Hon. OW & Staff Member 1972 - 1989
We have been notified of the sad death of Peter Rawll who passed away on 5th December 2023 aged 96, bringing down the curtain on an extraordinarily rich and long life in the service of others.
He is survived by his wife Cicely and two children, Andrew and Katherine. Our thoughts and best wishes are with them.
Peter was Bursar of Wycliffe College from 1972 until his retirement in the summer of 1989 and continued his long connection to Wycliffe, as Honorary Treasurer of the OW Society until 2001.
Previously, he served with distinction as a Royal Marines officer for 27 years, across a wide variety of roles and theatres, including deployment with the SAS during the Malayan Emergency and as an instructor for the SBS, rising to the rank of Major.
There were many affiliations within the local community including past terms as Local Councillor for Rodborough, Chair of Governors at The Shubberies School, President of Stonehouse Rotary, Branch Chairman of the Royal British Legion and Chair of the OW Lodge.
Peter loved steam trains and railways. He was a long-serving volunteer on The Honeybourne Line (part of the Gloucestershire and Warwickshire Railway) in a wide diversity of roles, which culminated in becoming a Station Master at Toddington, a responsibility that he relished and cherished in equal measure.
A Private funeral took place at Coney Hill Crematorium, Gloucester GL4 4PA on Monday 18th December
Public thanksgiving service (all welcome):
Friends and colleagues are invited to attend the Thanksgiving Service for Peter Rawll
At St Cyr’s Church, Church Lane, Stonehouse, Gloucestershire, GL10 3QP
Friday 2nd February 2024
2:00pm
Followed by post-service refreshments at Stonehouse Court Hotel, Bristol Road, Stonehouse, Gloucestershire, GL10 3RA
from 3:00pm
Information & Enquiries: thanksgiving@rawll.com
If you would like to have your memories of Peter posted on this webpage, please feel free to email them to TWS@wycliffe.co.uk
Memories of Peter:
I met Peter for the first time in 1986, when I arrived at Wycliffe as the new Head of Modern Languages. I went into his office, thinking I needed to justify expenditure on some new cassette recorders. He was sitting behind his desk in the old Bursary, and I could see part of the windowsill behind him was stacked about 6 inches deep in envelopes. I later learnt that he kept envelopes in case they could be reused. He heard me in silence and, to my surprise, said I had made my case, and signed the order form then and there, and then we had a lengthy discussion about what the role of technology might be in teaching.
Another memory, and I don’t think this is apocryphal, is that on his desk he had three trays for correspondence. In, Out and LBW, which he explained as ‘Let the Buggers Wait’.
I remember also one Speech Day seeing him pursue down the drive a parent who was in serious fees arrears. He ran so hard that he pulled a muscle, and the parent made good his escape.
Chris Tetley (Member of staff 1986– 2007 & Honorary OW)
I remember Peter Rawll as one of the kindest of people, always generous with his time and happy to advise me with the finances of the Art Department of which I was Head. My commiserations to his family.
Jane Naylor (née Mason) (Member of staff 1985 – 1997 & Honorary OW)
I have many fond memories of Peter whom I first met in 1981 when I was appointed as a maths teacher and Head of Computing with one Apple II machine which was in a small room in the later demolished classroom block. He was always really supportive of my efforts to expand the computing facilities and introduce a computer system to the head masters office. In the context of the current IT society it is difficult to appreciate that the coming of computing to Wycliffe was not welcomed by many of the teaching staff. There were a number of difficult battles but Peter was constant in his unfailing support for me and trust in my judgement once I had been interrogated at length by him. On one occasion I phoned him from the Apple Exhibition in London to inform him of a special offer and he gave me his credit card details to complete the transaction. At the time, it was being said that Apple would disappear with IBM dominating the personal computer market. Later BBC micros were prevalent in education but he understood that I was employing Apple machines to teach using a university programming language that was not available on other platforms and that gave our students a real advantage in their later studies. Wycliffe was also almost alone in using a window operating system technology with a mouse and screen icons. This was sometime before Microsoft introduced their windows OS. He supported my purchase of components from the USA that enabled me to physically repair the early Mac machines. He was happy to finance a number of major IT exhibitions and conferences that I organised at Wycliffe. HIs foresight and understanding of the future of the technologies is worthy of recognition.
William Henley (Member of staff 1981 – 2004 & Honorary OW)
I remember Peter with so much joy. I don’t think I have ever met anyone with so much patience as Peter. He seemed to have endless time for everyone, even at his own expense. I remember the day when a fax machine turned up in the Headmaster’s Office. We had several attempts at drumming it into action to no avail but Peter managed to key in all the necessary codes and hey presto it worked.
I am sure he will be deeply missed by his family and everyone who knew him.
Hazel Brook (Member of Staff 1986 – 2000 & Honorary OW)
