Aubrey Jones

The Rt Hon Aubrey Jones died on 10 April, aged 91. Since July 1986 he had been part-time Visiting Fellow at SPRU.

An economist and former MP, Aubrey had a deep commitment to the study of technology and technology policy, which had developed especially in the late 1950s when he was Minister of Supply. We recollect inviting Aubrey to address a meeting of the UK Industrial Economics Society in the late 1980s, at which he gave a vigorous speech that included a spirited defence of his decision when Minister to go ahead with the project that became the Concorde supersonic aircraft.

A second tie to SPRU came through his very catholic and pragmatic approach to the politics in which he embroiled himself. This Conservative cabinet minister achieved greater fame as chairman of the Prices and Incomes Board under the Labour government, then in the early 1980s became an unsuccessful Liberal parliamentary candidate in rejection of racism and Thatcherism in the Tory party.

This made it easy for him to associate freely with individuals of a range of political persuasions (or indeed none) in SPRU - at a time when SPRU was (somewhat improbably) regarded in parts of Whitehall as a hotbed of revolutionaries.

He went well beyond the normal performance of part-time SPRU Visiting Fellows in attending our Friday seminar each week - having first attended his weekly yoga class - while continuing to work on approaches to technology in management. His long-term support of SPRU will be deeply missed.

Professor Nick von Tunzelmann and Janet French

Jane Longhurst

Jane Longhurst, whose body was discovered in West Sussex on Easter Saturday after she had mysteriously disappeared five weeks earlier, had trained as a music teacher at Sussex.

Rebecca Seery (née Goldsworthy) was a fellow student of Jane's on the music PGCE from 1995-96. "Jane was an excellent musician," she recalls, "and completely committed to teaching right from the start. She had a great sense of humour and a love of life. She always tried to work things that she was passionate about into her lessons."

Jane played both violin and viola in the University Philharmonia orchestra, which is where she met her partner, Matthew Sentence. Dr Nicholas McKay, Music Subject Chair, remembers "an exceptionally generous, sociable, sensitive and caring musician."

Jane was frequently asked to perform postgraduate students' compositions, a mark of the high regard in which her violin and viola playing was held.

Some years earlier, Jane had formed a piano trio with two former members of Music faculty, Dr Robert Adlington and Michael Downes. Robert remembers "an exceptionally happy time of outstanding music making inspired by Jane's fantastic, natural musical talent".

Jane went on to become a music teacher at Uplands school in Hollingdean. "Her effortless approach to music making will undoubtedly have inspired many of her pupils and associates at Uplands," says Nicholas.

Police believe Jane was murdered shortly after disappearing from her Brighton home on 14 March. Her body was discovered near Pulborough on 19 April.