Obituaries
John Martin 1932-2010 John Martin, formerly Director of the Institute of Languages and Linguistics, died on 25 November 2010. He was born on the 13 November 1932 in Leigh, Lancashire. He attended Leigh Grammar School and won a scholarship to Emmanuel College, Cambridge, where he read Modern Languages, specialising in German and French. After graduation, he served for two years in the RAF, studied German literature at Princeton University, and then, in 1960, took up the post of Lektor at the University of Göttingen. He was appointed to a Lectureship at the Royal Naval College, Dartmouth in 1964 and in the following year to a Lectureship at Kent. Later, he became Director of the Language Centre and when the Centre was threatened with closure, with great determination he transformed it into the Institute of Languages and Linguistics, developing new degree-level and graduate courses. As a means of extending the Institute’s scope, he set about learning Turkish and later taught it. He retired from the University in 1993. When John became interested in the Turkish language, he threw himself into the study of Turkish history and culture and became a champion of all things Turkish. He developed close links between Kent and Bogaziçi University in Istanbul. For a number of years John played a vitally important role in the organisation of the Turkish Area Study Group, becoming its Chairman in 1990. Together with his wife, Sigi, he produced its journal and played a major part in the running of conferences and other events. He was for a number of years an active member of the Kent branch of the Association of University Teachers, and was for a time its Chairman. John had a passion for music. He played the organ and the piano, he played the cello in the University orchestra, and he taught each of his four children to play an instrument. In 1963, John met Sigrid Wünscher in Göttingen and they were married in 1965 in Vlotho, Sigi’s home town. They moved to Canterbury, where they became known for their extreme generosity and hospitality. It is impossible to calculate the number of dinner parties they have hosted, birthday celebrations, weddings, or just family get-togethers where
friends were welcomed. But most of all, it is as a family that they leave the most lasting impression: John, Sigi, Alice, Ben, Rupert and Tessa, Roddy and Dominika, and a growing number of grandchildren. Maurice Vile
Alfred William Brian Simpson 1931-2011 Brian Simpson was an internationally renowned legal historian and professor in Kent Law School for a decade from 1973. He also served as Dean of the Faculty of Social Sciences. He sadly died in January 2011. Born in Kendal in Westmoreland, he attended Oakham School before gaining a scholarship to The Queen’s College, Oxford. National Service intervened, largely spent in West Africa. On his return to Oxford, Brian gained a first class degree in jurisprudence. A junior research fellowship at St Edmund Hall was followed by a fellowship at Lincoln College. It was during this time that he married Kathleen and had two children Charles and Carol. His reputation as a rising star was cemented in 1961 by the publication of An Introduction to the History of the Land Law. This slim volume, which dealt with the joys of seisin, remainders, and mortmain, (complex legal doctrines evolving at the very birth of the common law), has been described as an ‘exemplification of elegant and accurate legal writing.’ Over the next decade, Brian’s attention turned to the history of the law of contract, with groundbreaking articles. But his life went through several metamorphoses – in the early 1960s, he was a visiting professor at Dalhousie University in Canada. In 1968, he was Dean of Ghana Law School and it was in Ghana that Brian met an archaeologist, Caroline, who became his second wife and mother to Zoë, Jane and Tim. After Ghana, Brian became Professor of Law at Kent and served as Dean. Faculty meetings were not then the calm waters of nowadays – Kent was still a new institution searching for an identity and passions ran high. Brian ruled with good sense and good humour.
During this period, he sat on important government committees on law reform – the Advisory Group on the Law of Rape, as well as the Committee on Obscenity and Film Censorship, chaired by philosopher Bernard Williams. Brian published an account in Pornography and Politics. In 2001, Brian was appointed as an honorary QC. Lord Irvine, said: ‘He is seen as having created a new genre of legal history through his study of great cases of the past...’. This meant that Brian was renowned for taking a leading case and exploring with meticulous scholarship, its social, cultural and intellectual context. This is known in the trade as ‘doing a Simpson’. In recent years, Brian immersed himself in human rights, in writing opinions for the European Court of Human Rights and on his account of the birth of the European Convention on Human Rights in Human Rights and the End of Empire. He also advised the AIRE (Advice on Individual Rights in Europe) Centre in London, which works for persecuted individuals in Europe and could be found at the University of Tirana in Albania teaching human rights. Brian was an inspirational teacher and an international scholar of immense influence. He will be sorely missed. Steve Uglow
Professor Mark KinkeadWeekes FBA 1931-2011 It is with great regret that the University reports the death of Professor Mark Kinkead-Weekes, Emeritus Professor of English and American Literature, on 7 March 2011. Mark KinkeadWeekes was first appointed to the University as a lecturer in English in 1965 following a previous academic appointment at the University of Edinburgh. Mark was Professor of English and American Literature from 1974-1985 and ProVice-Chancellor from 1974-1977. Mark’s academic distinction was recognised by his election as Fellow of the British Academy in 1992. Mark made a significant contribution to English at Kent, to Rutherford College and to University management. He was much loved by staff and students and will be greatly missed.
KENT Magazine
13