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William Wakelin

New Zealand & University 1964

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Born in Arapuni, New Zealand in 1941, William Wakelin studied at Auckland University and the University of Canterbury, Christchurch before coming to Oxford to read for a DPhil in chemical engineering. After a period working in the UK, he returned to New Zealand and followed a career in consulting engineering. Wakelin’s work as President of the New Zealand Rhodes Scholars Association was invaluable in encouraging and supporting students applying for the Scholarship. He was also a key implementer behind the New Zealand Rhodes Scholars Association Oral History Project, and interviews for the project are now held by the National Library of New Zealand. This narrative is excerpted from an interview with the Rhodes Trust on 24 September 2024.

‘We were looking outwards all the time’

I’m the eldest of five children and we grew up on a farm in the Waikato. We learned to milk cows and shear sheep, and we only went to the nearby town for provisions or, later, to go to school. So, it was a pretty isolated and we learned to enjoy each other’s company as a family. We spent a lot of our time outdoors, especially learning to play sports amongst ourselves, and since then, sport has always been a very important part of my life. Indoors, our recreation was reading, and I especially liked adventure books. We were looking outwards all the time, thinking, ‘What’s the world all about?’ This was the time straight after the Second World War. There was a lot of rationing of food and people didn’t have the money for luxuries. I remember when we bought our first refrigerator, and we were only able to afford it because that year, the selling of wool brought in a lot of money for farmers.

After primary school, I went on to Plymouth Boys’ High School, and because of the distance from home, I boarded there. That’s where schooling really started for me and I became much more serious about my studies. I went on to do chemical engineering at university and started with what’s called engineering intermediate, where you do chemistry, physics, maths and applied maths for a year at any university. I went to Auckland, and I passed my exams, but my marks weren’t very good. It was going to the University of Canterbury in Christchurch to do the professional engineering course that opened my eyes a bit and by the time I’d finished my undergraduate degree, I had first-class honours. Alongside that, I became president of the students’ association, and I also played rugby for Canterbury university. We sometimes had All Blacks playing for us, and mixing with people who were such high performers was certainly good for me.

On applying for the Rhodes Scholarship

I started a PhD at the University of Canterbury and part way through my first year, my professor suggested I should try for the Rhodes Scholarship. I didn’t know anything about it, but I managed to speak to one or two other people who had been Rhodes Scholars and that got me enthused. There was a regional interview at Canterbury and then a national interview at Government House in Wellington, and at the end of that year, 1963, I was one of the two New Zealanders that were selected to go to Oxford.

In those days, you had to go to England by ship, and it took 35 days. Other than one trip to Australia, I’d never been out of New Zealand, and it was a memorable voyage. I’d recommend anyone to take a trip like that. Even when I arrived in Oxford, I wasn’t sure whether I wanted to do an undergraduate or a postgraduate degree. I opted for a DPhil in engineering science, but there were hardly any chemical engineers in Oxford at that time. For that course option, it would have been better if I’d gone to Cambridge. But I persevered and eventually, I got both an engineering supervisor and a chemistry supervisor for my doctoral work. Unfortunately, my chemistry supervisor then left to go to the US. I managed to get the degree completed, but it was sad not having the chemistry supervisor input.

‘You really saw the other Rhodes Scholars come to life’

I enjoyed seeing the buildings around me in Oxford that had been there for 600 years or more. It was so different from anything in New Zealand, and Oxford had a lot to offer. During my first term, I was still feeling the ground and starting to get my equipment set up for my DPhil, so, in the meantime, I played rugby. I also spent a lot of time at Rhodes House, where I was a member of the Raleigh Club that invited all sorts of dignitaries from around the world to come and address us. We got to ask them questions, and that’s when you really saw the other Rhodes Scholars come to life and take part.

I loved my three years at Oxford. I played rugby for Oxford University and got a Blue and played at Twickenham. I even tried rowing, which I’d never done before. My college, Univ, had what it called a ‘Rugby Eight,’ so I joined that, but then I got pulled out and put in the college first boat, and we went to regattas all round the United Kingdom and did very well. That was most unexpected, not least because a lot of the English students had been to schools where they had already learned to row. As part of my sporting activities, I got involved in the Vincent Club, which is Oxford’s sporting club, and I found that fascinating, especially as I was on the selection committee for the club and got to know all sorts of people I wouldn’t have met otherwise.

