SIR WILLIAM GEORGE SHEDDON DOBBIE became well
known as a public speaker during the 1940s and
1950s and lectured at venues throughout Europe
and America. During a visit to Bedford, he
preached at morning service in the chapel of
Bedford School.
Dobbie was born in Madras, India in 1879. At
Charterhouse in Englnd he became a top-ranking
classical scholar and a keen student of ancient
military campaigns. He later trained at the Royal
Military Academy, Woolwich and served in South
Africa in the Royal Engineers during the Boer War
(1899–1902). In the First World War Dobbie
served in France and Belgium becoming General
Staff Officer No. 1 under Field Marshal Sir
Douglas Haig. In this capacity had the
distinction of composing, and issuing under his
own signature, the "ceasefire" telegram
of November 11, 1918: "Hostilities will
cease at 11:00 hours today. Troops will stand
fast at the line reached at that hour. There will
be no fraternization with the enemy." When
asked what he did in that war, Dobbie answered,
'I ended it!'
 Dobbie
was Governor of Malta (1940–2) during its
heroic resistance to German and Italian air
attack. The island was subsequently awarded the
George Cross.
In 1943, the Reverend Daniel A. Poling, after
completing a survey of armed services chaplains,
wrote of the high-ranking officers whom he had
met, "Never before in any comparable area
have I found so many ranking executives giving so
much attention to religion. "Typical and
outstanding among these "sword and
Bible" generals of the Second World War is
Sir William Dobbie, who was called from
retirement to become the hero of Malta, one of
the most heavily bombed spots in the world and
the island which "conceivably . . . saved
the war." Sir William died in 1964.
The Malta flag from 1943
(left). The enlarged section (right) shows the
George Cross awarded to the island that
year.
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FRANK ADAMS was born in Woolwich on 5 November
1930. His family was evacuated from London in the
early stages of World War II and Frank then
attended Bedford School from 1940 until 1949.
While at school he proved to be a brilliant
student and was obviously destined for a great
future in the field of science and mathematics.
The photograph shows Adams in A.H.Cobby's
class in 1944. For more details of A.H.Cobby and
an earlier class in which Adams was present click
here.
On leaving school he entered Trinity College,
Cambridge and after taking his degree he started
graduate work at Cambridge on geometric measure
theory and later on algebraic topology.
 Having
obtained his doctorate and after a year at Oxford
he returned to Cambridge having won a Fellowship
with his doctoral thesis on spectral
sequences.
Frank Adams visited Chicago as a research
associate, then he moved to Princeton before
returning to the UK. In 1964 he was elected a
Fellow of the Royal Society.
In 1970 Adams became Lowndean Professor of
Astronomy and Geometry at Cambridge. Adams
received many awards for his research work. Among
these was the Sylvester Medal of the Royal
Society of London which was awarded to him in
1982, "... in recognition of his solution of
several outstanding problems of algebraic
topology and of the methods he invented for this
purpose which have proved of prime importance in
the theory of that subject."  Frank wrote a
number of books of major importance including
'Lectures on Lie groups' (1969) and
'Infinite loop spaces' (1978). The
authors of an article published in 1989 (see
below) mention that Frank had apparently always
had a 'reputation' as a car driver and according to
a colleague: ‘He drove cars with remarkable
skill but in a style that left a lasting
impression on his passengers’ !
Despite feeling unwell Frank decided to go to
London on 7 January 1989 to celebrate the
retirement of a friend. Sadly, on the return
journey, he died in an accident only a few miles
from his home in Cambridge.
The above short biography of Frank Adams includes
the use of information contained in an article
written after his death by two of his former
colleagues, J J O'Connor and E F Robertson
and to whom due acknowledgement is given.
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TREVOR HUDDLESTON: The following has been
compiled from a biographical statement issued by
the Department of Foreign Affairs in Pretoria,
South Africa on 28 July 1998 and to which due
acknowledgement is given. The full statement may
found by clicking
here.
Trevor Huddleston was born on 15 June 1913 in
Bedford, England and was educated at Lancing
College in Sussex, Christ Church in Oxford and
Wells Theological College. He was ordained in
1937 and in 1939 joined the Community of the
Resurrection a monastic order within the Church
of England. He was sent by the Community to South
Africa in 1943 and became Priest-in-Charge of the
Sophiatown and Orlando Anglican Mission, in the
diocese of Johannesburg.
Trevor Huddleston became active in the struggle
against apartheid. The forced removal of the
black community from Sophiatown after the passing
of the Group Areas Act saw Father Huddleston come
into conflict with the authorities. He also
closed the Community’s St Peter's
School rather than agree to hand it over to
government control decreed in the Bantu Education
Act. 
In 1956 Father Huddleston returned to England
and in the same year published "Naught For
Your Comfort", a 'powerful indictment of
apartheid and a stirring account of the struggle
for freedom in South Africa'. On 26 June
1959, Father Huddleston addressed the founding
meeting of the Anti-Apartheid Movement in London
and pressed for a British boycott of South
Africa.
In 1961 Bishop Huddleston was elected
Vice-President of the Anti-Apartheid Movement, a
post held until April 1981, when he was elected
President of the Anti-Apartheid Movement. In
1960, Huddleston returned to Africa to serve as
Bishop of the Diocese of Masasi in the south of
Tanganiyka, where he worked until 1968. He
returned to England that year to serve as
Suffragan Bishop of Stepney. In 1978 he left the
East End of London following his election
as Bishop of Mauritius. Shortly afterwards he
became Archbishop of the Anglican Province of the
Indian Ocean.
In 1983 Huddleston returned to London and
engaged himself fully in the work of the
Anti-Apartheid Movement. He addressed many
hundreds of meetings throughout Britain,
including schools, church groups and trade union
meetings  and also
travelled extensively internationally in support
of the anti-apartheid cause.
Archbishop Huddleston received many awards,
including honorary doctorates from Aberdeen
University (1956), Lancaster University (1972),
Warwick University (1988), Dennison University
(USA) (1989), City University (London) (1987),
the City of London Polytechnic (1989), Leeds
University (1991), Exeter University (1992),
Oxford University (1993) and Birmingham
University (1993).
He was awarded the United Nations Gold Medal in
recognition of his contribution to the
international campaign against apartheid (1982);
the highest award of the Zambian government, the
Order of Freedom, 1st class (1984); the Dag
Hammerskjold Award for Peace (1984); and
Nigeria's highest award, the Grand Commander
of the Order of the Niger (1989); and the Indira
Gandhi Memorial Prize (1995).
Archbishop Huddleston initiated major
international anti-apartheid projects including,
in 1982, the "International Declaration for
the Release of Nelson Mandela and all Political
Prisoners" He took part in the televised
"International Tribute for a Free South
Africa" which was held at Wembley Stadium,
London on 16 April 1990 during which he
introduced the address by Nelson Mandela.
The Archbishop entered South Africa House,
Trafalgar Square, London on April 26th, 1994, to
vote in the first South African democratic
election. He was also a guest at President Nelson
Mandela's inauguration in Pretoria on May
10th, 1994.
He received the KCMG (Knight Commander of the
Order of St. Michael and St. George) in the 1998
New Year Honours list, for "Services to
UK-South African Relations", and attended an
Investiture at Buckingham Palace on March 24th,
1998, to receive this honour from the Queen. He
chose the designation, "Bishop Trevor of
Sophiatown".
Trevor Huddleston died in July 1998.
(In 1956 Father Huddleston was
present at a 'signing' of his book,
"Naught for your Comfort" at F.R.
Hockcliffe's bookshop in the High Street,
Bedford. The following day he preached at a
service in the chapel at Bedford School.)
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