Obituaries
Please alert us to the recent death of any other Rhodes Scholar by emailing communications@rhodeshouse.ox.ac.uk.
Ron graduated summa cum laude from Brigham Young University; served an LDS mission in Guatemala; was a Rhodes Scholar at Oriel College, University of Oxford, England; and graduated from Columbia University Law School, where he was an Editor of Articles for the Law Review. Ron served as a judicial clerk at the US Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit, Washington, D.C. For four years. Ron was Assistant Professor of Law at the University of Arizona Law School. He was an associate at law firms in Washington, D.C., New York City, NY, and Phoenix, AZ. He was an avid scratch golfer.
We were saddened to learn of the death of Thomas Vargish at the age of 84.
Born in 1939 in Granville, New York, Thomas was the son of a college dean and a psychiatric social worker, and he excelled academically from an early age, attending Fair Haven High School in Vermont before completing his undergraduate studies at Columbia University with a Bachelor of Arts in 1960. He came to Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar at Merton College, earning a degree in English in 1962 and later a Master of Arts in 1967, while also pursuing research for a BLitt.
Thomas continued his academic journey with a PhD from Princeton University, where he was a National Fellow. His professional career was marked by a longstanding commitment to teaching and scholarship: he served on the faculty at Dartmouth College from 1965, progressing from instructor to full professor and Academic Director of the Dartmouth Institute. In 1990, he became Professor of English at the University of Maryland-Baltimore County. He was also recognised as a Guggenheim Fellow in 1972 to work on a book on the religious background of Victorian fiction, and authored several works including Newman: The Contemplation of Mind (1970), The Providential Aesthetic in Victorian Fiction (1985), and Inside Relativity (1987), alongside numerous articles.
William Harley Henry, Harley to all, died peacefully in his sleep in Grinnell, IA on August 31, 2023. He was 86 years old. Born in southwestern Pennsylvania in the town of Brownsville, he moved to Atlantic Beach, Florida, in 1949 with his mother Ruth and sister Sue Ann. He attended Kenyon College (‘59), Oxford University on a Rhodes Scholarship (’62), and Johns Hopkins University where he received his MA and Ph.D. in English. Harley settled in St. Paul with his then wife, Meser, and 3-week-old daughter, Astrid in 1966 to take a teaching job in the English department at Macalester College, where he stayed until his retirement in 1999.
His European adventures in college, academic sabbaticals, and personal travel, earned him a well-stamped passport. A lifelong lover of baseball, music, and education, Harley continued to pursue these passions up until the end of his life. Whether playing in a jazz band, leading a book club, catching a ballgame, or watching a “crimi”, Harley was always happy to share his analysis and insights. As said by a friend after hearing the news of Harley’s passing, “We have lost a brave, brilliant, kind companion— and a pretty good alto sax man, too!”
Harley is survived by his three children, Astrid, Axel (Mikeya) and Else (Alex).
Karen first joined the Department of Geography at UBC as an assistant professor in 2002, having earned her PhD at Oxford University, where she was a Rhodes Scholar. Twenty-one years later, she leaves an astonishing record of achievement: as Fellow of the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study 2022-3; as recipient of a John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship 2022, a SSHRC Connection Award and Trudeau Fellowship in 2017; and as Stanford University’s Annenberg Fellow in Communication, and Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada’s College of New Scholars. She is the author of more than 100 academic publications and seven books.
In recent years, Karen brought her geographical fascination with environmental perception and scientific world-making to the realm of sound. In The Sounds of Life (Princeton 2021), Karen builds a prismatic portrait of planetary ecology through the medium of chirps, buzzes, and low cetacean moans. The book garnered immediate critical acclaim, including from the very scientists it featured. It also reaches a broad public through her recent TED Talk. Karen’s next book Gaia’s Web (upcoming with MIT Press) explores how interconnected digital and natural networks will impact biodiversity conservation, environmental governance, and cultivate greater empathy for other species. Both books drew from her Smart Earth Project seeking to mobilize digital technologies to address some of the most pressing challenges of the Anthropocene.
Read the full obituary here
We are saddened to hear that Julian Ogilvie Thompson, informally known as JOT, has passed away in Johannesburg at the age of 89.
JOT served for many years as a dedicated and valued Rhodes Trustee, and was also founding Trustee of the Mandela Rhodes Foundation from 2003 to 2020.
“Julian is remembered as a true gentleman. He possessed a rigorous intellect which he brought to bear on the formative years of the MRF. We appreciated his seventeen years of service to the Foundation, and we send our heartfelt condolences to his family,” said Professor Njabulo S. Ndebele, Chairman of The Mandela Rhodes Foundation’s Board of Trustees.
