Part 2 (Obituaries) - King's College - University of Cambridge

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OBITUARIES
become Calcutta institutions like the Calcutta Horse Show, which he ran for
20 years. Together with the Maharajah of Burdwan, Bob revived Polo in
Calcutta, making it again a big event around Christmas time. The British
School in Calcutta also has Bob to thank for its existence, and provides a
place where expatriate children can receive their education without having
to be “sent home”.
Soon after returning to India Bob had married Anne in 1950. She was from
the Layard family, whose ancestors had been colonial administers for two
centuries, as well as great hunters. But Anne put the guns away and became a
trustee of the World Wide Fund for Nature and dedicated herself to the cause
of conservation. Anne and Bob used to keep both a pet tiger and a leopard,
and in the early 1980s the family also set up a jungle retreat that Bob ran. He
loved to sit around the campfire with a chota of gin and tell stories. The
Kipling Camp by the Kanha National Park in the state of Madhya Pradesh was
to become the home not only of nimble felines, but also of the elephant Tara.
Anne and Bob’s daughter Belinda became a wildlife photographer who,
together with Anne, started theWildlife Protection Society of India.The couple
also had a son, Rupert.
Bob continued to run the Tolly until 1997 when he retired. As he kept his
residence in the club he was still very much a presence in the local
community. Bob and his wife had become the social hub around which
British life in Calcutta revolved after long service to their fellows. They cared
for and made blossom a particular Anglo-Indian world of those that stayed
behind. Bob’s charisma and bonhomie made him into a very natural and
effective leader who was very well liked. He died at the age of 80 on 19 April
2005. Bob is survived by his wife and their two children. His funeral
procession was so large that it brought Calcutta’s busy traffic to a halt.
ROBERT IAN WYNNE-JONES (1943) was born in September 1925 in
Coulsdon, Surrey. After Oundle School he came to King’s to read Mechanical
Sciences and did some teaching at the King’s Choir School, where he met his
future wife, Mary Donald, who also taught there.