Robin Shirley (1941 to 2005)
I hope the following is not considered to inappropriate for these
mailing lists. I have just been contacted by Robin Shirley's brother
Peter, who is administering his estate, about Robin's recent death.
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On my request, Peter E-mailed me the following obituary written by the
head of the Psychology department where Robin worked, and was intended
for staff and students at Surrey University. It follows from this
message.
Peter was concerned about the future of Robin's Crysfire powder Indexing
suite. On discussing this with him, it might be possible for the estate
to release a GPL'd (including source code) version of the Crysfire
powder indexing suite in the forseeable future. Robin left a lot of
papers, correspondance and around half a dozen computers for his estate
to currently work through.
Lachlan.
Robin Shirley (1941 to 2005)
It is with great sadness that I have to announce that Robin died in
hospital on Sunday, 27th March 2005. He had been suffering liver
problems since contracting Hepatitis A last November and these finally
proved fatal on Easter Sunday.
Robin was born in Harrow on 1st July 1941 and graduated from UCL in 1964
with a BSc in Chemistry. He joined the Department of Chemical Physics at
Battersea College in 1967 as an Assistant Lecturer in Crystallography
and moved to the Guildford campus shortly afterwards. Robin commenced a
secondment to Psychology in 1988 as a Senior Research Fellow in
Information Systems. This was combined with a collaborative arrangement
with the Clarendon Laboratory at Oxford to allow for the continuation of
his crystallography research activities in x-ray powder diffraction and
crystallographic computational methods. The Psychology secondment
continued until 1997 when Robin formally transferred over to Psychology
in the new School of Human Sciences.
Robin assumed responsibility for teaching undergraduate statistics.
Despite this being an unpopular subject, he was much loved by the
students who valued his genuine concern to help them and his willingness
to spend that extra bit of time explaining things. Robin was accessible
to students and his student feedback often expressed gratitude for the
pastoral role he willingly assumed. As well as his software development
work for his crystallography research, Robin produced a complete
integrated suite of instructional programs intended to promote
understanding of statistical theory. It is unfortunate that more was not
made of the software which was very innovative for its time. Robin was
always keen to make improvements and he never regarded it as finished.
Although based in Psychology, Robin continued to develop and disseminate
his work on powder indexing presenting his ideas around the world. He
organised and contributed to the Crysfire 2001 suite of programs for
determining powder structures which is widely used in the academic
community and available in an industrial version. He continued to
develop and demonstrate the programs up to the time of his death. Robin
probably contracted the Hepatitis A during a visit to Egypt last
November for a 5-day International Powder Diffraction Workshop at Assiut
University. There his lectures went well but running his software for
the lab sessions proved to be difficult because the computers were
running an Arabic version of Windows!
In various committees and boards of studies Robin was notable for
arguing strongly for what was just and right. Unwilling to sit back and
let events pass him by if he thought something was not being dealt with
properly, he was sometimes in conflict with colleagues but his views
often prevailed and he gained respect as a man of principle. These
qualities were carried over into his Union activities. As Chair of the
local AUT branch Robin was intimately involved in a wide range of
activities and came into contact with many people across the University.
Initially a reluctant Chair, he became an effective negotiator on behalf
of AUT members. He was able to bring a rational, logical approach to
union activity and negotiations without ever losing sight of his
responsibilities to the members.
Robin will be remembered by many as someone who was very intellectually
sharp. He had an endearing habit of arriving late for Psychology
seminars yet would still be able to ask (usually the first) penetrating
questions that often got to the heart of the debates at hand. This was
all the more impressive as he was not, until relatively recently,
trained as a psychologist and still saw himself as a crystallographer,
computer scientist, and English poet. He had a genuine enthusiasm for
ideas of all kinds.
Away from work he was External Activities Coordinator and then Chairman
of the Wey Poets (Guildford & West Surrey Centre of the Poetry Society)
and he organised and took part in poetry readings and participated at
various festivals. He also lectured, published and broadcast on the
subject of computer poetry and the programmed generation of language
generally. He was a member of the Computer Conservation Society and used
to maintain a gallery of microcomputer exhibits at the Computer Museum,
Bletchley Park.
He will be remembered as someone who was always to be seen at social
events whatever they were. He was a Father Christmas at the
staff-student Christmas parties for a number of years and also the
target of many a fond student 'sketch' in the annual party review. He
was always portrayed sympathetically (not the norm for many staff)
reflecting the warmth and esteem with which the students regarded him.
Robin was one of the great characters of the University and he will be
missed.
Chris Fife-Schaw, HoD Psychology
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Lachlan M. D. Cranswick
Contact outside working hours /
Coordonnees en dehors des heures de travail:
E-mail / courriel: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Home Tel: (613) 584-4226
Mobile/Cell: 613 401 3433 WWW: http://lachlan.bluehaze.com.au/
P.O. Box 2057, Deep River, Ontario, Canada, K0J 1P0
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