He felt a need to serve city
David Cox felt he owed Christchurch for all the cherished experiences and opportunities the city had provided him.
The city councillor and community stalwart devoted a large majority of his life to fulfilling that debt.
He died at Nurse Maude Hospice on February 7, aged 79.
Cox was born in the small seaside town of Shoreham-by-sea in England on August 1, 1939. He grew up in nearby fishing village Selsey Bill.
Growing up during World War II, some of Cox’s earliest memories were of United States soldiers camping under the trees near his home as the Allied forces prepared for the D-Day, Normandy, landings.
Being an only child, Cox’s parents were eager to send him to boarding school at Midhurst Grammar so he had friends to mix with. It was there his love of sport began from football, rugby, tennis, cricket, to exercising the polo ponies on the Goodwood estate.
After finishing high school, Cox moved to London, working as a tour guide for Swans Tours. He then joined Butlins Holiday Group as a personnel manager at a large camp at Bognor Regis, in West Sussex.
At Butlins Holiday Group, Cox was in charge of more than 2000 staff each season. One of his employees, coffee bar supervisor Fiona Lawton, would later become his wife.
The pair married in February 1963 and a year later they moved to New Zealand, settling in Christchurch.
‘‘From the day he set foot in Christchurch, he loved it with a passion and became a real Kiwi,’’ Fiona Cox said.
Shortly after moving, the newlyweds used their savings and bought a Four Square store. They then sold the store a year later when first child Sonia was born and Cox began working as the division manager for Ballins Hotels.
When son Andrew was born in 1967, Cox had become involved in early meetings for the Christchurch 1974 Commonwealth city councillor b August 1, 1939 d February 7, 2019
Games. He eventually ran the catering division for the athletes village.
Cox’s political career began when he became director of the Christchurch transport board in 1972.
He first served on the Christchurch City Council as the East Ward councillor from 1986 to 1989. He then represented the Ferrymead ward from 1989 through to 1998 with three years as its chairman. He again represented it from 2001 through to 2010. When it became the Hagley-Ferrymead Community Board in 2010, he served for a further three years.
Cox committed 24 years of his life serving the council – serving under four mayors.
This dedication was honoured in the 2010 New Year honours list, when he received the New Zealand Order of Merit for his services to the community.
Christchurch Mayor Lianne Dalziel said at his funeral Cox provided an ‘‘incredible service’’ to Christchurch over several decades.
She said just before the 1990 election, Cox disagreed about legislation, which was to take effect after the election.
‘‘We didn’t agree on the issue, but what I always remembered and why I held him in such high regard, was the utterly respectful way we could disagree.
‘‘That to me is the mark of a true gentleman.’’
Cox felt almost ‘‘honour bound’’ to give something back to Christchurch, Dalziel said.
‘‘While other councillors were talking about wanting to do right, he just wanted to extinguish what he owed.
‘‘David’s humility shines through the words, which were not just words, as everyone who knew him knows. David walked the talk.’’
Cox’s immense work in the community did not cease when his council duties ended. He was vicepresident of the Sumner Lifeboat, a member of the Sumner Volunteer Fire Brigade and the Sumner cricket, football and yacht clubs.
He was also patron of six local libraries, chairman of the Music Centre of Christchurch, director of the Christchurch Symphony Orchestra for 15 years and a trustee of the Court Theatre and the Sumner Ferrymead Foundation.
He was also an avid Crusaders supporter.
Fiona Cox said her husband was always encouraging others to be the best they could be.
‘‘He inspired people to do better . . . and he always encouraged others to help.
‘‘He just took a great interest in everything,’’ she said.
The Christchurch City Council paid tribute to Cox by having a minute’s silence in a meeting on February 14.
A service to celebrate Cox’s life was held at the Christchurch Transitional Cathedral the following day.
Cox is survived by wife, Fiona, children Sonia and Andrew, and grandchildren James, Simon, Michael, Annabel and Claudia.
– By Jonathan Guildford
Cmetrologist b June 18, 1948 d December 13, 2018
hris Sutton was a square peg in a square hole. ‘‘What he did was him to a tee,’’ his wife Professor Vicky Mabin says.
Sutton, a world-leader in metrology, the study of measurement, died from cancer on December 13, aged 70.
Advocacy of metrology’s importance was something close to Sutton’s heart, and when he won a Welly Award shortly before his death, his family celebrated it not just as a hat tip to Sutton, but to the field of science he loved.
‘‘We were really glad he got the Welly,’’ Mabin says. ‘‘We were surprised he won [because] I don’t think we thought people understood what metrology was.’’
