Richard Jewell
JEWELL Richard James BE MScEng MIEAust (1933 - 2020)
Richard Jewell was born on August 14, 1933, the son of carpenter, Charles Frederick Jewell, and his wife Agnes Jean Jewell née Caldwell.
Richard left school at 15 and worked as a builder with his father for eleven years. From 1961 he studied engineering at the University of Western Australia. After graduating in 1966 he commenced a Master’s degree in Engineering Science in the field of Geomechanics on an Australian Road Research Board fellowship. He completed his thesis in 1968 entitled An evaluation of criteria for selection of pavement base course materials in Western Australia.
In 1968 he married Maureen Maud Campbell and they had two daughters.
Geomechanics was in its infancy in Western Australia and so he travelled to Canada in 1968 to work with a geotechnical consulting firm based in Winnipeg. In Canada he also followed his passion for hockey, a passion that had led to his umpiring at National Hockey Championships in Australia. In 1971 he was elevated to the International Hockey Umpiring Panel, officiating at the Pan American Cup in Columbia. In 1972 he umpired the Olympic Hockey Final in Munich.
Richard continued his stellar umpiring career, umpiring at three World Cups – Amsterdam (1973), Kuala Lumpur (1975) and Buenos Aires (1978). In 1976 Richard was also selected to umpire at the 1976 Olympics in Montreal, followed by an invitation to umpire at the European Cup in Cologne in 1978 and the first junior World Cup in Paris in 1979. Richard retired from umpiring in 1979. For his service to hockey, Richard is a life Member of Hockey WA and was recently inducted into the Hockey WA Hall of Champions, becoming the first umpire to be inducted.
Richard returned to Perth in 1971 and initially held a temporary lecturing position in Civil Engineering at the University of Western Australia. In 1972 he was given tenure and appointed Senior Lecturer. In 1984, after Dr Baden Clegg retired, Richard established the Geomechanics group at the University of Western Australia, and spent much of the rest of the decade undertaking research on offshore platform foundations. Then in 1992 he initiated and became foundation director of the Australian Centre for Geomechanics which was set up to provide research and educational services to the mining industry. In 1993 he was promoted to Associate Professor, a position he held until his retirement in 2000.
After he retired, Richard worked as a Senior Consultant in the Australian Centre for Geomechanics. He also edited at least ten publications of “Paste”, the proceedings on the International Seminars on Paste and Thickened Tailings. He was in his eighties when he completed “Paste 2018”. Richard also continued to provide review services, as an independent consultant, to the industry around the world in the management of mine tailings.
Richard joined the Institution of Engineers, Australia in 1964 as a Student Member and was Honorary Treasurer for the WA Division.
Richard died on September 28, 2020.
References:
Margaret A Sacks (Editor), The Way 79 Who is Who, Crawley Publishers, Nedlands
https://www.hockey.org.au/news/vale-richard-jewell/ accessed October 6, 2020
University of Western Australia, 50th Reunion of the Graduates of 1966, October 2016
