Professor Robert (Bob) Arnott (1951 – 2024)

Associate Fellow Professor Robert (Bob) Arnott died on Saturday 31 August 2024. He was a long-standing and much-loved member of the Green Templeton community.

As an archaeologist, palaeoepidemiologist and medical historian, Bob contributed in a wide range of capacities. He was a wonderful college adviser, an inaugural member of the Equality and Diversity Forum, and fondly remembered by generations of children of college members in the guise of Santa.

Bob studied at University College London, the University of Warwick, the University of Pittsburgh and the British School at Athens. He was before early retirement, Professor of the History and Archaeology of Medicine, Director of the Centre for the History of Medicine, Sub-Dean of the School of Medicine and Public Orator of the University of Birmingham.

Bob was actively involved in college life when he died, including having facilitated future exploration of issues around Care in late July 2024. From an earlier career in the NHS, he had an active interest in UK healthcare policy and taught on the Management in Medicine Programme. He was also passionate about defending the NHS.

Bob was for many years, a Trustee and Secretary of the Bowel Disease Research Foundation and was until retirement from the post in July 2022, Chairman of the Patient Liaison Committee of the Association of Coloproctology of Great Britain and Ireland (ACPGBI) and a Member of its Council. He brought the experience of patient and public involvement to Green Templeton as a Clinical Teaching Assistant. In his role with the Equality and Diversity Forum he was always advocating for disabled members of the community, and as a wheelchair user he contributed to a recent main site accessibility audit.

Bob was a member of the National Bowel Cancer Audit (NBOCA) Board of NHS England’s National Cancer Collaborating Centre and was in 2019, one of the founders of Bowel Research UK. In 2021, he was awarded Honorary Membership of the ACPGBI and in 2022, the Geoff Oates Medal, its highest honour.

Bob excavated in Greece, Italy and Turkey and was an authority on disease and medicine in the Aegean and Anatolian Bronze Age civilisations, 2,000–1100 BCE. Some of his recent work also involved extraction and sequencing of ancient DNA from human skeletal remains found on Crete, to determine the origins of its prehistoric population. It was published in a paper in Nature in August 2017.

In recent years, his interest turned to India, where he frequently travelled for his work in modern global health and supporting charity hospitals in the State of Punjab and some of his publications, numbering six single-authored or edited books and over eighty papers, were centred on prehistoric India, particularly on health, disease and medicine in the Indus Civilisation, 2600-1900 BCE. His latest book, Disease and Healing in the Indus Civilisation, was published in 2024. He was the Convenor of the University’s Ancient Medicine Seminar and is a Fellow of both the Royal Asiatic Society and the Royal Historical Society.

The thoughts of college members are with Bob’s wife Patricia, his family and friends at this time. Please let Jo Ostridge know if you would like her to pass on any messages or tributes.

Tributes from college members

Teresa Strike, Domestic Bursar

‘Bob was such a lovely man, he supported our recent access audit, offering advice and direction from a disabled persons perspective, which was really helpful. We made a number of changes around college from the direct advice he gave me. He will be sadly missed.’

Professor Trish Greenhalgh, Governing Body Fellow

‘My husband Fraser and I were so sad to hear of Robert’s passing. Whenever we overlapped at College functions, he was always on top form, friendly and welcoming. He was one of the people we always looked forward to seeing. He knew more about the history of the NHS than anyone I’ve ever met and was so generous with his time in sharing that knowledge. His contribution to the Management in Medicine series was unique and helped educate generations of new NHS doctors. As a lived experience expert in diseases of the colon, he made a huge contribution to research and service development. We will miss him greatly.’

Professor Catherine Pope, Senior Research Fellow

‘I joined the College in 2019 and barely had any time to get to know Bob, still less learn about his incredible career, but he made me so welcome here in a very short time. He supported me on one of my projects as a PPI participant and always, always had the best conversations; we talked about, among other things, charities and their work, digital health, NHS care (and failings), the Labour party and politics, the madness and wonderfulness of Oxford and the annoyances of steps and mobility barriers. Bob enriched my thinking and made me laugh. He was a lovely man, and I will miss him.’