‘We were able to interview people who had really made their mark’

After I’d finished with my DPhil, I got a job working in London at a very large multinational chemical engineering company, Humphries and Glasgow Ltd. We were involved in the big gas and oil industry projects around Europe and around the world, and we did a lot of work designing and building chemical plants. I didn’t come back to New Zealand until 1972, and the reason was because my wife and I had two daughters, and we suddenly thought, ‘Well, do we want to educate our children in England, or do we want to educate them in New Zealand?’ When we came back, I worked with an animal vaccine pharmaceutical company for a time, and then I joined a consulting engineering company that employed engineers, chemists and architects, and that’s where I stayed for the rest of my working life. The company designed a range of high rise buildings, and we developed a particular skill base for large freezing works. I was particularly involved in new developments, for example, the Kiwi fruit industry, the harvesting of shiitake mushrooms using wood chips, and processing of industrial waste for recovery of valuable by products.

I also got involved in a whole range of activities to do with professional engineering in New Zealand. As part of IPENZ, the Institution of Professional Engineers New Zealand, I was involved in interviewing people for membership, and evaluating overseas and New Zealand university engineering courses. At the same time, I became part of the New Zealand Rhodes Scholar Association, working to publicise the Scholarship through our newsletter and going to universities to share information and encourage students to apply. We kept in touch with the New Zealand Rhodes Scholars who had gone to Oxford and asked them to write pieces or comment on their experiences in the UK.

In 2012, another Scholar from New Zealand, Paul Tipping (1965, Oriel) and I started an oral history project, interviewing New Zealand Rhodes Scholars. At that time, it meant travelling to where they were, so some of our interviews were done overseas. We spent around ten years on the project, interviewing around 15 or so Scholars, and now the records for the project are held in New Zealand’s National Library. Quite often, we were able to interview people who had really made their mark and who were coming towards the end of their lives, so it was especially good that we were able to make a record of their achievements.

‘Oxford is more than just study’

Obviously, over the years, the perception of Cecil Rhodes has changed a lot, and in my view, the further that Rhodes House departs from the Cecil Rhodes legacy the better. Did Oxford help me? It certainly opened my eyes to a lot of things, including the ability to travel, in the UK and in Europe.

I was always aware that there were a lot more activities going on in Oxford than you could possibly get involved with. Some people just put their heads in their books, but I think that’s a great pity, because that means they miss out on a lot. Oxford is more than just study. I think, as a Rhodes Scholar, you’ve got to risk yourself a little bit, try something even if you don’t know whether it’s going to hurt you or not, or whether you’re going to be interested or not. Being in Oxford is an opportunity to try lots of things, if you’re game.

Transcript

Interviewee: William Wakelin (New Zealand & University 1964) [hereafter ‘WW’]

Moderator: Syed Khalid (India & St Antony’s 2023) [hereafter ‘SK’]

Date of interview: 24 September 2024

[file begins 00:03]

SK: Okay. Can you please state your name for the recording?

WW: Yes. My name is William Sam Wakelin.

SK: Okay. And do I have your permission to record this interview?

WW: Okay, amazing. So, Bill, why don’t we begin with you telling us a little bit about your background. When and where were you born and where did your ancestors come from, and what was your family like?

WW: Yes. Well, I was born in New Zealand, in a place called Arapuni. Arapuni is a very small town on one of your hydroelectric power stations in the North Island, in the Waikato. And I’m the eldest of five children. I had three brothers and a sister, and two of my brothers were identical twins, so, that made living in the family pretty interesting. I was born during the Second World War, 2 September 1941. So, for a few years, our family was a bit disjointed, as my father went overseas to fight in the Pacific Islands. But when he came back, we moved to a farm, a dairy farm and sheep farm in the Waikato.

So, as a family, we were all brought up on farm, which we would think was pretty special, and we learned to milk cows, learned to sheer sheep, and all those things that go with farming. And that was at a place called Tokoroa in the Waikato, in the North Island. So, yes, we were brought up as an isolated family, I suppose, because we didn’t live in a city or a town. We only went there when we went to school. So, we were collected by bus from our farm every day to go to school and then brought back by bus again. So, the only times we went into town were when we wanted to buy provisions and then, the family would hop in the car and our father would drive us into the local town to do our shopping, and back again. So, we didn’t really have a town life like most people do and we learned to enjoy each other’s company as a family, because we didn’t have friends to play with and we didn’t have relations that were close by. So, that was, sort of, the background to the way I was brought up.

SK: And so, what was New Zealand like at this time? What are your memories of that time, from your childhood?

