It is with great sadness that the University of Buckingham mourns the passing of one of our most distinguished Honorary Graduates, Professor John Anthony Jolowicz, who died on 17 January 2012.
Professor Anthony (Tony) Jolowicz (1926-2012) accepted an Honorary Doctorate from the University in 2000. He was more than an Honorary Graduate, he was both a friend and a supporter of the University, particularly of its small group tutorial system, a personal method of teaching in which he himself was schooled when at Cambridge in the 1940s.
Tony will be remembered for gracing convocation with his erudition and gravitas. With his wife, Poppy, he attended every convocation until his illness in recent years prevented him from travelling to Buckingham. Joining the Honorary Graduates procession each year gave him the opportunity to meet old friends, two of whom were his pupils at Trinity College, Cambridge, Lord Scott of Foscote and the late Lord Slynn of Hadley. Much was shared too, with our former Chancellor, Sir Martin Jacomb, as both he and Professor Jolowicz were barristers, and members of the same Inn (Inner Temple).
Tony Jolowicz was one of three eminent lawyers; Kurt Lipstein and Eli Lauterpacht were his close friends. They were all from eminent legal families and all from Cambridge. Like them, Tony made a major contribution to academic law which ranged across the spectrum of the common law. His well known classic, titled simply Winfield and Jolowicz on Tort, was a text of great depth and complexity and so familiar to all students. He was also the author of the well regarded On Civil Procedure. Tony was a man of many, many distinctions. He was editor of the journal of the Society of Public Teachers of Law for some twenty years, and in this capacity he was able to shape the academe’s jurisprudential discourse and debate.
He will be remembered by his friends at the University of Buckingham as a man of great intellect, and on a personal level, as a great man of much humility. He was self-deprecating, generous, a man of considerable warmth who had a good sense of humour.
Professor Susan Edwards, Barrister (Inner Temple)
Dr Mary Welstead (PhD Cantab) Visiting Professor