JOT was a South African mining executive known for the roles he played in De Beers, Minorco and Anglo American. He was a founding trustee of The Mandela Rhodes Foundation, serving from 2003 until June 2020. JOT played a pivotal role in the early days. He connected founding CEO Shaun Johnson to Nicky Oppenheimer, ultimately leading to the donation of the Rhodes Building to Nelson Mandela; the building became the headquarters of the newly established MRF. The donation provided the Foundation with an operational headquarters and a significant asset. As a trustee he also contributed significantly to the governance of the Foundation in its early years through his involvement in the Investment Committee, the Finance/Audit/Risk Committee and the Executive Committee.
JOT was born in Cape Town and studied at Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar. He proceeded to have an extraordinary career, starting out as Harry Oppenheimer’s assistant at De Beers in 1957 and ultimately becoming chairman of Anglo American. JOT was an important link between the MRF and the mining companies that grew out of Rhodes’ original company De Beers; he was also familiar with the world of the Rhodes Trust, the MRF’s founding partner organisation.
Thomas Swoverland Clayton, age 90 of St. Paul, died August 9 surrounded by family from complications of prostate cancer. Professor Clayton, Regents Professor Emeritus in English at the University of Minnesota, was a distinguished scholar of Shakespeare, Seventeenth Century British Literature and Classics. He was preceded in death by his parents, Robert and Vida (Swoverland) Clayton and his beloved wife Ruth (Madson) Clayton. Tom is survived by Janice Derksen, his partner and companion of 29 years; children, Pamela Clayton Schultz, Katherine Clayton (James McKernon), John Clayton, and David Clayton; grandchildren Dayna Cossetta and Sam Clayton; great-grandchildren Miles, Thomas, and Ava.
Tom was born in New Ulm, MN in 1932. The family lived in several towns in Wisconsin including New Richmond and Viroqua before settling in Winona in 1943, where Tom’s father managed the JC Penney store. He attended Phelps Primary School and Winona High School, where Tom was remembered by classmates as athletic, good-looking, bright and “a wizard of words.” Tom joined the Boy Scouts and in 1947 was awarded the rank of Eagle Scout. Following his junior year of high school, Tom passed the entrance exam to the University of Chicago and was off to start his academic life.
Read the full obituary here
Christopher Seán Day, beloved father, husband, friend, and adventurer, died peacefully at home with his family in Greenwich, CT, on July 27, 2023. He was 74.
Seán, as he was known to all, was born on June 5, 1949, in Cape Town, South Africa to Joan and Eric Day. From his parents, he inherited his moral compass, stoicism, and independent spirit. Seán grew up first in Cape Town and later in Knysna, South Africa, during the apartheid regime. His family strongly opposed the movement, and his parents had relocated to South Africa from Ireland in 1948 as part of General Jan Smuts’ efforts to defeat the Nationalist Party.
At just six years old, Seán began attending boarding school at the South African College School in Cape Town, from which he graduated. Seán loved ships and the sea from his earliest memories, and at 17, he followed this passion and enrolled in the South Africa Merchant Marine Academy. He then spent several years at sea as a cadet in the merchant marine. In 1968, he resumed his studies at the University of Cape Town, earning a degree in business. While a student at UCT, he competed in the first Cape to Rio Yacht Race—the longest continent-to-continent sailing yacht race in the southern hemisphere—as a crew member aboard the Merchant Marine Academy boat. Seán was awarded a Rhodes scholarship, and after completing his national military service as a navigating officer on a destroyer in the South African Navy, he studied law at Oxford University in England beginning in 1972.
After graduating from Oxford, Seán joined the Scottish trading house Jardine Matheson in Hong Kong, where he served as commercial manager of their ship-owning group, the Indo-China Steam Navigation Company. Following two years in Hong Kong and one year in Taipei with Jardines, he joined the Canadian ship-owning group Fed Nav as an operations manager based in Montreal, Canada. During this time, Seán met his future wife, Virginia (Ginny) Farrell, then a student at Harvard Business School. They were introduced by their close friends, Dick and Lisa Cashin.
Seán and Ginny married in 1981 and settled in New York. In 1982 he joined Navios Corporation. After restructuring and restoring Navios, Seán briefly left the shipping industry to work at Citicorp Venture Capital for several years.
In 1989, Seán rejoined Navios and eventually became CEO. In 1999, he joined the Teekay Corporation as its chairman until 2017. At the time of his death, he was Chairman Emeritus of Teekay Corporation and Compass Diversified. During his life, he served on many boards, including Navios Corporation, Teekay Tankers, Teekay Offshore Partners, Teekay LNG Partners, Compass Diversified Holdings, Teekay Corporation and Kirby Corporation.
