Obituaries

Austin Gresham was an academic and clinical histopathologist who spent his entire postgraduate career in Cambridge, where he was Professor of Morbid Anatomy and Histopathology, a Fellow of Jesus College and an Honorary Fellow of Gonville and Caius College.

However, he found unexpected fame in his eighties as the unintentional grandfather of Brit Art. When Damien Hirst and his peers burst on the scene, it became apparent that Gresham’s Colour Atlas of Forensic Pathology, first published in 1971, had provided an important source of inspiration.

Geoffrey Austin Gresham was born in Wrexham, North Wales, in 1924. He won a scholarship to the local grammar school, Grove Park, from where he went to Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge, on election to a Tancred Scholarship in medicine.

We are saddened by the passing of Eric Earnshaw, a "double" Old Wrexhamian. A former pupil of Victoria Primary School and Grove Park, Eric graduated from Oxford with a History degree and a soccer "Blue". He returned to Wrexham to teach at Grove Park.

Those who only new "Ernie" as a (very) strict history teacher didn't know the real man. Those who knew him as master in charge of various football teams admired and respected him. I got to know him well many years later when he became a regular at my club. We would talk sport, mainly football, for hours. His understanding, and knowledge, of most sports was amazing. The Old Wrexhamians have truly lost "one of their own".

Keith Nurse 1938 - 2009

Keith Nurse was born in the castle-town of Denbigh in 1938 and brought up and educated at Grove Park Grammar School, Wrexham, north-east Wales, he was married with two children and 4 grandchildren and lived in Orpington, Kent.

Keith trained as a journalist in Chester and later worked on the northern news desk of the Daily Telegraph in Manchester before moving to Fleet Street as the Telegraph's arts correspondent for many years. He continued to write extensively on archaeological and heritage issues as a freelancer , contributing to a range of history journals and magazines, including Country Life, History Today and the leading Welsh magazines Cambria and New Welsh Review. He was a regular contributor to Vortigern Studies, an award-winning Netherlands-based web site devoted to Dark Age studies and also wrote articles for the Clwyd Family History Society. He was the author of two works focusing on Welsh social and family history subjects - 'Torments Ancient and Modern' (1996) and 'Footsteps to the past - A Welsh quest' (1998). His last book, 'Scorched Earth - the earliest English in North Wales', 2007, examined the key post-conquest aspects of the Edwardian military campaign in Wales of 1277-83. The book also explored some of the complex settlement patterns that followed the English victory, the establishment of the castle-towns and the seizure of adjoining Welsh lands.

Keith Conrad Nurse born 6 March 1938, died 26 July 2009 aged 71; funeral taking place on 10th July 2009 at All Saints Church, Orpington, 2pm.

It is with great sadness that we report the passing of Dr. Mervyn Bull who died on November 19th in Llangollen Hospital. Although born in Plymouth he was brought up in Wrexham. After leaving Grove Park he went to Liverpool University to read medicine. He served with the R.A.M.C. in the war being stationed, mostly, in India. Post-war, after briefly working in Birkenhead, he took up practice in St. George's Crescent, where he was a hard working and very much appreciated G.P. as I can, personally, testify.

We have much for which to thank Mervyn Bull , as he was one of the founders of The Old Wrxhamians Association and was, for many years, its chairman. It was the efforts of Mervyn and his colleagues which resulted in the building of the pavilion on the "Nine Acre" in 1960.

Our sincere condolences go to his family and friends, especially his son, Dr. Peter Bull.