Roger Ainsworth obituary

My friend Roger Ainsworth, who has died aged 67 of cancer, was a distinguished engineer who worked first at Rolls-Royce and then for the Atomic Energy Research Establishment (AERE), before master of St

Oxford.

Roger was born in Morecambe, in 2002 becoming Catherine’s College, Lancashire, to Harold Ainsworth, a civil servant, and his wife, Mary (nee Reynolds). After Lancaster Royal grammar school he completed an apprenticeship with Rolls-Royce and then went to Jesus College, Oxford, where he won a

first-class degree in engineering in 1973 and then a doctorate in 1976.

Returning to Rolls-Royce, he spent a year as a research section leader, working on jet engines, before moving to the AERE in Harwell, Oxfordshire, in 1977, working in its engineering services division until 1985.

After that he was back in Oxford, with posts at St Catherine’s and the university, becoming professor of engineering science in 1998. He served the university in many roles – as a member of council, senior proctor and pro vicechancellor, and as the chair of the Voltaire Foundation and a delegate of Oxford University Press.

As chair of the university’s building committee he oversaw a 13-year £750m building programme. But it was the students of St Catherine’s who were particularly dear to him, and he always felt that the most important part of his work – and the aspect that he enjoyed the most – was encouraging them. In the wider community he was a governor of two independent schools in Oxfordshire, the Dragon school

Roger Ainsworth was the governor of two schools in Oxfordshire and served as chair of the Oxford Preservation Trust. About four years ago he bought a house in St Davids, Pembrokeshire