Graham, the middle child of three boys was born May 31, 1929, to Harry and Florence Jeffries in Barmera on the Murray River in South Australia. He moved with his family to New Zealand at a young age. He graduated from Auckland University College and the Otago Medical School of the University of New Zealand. He was New Zealand Junior Champion and record holder in the High Jump and competed as a New Zealand representative in the British Empire Games in 1950.
As a Rhodes Scholar, he spent three years at Oxford University and completed a Doctor of Philosophy in Experimental Pathology in 1955. Graham was President of the Oxford University Athletic Club and competed as a high jumper in numerous track & field events against Welsh, Irish and US university teams. In 1954, his last year at Oxford, Graham participated in the meet where Roger Bannister broke the 4-minute mile world record.
In 1955, Graham married the love of his life, Elizabeth Jones of Pelham, New York, and returned to Oxford to continue his Residency Training in Internal Medicine. In 1958, he came to the United States as a Fellow in Gastroenterology at The New York Hospital – Cornell University Medical College. He joined the faculty and was appointed as Chief of the Division of Gastroenterology in 1967 and served as an attending physician at New York Hospital.
In 1969, Graham was recruited to be the founding Chairman of the Department of Medicine at The Pennsylvania State University College of Medicine in Hershey, PA and served in the capacity until 1988. The early years of his chairmanship were devoted to the recruitment of faculty in the Department of Medicine, the development of patient care programs, and the teaching of medical students and residents. Over the next two decades, he institutionalized a strong, balanced academic program of patient care, teaching, and research that remains today.
A member of numerous scientific societies, Graham distinguished himself as a clinician, teacher, and clinical scholar. Author of more than eighty scientific papers, he served as editor or reviewer for leading medical journals and textbooks. In 1983 he was a Fulbright Visiting Scholar in India, and in 1984, he served as a visiting professor at the University of Zimbabwe. Each year for 15 years since 1989, Graham and Elizabeth spent two months at a mission hospital in the highlands of Kenya with a group of medical students and residents.
He and Elizabeth raised their four children in Hershey and lived and worked there for over 53 years. Graham’s keen intellect drove his leisure pursuits. He had an extensive garden and especially loved orchids and feeding the birds. He collected grandfather clocks, blue & white Chinese porcelain, and other fine furnishings. He was an avid reader and loved researching medical history and family ancestry. He played racquetball, tennis, and golf at various stages of his life and enjoyed cooking and canning fruits and vegetables. Graham cooked the best New Zealand leg of lamb dinner and often invited medical students, residents, and friends to join in on family gatherings. He and Elizabeth enjoyed traveling the world with visits back to New Zealand and Australia to see family, as well as spending summers in their 2nd home in Jaffrey, New Hampshire. In his later years, he became a prolific painter, painting many of the places he visited throughout his life.
Hildebrand was the national president of the Australian Institute of International Affairs (AIIA) between 2005 and 2010. He was also President of the Queensland branch of the AIIA. Hildebrand was made a Fellow of the Australian Institute of International Affairs in 2016.
AIIA National Vice President Zara Kimpton OAM, remembers Hildebrand as an innovator who improved the governance and practices of the institute. She notes that Hildebrand led the institute to conduct a major review of its business, and that Hildebrand was influential in the decision by the AIIA National Executive in appointing Melissa Conley Tyler, then the youngest and to date the longest-serving national executive director of the institute.
Hildebrand was an industry executive, active in mining. Born in Gladstone Queensland in 1937, then educated at Yeronga State and Brisbane Grammar Schools, University of Queensland (BE (Mining)) and as Queensland 1960 Rhodes Scholar at Oxford (MA (PPE)), he started his mineral industry career as a miner at Mount Isa. He later lived in Melbourne (twice), Sydney, Johannesburg and Brisbane.
He was the managing director of coal company QCT resources. After retiring from QCT in 1994, he took up the directorship or chair of a number of public companies and other organisations and, as Chair of the Sugar R&D Corporation from 1995 to 2002, he published his independent assessment of the sugar industry, commissioned by then Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry Warren Truss MP.
He had an ongoing involvement in higher education, latterly with Griffith University as council member for eight years from 1989, honorary professor in business-related schools since 1995, member of the Griffith University Quality Committee during quality audits of Australian universities in the early 1990s and a member of the advisory board of the Key Centre of Ethics, Law, Justice and Governance. In 1999 he was awarded DUniv (Doctor of the University) by Griffith. He was a member of the State Ministerial advisory body on public health, Health Promotion Queensland.