The University reported the death of Professor Sir David Williams, who was a Life Fellow and Honorary Fellow of Emmanuel College, President of Wolfson College from 1980 to 1992 and Vice-Chancellor of the University from 1989 to 1996.

Educated at Queen Elizabeth Grammar School, Carmarthen, Sir David came to Emmanuel College as an Open Scholar in 1950 to read History and Law, completing his MA and LLB.

Subsequently he was called to the Bar and was a Commonwealth Fund (Harkness) Fellow at Berkeley and Harvard 1956-58. He then taught at the University of Nottingham for five years and at the University of Oxford (Keble College) from 1963 to 1967.

In 1967 he returned to Emmanuel College as a Fellow in Law and between 1970 and 1976 he was Senior Tutor and Tutor for Admissions. He became Reader in Public Law in 1976, and was Rouse Ball Professor of English Law 1983-92.

In 1994, Sir David was appointed as an Honorary QC (Queen’s Counsel).

Sir David served over the years on such bodies as the Council on Tribunals, the Royal Commission on the Environment, the Commission on Energy and the Environment, the Animal Procedures Committee (of which he was chairman), and more recently the Senior Salaries Review Body. He was appointed President of the University of Swansea in 2001 and Chancellor in 2007.

Paying tribute, the current Vice-Chancellor Professor Alison Richard said: “A great scholar and a great leader, Sir David contributed to Collegiate Cambridge in so many ways. As the first Vice-Chancellor in almost eight hundred years to hold the position full-time, he was a real pioneer as well. We will all miss him greatly.”

Gordon Johnson, President of Wolfson College, said: “The College has lost a great President and a true friend, who, while in office, brought Wolfson to new heights and then afterwards gave valued and unstinting support to its further development and well-being.”

Lord Wilson of Dinton, Master of Emmanuel College, said: “Sir David Williams will be long remembered as a great lawyer, an outstanding Vice-Chancellor and a fine public servant. As Senior Tutor at Emmanuel College and a teacher of law he had a deep and lasting influence on a whole generation of students and the College is proud to have numbered him among its Fellowship.”

He was survived by his wife, Sally, whom he married in 1959, a son and two daughters.

 

 

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