HUSBAND, WIFE TO RECEIVE DEGREES

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31359, 3 May 1967, Page 2

HUSBAND, WIFE TO RECEIVE DEGREES

After the university graduation ceremony on Thursday, there will be two “doctors” in the Fenwick household. Mr Richard Fenwick and his wife, Lyndsay, will receive their doctorates of philosophy in their own separate, highly-specialised fields of civil engineering and botany.

Both Mr Fenwick and his wife, formerly Lyndsay Noble, come from academic families. Mrs Fenwick’s father, Mr C. A. Noble i’ a former headmaster of Christchurch West High School and a former member of the university council.

One of her sisters has taken a Ph. D. in Mathematics and her other sister is a physiotherapist. Mr Fenwick, is a son of a consulting engineer, Mr C. E. Fenwick, also a former member of the university council. His sister, a botanist is married to a soil chemist.

His father has a degree in electrical and mechanical engineering but his son choose civil engineering, “not because their was more money

in it, but because it was more interesting.” “Reinforced Concrete” was the subject of his thesis and he is currently employed in the Christchurch City Council design office and is undecided about his future plans. Mrs Fenwick, who is currently employed by the plant disease division of the Department of Industrial and Scientific Research, completed her thesis in plant physiology. She has no fears about becoming “obselete” if she has to cease work for a period to

raise a family. Botany was changing all the time but the basic core remained the same, she said. Mr and Mrs Fenwick share a common interest in tramping, and part of their honeymoon, 18 months ago, was spent on a tramping trip. They work separately with all due respect for the other’s sphere. When asked if they wanted their future children to be botanists or engineers, they just laughed and said, they would just have to make up their own minds about that.