The Scarbrough scheme that funded this post-war cohort of students was designed to

The Scarbrough scheme that funded this post-war cohort of students was designed to create a group of potential teachers of Asian languages in post-war Britain.It was now, during the gap between graduating with a First in 1950 and taking up an early appointment at Durham University, that he began a lifelong career as crossword setter for the New Statesman. Starting in 1952 under the name of Setsquare he produced a monthly cryptic crossword for the next 50 years, duly celebrated earlier this year when the paper reprinted his first four puzzles.His Durham appointment, initially a lecturership in Chinese Religion and Philosophy, marked the foundation of Chinese Studies in that university. In 1958 he launched an Honours course in Chinese, which has grown and flourished to this day.In 1961 came a new call to return to Oxford as Lecturer in Chinese, followed by a Fellowship at Wadham in 1963 Here was the scene of the rest of his career. It was marked by caring and thorough work as a teacher and by a flow of books for Oxford University Press, including The Chinese Chameleon: an analysis of European conceptions of Chinese civilisation (1967) and Confucius (1981) for the OUP Past Masters series.

Fatherly and dependable, he also gave scrupulous service to the institutions themselves, serving on the university’s General Board and building up a strong tradition of Asian language studies in Wadham.Glen Dudbridge. Robin Beauchamp Thompson, solicitor: born London 15 September 1924; married (one son, one daughter); died London 31 October 2002. The trade-union lawyer Robin Thompson devoted his life to the struggle for workers’ rights, including health and safety and legal protection at work. Tony Benn called him “one of the most important figures of his generation”. Thompson and suffragette Joan Beauchamp, he was born in 1924. Before the Second World War he studied engineering at Loughborough College and joined the Army (REME) in 1943. He was stationed in India and destined to be part of the intended invasion of Malaya, but Japan capitulated.

He contracted dengue fever and spent Christmas 1945 billeted on a film set in Poona. Thompson was profoundly moved by the poverty and struggle in India and made lifelong friendships during his time there and in the Army.W.H. Thompson died in 1947 and Joan had been seriously injured during a flying-bomb raid. Robin and his brother Brian were urged to join their father’s firm; both started the month after his death. Robin qualified as a solicitor in 1950 and became sole principal of a firm with 70 staff in various locations and a political tradition. He was joined the following year by Brian and together they formed the most influential legal partnership the trade unions have known.Robin and Brian were very different people but complemented each other: if Brian was the intellectual force of the partnership, Robin was its organisational genius and forged relationships with nearly every union. Together the brothers broke new ground in recovering compensation for injured workers, defending trade unions from the attacks of employers and governments, and advancing the interests of working people.Thompsons pioneered much of the litigation concerning industrial diseases, defended the miners, fire-fighters and printers and strove to reform the law.