OBITUARY
Cyril Shirley Belshaw
December 3, 1921 – November 20, 2018
CYRIL S. BELSHAW: Born Waddington New Zealand, December 3, 1921; Died Vancouver Canada, November 20, 2018.
We are saddened to share the news of Cyril’s death just before his 97th birthday. He was a kind and generous man who taught his family to celebrate diversity and adventure, kindness and shared joy. He delighted in good food, travel, politics, gardening, music and his great passion, tennis. He will be mourned by daughter Diana, partner Thomas; granddaughter Eleanor, Liam and their son Arthur Cyril; son Adrian, partner Loreen; granddaughter Juniper, partner Jess; by his extended family Claudia and Kevin and friends around the world.
Cyril was a colonial administrator and economist in the South Pacific before completing his PhD in social anthropology at the London School of Economics. During extensive field work in New Guinea, Fiji and Northern BC, he was supported, as in life, by his wife, Betty. His appointment to the Department of Anthropology and Sociology at UBC began a long career as an international academic, observer, and writer. He continued a family tradition of service as a founding member of CUSO, as Director of a Regional Training Centre for UN Fellows in Vancouver, and with UNESCO, the UN Bureau of Social Affairs, and the International Social Science Council. He served as President of the International Union of Anthropological and Ethnological Sciences, as editor of Current Anthropology, was an Honorary Life Member of the Royal Anthropological Institute and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada.
Cyril was an unrepentant thinker and writer. His publications ranged from academic studies (The Indians of British Columbia, Under the Ivi Tree, Changing Melanesia) to philosophical and political analyses of the world around him (Anatomy of a University, Towers Besieged: The Dilemma of the Creative University, The Sorcerer’s Apprentice: An Anthropology of Public Policy). Towards the end of his life, Cyril imagined a better world for his granddaughters and their children in Creating Our Destiny, based on the essay with which he won the Utopian World Championship in 2005.
There will be no memorial service as Cyril asked to be remembered around a dinner table with good friends, excellent food and a glass of wine. Donations in his memory may be made to Doctors Without Borders, the UNHCR (United Nations Refugee Agency) or organisations that support the homeless.
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Nos plus sincères sympathies à la famille et aux amis de Cyril Shirley Belshaw 2018..
Décès pour la Ville: north-Vancouver, Province: Colombie britanique
