David Theobald (OW 1953)

(10 July 1934 – 8 February 2022)

We have been informed of the death of David W Theobald. We send our condolences to his wife, family and friends.

We are grateful to David’s daughter Jane Buckley for these words about her father.

My father David Theobald attended MCS from 1945 to 1952 and often talked about his days there, particularly of the maths teacher Mr Elam and his dog and of the art teacher who worked in a shed but was really inspiring! The school drew out the best in my father and launched him into a life where intellectual pursuits and an intellectual rigour together with a keen interest in nature and the arts, stayed with him for the whole of his life.

From MCS he went up to Queens College, Oxford to graduate with a First Class degree in Chemistry, whilst also pursuing interests in maths and philosophy and the arts including archaeology (meeting my mother at a lecture on Assurbanipal) but not forgetting the less erudite side of student life. On one occasion, he went punting with some friends and a barrel of beer and arrived at my mother’s flat after the punt and gently slithered down the door frame, somewhat the worse for wear!

After graduation, he went on to complete a DPhil and then a Diploma in Education (balancing his practical teaching assignments for the latter with visits to galleries up in London to start his collection of exhibition catalogues). in 1960 he married my mother, Janet Mabbott and after their honeymoon, they headed out to the University of Strasbourg where Dad had a NATO fellowship and worked in the laboratories. On alternate days, they spoke French and English in the lab and there were a lot of jokes and fun, around the serious work! My parents were in Strasbourg for a year, a much more unusual and brave thing to do in those days than now when such work placements are a bit more widespread.

On their return to the UK, my father got a job at the University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology (UMIST) and taught both chemistry and philosophy. He had good relationships with students as I found when by chance, I ended up sharing a rented house with an ex-student of his, years later! Apparently he was a stickler for punctuality and he would end a lecture on the dot of ten to the hour, in the middle of a sentence and would resume the following week with the rest of the sentence – the first time he did this, he ensured that the students would turn up because they were curious to see if he would really start mid-sentence! He did! During his time in Manchester, he also wrote two books (The Concept of Energy (1966) and An Introduction to the Philosophy of Science (1968) and did a talk on The BBC Third Programme (Chariots in the Clouds). At about this time, I was born but I think his attention was more focused on his academic pursuits than his daughter until I started to speak and then his philosophic mind could really get going with someone new to speech! He was a very caring and supportive father.

His whole working life was spent at UMIST and he retired early to move back to his beloved Oxfordshire (settling in the village of Hailey) and to spend his time on his other interests – watercolour painting, music (he played the ‘cello and the double bass and dabbled with the piano but was always open to all types and genres of music) walking and cycling the paths and routes of the countryside around Hailey, flora and fauna and building a beautiful garden around their house. To the end of his life, he was interested in philosophy and continued to read widely both books and journals.

He is survived by his wife Janet and myself, his daughter. I live in Newcastle upon Tyne and my mother has moved up here too now,so the tie with Oxfordshire has gone but we remember him with immense love and miss him greatly. It was his wish that he lived long enough to see his granddaughter graduate (from Cambridge, the rival!) sadly he didn’t live to see her graduate with a First Class degree like him,  (in Modern and Medieval Languages) in June 2022 but he would have been very proud and very happy to see the academic rigour and achievement passing on to another generation of his family.