WW: Well, yes, that was straight after the Second World War and, like most countries, people were undergoing hardships. There was a lot of rationing of food. So, we didn’t get all the delights that we can now get, and people were very careful with their money. We didn’t have money to travel around and buy luxuries. I always remember, in about 1952, we bought our first refrigerator, because that year, the selling of wool brought in a lot of money for farmers, and so, we could afford to buy a refrigerator. So, I’ll always remember that, and there were things similar to that. But as the country developed after the Second World War, people became more affluent, could buy motor cars, could buy tractors, could buy things that we take for granted, these days anyway. So, that was what New Zealand was like. It was a small country, only a few million people, two or three million people. And I guess, yes, it was a life we lived outdoors mainly, living on a farm.

SK: And so, I’m guessing since you spent so much time outdoors, a lot of your hobbies would be centred around outdoor life, playing.

WW: Yes. And typical of farming in those days, the boys helped the father on the farm. So, we learned to use all the implements, all the tractors, to cut hay, to bale hay, sow crops and learn to milk cows and process the animals. And my sister pretty much lived at home with our mother. So, she learned all the things to do with housekeeping and cooking and things like that. So, that was pretty typical of how we lived in those days. But you’re right: because we lived outdoors, we learned to play sports amongst ourselves, to learn to play cricket and to play tennis and learn to kick a rugby ball around. So, we enjoyed those sorts of sports. And then, when we came back inside, we did a lot of reading. That was our recreation. There was no television in those days. So, we learned to read and did a lot of reading. Yes.

SK: And what kind of reading did you do? What kind of books were you interested in?

WW: Mainly adventure books, if I remember rightly. Yes. We were looking outwards all the time, thinking, ‘What’s the world all about?’

SK: Okay.

WW: But yes, we did do a lot of reading.

SK: Okay. So, as you said, the only taste of town life that you had was through the school you went to.

WW: Yes.

SK: So, can you tell us a bit more about your primary and high school education, your time at school?

WW: Sure. The town – we called it a town. It wasn’t a city. It was about 15,000 people – was called Tokoroa, and it was well known because we had a very large pulp and paper mill there which processed timber. Pine forests were sawn for timber and then chipped up and there was pulp and paper produced, and it’s a very large mill, and it’s still operating now. So, that’s what the town was known for at this stage. It was also a centre for the farming community. But yes, we went to one school. There was only one primary school where I went to school and when I left to go to secondary school, there were then two or three primary schools formed, because the town was growing. But primary school years, we call it from primer one. We had primer 1 and primer 2, then standard 1 to standard 6. I don’t know. People don’t talk about those things now. They talk about year 1 to year 8. I think that’s how they refer to primary school in New Zealand. And once you go to secondary school, you get year 9 to year 13.

So, that was how the place was set up at that stage. Yes. Because Tokoroa didn’t have any high school when I was there, once you’d finished with primary school, you had to go somewhere else, and our family ended up by going to what’s called New Plymouth Boys’ High School. That’s where the boys went, and that was in a place called Taranaki in New Zealand. So, we travelled by bus to get there, took all day, and we were boarders at the boarding school.

So, for my secondary school years, I was a boarder. So, yes, at school all day, every day. And my sister also went to the local Plymouth Girls’ High School as a boarder. So, that was our secondary school life. We didn’t really spend it on the farm. We came home on the holidays, and when we came home on the holidays, we’d learned to help our father with the farm and the farming work, and we were back to school again. So, it became a little bit tortuous. I guess most people who go to boarding schools feel the same way. And you get accustomed to living with your family and your mother and father and suddenly, you’re off again for ten or 13 weeks and you don’t see them again.

SK: Yes.

WW: So, yes, that was a little bit tough. But primary school was interesting because, as I said, we bussed to the primary school and learned all the basic things we wanted to do there. We learned to play a bit of sport, I suppose. And at the end of it, I was head boy the last year at the school.

SK: Okay.

WW: So, I don’t think we achieved very much, but that was what happened. But secondary school is where schooling really started for all of us, and that’s when we became much more serious.

SK: Okay. And where did you go to college?

WW: You mean university?

SK: Yes, university.

WW: You know, I’d spent five years at the secondary school [10:00] as a boarder and then I chose to do chemical engineering as a course at university. So, my first year, I spent in Auckland University. It’s what they call engineering intermediate, where you can take your four subjects – chemistry, physics, maths and applied maths – and you can do those at any university in New Zealand for the first year. And then, the second year, I went to a special university for chemical engineers which was in Christchurch in the South Island. So, I then spent the next three years doing the professional chemical engineering course. And Christchurch is a city that I learned to like very much. But again, it was a long way from home, and so, once you’d get down to Christchurch, you didn’t see your parents again for a long time.

