My brother, Don Walsh, who has died aged 89, was an expert in electronics who moved into academia, after which he became involved in a number of research programmes and wrote a popular university text book.
Don was born in Canonbury, north London, to Lawrence, a Post Office employee, and Ethel (nee Dunbar), a garment worker. He began his secondary education in 1936 at Mitcham boys’ grammar school in south London, on a scholarship. But his schooling was interrupted in 1940 when he was evacuated with our mother and me to lodge with relatives in rural Huntingdonshire. Life in those parts was still surprisingly basic; we had no mains water, electricity, gas or sewage system. Water came from a hand pump in the scullery and had to be heated on a fire that was also our only means of cooking. Our mother being in poor health, much of this work fell to Don.
One amenity available, however, was secondary education – in the form of Kimbolton school, a fee-paying boarding institution which, under wartime arrangements, admitted Don free of charge as a day boy. In Mitcham he had done fairly well academically, but at Kimbolton he suddenly found himself hailed as “the school genius”. When we returned to London he took a wartime degree at King’s College London and then started working in electronics with Mullard’s, a Mitcham firm that specialised in thermionic tubes.
After moving to become a civil service scientific officer, in 1955 – already with several innovative electronic developments to his name, including some pioneering work on semi-conductors – he was awarded a research fellowship at Oxford University, which led to his gradual absorption into academic life. He became a lecturer and fellow of Oriel College, Oxford, and was at the height of his powers when, in 1977, he was knocked over by a car while cycling to work. He very nearly died as a result of the resultant brain trauma, and probably owed his survival to the close proximity of the Radcliffe hospital. He recovered well, but after some time it became clear that he would be unable to fulfil all his previous duties, and he took early retirement.
The remainder of Don’s life was still active, and he pursued interests in silversmithing, coin collecting and, above all, gardening, all with the thoroughness that had made him such a good researcher. Nonetheless, his later exploits were, he regretted, a poor alternative to “what might have been”. His enduring memorials are the research programmes he was involved in at the engineering department at Oxford, and a text book for undergraduates, Lectures on the Electrical Properties of Materials, which he co-authored with Laszlo Solymar and which is now in its ninth edition. My own strongest memories of Don are of the selflessness and limitless generosity he always displayed towards his younger brother.
He is survived by his wife, Dorothy (nee Reynolds), whom he married in 1946, by their sons, Nicholas and Andrew, and by five grandchildren.
