Obituary on Robin Smith, head of Carlisle university campus

Robin Smith came to Carlisle in 1993 to become head of the new University of Northumbria campus in Paternoster Row.

He successfully built up the campus through the 1990s - and it was his hope was that it could eventually develop into a "University of Carlisle", on the same model as new universities in other cathedral cities such as Lincoln and Winchester.

Instead the campus became part of the University of Cumbria, with bases in the city and elsewhere.

Robin was born in Leigh in Lancashire in 1942 and he and grew up in a typical mill town terraced house. Many of the children at primary school wore clogs, and he and his brother Peter used to envy their ability to make sparks fly from the pavements.

At 11 Robin won a scholarship to Bolton School. He wasn’t an academic high-flyer— leaving after O Levels - and worked as a bank clerk, through which he became active in the National Union of Bank Employees and the Young Socialists.

In 1963, aged 21, he studied sociology at Rutherford College of Technology in Newcastle - which later became Newcastle Polytechnic and then the University of Northumbria. He was vice-president of the students' union and it was there that he met Monica MacRow, whom he married in 1967.

From 1966to1968, Robin worked in London as a researcher and editor of the newsletter of the National Union of Bank Employees. He also studied part-time for an MSc in industrial relations at the London School of Economics and became a lecturer in the subject back at what was then Newcastle Polytechnic.

The following year he moved to a lectureship at Durham University Business School and spent 23 years there, where he was remembered as an extremely popular teacher.

He was also heavily involved in the Jim Conway Foundation, which ran weekend seminars for trade unionists. And he was also one of the first people employed as a consultant arbitrator by the Advisory, Conciliation and Arbitration Service, ACAS.

He continued working for ACAS until shortly before his death.

Robin gained a PhD from the University of York for a thesis on industrial relations in the coal mining industry in South Africa, and in 1991 he returned to what was by then the University of Northumbria to become a professor and head of department at its business school.

Two years later he headed up the new campus in Carlisle. Many of the elements of the Carlisle campus that he had led were later incorporated into the University of Cumbria.

Robin was an enthusiast for history and had a lifelong passion for transport, especially trains. When he retired in 2003 he became heavily involved in the local branch of the Historical Association and the Cumbrian Railways Association and was in demand as a lecturer on areas of railway history.

He was also involved in the early development of Beamish Open Air Museum and chaired the Friends of Beamish for 20 years.

Robin died suddenly in Pinderfields hospital in Wakefield, where he had been taken after falling ill on the way south to visit his granddaughters.

He and Monica had lived in Wetheral since 1994 and his son Adam said: "It was a perfect place for him since there are often steam specials on the West Coast Mainline and the Settle-Carlisle line, and you could see the fells from his house."

His funeral was held in the chapel at Wetheral Cemetery and he was buried in the woodland cemetery there.

Adam added: "At the funeral we sang Swing Low, Sweet Chariot as a tribute to his lifelong love of rugby. One of the highlights of his life was that he was in the stadium in Sydney when in England won the World Cup there in 2003.

"We also had a period of reflection on Robin’s life while listening to a recording of a steam engine climbing Shap summit in 1960 with the sound of moorland birds in the background. Robin not only loved steam engines but also wildlife, and especially birds."

Robin is survived by Monica, his sons Adam and Richard, and by three granddaughters, Rosie, aged 10, Eleanor, nine, and Lucy, five.