But that was the two universities, first Auckland and then Christchurch, or University of Canterbury, it’s called. So, I did my undergraduate degree there and then decided to do postgraduate work as well. So, I started a PhD in chemical engineering at Canterbury in 1963. But part way through that year, my professor, Stan Seaman, said to me, ‘Bill, you ever thought of going for a scholarship overseas?’ So, he was the first person who approached me and said, ‘Have you heard of a Rhodes Scholarship?’ And I hadn’t at that stage. I didn’t know anything about it. But I managed to speak to one or two other people who had been Rhodes Scholars and got me enthused. So, at the end of that 1963 year, I applied and went to the various interviews. There was an interview first at Canterbury University, and then national interview, which was at Government House in Wellington, and at the end of that year, I was one of the two New Zealanders that were selected that year to go to Oxford. So, that’s how it started.

SK: Yes. That must have been a big moment. But before we go into your life at Oxford, I just wanted to ask you a bit more about any memorable successes or accomplishments or challenges at either Auckland or Christchurch when you were a student.

WW: A bit of both. At Auckland, in what they call the engineering intermediate, I passed that year of my exams. The marks weren’t very good: I think there was one C and three Bs. And when I went to Canterbury, it’s almost as though the light opened my eyes a bit and I improved in both my marks, and when I finished my undergraduate degree, I had a first-class honours degree, and that’s why they suggested, ‘Bill, why don’t you do a PhD? You know, you’re obviously capable of it.’ So, that was a highlight for me, getting the first-class honours degree and then embarking on a PhD. And because I got the Rhodes Scholarship, I didn’t have time to finish my PhD, as I had to leave in about August of the following year to arrive in time for the term. And so, the academics said, ‘Bill, write it up as a master’s degree.’ So, I wrote up what I’d been doing as research for a master’s in chemical engineering, and when I went to Oxford, I started a completely new course entirely.

But, no, the highlights: I played a lot of rugby. Sport, for me, was a big thing, and I played rugby for Canterbury University, which was one of the big university colleges at the time, and quite memorable years they were, because sometimes, in our team, we had All Blacks playing with us and so, you’re mixing with people who are good performers and high performers, and that helped me a lot. Later, when I went to Oxford, it helped a lot. Other things of note: again, it was a time when I guess we did a lot of-, I was a biker. I used to go biking to get to university, rather than by car or bus. So, we learned to ride push bikes everywhere, and, I don’t know, we kept ourselves pretty fit. So, it was a good time in our life, really. But I also got interested in music and always have been, I think as a result of all of that. I tried to learn to play the piano, but one of the problems was, when I’d been playing rugby on a Saturday and I took my music lessons on a Monday morning , I found that my fingers had been kicked or beaten or whatever, and were swollen, and I couldn’t get my key fingers down between the black keys to press the white keys, and things like that. So, it was difficult to learn to play the piano.

But I also part in student association work at the university. I was on the student association executive in 1963 and then I got elected as president, and so, from 1964, I was president of the students’ association for the university. That had some memorable moments, because, at that time, the Springboks rugby team was about to tour New Zealand and all the people in New Zealand were up in arms about, you know, this team coming to New Zealand to play – apartheid and all that thing. And so, there were motions passed at the university to stop the tour. This was back in 1964. So, I was involved in the student organisation, the student body discussing these matters. So, it was an interesting time. So, it was an interesting time, interesting time. I guess it all led to going off to Oxford, anyway, in 1964, and we travelled there by ship.

SK: Okay.

WW: You had to go by ship in those days. It took 35 days, and it was a memorable voyage, but arriving in Oxford in about September 1964. So, it was good. It was a good time. I recommend that any young people should do a trip like that, when you’re about 20, 21, 22.

SK: So, when you went to Oxford, did you have a plan for what you wanted to do in the next five or ten years, or were you just exploring?

WW: Well, because when I arrived there, I was aged 22 or 23, I thought, ‘Well, do I do an undergraduate degree, or do I do postgraduate? And I think I was convinced to do a postgraduate degree?’ And I think I was convinced to do a postgraduate degree, so, I enrolled into a DPhil in engineering science, as it was called then. Oxford, unfortunately, didn’t have any chemical engineers. They were all over at Cambridge, and it would have been far better if I’d gone to Cambridge to do chemical engineering. But I persevered with Oxford and had an engineering supervisor and a chemistry supervisor, and my topic at that stage was high-temperature reactions in DC electric arcs. And so, the engineering part of it was good, but then my chemistry supervisor departed after about one year and went over to the States, the USA. So, I ended up not having a chemistry supervisor. So, I think that was a sadness really, about the PhD work or DPhil work. I managed to get it done, though, get it all worked out. But that really-, other things I could have done? Undergraduates do degrees like PPE, etc. That could have been a choice. But I seemed to feel I was that much older than a lot of the other, young undergraduates, and yes, didn’t quite reckon on doing that.

