John Milner died last Wednesday, February 13th.
According to John’s son, Giles, he broke his arm in January and then had another fall in the snow. He was in hospital when he died, aged 81. A photograph of John taken at the Retired Engineering Staff Reunion in 2011 is shown left.
For many years, John was a lecturer in the Physics Department and, when that closed, he transferred to Electrical, continuing to teach until a few years ago. After that he frequently visited the University and this enabled him to keep in touch with his colleagues in all Departments. He started to work for Northampton College of Advanced Technology in September 1960.
John’s funeral will be held at 1pm on Thursday February 28th, St Mary & St Gabriel Church South Harting, Petersfield, Hampshire, GU31 5QB.
To contact John’s son about the arrangements, please email giles.milner@pdms.com or call 07940 925 429
Messages about John:
From Mike Freestone:
I am proud to be able to say that John and I were colleagues for many years. I shall miss his wisdom and his wit. He served City University well for over fifty years, and that is probably a unique achievement.
I shall remember John’s passionate belief in the value of informal conversations in the senior common room. Sadly he did not live to see that re-introduced. In its absence he always made himself available to his colleagues. I remember how he lifted my spirits the last time we met, just a few weeks ago, and we walked arm in arm along a corridor to the office where he was to chair a PhD examination.
Dear John, to all intents and purposes he died in harness, which is probably how he would have wished it.
From Roy Vipond:
It is with great sadness that I have learnt of the death of John Milner. I first met him when I joined the staff in 1965 – he was in Physics and I in Chemistry. Over the subsequent years I valued many contacts and discussions that eventually led to he and I going to Lithuania in 1989 and 1991 and then having staff from there to visit City (and London) as part of an EEC collaboration project. At lunchtimes he was often present in the then SCR where many Engineering staff would meet together and share experiences – John’s opinions and encouragement to many of us was much valued.
Dear City University, I am one of many international colleagues of John – from Prague. First i met John in Prague 1986, last time we went for a small evening meal at Canonbury November Last year. John was one of the very best academic I ever met. John’s first thinking was on students, than City, than research and than international dimension to this all. My parents passed away few years ago and I feel the best they stay with us when we are doing things they would do as well or wish us we do. So it is great to hear common room at the CIty is back. Please lets try to do things John wanted us to execute. Jiri Polak, CzechTech Prague (my apology for my poor English).
I had many interesting conversations with John. He was kind, lovable and an extremely sympathetic listener. He mentioned to me on countless occasions that for any University, a Senior Common Room was essential, particularly for enrichment and cross-fertilisation of ideas. He also talked about his upbringing, his University life in Oxford and how he ended up at City University London. His maternal uncle was the President of the Royal Society and a few weeks before his death, John mentioned this to me that he discovered that his mother was a prolific writer. John was a public school product and how he and Nigel Lawson (ex-Chancellor of the Exchequer of Thatcher Government) got on in Westminster School as class mates. John was a gentleman and indeed, a very gentle man. I have many fond memories of John and the tide of time will never be able to wash them away.