and Little Rock, he graduated from Little Rock High School in 1946.  He was appointed to the United States Military Academy at West Point, New York, from which he graduated in 1952. Charles was a Rhodes Scholar, and attended Oxford University in Oxford, England, graduating in 1955.  He served in the United States Army from 1946 until his retirement in 1982.  Charles was a college professor from 1985 until 1996 at Trinity International University in Deerfield, Illinois.  He completed his formal education in 2010 after finishing at California Graduate School of Theology. 

He is survived by his wife, Irene C. Wallis of California; two daughters, Sue Wallis of Illinois, and Laura Groome of Texas; a son, Daniel Wallis of Oregon; and by six grandchildren, Stephanie, Kirby and Daniel Groome, and Daliah, Charles, II, and Paul Wallis; and by a great-grandchild, Kyla Pearl Groome.

Also preceding him in death were his first wife, Ruth Ann Shutz Wallis; a son, James C. Wallis, III; a granddaughter, Samantha Lynn Groome; and his sister and brother-in-law, Kaki and Tom Moore.