Bob Woodings

1942 - 2024

Bob Woodings (R. B. Woodings), one of the early teachers on the publishing course at Oxford Brookes University, died on Thursday 5 December 2024, aged 82.

Bob graduated from Cambridge with a degree in English and immediately joined the newly-established University of East Anglia as a member of the Humanities Department, where he became an authority on Shelley. From there, Bob moved into publishing where he worked as a commissioning editor with Faber & Faber and Collins, before accepting an invitation from Oxford Polytechnic to set up and run their undergraduate publishing course. This started running in 1982 and is the original root from which the present day undergraduate and postgraduate courses at Oxford Brookes have grown.

Bob was an inspirational and inspired teacher, drawing on his own experience as a publisher and writer – his first book Shelley was published when he was only 26, and he was co-editor, with Alan Bullock, of the Fontana Dictionary of Modern Thinkers. He was also a shrewd and kind man, with a tremendous wit and sense of fun, which affected all those who came into contact with him, making him many life-long friends, who, like me, will be saddened to hear of his death.

Adrian Bullock

17 December 2024

Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 17 Dec 2024 around 3pm

Filed Under #Publishing