Professor Huw Jones, former Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences at the University of Dundee, has died aged 85.
A proud Welshman, Huw came to Dundee in 1961 and considered it his adopted hometown.
In 1994, he established the Centre for Applied Population Research at the university which studied demographic changes and trends around the world.
In his leisure time, Huw followed Dundee United, the Wales national rugby team and was a cricketer and football player in his younger years.
Research
During the early 1990s, Huw was a familiar sight in Whitfield and other housing estates in Dundee, knocking on doors to record people’s experience for the book he edited, Crime and the Urban Environment, written with his colleagues.
He was born on July 22 1937 in Llanidloes, mid-Wales.
His mother, Enid, was a native of Llanidloes and had trained in London to be a nurse. His father, JW Jones, from the Swansea Valley, was a primary school headmaster, town councillor, lay preacher, and chairman of the Welsh Schools FA.
Huw went to primary school in Llanidloes, then to Newtown Grammar School.
He was identified early as very able academically, but was also a talented junior sportsman, especially in football.
His sons, Gareth and Glyn, said: “As a teenager he played for the Llanidloes Town men’s first team, and it is on their ground that he has asked for his ashes to be scattered, a place where, despite his future accomplishments, he was at his happiest.”
In his A-levels, he received distinction awards in history and geography before going to University College, Aberystwyth, part of the University of Wales.
He achieved a first-class degree in geography but also found time to play football and cricket for various university teams.
Lectureship
Huw then went to Leicester to take an MA and then was unusually successful in straightaway gaining a visiting lectureship position in British Columbia, Canada, the following summer.
In around 1960, he received offers of lecturing positions from Universities in Beirut, Belfast and Dundee.
His sons said: “All these places were very attractive at the time, but history has certainly treated them differently.
“Our father was brave in coming north as a Welsh country boy but never forgot the warm welcome he always said he received in his adopted hometown of Dundee.
“His first head of department was fellow Welshman Stanley Jones, known as Jones the Map. Our father was soon to be called Jones the People because of his interest and specialism in population geography.”
Huw married Kathleen in 1964 and two sons followed: Gareth in 1965, and Glyn in 1968 and he lived in Broughty Ferry for the remainder of his life.
From his initial appointment as lecturer, he progressed to senior lecturer and eventually, in 1993, he was given a personal chair (professorship), in what was generally regarded as a rather overdue process.
In the late 1990s he moved into more senior university administration through his appointment as Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences.
“Our father’s research interests in population, more specifically in migration processes and patterns, led him to undertake original research in Wales, Scotland, Malta, Canada, Australia, Mauritius and Thailand.
“He was also interested in fertility patterns in less developed countries and undertook primary research on the effects of family-planning programmes in Barbados.”
“He published dozens of well-received articles in academic journals and also received much funding for the department. All this activity and momentum kept the department very strong, in sometimes difficult times when there was talk of possible mergers and downgrades,” said his sons.
Between 1980 and 1991, he published two editions of his book, Population Geography, which became a standard undergraduate textbook in many universities in Britain and internationally.
Rugby enthusiast
Last year, Huw achieved one of his lifelong ambitions by watching Wales against Scotland at the Millennium Stadium in Cardiff, a game Wales won. He enjoyed much companionship and snooker at the Broughty Ferry Club, of which he was a member for 30 years.
His sons described their father as down-to-earth, very personable, and a gentleman.
“He could talk to anyone and was always interested in people. During his sporadic stays in hospital, and having received much district nursing care in Dundee and London, he had nothing but praise for the NHS and would always chat to staff and those around him on the wards.
“He was interested in all types of sports but was more interested in team sports and what brought people together.”
A celebration of Huw’s life will take place on Friday August 11 at 3 pm in the St Aidan’s Centre, Brook Street, Broughty Ferry.
Charitable donations may be made to Médecins sans Frontières (Doctors without Borders) at msf.org
You can read the family’s announcement here.