ROWLAND SMITH

Rowland Smith died suddenly of a heart attack on October 20. He was Professor of English and Dean of the Faculty of Humanities at the University of Calgary. He had previously been Vice-President: Academic at Wilfrid Laurier University in Waterloo, Ontario, and Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences and McCulloch Professor in English at Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia.

He was born in Johannesburg, South Africa, and attended the University of Natal, where he met his wife, Catherine Anne Lane, known as Ann. A Rhodes Scholar, he received his BA and PhD from the University of Natal and his MA from Oxford University. He and Ann were married at Lincoln College in Oxford in 1962. They became Canadian citizens in 1972. Most of their life in Canada was spent in Halifax.

A specialist in modern British and in post-colonial literature in English, Smith edited or wrote a number of books on writing from former Commonwealth countries, including Lyric and Polemic: The Literary Personality of Roy Campbell, Critical Studies On Nadine Gordimer, and Postcolonizing the Commonwealth: Studies in Literature and Culture. He also published over 90 articles, book chapters and reviews, and presented over 60 papers and public lectures around the world.

In the public sphere, he was at different times director of Opera Ontario, a Regional Judge for the Commonwealth Writers’ prize, and was a member of the Book Prize jury for the Canadian Federation for the Humanities. He served as the Director of the Nova Scotia Rugby Football Union and a Governor of the Neptune Theatre foundation in Halifax.

A fan and player of rugby, he played well into middle age. As he grew older his passion turned from violent sport to music (although he had always loved both), and while Vice-President at Laurier he became a champion of the music department, and of several Canadian musicians and composers. He held season tickets to the Canadian Opera Company, to whose shows he would determinedly commute from Waterloo after long days of administrative work. In Calgary, he was a member of the Calgary Opera’s Impresario Circle.

He leaves his wife of 46 years, Ann, and his children Russell and Belinda.

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