University mourns the loss of Sir Alan Peacock

4 August 2014

Sir Alan PeacockFollowing the death of the University’s first Vice-Chancellor, Sir Alan Peacock at the weekend, we would like to offer his family our sincere condolences. Former Vice-Chancellor, Professor Terence Kealey, has written the following tribute:

Sir Alan Peacock, who was our second Principal and then first Vice-Chancellor (1980-1984), was one of the greatest individuals to have been associated with the University.

As a young man Alan was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross for sustained gallantry as a naval officer during the Second World War. He served on the Arctic convoys and he was one of those who belatedly received the Arctic Star in 2013. In his private life he was supremely happily married to Margaret for no fewer than 67 years, the marriage coming to an end only with her death three years ago. Alan and Margaret had three children.

Alan Peacock’s work as an academic economist was of such quality that he was elected to a fellowship of the British Academy (the UK’s leading humanities academy). His public service was of such wisdom (his 1986 report on funding the BBC has moulded all subsequent debate over the issue) that he was knighted. And his standing in Scottish life (Alan was a Scot and on retirement he returned to Edinburgh where, amongst other activities, he helped found the David Hume Institute) was such that he was elected a fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, that nation’s preeminent academy.

Sir Alan PeacockAt Buckingham his greatest achievement was to have negotiated our Royal Charter, which turned us from a college into a university. There was huge resistance to our being awarded such a charter, and Alan had to bypass the civil servants and work discreetly with the then Minister of Education, Rhodes Boyson, to negotiate it. It was characteristic of Alan that one of the first matters he pressed on me when I became Vice-Chancellor was to urge that Rhodes receive an honorary degree – which of course he did.

Alan Peacock was a great leader of Buckingham, presiding over significant growth in terms not only of student numbers but also of reputation and donations. Alan came here from the University of York, where he had been deputy vice chancellor, and where he knew three other distinguished academics who were to come to Buckingham, namely Professor Martin Ricketts, our great scholar of classical liberalism, Mr Mike McCrostie, who was to become head of our Department of Economics, and Mr Eddie Shoesmith, who was to be voted the alumni body’s favourite teacher.

Buckingham was created by a galaxy of giants but of them Alan was the greatest. He will be missed for as long as The University of Buckingham is remembered