Falmer House under construction 1959-60: a sketch by Barbara Shields

A meeting of the University's Planning Committee in the Villa Serbelloni on Italy's Lake Como in the spring of 1968

All friends and former colleagues are welcome at the funeral service of ex-staff member Barbara Shields, who died on 7 February.

Barbara worked in the health centre during the early days of the University, when her husband Ted Shields was the University’s first Registrar. He and founding Vice-Chancellor John Fulton laid the foundations of the University - from drafting the Charter to selecting the first undergraduates.

Barbara, a professionally trained artist, studied in South Africa at the Rhodes University School of Fine Art, at Brighton College of Art and at the School of Art in Adelaide, Australia.

While her husband worked from a temporary desk in Stanmer House, Barbara sketched the construction of Falmer House nearby.

These early sketches were not seen in public until an exhibition on campus in 2012 – at a time when Barbara still continued to practise as a busy and committed artist.

Barbara also recorded the early days of the University in photographs.

Her image of a meeting of the University's Planning Committee in the Villa Serbelloni on Italy's Lake Como was taken in the spring of 1968.

Sussex historian Maurice Hutt, elegant in white shirt and cravat in the photo, later recalled that his committee colleagues showed little interest in the news he brought to them of unrest in universities across Europe. This was despite the incident early that year when a US diplomat visiting campus was doused in red paint by Sussex students demonstrating about the USA's involvement in the Vietnam War.

Ted and Barbara left for Australia in 1973 when Ted was appointed as Registrar of the University of Adelaide. On his retirement, the couple returned to live in Sussex. Ted died in June 1991.

All friends and former colleagues are welcome at Barbara’s funeral service on Wednesday 22 February; it will take place at the Woodvale Crematorium in Brighton at 11.30am.

There will be a reception afterwards at Flat 136, Block 44, Wick Hall, Furze Hill, Brighton BN31NJ.