SK: So, was this your first time outside New Zealand, when you came to Oxford?

WW: Pretty much. In 1956, Melbourne in Australia held the Olympic Games and there was a group of us from New Plymouth Boys’ High School. 40 of us went across to the Olympic Games. And that was the year that I was supposed to have sat my school certificate, which was a big exam in New Zealand at that time, and because I was at the Olympic Games, I didn’t have to sit that exam. So, yes, I went to Australia, and that was about my big trip. Apart from that, I hadn’t been overseas, no. [20:00] No.

SK: So, when you first arrived in Oxford, what was the experience like, of the city?

WW: When I arrived, term hadn’t started.

SK: Okay.

WW: And so, I was the only person in college, at University College – that’s where I was – except there was another student there who was leaving Oxford, going down, and he was a New Zealander, a Rhodes Scholar, and he was about to go to the USA, where he stayed for the rest of his life. And he also played rugby, so, he and I got talking and then we decided, ‘Oh, there’s nothing happening in Oxford right now.’ The place was quiet. So, we went up to the Lake District for three or four days and walked around the Lake District, then we came back to Oxford. I thought Carfax was a fascinating place, because we were on the High Street and I used to walk up to Carfax and look around. No, I enjoyed the historical, I suppose, evidence in front of me of all these buildings that had been there for 600 years and all the places and names that were starting to become familiar to me, including the little pubs and especially the colleges too, and Rhodes House. I got to know Rhodes House pretty well, because when you first arrive, I guess that’s where you really make your mark, get your money starting to come in.

Yes, Oxford I enjoyed, because it was different from anything in New Zealand, of course, historically. I mean, our buildings only go back 100 years, 150 years at the most, and so, historically, Oxford had a lot to offer, especially for an Antipodean like me. I guess mostly, we waited until the term, started, and then you started to mix and go and see things and do things. Yes. But my first term at Oxford, really, I was feeling the ground. I hadn’t started my DPhil. I was trying to get the topic agreed with supervisors and because it was going to be a practical DPhil, I had to start assembling equipment as well and getting that organised. So, it took me about a year to get my equipment set up for the PhD. So, in the meantime, first term at Oxford, rugby term, I played rugby, and that was a fun thing to do that particular year.

SK: And did you visit Rhodes House a lot? Did you spend a lot of time there?

WW: Most of the time-, the things I remember at Rhodes House was, they had a group there called the Rawley [guess 23:10] Club. I don’t know if it’s still in existence.

SK: I don’t think so.

WW: When it was there, we used to invite all sorts of dignitaries from around the world, like prime ministers, etc., to come and address us, and we’d sit around a fireplace in Rhodes House, probably about 20 or 30 of us, and just be entertained by, you know, these various dignitaries who had made their mark around the world and were talking to us. So, we could talk to them and interview them, and that was most memorable, because that’s when you really saw all the other Rhodes Scholars as well, from various nationalities, taking part. So, yes, Rhodes House, for me, that particular one was very significant. I enjoyed that experience. Yes.

SK: And after Oxford, did you go back to New Zealand or did you stay in the UK?

WW: No, no, no. With Oxford, I really enjoyed the three years I took for my DPhil and played a lot of sport – sport always comes into my life somewhere – and so, having played rugby for Oxford and got a Blue and played at Twickenham, etc., London was familiar to me.

SK: Okay.

WW: And so, after I’d finished with my DPhil, I got a job working in London at a very large multinational chemical engineering company and spent the next four or five years working with them in London. So, yes, I didn’t go back to New Zealand at that stage. But I got married after I left Oxford. My wife came from New Zealand and she’d come across on a ship also, partway through my degree course. And Rhodes Scholars weren’t allowed to be married at that stage, so, a lot of Rhodes Scholars, at the end of their three years in Oxford, decided to get married. And so, it was quite a rush of people getting married.

But anyway, we found a maisonette in Wembley Park in London. That’s where we lived for the next five years, and I took the Tube into Victoria every day to go and work within our firm, which had its head office in Victoria. And it was a big firm: it had 1000 engineers in the head office and also had 1000 engineers on construction sites. So, we were involved in the big gas and oil industry projects around Europe and around the world, and also big chemical projects that were on in England as well. There was a firm called Imperial Chemical Industries, ICI, which was very large in those days in England. I don’t think it exists anymore, but things change. But we did a lot of work building chemical plants and designing and building them, and that encouraged me to stay in London, which I found fascinating work.

