My tutor remembered
Francis Muir
my Balliol Math Tutor, when he discovered Internet and email. Rather shortly
after this Jack died, and his son Chris sent me several obituaries including
this one from THE TIMES which I thought might interest some who might be
curious about the various influences in my life. By way of explanation I
should add that it was a pleasant custom at Oxford for the most senior and
distinguished professors to teach the most junior courses. Jack seems to have
carried this one step further by, in his eventaul retirement, teaching
classes in a village education centre.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
>From the London Times, 8 February 1995
----------------------------------------------------------
OBITUARIES
PROFESSOR J. S. de WET
Professor Jacobus de Wet, Fellow
and Tutor in Mathematics,
Balliol College, Oxford, 1947-71,
died in hospital in Basingstoke on
January 7 aged 81. He was born
on July 1,1913, in Rouxville,
Orange Free State, South Africa.
JACK de WET was the doyen of mathematics tutors in Oxford. His personality was
ideally suited to guiding and directing the studies of the young (in some cases
the not so young); his extraordinary command of both pure and applied
mathematics at the undergraduate level became legendary at the university. The
range of his tutorial and lecture teaching was without equal during these years;
from abstract algebra through analysis to classical applied mathematics and
modern quantum theory there seemed to be no subject that was not within his
grasp.
His enthusiasm for mathematics (at times he could never sit still in tutorials
for the sheer excitement of the subject) was infectious. He inspired the able
and gifted to their first class honours, and guided and sometimes firmly
directed the average to leaving the college with a qualification appropriate to
their abilities. At the blackboard he was a bundle of nervous energy; some
mistakes were inevitable but for most students such minor deficiencies led to a
more complete understanding of both the concrete and the abstract.
Jacobus Stephanus de Wet was of Afrikaner stock. His early education was at
Smithfield High School and from there he went to the University of Cape Town,
which so cradled and influenced him that he returned in the last years of his
professional life to give back some of what had been bestowed upon him.
At Cape Town he studied science engineering and, above all else, mathematics;
thereafter this subject was to dominate his widespread interests in both
research and teaching. His quickness of mind and brilliance in mathematics led
to the award in 1935 of a Rhodes Scholarship; some turn of fate directed him to
Balliol College, Oxford, for which both he and the college were to be grateful
as the years went by. He completed his undergraduate studies in mathematics over
two years and graduated BA with first class honours in 1937.
With that achievement behind him, de Wet moved to the University of Cambridge
for his postgraduate studies in mathematical physics. After one year at St
John's College he was awarded a Commonwealth Fellowship and spent 1938 to 1940
at Princeton, New Jersey, where he completed work in mathematical physics that
led to the award of a PhD in 1940.
He was appointed in 1940 to a lectureship in applied mathematics at the
University of Cape Town; two years later he moved north to the Transvaal to
occupy, until 1946, the professorship of mathematics at the University of
Pretoria. During the whole of this period he served as a technical adviser to
the Royal South African Navy.
In 1946 Balliol called for his return to Oxford where he held, for one year, an
ICI fellowship together with a college research fellowship. There followed, in
1947. appointment to an official fellowship and a tutorship in mathematics, a
position he was to hold with distinction for the next 24 years.
In addition to his gifts as a teacher. de Wet was also an able and innovative
research worker (a paper published by the Royal Society in 1950, and written
jointly with F. Mandl, broke new ground in eigenvalue theory and is often quoted
to this day).
He played a full and effective role in the administration of the college, and
served as vice master in his final year 1971. Formally, the Balliol years came
to an end in 1971 with the decision by de Wet and his wife Madge to return to
South Africa.
He was Dean of the Faculty of Science at the University of Cape Town from 1971
to 1982. He was made Assistant Principal in 1975 and in the same year became a
member of the council of the university as an adviser on science and industrial
research.
He had many other commitments during this period in South Africa. He served the
government as adviser to the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research,
1982 85. His vision for the future of both pure and applied science guided him
to prepare a report on the funding of research in universities and museums and
led to the creation of the Foundation for Research and Development in 1984. He
also served on the Rhodes Scholarship selection committee and it was largely his
hard talking that was responsible in 1976 for the first non white South African
being elected to a scholarship.
