Lindsay Bryson
Admiral Sir Lindsay Bryson, who died on 24 March at the age of 80, served on Council (the University's governing body) for a decade and chaired it for six years from 1989. At his final meeting in 1995, the then Vice-Chancellor, Professor Gordon Conway, praised Sir Lindsay for his blend of "firmness and consideration". The University awarded him an honorary Doctorate of Laws that year; it was presented by Brian Manley, who succeeded Sir Lindsay as chair of Council.
The current Vice-Chancellor, Professor Alasdair Smith, will attend a service of thanksgiving on Monday (11 April) in St Peter's church, Brighton. He paid tribute to Sir Lindsay for his "remarkable personal achievement in the Navy in working his way up through the ranks as a very talented engineer to the highest level", and added: "He made a huge contribution to the University, particularly as chairman of Council, and to the local community in a number of very significant public roles, especially in support of the cultural and artistic life of Brighton and Hove."
Jim Callaghan
In January 1989 Lord (Jim) Callaghan was one of four local residents to receive an honorary degree from the University. The former Prime Minister, who died on 26 March, farmed 138 acres in Ringmer. He is the only British politician to have held the four most senior posts in government: Chancellor of the Exchequer, Home Secretary, Foreign Secretary and Prime Minister.
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| Ieuan Griffiths |
Ieuan Griffiths
A funeral service was held at the Meeting House on 4 April for Dr Ieuan Griffiths, who died on 22 March.
Appointed to Sussex in 1964, Ieuan made a great contribution to very many aspects of the University's life before his retirement through ill health in 1996. During the 1970s and 1980s, as Reader in Geography he was a passionate, hardworking and longstanding subject chair, as well as holding many other roles. He was Dean of the School of African and Asian Studies for five years from 1975, chairman of Counselling Services from 1980-83, a member of Senate and Council, on the governing board of IDS, and a member of the Mandela Scholarship Fund.
His writings on the geo-politics and transport problems of Africa are well known, with his Atlas of African Affairs (1984) particularly widely used.
His presence on many external committees dealing with geography, with Africa and with Area Studies (he was, for example, chair of the Standing Committee on University Studies of Africa) brought him into contact with wide fields of concern, and he therefore will be missed not only by his former colleagues here at Sussex, but by many scholars throughout the world.
An athlete, a devoted family man and proud Welshman, one source of sadness will be his inability to savour with his colleagues the triumph of Wales in the Six Nations rugby championship this year.
Brian Short, Professor of Geography
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| Sydney Lloyd |
Sydney Lloyd
Sydney Lloyd, retired Visiting Senior Research Reader in Electronic Engineering, has died at the age of 74. Syd, as he was more commonly known, joined the University in 1985 as a lecturer, progressing to senior lecturer in 1996. In 1998 he won the Institution of Electrical Engineers' FC Williams Premium prize for his paper on 'Variable structure adaptive control of robot manipulators', while in 1990 he became a Faraday Lecturer. Syd officially retired in 2000 but continued working in the School of Engineering and Information Technology (EIT) until 2002.
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| Stephen Parker |
Steve Parker
Steve Parker, a familiar figure on campus in his role as a Senior Security Patrolman, died suddenly on 29 March at the age of 58. Formerly a prison officer in Zimbabwe, Steve worked for the University for more than 20 years, retiring in June 2004 because of ill health.
Ben Reynolds, Security Shift Leader, worked with Steve for 10 years and says his nickname at work was 'Badger' because of his hair. "Steve was a very witty, intelligent individual. He enjoyed doing the Argus crossword and puzzles, as well as reading autobiographies and military history."
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| Humphrey Spender receiving his honorary degree in 2000 from Chancellor Lord Attenborough |
Humphrey Spender
The associations between Sussex and Humphrey Spender, who died on 11 March at the age of 94, go back to the 1970s when it gave a home to his inter-war photographs of working-class people in two Lancastrian towns.
Humphrey was one of the first participants in the Mass-Observation project, which specialises in material about everyday life in Britain. His pictures of Blackpool and Bolton now form part of the Mass-Observation Archive, which is in the care of the University.
Many of the images featured in his first one-man photographic exhibition, 'Worktown', which the Gardner Arts Centre hosted In 1977 and was jointly organised by Sussex art historian David Alan Mellor.
In 1997 Humphrey visited campus to discuss his life and work in a Life Histories research seminar. He returned to Brighton in 2000 to receive an honorary degree from the University.
The renown of Humphrey's work has since brought other collections to Sussex. When Euan Duff, a freelance photo-journalist, donated three collections of photographs to the Mass-Observation Archive in 2002, he said it was partly because he "liked the idea of sharing a home with Humphrey Spender".