University College Oxford Record 2020

following tribute:
Maurice Anthony Rimes was born into a
farming family in Devon, and after a prep school in
Devon went to Bryanston School, Dorset before
he came up to Oxford to University College to
study engineering and economics. Immediately
after completing his degree he moved to
Tasmania to work as a dams engineer. He died in
Hobart, from melanoma related cancer.
At Univ he was particularly active and
interested in the sporting life. He represented
the College in athletics, hockey and squash,
but also took up rowing, and captained the
College’s rugby team, and was a regular
member of the Greyhounds. Throughout his
life he maintained an interest in Univ and over
the years hosted a number of visiting students
on study holidays in Tasmania.
Early in his career, after five years in Tasmania,
and having married Julie, a teacher, he returned
to England and worked as an engineer on the
lock at Weston-super-Mare before moving on to
engineering projects in Fiji from 1975 until 1979.
Thereafter he returned to Tasmania, working
again for Hydro Tasmania, and their international
consulting arm, Entura. As an international
consultant in renewable energy engineering he
enjoyed the challenges and pleasures of living
and working in remote destinations. By the
end of his career, Maurice was in demand as a
highly accomplished civil engineer,
leading projects all over the world. He
formed his own consulting company
and oversaw a variety of engineering
projects until deciding to stop working
professionally earlier this year.
In “retirement” he became a
beekeeper and campaigner for the
environment. His beekeeping interests
gave him far-reaching insights into the needs of
Tasmania. After the last few years’ bushfires and
in the face of escalating climate change, he could
see the precarious situation of Tasmania’s unique
leatherwood trees, which not only provide
Tasmania with 70% of its honey production but
also fortify bees so they can pollinate well over
$100 million worth of Tasmania’s crops. While
he wasn’t alone in these observations, it was
Maurice who mounted a well-supported petition
to the Government, which gained newspaper and
media coverage, urging care in the preservation
of the remaining leatherwood. He also saw a
need to find ways to grow more leatherwood,
and designed a feasibility project for this purpose,
working dedicatedly on it even into his final
weeks. This was so accurately targeted and welldesigned
that it gained the support of specialists
across apiary, forestry, agriculture and land use
ecology, who are now seeking funding to take
Maurice’s vital project forward, with encouraging
signs so far. It’s not far-fetched to imagine that in
the years to come future generations could plan
a summer picnic in groves of fragrantly flowering
leatherwood, courtesy of Maurice’s foresight.
He also campaigned on behalf of refugees,
raising money and awareness when he walked
the British South West Coast Path in six weeks of
the summer of 2016.
Maurice is survived by his widow Julie, three
children, Thomas, Edward and Meg
and six grandchildren.
1967:
JEREMY RICHARD
BRIDGELAND
(Merchant Taylor’s, Northwood)
died on 14 May 2020, aged 71.
Richard Cook (1967) has kindly
University College Record | October 2020 85