Obituaries

After leaving Vitoria College, University of Toronto, Ken served in the Canadian Forces Intelligence Corps, 1944-46. He studied at Balliol College and graduated from Oxford with a PPE degree in 1948. His 40 year career in Foreign Service started in the Department of External Affairs. He worked in the Havana, Washington, attended UN conferences and he was also Canadian Ambassador to Cuba, Haiti and Sweden.

Contrary to common perception, some critics never lose their enthusiasm or desire for discovery. David Murray, who has died aged 79, was a music critic for the Financial Times for 27 years and the epitome of the ever-questing intellect. No boundaries seemed to exist in his embrace of music past and present. No work was too obscure or too small to rouse his interest. Born in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Murray spent his Canadian childhood with an omnivorous appetite for the arts. By his teens he was already excelling in multiple fields. As a pianist, he performed with success in piano competitions, his technique enabling him to master Ravel’s Piano Concerto In G, among others. As a composer, he wrote incidental music for radio plays. As a director, he worked in the theatre. As an actor, he performed in a Canadian radio series that was seen as a forerunner of the popular British radio series The Archers. In a lighter vein he was also an expert conjuror in his youth.It cannot have come as a surprise when, at 19, he arrived as a Rhodes Scholar at Magdalen College, Oxford. A postgraduate year in Paris followed, and he was never to forget hearing Messiaen practise as organist at the Église de la Sainte-Trinité. Although he returned briefly to Canada to work in Edmonton, Alberta, it was a move to London that was to decide the future path of his career. This would be divided between two areas of expertise: philosophy and music.

From 'David Murray, FT music critic and academic, 1937-2016', by Richard Fairman, The Financial Times, 20 June 2016. 

Mr Hurlock led a distinguished forty-one-year career at the law firm of White & Case, where for twenty years he served as Managing Partner overseeing the firm's global expansion. He was a Director and Chairman of Orient Express Hotels, Deputy Chairman of Acergy, and Interim CEO of Stolt-Nielson Transportation Group. He was a founding board member of the International Development Law Organization and served as Chairman from 2001-2004. He was a Trustee of the Corporation of Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, New York Presbyterian Hospital, and the Parker School of Foreign and Comparative Law at Columbia University, where he served as Chairman. In 2010 the New York State Bar Association bestowed on him its Root/Stimson Award for exemplary commitment to community service. Mr Hurlock loved fishing, hunting and sailing with his family, and completed a transatlantic race and seven Bermuda races, the first in 1962. External Link <http://www.legacy.com/obituaries/nytimes/obituary.aspx?pid=179830206>

William studied PPP at Oxford and then went to Harvard Law School. His law career spanned 31 years.

Following his time as a Rhodes Scholar in Oxford, he began medical school at Stanford University, and after completing both medical and surgical residencies at Massachusetts General Hospital, he returned to Stanford to complete his training in cardiothoracic surgery under the tutelage of Dr Norman Shumway. His career ultimately led him to Yale University, where he served as Chief of Cardiothoracic Surgery and performed the first successful heart-lung transplant on the East Coast, then to Baylor College of Medicine, where he served as Chairman of the Department of Surgery. In accordance with his life-long dedication to academics, he became Dean of Dartmouth Medical School, President of the Immune Disease Institute at Harvard, and finally returned to his native Texas when he was appointed President of the Health Sciences Center at Texas Tech University. Over the course of his career, Dr Baldwin published hundreds of scientific papers, delivered national and international presentations, and was honored with professional recognition and awards. He was a passionate advocate for universal access to healthcare and human rights within the United States and abroad, and unwaveringly championed his convictions through national publications, governmental hearings, and friendly personal debate. In recognition of these efforts, he was appointed by President Barack Obama to serve on the U.S. Defense Health Board – a federal advisory committee responsible for overseeing military healthcare. Dr Baldwin passed away following a tragic swimming accident along the Pacific coastline in San Diego, California.

Mike read Jurisprudence as a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford and practised law throughout his life. He was also former master of the Oxford and Cambridge Society Kenya.

With a PhD in Physics, Dr Williams was tempted to academia but ultimately pursued a career in business, rising to the top of Royal Dutch Shell, a company he remained with throughout his career. In retirement he became Chairman of Hess Oil Company.

For over 40 years Professor Gerald McNiece worked in the English department of the University of Arizona. His publications include books on the poets Percy Bysshe Shelley and Samuel Taylor Coleridge. He gained a BLitt in English as a Rhodes Scholars and received his PhD from Harvard in 1966.

Lester achieved a first class degree in PPE at Balliol College and went on to become an economist who was known for his prescient warnings about the growing income gap between rich and poor Americans. He gained a PhD at Harvard and was as a Professor of Economics at MIT. He was the dean of the MIT Sloan School of Management from 1987 to 1993 and a founder of the Economic Policy Institute, an influential progressive research group. His main work was on the income gap and globalisation.