So, I didn’t come back to New Zealand until 1972. We had two children at that stage, two daughters, and we suddenly thought, ‘Well, do we want to educate our children in England or do we want to educate them in New Zealand?’ And that was one of the reasons that we looked at coming back to New Zealand and working here. And that was the turning point. When we did come back to visit our families, we suddenly thought, ‘Well, let’s see what’s going. Is there any work that we can do in New Zealand that would interest us?’ And I had offers of three jobs when I came back, and I thought, ‘Well, okay, maybe there is. Maybe I can enjoy it.’ And so, I accepted one job in a big pharmaceutical company that was building plants in New Zealand, and the rest is history, I guess. I worked with that company three or four years until the owners of that company decided to close it down, or close down what we were doing. So, I was made redundant and then I thought, ‘Oh, well, what do we know?’ So, I joined a consulting engineering company in New Zealand that had engineers, chemists, architects, a range of people, and worked with them for the rest of my working life. Yes.

SK: When you came back to New Zealand, where did you settle?

WW: Yes. I could have settled in Auckland or Wellington. As it was, I chose Wellington and lived in a place called Upper Hutt. It’s a suburb of Wellington, and that’s also where the pharmaceutical company was based. So, it was pretty easy for me just to go from home to the workplace. So, I lived in Wellington for the rest of my life, working life anyway. Even though I hadn’t, as a kid or a young child, been there, it’s certainly where I went when I came back from England.

SK: Can you tell us a bit about the kind of work that you did for the company that you were working at?

WW: This particular consulting engineering company was well known for high-rise buildings and architectural buildings, commercial buildings in Wellington, but also had lots of engineers who were working with the big food processing plants that we have in New Zealand, the freezing works that slaughter animals and produced frozen carcasses at that time, and these were all shipped overseas, and a lot of them went to Great Britain. But these were big companies, and our engineers and architects or whatever were designing these buildings and getting them going and getting them operating. So, that was what the firm was doing.

When I joined them, they hadn’t had any chemical engineers, so, we got involved in [30:00] things called, well, I suppose, chemical processing, of which, in New Zealand, there is milk processing, which is very large, and the whole range of activities associated with wastewater engineering, and I got involved a lot with that as well, recycling of components. So, it was a mixture, and I employed a number of young chemical engineers from universities in New Zealand and so, we developed a bit of a skill base in those particular areas and new developments, or a number of people were quite interested in new developments such as the Kiwi fruit industry or the harvesting of shiitake mushrooms made from wood chips rather than out in the oak forests. There were a number of developments like that which we got involved with, and to help develop with the clients, and to build plants that were good for them.

SK: And when did you conceive of the project to start working on the oral history project for New Zealand Rhodes Scholars? When was that?

WW: Yes. Well, I got involved in a whole range of activities to do with the engineering system in New Zealand. The system in New Zealand, the engineering activities, is IPENZ, the Institution of Professional Engineers New Zealand. It’s called IPENZ. So, for many years, I was involved with them, with a whole range of activities, from interviewing people, working on setting exams etc. for people and evaluating overseas and New Zealand university courses as well.

But the oral history project, probably about 2012, there were two of us in Wellington that decide we’d do this as a project and we did it for about ten years, interviewing New Zealand Rhodes Scholars. Some of them, we had to do it overseas. When I was in London at one stage, I interviewed two New Zealand Rhodes Scholars who’d decided to live their lives in the UK. So, it was interesting, and other people would interview for the oral history project, and I guess all the records are kept in New Zealand’s National Library, both the audio recordings and also, we made abstracts of all the recordings, and so, these were filed there as well. So, they’re all sitting there for people to go and research if they want to. But after about ten years, we were thinking, ‘Gosh, this is getting a bit tough. We should be getting younger people to come and do this.’ So, that was one of the problems, was trying to find people who had the time and effort to train for it. There was a training operation as well, carried out by the National Library, and then, to just get the equipment and have time to do it. So, yes, I’m sorry that we haven’t continued with it really, but we tried for a while.

SK: No, no, absolutely. That’s very valuable work. And what was your experience like, doing this project and interviewing people?

WW: Like you, I guess, we had a series of questions which we based it on, and we tried to do it in people’s own environment, in their homes, if we could, just go and visit people in their homes to try and do this. Occasionally, it would be in their office. But no, I found, yes, you had to try and be careful not to say too much, as the interviewer. I think you’re doing very well. You just ask a simple question, let the person talk. So, you’ve got to be careful not to say too much yourself, but no, and the people, when we’d finished with them, we gave them a copy, of course, of the abstract, and they could have the audio copy as well. Quite often, we caught people just before they died, which was very interesting. You know, there were people who had made their reputation, made their mark, and we interviewed them, recorded it, and then you found a couple of years later, they had died. So, the record was there. It was good. Yes.