Jack and Madge de Wet returned to live in the United Kingdom in 1986 and de
Wet's last years were spent in Odiham, Hampshire. Both he and his wife were
committed to serving the local community, and he taught a variety of courses at
the nearby institute for both young and adult education.
He maintained an abiding interest in college affairs, and in the fortunes of his
large "family" of former students. During these last years the "Balliol de Wet
mathematicians", all former Balliol students of de Wet, formed themselves into a
college group. A number of meetings were organised for the purpose of renewing
friendships, and dining well in the college hall.
On these memorable occasions de Wet's remarkable memory rarely failed him and
all his former students were greeted with their first names. This group numbered
about 185 and on the occasion of de Wet's 80th birthday celebration no fewer
than 70 were present in the college to pay him tribute.
He is survived by his wife, two sons and a stepson.
----------------------------------------------------------------
and this excerpt from the local village newspaper:
ODIHAM LOSES AN EXCEPTIONAL TEACHER
Professor Jacobus Stephanus, better known as Jack de Wet, died on the 7th
January 1995 in Basingstoke Hospital, after a short illness. Jack was a well
known figure in Odiham what was less well known was that we had such a
distinguished academic gentleman in our village.
Those who knew Jack talk of his warmth, quickness of mind and enthusiasm. What
is truly remarkable is that after the career outlined above, he applied these
qualities, and many others, with total commitment and on a voluntary basis to
COLCO (our local Computer Open Learning Centre). His contribution to its success
cannot be overstated. At the same time he taught mathematics on an occasional
basis at Robert May's School.
He could have followed any career, but he devoted his life to the teaching and
development of the young. The only boast he ever made was that he had, as a
member of the selection committee, been largely instrumental in electing the
first non white South African to a Rhodes Scholarship in 1975.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
John Camp
>
>After a lapse of more than 40 years I renewed acquaintance with Jack de Wet,
>my Balliol Math Tutor, when he discovered Internet and email. Rather shortly
>after this Jack died, and his son Chris sent me several obituaries including
<big snip>
Francis, when you have the time, could you explain a few things about
British educational terms? It would make it easier to understand a few things...
Like, what are o-levels? And what is first-class honors? Does just one guy get
that, or is it like an honors program, or is it like Summa Cum Laude, etc?
And how do the colleges work? Did you have regular large lecture classes
like here in the states? And Oxford, I take it, is sort of like Harvard in the class
sense, but what happens to people who went to provincial colleges -- are
they sort of shut out of public life? What's the difference between a "good
degree" or a "mediocre degree," what's a "starred first?" Would you say that
it's better to get thrown out of Oxford for something like drinking, rather than
getting a mediocre degree, if you had plans for public life?
When you have time...
Thanks,
John Camp
Wombatty
> Fascinating (no rilly) but err... where's the ObBook?
> Anyone want to second a proposal for alt.fan.fido as a prophylactic
> against the spread of this sort of rubbish in r.a.b?
Distinctly not. 'Tis too educational, and besides, he occasionally
does talk books in the course of these sorts of posts.
ObBook: Juvenal's Satires, as translated by Peter Green. Being at my
last day at my current job, and feeling somewhat ambivalent about this,
I'm in a mood where well-turned, often very funny vicsiousness suits
me. I don't know if I can (or should) read all the way through to the
end in this spate of reading it, for Juvenal doesn't have much to offer
as a solution to the problems he sees. But the ride is good while it I
can stand it.
Larry "To-be-client of DES" Hammer
--
\ Body and spirit are twins: God only
\ knows which is which;
Larry....@genie.com \ The soul squats down in the flesh like a
l...@physics.arizona.edu \ tinker drunk in a ditch. -- Swinburne
alan hunter
>
>ObBook: I just retrieved my copy of Richard Farin~a's `Been Down So
>Long It Looks Like Up To Me' from my dear Jenny's youngest sibling and
>have reread the first 30 pages. It's damnably sexist and rather
>juvenile - certainly not in Pynchon's league - but it is quite funny
>at times.
Have you ever heard the record of the same name? by Richard & Mimi
Farina? Its worse than the book. To my eternal shame I gave it to a
friend as a present; he's dead now.
Regards
Alan