Professor Emeritus John Farrington died at the weekend. Born in 1945 in Lancashire, John studied at the University of Hull. He joined the Department of Geography as an academic at the University of Aberdeen in 1969 and in addition to teaching and supervision activities pursued a career-spanning programme of transport-related and rural related research, making notable contributions to the study of rural transport; sustainability and rural broadband access and its implications.
John became Head of Department in the early 2000s, holding this position when the University transitioned from a Departments and Faculties structure to Schools and Colleges. At the same time collaborations with colleagues in Computing Science and Geography laid the foundations for a successful application that brought the Rural Digital Economy Research Hub – dot.rural – to the University. Jointly led by John and Pete Edwards this was, at the time, the largest research award the University had received. John formally retired in 2014, taking up Emeritus status.
John was kind to colleagues and supportive of younger academics and generations of undergraduate and postgraduate students and postdocs. Many individuals will recall sitting with John in his office surrounded by numerous books, reports and piles of paper, a 1970s ABBA calendar on the pinboard above his desk and a framed photograph of his wife, Bernadette, in pride of place on top of a filing cabinet. Sitting next to him at a lunchtime seminar you could be sure that John would take a KitKat out of his pocket!
John is survived by his daughter Sinead; son Conor and John’s five grandchildren. A funeral service was held in King’s College Chapel at 11am on 31st July.
Professor Pete Edwards, who worked alongside John as joint PI for the dot.rural Digital Economy Research Hub, said: “John and I worked together on a number of interdisciplinary projects for a period leading up to his retirement; he taught me a great deal about the social sciences and their interface to policy making, and in return I’d like to think that I gave him a little insight into some of the novel computing technologies that we were working on. He was a wonderful collaborator and a genuinely nice person; he will be greatly missed.”