Vale Robert Barnard (1936 - 2013)

On 19 September last, after a brief period of very indifferent health, Robert Barnard, the remarkably prolific English crime-mystery writer and twice Chair of the Bront Society, died in Yorkshire, in the city of Leeds, where he had made his home for more than thirty years. He had lived for some time in Australia, married an Australian, and continued to admire the robust personal values he detected in this country - values that found their way into his writing. Born in Essex in 1936, Robert Barnard read English at Oxford, then spent five years lecturing at the University of New England in Armidale, northern New South Wales, before taking up a British Council posting in Norway, and then becoming Professor of English in that country's most northern University, Tromso. His first book, 'The Death of an Old Goat', published in 1974, builds on his Australian experiences at the University of New England.