One of the Rugbeian Society’s oldest members, former Head of School Dick Sargent, died last year aged 97.

Born in Edgbaston in 1925, Dick only child of John Sargent,

an education officer from London, and Ruth, daughter of a Birmingham businessman.

Ruth passed away when he was aged just seven, and he went to live with her parents in Edgbaston. His grandmother Agnes, a social worker and JP, proved an ideal substitute mother until her death in 1941.

After the Dragon School he arrived at Rugby in 1938. He flourished in Michell House under George Keay, becoming Head of House, Head of School and hooker in the XV (his increasingly threadbare tasselled XV cap was displayed in his study for the rest of his life).

At Rugby, he met his lifelong friend David Heaton (M 37-42) and played Robert Hardy’s (M 39-44) leading lady in a production of A Busman’s Holiday. As someone who always enjoyed good food, he particularly appreciated the improvement in house meals when Mrs Keay took charge of them after war broke out. His children much enjoyed his impersonation of George Keay’s idiosyncratic method of smoking a cigarette.

In 1939, his father went to India as Education Adviser to the government and Dick did not see him again until after the end of the war. He joined the navy in 1943; his duties included escorting components for a Mulberry harbour across the Channel shortly after D-Day and navigating a frigate from Karachi to Portsmouth.

In 1946 he went up to Christ Church, Oxford as a scholar. After First Class Honours in PPE he was subsequently appointed Economics Fellow at Worcester College.

Three years later he married Anne Haigh, having three children, Sally, Simon and Vicky. At a time when less was expected of fathers than today, he was an exemplary parent. Despite describing work as his recreation, he always seemed to be available to take his children to school or to dancing classes, provide batting practice on the lawn, or push a reluctant pony into the trailer.

In 1965, after a short spell in the Treasury, he became the founding professor of economics at Warwick University, assembling a strong team of economists and creating a department with an emphasis on mathematics and econometrics.

It was entirely fitting, and a source of great satisfaction to Dick when a Chair in Economics at the university was created in his name in 2018 and he also enjoyed having a campus bus named after him!

With the department firmly established, Dick left in 1973 to become Group Economic Adviser at the Midland Bank in the City. This was quite a culture change, but he handled it in his usual calm and cheerful manner. He found time to set up the Clare Group, a collection of distinguished economists brought together at the nadir of the UK economy in 1976 to propose ways out of the abyss. He also carried out much unpaid work for public sector pay review bodies.

In 1979, his marriage ended, but before long he found love and contentment with Hester Campbell, a family friend from Oxford. He was much loved by Hester’s sons – Francis, Laurence and Nicholas – and their families. They lived happily in Islington until he retired from the bank, and then moved to Fulbrook, near Burford. When Hester died suddenly in 2004 he again showed his resilience, moving to Chipping Norton and turning himself into a very proficient cook and gardener, while maintaining a wonderful relationship with his grandchildren as they grew into adults.

Dick never retired from economics and went on to publish a book and numerous articles, the last of them in 2020. In 2018 he marked his 93rd birthday by moving down to Sussex to be near his family, living independently in a seaside flat until last Christmas.

In a letter to his children, he said “I have had much happiness in my life, and the greatest part of it has been in and with my family”.

Adapted from a contribution by Simon Sargent.