Tributes made to former Politics lecturer

Tributes have been made to former Politics lecturer Roger Duclaud-Williams who has died from cancer aged 68.

Duclaud-Williams, who was completely blind since the age of 18 months, worked in the Politics department at Warwick between 1974 and 2011.

“I personally will miss Roger, said Head of Communications Peter Dunn. “He was ever helpful, unfailingly polite, a natural media interviewee, had an incisive mind, and was an all round delight to work with.

“I know that a great many other staff, students and alumni think the same.”

Duclaud-Williams was born in Surrey and studied Law at Queen’s College, Oxford. He went on to obtain a PhD at Sussex University in 1972. After briefly teaching at Glasgow University, he took a permanent post at Warwick in 1974.

In 1978, he published _The Politics of Housing in Britain and France_.

Former student Derek Hatley described Roger as “a brilliant man, and a tough but fair tutor with high expectations of his students”.

He added, “[Roger] had an encyclopaedic knowledge of politics and would always challenge us in seminars and lectures to move beyond the limits of our understanding. Though we may have disagreed over the merits of New Labour’s NHS policy, I feel immensely privileged to have learned from him.

Writing Duclaud-Williams’ obituary in the _Guardian_, friend and colleague David Mervin said: “[Roger] was a formidable presence on campus, marching about without a dog and hardly ever using a stick.

“[He] was an outstanding teacher and thesis supervisor as well as a dedicated personal tutor. In staff seminars the quiet click of his braille machine regularly gave warning of the imminence of one of his incisive interventions, exposing pretension and putting both visiting and resident speakers on the spot.”

Duclaud-Williams also sang with the Village Voice (a Leamington choir), was an enthusiastic cyclist and often rowed on the river Avon in Warwick.

Mervin added, “A man of immense courage and great intelligence, Roger was also kind and generous with a delightful sense of humour and was the best judge of a pint of bitter that one could wish to meet.

“He faced death with the same extraordinary bravery and total absence of self-pity that he displayed throughout his life.”