SK: So, how many Scholars had you interviewed?

WW: Oh, I think I sent you a list, did I?

SK: You did.

WW: About a dozen, maybe 15. There were two of us, and I think my colleague, in the end, didn’t have time to do it, or he pulled out, and I tried to get someone else to help me, but it was a bit difficult. So, it would have been about 15, yes.

SK: Okay, I see. [technical issues 35:44-46]. So, were there other projects that you were involved with along with this, or were there other things that you were working on as well?

WW: Well, I was also involved with what we call the New Zealand Rhodes Scholars Association, and this was also difficult. We never had a great number of Rhodes Scholars in New Zealand. We only had two every year. And of course, if some of those decided to work overseas and stay overseas, that made it difficult getting enough people to have, you know, big meetings or anything like that. So, I joined-, well, the association had probably half a dozen Rhodes Scholars who got together every year whenever the interviews were done in November for the next year’s Rhodes Scholars. They were done in Wellington. And so, once the announcements had been made, we invited those people to have dinner with us in quite a swanky restaurant in Wellington. So, we did this every year and kept in touch with the Rhodes Scholars when they went to Oxford. We also had a newsletter which we put out, and our secretary at that time used to contact the Rhodes Scholars in Oxford and get them to write something or to comment on their experiences and history in Oxford.

So, we did that every year. This has been going, as far as I’ve been aware and associated with it, for about ten or 15 years, and it was quite good to encourage people to take part. But we also used to go around the universities and, I suppose, to encourage students to apply. For instance, we’d go to Canterbury University and there would be three of us and we’d invite students who were interested in the Rhodes Scholarship to come and talk to us. So, we’d have an evening with them where they could ask questions, we could tell them what we knew and just get them interested and ready to apply for the Rhodes Scholarship. So, we’ve done this every year for about the last 30 years, which has been good. It’s been good. And of course, now that we have women Rhodes Scholars, we have three people each year selected from New Zealand, and it’s made a big difference, I think, to the interest, as well, in the Scholarship.

SK: And do you think the Scholarship has changed, or the perception of it in New Zealand or your community has changed over the years?

WW: I think the perception of Cecil Rhodes has certainly changed. There are a lot of people now who are very critical, of course, of what he did and how he earned his money to sponsor this. So, the further that Rhodes House gets away from Cecil Rhodes as such and organises its funding to support the Rhodes Scholarship, probably, the better, because there are quite a lot of people who feel quite bitter about what Cecil Rhodes actually did as part of his life. So, the Rhodes Scholarship, yes, I think there are other scholarships now available which probably equate almost in value to the Rhodes, and so, there’s a lot more competition now for good students, to compete. Yes, I think it has changed. I think in my particular case, [40:00] yes, Cambridge would have been better than Oxford, but I’ll never say that.

SK: That’s okay. So, on that note, if I could just ask, what impact do you think the Scholarship has had on your life?

WW: Well, Khalid, I think it had an immense impact. Once I’d lived in the UK for a while and the opportunities that I had-, I think, as a New Zealander, I was able to move within the United Kingdom quite freely. There were other nationalities that found it difficult living there, and I had some Australian friends who never felt comfortable living in England and for some reason, they just couldn’t do it. But I used to think that maybe as a New Zealander, for some reason, we’re accepted easier, and I found myself mixing with the so-called upper class in England, because of people I knew at Oxford. I’d go home with them on weekends, I’d go and do activities with them, and I found that they accepted me without any question mark as to what school I went to or, you know, who my parents were or anything like that, and I found that fascinating, for me, anyway, at that stage in life.

And once I got to London, I found that because I was an Oxford Blue in rugby and the All Blacks have such a reputation over there for rugby, I was used a lot in a marketing operation where they pushed me in front of managing directors, so, because I could talk to them about all sorts of things and it tended to open up doors, as I put it, and just-, I don’t know, it worked in my favour, I suppose, wherever I went like that. So, that made a big difference. If I’d been in New Zealand, I probably would never have experienced that sort of exposure. No. But the ability to travel, also, Khalid, in Europe, for instance: it’s on your doorstep. And so, what do you do when you’re a Rhodes Scholar? In your holidays, you go off trekking or you go off looking in some places. So, that was an opportunity which I took advantage of as well, and certainly, when I lived in London, I did too, because the United Kingdom – you know, Ireland, Scotland, Wales – they all became places that I used to explore as well. But Europe as well. We used to go on skiing holidays in Austria and in Norway. Well, they just opened all sorts of avenues for us as students. I just loved it. Yes, enjoyed it.