Born in Palmerston North in 1948, Christopher Mannings Sutton moved to the Ka¯ piti Coast with his family at the age of four.
The middle child between older sister Vicky and younger brother Pete, he was the son of a Royal Air Force squadron leader who lost an arm and a leg during World War II.
His mother, Pamela, met his father, Ken, through the air force, while she was serving in the Women’s Auxiliary Air Force.
Sutton’s father had been a great role model to him, teaching him determination and inventiveness in the face of obstacles, Mabin says.
Sutton finished at Wellington’s Rongotai College as dux and deputy head prefect. He then attended Victoria University of Wellington, graduating with a bachelor of science honours in physics, followed by a PhD in solid state physics.
His first job out of university was with the old Department of Science and Industrial Research (DSIR), which is now part of Callaghan Innovation. This was despite ‘‘not having much of a clue what it was about’’, Mabin says.
‘‘Even though he didn’t know a lot about the job at first, he actually really loved it and developed into and with it, helping develop the field of metrology.’’
It came through clearly when he talked about it just before his death – that it wasn’t just the ‘‘scientific side’’ of the work, but the ‘‘deep and lasting’’ friendships he had made in New Zealand and overseas in the course of his work that made it so satisfying.
He soon became a leader in the field and, in 1977, at the first meeting of the Asia Pacific Metrology Programme, he volunteered New Zealand – and therefore himself – as the new organisation’s first chairman.
Mabin and Sutton met in 1983 though their work as scientists at the DSIR.
‘‘He took over from me as the scientific liaison officer. I still remember him walking round the corner by our unit . . . I briefed him. I don’t remember much about the briefing.
‘‘He was very handsome and very pleasant and very charming and very intelligent and all those things, the complete package.’’
They were married in 1987 and had two daughters, Rebecca and Emily.
Rebecca, now married to maths teacher Aaron Hawke, has followed in her father’s footsteps, working in metrology at the Measurement Standards Laboratory (MSL) as a research scientist in mass and pressure.
Emily Sutton works in a startup business in Portugal.
‘‘They’ve both gone on to do amazing things. Chris was amazingly proud of them,’’ Mabin says.
It was Sutton’s work on the development of a super-precise weight-measuring instrument – a new, smaller Kibble Balance – that would really solidify his role in the history of the field.
In November last year the General Conference on Weights and Measures voted to change the definition of the kilogram, a standardised weight that affects the daily lives of millions of people.
Instead of being defined by ‘‘Le Grand K’’, a cylinder of platinumiridium that lives under lock-andkey in France, the kilogram will now be linked to a constant (the Planck constant) and so will be able to be realised worldwide.
One way to measure the precise weight of an object is with a Kibble Balance, which uses an electric current in a magnetic field to produce a force to balance the object’s weight.
A Kibble Balance in the National Institute of Standards and Technology in Gaithersburg, in Maryland, the United States, is 2.5 metres tall. Sutton developed one that could fit inside a standardsized room.
And while other Kibble balances have problems with magnetic fields, which can create tiny biases, Sutton’s design has no interfering magnetic fields, helping metrologists around the world weigh more accurately.
MSL director Fleur Francois says the invention was ‘‘a true stroke of Kiwi genius’’ and believes the innovation would soon be used by many countries to calibrate kilogram measurements.
When one of Sutton’s colleagues, distinguished scientist Keith Jones, accepted the Welly Award on his behalf, he spoke about Sutton’s fondness for making friends with others who shared common interests, which saw him found the Asia-Pacific Metrology Programme (APMP), which now has 56 member laboratories around the world.
‘‘Chris was on the founding committee of APMP and never stopped helping. In essence he was always the gentlemanly diplomat offering solutions; shunning any need for recognition or control.’’
He won APMP’s annual award in 2017 for his contribution to the development of metrology in the Asia-Pacific region.
Despite his scientific impact, Sutton was described by his family as a humble man with integrity who would want to be defined not just by his work, but by kindness and compassion.
Sutton said his biggest legacy was his family, Mabin says. ‘‘He had a gentleness and a warmth and a calmness, a calmness that I find still helps me now. He’s left that with us.
‘‘He’d always think things through, and I think that’s the thing about a scientist – you’ll encounter blocks and barriers, but they always think ‘We just haven’t found our way around this obstacle yet, we haven’t found the solution yet’.’’ – By Felix Desmarais Do you know someone who deserves a Life Story? Email obituaries@stuff.co.nz