Dr Josh Brewin, Doll Fellow

‘Bob was a fantastic teacher and a fine advocate for the patient perspective in clinical teaching, he will be greatly missed by myself and the rest of the Doll Fellows.’

Austen Fisher (DPhil Anthropology, 2019) and Human Welfare Conference 2022 Chair

‘Bob was the first person to offer to contribute to GTC’s 2022 Human Welfare Conference. He was extremely kind, generous, enthusiastic, and never failed to make us laugh. I know others who presented at the 2022 HWC were taken by Bob. “Wow. What a gem!” I remember one of them saying after we all had a chance to chat following the conference. Bob is truly one of a kind and will no doubt be missed by many. I am grateful that I had the opportunity to meet him when I did.’

Professor Sue Ziebland, Governing Body Fellow

‘Bob was (rightly) a great favourite of fellows and students alike. His talks for the Management in Medicine Programme with Nick Fahy, and the style of their joint presentations, were always both enjoyable and also successful in challenging some widely held misconceptions (for example about what the NHS spends most of its money on). His broad interdisciplinary knowledge, clear political commitments and genuine interest in everyone he talked to really shone through. I always enjoyed our conversations.’

Dr Nicholas Hicks, Associate Fellow and Chair, Management in Medicine Steering Committee

‘Bob was a staunch and long-term supporter of the Management in Medicine programme. For many years he gave one of the first talks in the MiM year – a wonderful and well received lecture, peppered with strongly held views of right and wrong, on the history of the NHS. It was always a great way to kick off the start of a new MiM year. I feel very fortunate to have had the privilege of knowing Bob. And I will always be grateful for his unswerving support and contributions to the MiM programme. I will miss him very much.’

Dr Shobhana Nagraj, Research Fellow

‘Bob was a major part of my life at Green Templeton. Even before I started, I met him at an open day and he invited me to a conference on Archaeology and Medicine in 2017 before I started my DPhil studies. He was so welcoming and kind and immediately made me feel at home. I learnt so much at that conference and will never forget it. Being a medic, I’d never thought about the intersection of ancient history and medicine in this way and it opened my mind. Bob shared his knowledge and passion for medicine, the NHS and archaeology with me during numerous conversations over the years.

‘Most recently, last year I travelled to Indonesia to give a talk on the origins of the NHS and Bob prepped me for the talk and I will never forget this conversation we had about how the NHS got started and its links to people at Oxford. It was amazing. What struck me most was his kindness and willingness to help as soon as I reached out – He travelled all the way from home to GTC by bus just to go through this with me. The talk was a big success in Indonesia (sharing the stage with the head of their social insurance system for universal health coverage), and I wouldn’t have been able to have delivered this without his help and guidance. Bob always supported me and made me feel like I belonged.’

Dr John Buckell, Research Fellow

‘Bob and I met at college, and he was always supportive of me and my research. He put me forward and sponsored my fellowship application. GTC has become a wonderful part of my life. Bob had a large part to play in that for which I am very grateful. We had a chance connection. After chatting over coffee one afternoon, we realised that I’d been in the same form as his daughter, when we were small children. What a coincidence!

‘Bob was always tremendously warm, kind, and engaging. I was always very happy to see him and enjoyed chatting with him enormously.’

Professor Mary Daly, Governing Body Fellow

‘Professor Bob Arnott was a valued member of the Green Templeton College community. Along with his other contributions, he was closely associated with a number of College’s academic initiatives, to which he gave generously of his time, knowledge and wisdom. I had direct experience of Bob’s generosity through my leadership of the Care Initiative. He was one of the most supportive people in the Initiative’s early years, helping to chart the course of the Initiative and giving valued advice, not least on issues relevant to the NHS and the interconnections between the organisation and respective histories of health care and social care. On this and other matters, his knowledge was encyclopaedic.

‘The Care Initiative continued to benefit from Bob’s commitment as time went on. Indeed, as recently as July of this year, Bob was involved in ensuring that the Care Initiative received the outstanding resources when the RESEC charity was wound up. Bob was profoundly interested in care. He was someone who understood the value of good care, professionally and personally, and devoted much of his energies to making the case for good care as foundational to a good society.’