SK: Given that you had such a rich life in Oxford, what was the most unexpected thing that happened to you there?

WW: One of the things I did was, having played rugby-, each college has rowing as a sport, and they have their own rowing boats. And so, I was in University College, and having played rugby, they said, ‘We’ve got a boat called a “Rugby Eight.” We’d like you to row in the Rugby Eight.’ And I’d never rowed in my life before. So, I did that year and we had, I guess, a fair bit of success or something, and then I got pulled out of that boat and got put into the University College boat, the first boat, and we used to go in regattas all round the United Kingdom, rowed at Henley, rowed at all these regattas, and we did very well, and for me, that was most unexpected. I never expected to be able to do that, because in England, all these public school kids that learn to row in the various colleges and schools come to Oxford and expect to row for their colleges, and they do, except you get someone like me that comes in and gets thrust into the boat and performs just as well as they do, and they think, ‘Well, is this really fair? Is this fair? We’ve been working all our lives to try and do this.’ So, that was unexpected, and that was something I enjoyed. It was fun, tongue-in-cheek, because I was really there to read for a DPhil, not to play sport and row boats. So, it was unexpected.

SK: If I were to ask a more personal question, what guides your choices and decision-making, and what is the cost involved in that?

WW: Interesting question, Khalid. I think-, what guides these? It depends on your upbringing as a child and your family upbringing. I mean, that’s where you learn, I guess, what the values are and what is right and what is wrong. I think also, you can’t be impressed by the finance, you know, all money aspects that you see when you go to a place like Oxford. There are those who are very wealthy, there are those who struggle, and to try and think and think of how you’re going to guide yourself through all your life, and-, I don’t know. I guess we had a Christian upbringing as children that was typical for New Zealand and not so now. It’s quite different now. But when we were brought up, that was our background, I guess. And so, yes, to understand what we understand, anyway, for right and wrong, for people who are undervalued. You know, the whole apartheid issue became very big for us in New Zealand and for the world, I guess, and there has been a lot of learning about situations like that, about racism and our own country. I mean, we have this problem that we sometimes try and put aside, but we probably think we’re doing better than other people. I don’t know. But there are lots of issues like that, that, every time you come up against it, you say, ‘Okay, what are my values? What do I understand is the right thing to do in this situation?’ So, did Oxford help me? It certainly opened my eyes to a lot of things that were going on, but I didn’t really get involved in politics at Oxford. I didn’t go to the Union debates or anything like that. I could have done, but probably, it wasn’t me. It wasn’t me for that one. I don’t think I’ve answered that question very well, Khalid.

SK: No, you have. You have.

WW: It’s a struggle.

SK: Sure. So, what motivates and inspires you today?

WW: Well, I think when you’ve got family around you, you know, you’ve got children and grandchildren, and you are aware that you are a role model for a lot of the upcoming generation-, so, what inspires me is to try and encourage them to give things a go, to do what they want, rather than what they’re told to do, try and, yes, make them full people in their own right. You know, when they’re choosing to go university, what is it they really want to do? Is it because their parents want them to do it, or is it because they want to do something themselves that they really like doing? I don’t know. There are things like that, that probably, I’m very much aware of now, in this position in life here. So, it’s trying to encourage those who want to succeed and do well.

SK: And as my final question, do you have any words of advice or wisdom for any Rhodes Scholar, or any listener who might be listening to this?

WW: Well, I think, as a Rhodes Scholar, you want to give it a go. And, as I said, I was aware of some Scholars in Oxford who found the whole thing a bit strange. I mean, I’m thinking of some particular Australians in particular. And I think this is a great pity, because they’re missing out on a lot of activities. Oxford is more than just study. Some people put their heads in their books and, if it’s a PhD or DPhil they’re doing, that’s all they do. [50:00] And I was always aware there’s a lot more going on in Oxford, a lot more other activities that you could be involved with. I got involved with Vincent’s Club, which is the sporting club in Oxford, the Blues club, and while I was there, I was on the committee for the selection of people who were going to join that club, and I found that fascinating for a couple of years, because you get to know a lot of people, and otherwise, I wouldn’t have known any of these people. So, that was something. I think you’ve got to risk yourself a little bit, try something that you don’t know if it’s going to hurt you or not, or whether you’re going to be interested or not. But I think it’s right. Being in Oxford is an opportunity to try all those sorts of things if you’re game, if you’re not too worried about yourself.

SK: Okay. Well, Bill, thank you so much for talking to us today. This was a lovely interview. I really enjoyed it. I hope you did too. And yes, we’ll transcribe this, we’ll make it available to the public and we’ll share it with you.

[file ends 51:28]

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