GERALD Bowen Thomas was a giant of academic and community life for more than half a century.

The Kennington resident, who has died aged 92, gave up his time to several organisations across Oxfordshire over many decades.

This was alongside a long career at Oxford University, where he was a founding and emeritus fellow of Kellogg College.

Gerry was born in Llanelli, South Wales, in 1926 and grew up in the town.

He attended the town's boys grammar school, where he met his future wife Joan, who went to the girls' equivalent.

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Mr Bowen Thomas served in India during the Second World War, before studying economics at the University of Wales, Aberystwyth.

He married Joan in 1951 and his first job was at Coleg Harlech, an adult education college in Wales, where he stayed for seven years.

The couple's first child, Bethan, was born in 1955, while their son, Wynne, followed in 1961.

From 1958, Mr Bowen Thomas was a tutor at the Department for Continuing Education at Oxford, then called the Delegacy for External Studies. He was initially based in Kent, but the family moved to Kennington in 1964 and never left.

The academic was a tutor in economics and industrial relations based at Rewley House, in Wellington Square, before moving to Kellogg.

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Mr Bowen Thomas specialised in adult education, teaching economics, management and industrial relations and rose through the ranks across more than three decades.

He was assistant director of the Department for Continuing Education for three years from 1987, and was assistant director of Rewley House when he retired in 1991.

Yet Mr Bowen Thomas's retirement was in name only - from 1990 to 1997 he was a lecturer and tutor in European economics for the Stanford University Oxford Programme and a director of the department’s Korean University programme on European economics.

He threw himself into village life long before he retired - he was a school governor, churchwarden of St Swithun's Church and chairman of the history society. Such was his impact that some local children called him 'Mr Kennington'.

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Further afield, Mr Bowen Thomas was president of Abingdon Rotary Club in 1987 and chair of both the Abingdon and southern areas of Citizens Advice Bureau. He was also a trustee of Witney-based Guideposts Trust for 18 years.

Joan died in 2012, but Mr Bowen Thomas continued to play an active role in the community.

A fan of art and music, he was part of the Sunningwell art group and a patron of the Oxford Welsh Male Voice Choir.

The group's St David's Day Concert took place one day after Mr Bowen Thomas died, and they dedicated a piece of music to him.

He remained active until the day before he was taken ill with pneumonia in early February.

Mr Bowen Thomas died at the John Radcliffe Hospital on March 8 and is survived by both children.

His funeral took place at St. Swithun's Church, Kennington, yesterday afternoon. It is testament to the academic's popularity that the family hired the church hall and Kennington Village Centre to cope with the number of people paying their respects.