My friend Matthew Hepburn, who has died aged 81, was the driving force behind the Polytechnic of North London Astronomy Forum, which in its heyday attracted star speakers such as Jocelyn Bell Burnell and Monica Grady.
Matthew was born in Caterham in Surrey, the youngest of three children of Jack Hepburn, who was the principal of Kingston Polytechnic in south-west London, and his wife, Edgitha (nee Knowles). He was academically precocious at Caterham school, winning a scholarship to Queens’ College, Cambridge, from where he graduated in natural sciences in 1961.
The following year he became a librarian at what was then known as the Northern Polytechnic School in north London and soon became the Polytechnic of North London (now London Metropolitan University). Eventually rising to be deputy head librarian at the polytechnic’s Holloway Road building, he held that post until his retirement in 1992.
When plans emerged in the mid-1980s to close the polytechnic’s Astronomy Forum, Matthew and his friend Tony Corbett, a fellow member of the Haringey Astronomical Society (then run by the Sky at Night presenter Patrick Moore), took over the running of the group in 1987, and immediately began to attract a host of top names as guest speakers at its meetings, which were held at the Camden Irish Centre, Hampstead parish church and even in the garden of Matthew’s Caterham home, where he kept a state-of-the-art observatory.
Supporters of the forum also included Matthew’s friend Piers Corbyn (brother of Jeremy), an astrophysicist with whom he shared lively discussions about the weather and climate change, and who regarded Matthew as “a genius with an incisive, huge knowledge”.
After his diagnosis with type 2 diabetes in 2016, Matthew gradually withdrew from the forum until its final meetings a year ago. He also diagnosed himself as having Asperger syndrome, which he felt explained much about his punctilious nature and considerable intellect.
He will be remembered for his profound Catholic conviction, his selfless generosity and his determined and focused need to put right the wrongs he saw around him.
He is survived by his sister, Alice, four nieces and three nephews.
