Obituaries
Please alert us to the recent death of any other Rhodes Scholar by emailing communications@rhodeshouse.ox.ac.uk.
Christopher Heywood studied English, Afrikaans, French and Philosophy at the University of Stellenbosch. As a Rhodes Scholar, he obtained a BA in English Language and Literature at New College, Oxford. His research interests included Anglo-French literary relations and African/South African literature.
Christopher was a Senior Lecturer in the Department of English Literature at the University of Sheffield, Professor of English at the University of Ife, (now Obafemi Awolowo University) and at Okayama University in Japan.
Christopher loved music and played violin in several orchestras. He also enjoyed painting and travelling in his free time.
Ambassador W. Richard Jacobs, who contributed to significant social change in the Caribbean and Africa, died in Kingston, Jamaica on February 11, 2021. He was the first person of colour to attend the Collegiate School for Boys in Manhattan, the oldest educational institution in the United States. He excelled there as a student, actor and athlete. He served as captain of the basketball team and co-captain of the football team.
He attended Colby College in Maine for his freshman year, then transferred to warmer climes at the University of the West Indies (UWI), Mona, Jamaica in 1963. There, he excelled in both scholarship and student leadership and was elected in 1966 as President of the Guild of Undergraduates. In 1968 he was awarded a Rhodes Scholarship and went on to attend Oxford University in the United Kingdom (UK). While there, he married June Powell of Mandeville, Jamaica. They had two daughters, Olayinka and Nasolo.
As part of his Rhodes Scholarship studies, Ambassador Jacobs went to Zambia, where he conducted research on the trade union movement in Africa. He returned to Trinidad-Tobago in the mid-seventies, where he lectured for 10 years at UWI, St. Augustine. Ambassador Jacobs compiled an extensive body of scholarship throughout his life. He was the author of numerous books and articles addressing social and political issues in the Caribbean and Africa.
David Calder studied Law at Oxford University as a Rhodes Scholar. He went on to work at Birkbeck Montagu's & Co as a Solicitor.
A professor of physics, astronomy and electrical engineering at USC for nearly 50 years, Robert W. Hellwarth was a laser innovator and a beloved mentor.
Hellwarth was offered a scholarship to Princeton University, where he was valedictorian of his class, earning a dual undergraduate degree in physics and electrical engineering in 1952. He was selected as a Rhodes Scholar and spent the next three years at the University of Oxford, earning his doctorate in physics in 1955 and becoming a lifelong Anglophile.
A fellow of the U.S. National Academies of Sciences and Engineering, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the American Physical Society, the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers and the Optical Society of America (OSA), Hellwarth was also the recipient of the OSA’s Charles Hard Townes Award.
Hellwarth wrote or co-authored more than 200 papers and articles, the last published in 2018, shortly before his 88th birthday.
Bob frequently returned to Oxford over the years, during which he'd meet with colleagues dating back to his Rhodes years, make recurring appearances at the Clarendon Laboratory, and popping in for tea at St. John's.
Read more from USC Dornsife and the LA Times. Read Ben Hellwarth's Obituary for his father, Robert.
Graham Boustred was the deputy chair of the Anglo American Corporation in the 1980s and '90s. Boustred joined the South African Navy in 1943 and after the war he went and studied Chemistry at Trinity.
Jon Westling graduated from Reed College in Oregon. He was awarded a Rhodes Scholarship in 1964 and studied history at St. John’s College, Oxford University.
Westling’s career at Boston University spanned 46 years and included several top leadership posts, although his most lasting avocation was teaching students about the history of Europe. He came to the University in 1974 to work on a project to produce films for the US Bicentennial. While that project never materialized, John Silber (Hon.’95), then BU president, took notice of the 32-year-old and drew him into his administration. He was named provost in 1984, and later became executive vice president. Westling (Hon.’03) served as president of the University from 1996 to 2002.
Westling was proud of his activities as a Freedom Rider, including participation in a sit-in in southern Virginia in 1963.
Jim Redmond obtained his Bachelor of Arts and Law degrees from the University of Alberta, where he was gold medalist in his law class and was the recipient of the Rhodes Scholarship.
Jim practiced law for 60 years. He was one of Canada's leading trial lawyers and an international arbitrator. He mentored countless young lawyers, served as a Bencher of the Law Society of Alberta, and as a lecturer at the University of Alberta. Jim was a lifelong student of the law, attending legal conferences, seminars and courses around the world into his eighties.
Jim loved and supported the Edmonton Arts including the Symphony, Opera, Citadel and the local jazz scene.
Carter Revard was born in Pawhuska, Oklahoma, in 1931. Revard was raised, along with six siblings and cousins, aunts and uncles, in the Buck Creek Valley on the Osage reservation — a great, extended “mixed-blood family of Indian and Irish and Scotch-Irish folks,” as he described it in his 2001 autobiography, “Winning the Dustbowl.”
After eighth grade, Revard graduated from Bartlesville College High School. His twin, Maxine, encouraged him to enter a radio quiz contest, and his third place finish won him a scholarship to the University of Tulsa, where he earned a bachelor’s degree in 1952. That same year, Revard was awarded the Rhodes Scholarship to study at Merton College at the University of Oxford, and he received his Osage name, Nom-peh-wah-theh (“fear inspiring”), from his grandmother, Josephine Jump.
Known for his groundbreaking scholarship on the Harley manuscript, a 14th-century collection of secular and religious lyrics now housed in the British Library, Revard also was an accomplished poet whose work frequently explored Native American themes, beginning with the chapbook “My Right Hand Don’t Leave Me No More” (1970).
Upon graduation Jim was awarded the Rhodes Scholarship for the Province of New Brunswick. After two years at the University College Oxford, where he played on the Oxford hockey team, Jim completed a BSc in research. He continued his studies at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology where he received his PhD in Geochemistry in 1961. Jim came to McMaster University in September 1961. He had a passion for research and early on in his career built a mass spectrometer and made use of the McMaster nuclear reactor to aid in his research.
Jim enjoyed working with his students both in the lab and the field and believed strongly in the contributions they made together towards the scientific knowledge base of geology. Over the course of his career, Jim worked with graduate students from all over the world to expand the understanding of gold and the platinum group metals.