Obituary: Stewart Fraser

Archibald Stewart Fraser (always known as Stewart) was born on 4th August 1933 in Carmyle, a suburb of Glasgow. He died on 3rd March 2024, at Mount Barker, South Australia.

In 1941, Stewart’s family moved to Aberdeen and he went on to study at the University of Aberdeen, graduating in 1955 with a First Class Honours Science degree and the Silver Medal of the Royal Geographical Society. He worked for short periods as an assistant geologist in Labrador and Greenland, and studied soil survey and land classification at the Agricultural University of Wageningen in the Netherlands. He was then awarded a scholarship to study the geographical and pedological problems of crofting in Scotland.

Stewart’s university career began in 1957, when he was appointed as Assistant Lecturer in the Department of Geography at the University of Aberdeen (1957–1959) and then as Lecturer (1959–1961). In 1961, he moved hemispheres to the University of Auckland, on the way meeting his future wife Margaret when both were travelling by ship from England back to the Antipodes. They married in 1963, and then, in 1965, Stewart joined the newly established Department of Geography at the University of Western Australia, in Margaret’s home state. In 1967, Stewart made his final move to the also new Discipline of Geography at Flinders University, where he was appointed as Senior Lecturer and remained until he retired in 1997.

At Flinders, Stewart served the University and the School of Social Sciences in a wide variety of administrative and advisory roles. He played a major role in establishing and maintaining the Foundation Course, a Flinders innovation that helps to prepare mature age students to undertake university study. He was also an elected staff member of the University Council for almost 14 years, a member of the University’s Academic Committee for six years, a president of convocation, chief examiner in geography for the South Australian Public Examinations Board, and university representative on the Senior Secondary Assessment Board of South Australia, to name only some of his activities. In recognition of this service, Stewart was given a Distinguished Service Award by the University in 1995.

Stewart was proud of his Scottish heritage and would wear a kilt on formal occasions. Music was important; he described himself as an ‘accidental fiddler’ and played the violin in the Flinders Chamber Orchestra and later in the Adelaide Scottish Fiddle Club. Church was also important, as well as an interest in athletics. I introduced him to the film Chariots of Fire, which I thought would appeal to him as it featured a deeply religious Scottish athlete. He watched it twice.

Before retirement, Stewart and Margaret moved to a small rural property, where they could keep their daughter’s three horses and enjoy a country life. After retirement, Stewart was characteristically active in the Adelaide Hills Soils Board and its chairman for 3 years. He is survived by his wife Margaret, his two sons, John (a senior geography teacher) and Geoffrey (a geologist), and his daughter, Catherine (a music teacher and accomplished Scottish fiddle player).