Resthaven Fleurieu Community Services client, Dr William (Bill) Richardson is a man of language.
The former Associate Professor, who turns 100 on July 27, taught French and Spanish at Grammar Schools in England for 13 years, before moving with his wife Helen and their two children to Australia in 1965.
Here, he joined the Humanities staff at Flinders University (then known as the University of Adelaide at Bedford Park) as a lecturer, teaching Spanish, and Portuguese and, later, Brazilian Studies. Bill was part of the original teaching staff, with the university opening to students in 1966.
‘It was an exciting time to be there,’ Bill says. ‘Everyone was energetic and optimistic about the future. A number of the staff were quite young. I was one of the older teachers there at that time and, at the age of 41, it was wonderful to come into a role that had been tailor-made for me.’
Spoken by over 500 million people in more than 20 countries in four continents, Bill says Spanish is one of the easiest languages to teach and to learn. Spelling, pronunciation and stress are remarkably consistent, unlike English.
Bill says he has taught hundreds of students (in fact, two of his students went on to work for the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) and became Ambassadors for Australia).
There is now an annual award at Flinders University, the William Richardson Prize for Excellence in Spanish, and his donation enables this to be given in perpetuity to a student who has reached an exceptional standard during their Spanish major.
‘I loved teaching,’ Bill says.
And it showed. Each year Flinders University students would put together information for new students which gave their opinions on courses and teaching staff, and Bill was always assessed in glowing terms.
‘He had the loudest laugh and the loudest voice at Flinders,’ Bill’s wife Helen laughs. ‘They said, when he retired in 1987, the corridors were suddenly quiet.’
After retiring from teaching, Bill continued to research and write papers, and maintain a close association with the University as a Visiting Scholar. In 2011, on the strength of his many publications, he was awarded a PhD.
Studies and the war
Bill was born in London in 1924. His father was an RAF Chaplain and the family moved around as new postings came about. Sadly, Bill’s mother died before he was just two years old. His father remarried soon after and Bill’s sister was born when he was 7.
In the 1930s, Bill’s father was posted to Malta, and to allow him to focus on his education, Bill was sent to boarding school at St John’s School, Leatherhead, Surrey.
‘I didn’t see my family much between the ages of about 7 to 18,’ Bill says. ‘When I was on school holidays I went “home” to my aunt who had a flat in Southsea.
She was very kind, but there wasn’t much for me to do there, and the only thing of interest to read were copies of the Illustrated London News and the Daily Mail newspaper. I was always glad to return to school.’
In 1942 when Bill turned 18, he was called up to join the army. He joined the Royal Hampshire Regiment after being turned away from both the air force and the navy due to his colour blindness.
During the war Bill served in the UK and then, at the end of the war, Bill was appointed to lead a team for the Graves Registration Service. He visited Java, Malaya and Burma to supervise the identification and burial of deceased military personnel. With the rank of Captain, Bill undertook this work for 18 months before being demobbed in 1947.
Upon leaving the army, he was determined to go to university.
‘When I was at school I hated maths,’ Bill says. ‘I had high marks across all my other subjects, but I couldn’t get into university because of my math’s marks. Thankfully, my war service meant I was eligible for university without needing more study. I considered my options and enrolled at St John’s College in Oxford in French, Spanish and Portuguese.’
In Bill’s final year he became president of the Spanish Society. After graduating he undertook a teacher training course, and also spent some time in Brazil on two travelling scholarships.
Singing from the same hymn sheet
In 1953 Bill returned from Brazil to his father’s parish in Sussex.
One Sunday in April that year, there was a girl in the congregation who had been sent to a nearby farm through a post-war Government training scheme. Her landlady pointed out to her someone in the choir, and said, ‘That’s the Rector’s son’. It was Helen’s 23rd birthday and it proved to be a life-changing moment.
Helen later went on to enquire about joining the choir herself, and as an alto she was told she had ‘better go and sit with the men’. This put her next to Bill, who offered to help her find the place in her hymn book. She told him she had already found it, thank you.
‘She didn’t say it in a mean way though, so I wasn’t deterred,’ Bill says.
The pair found they had a lot in common and their relationship grew. They were married in 1956, with Bill’s father presiding over the ceremony. In 1958 the couple had their first child, Elinor, and then two years later in 1960 their youngest, Nick.
Becoming published
During his years as a teacher, Bill came to edit a collection of extracts from Spanish and Spanish American novels and short stories, as well as from newspaper articles, which would be useful, interesting and entertaining for Spanish students. The book was published in 1964 and was the first of many publications with Bill’s name on them.
His serious research began in the early 1980s after reading a book published in 1977 claiming that the Portuguese were the first Europeans to land in Australia.
Bill read this and found anomalies that prompted him to produce papers exposing the so-called evidence. He then spent years studying 15th and 16th century historical maps, charts, rutters and documents where his knowledge of foreign languages was invaluable.
He also investigated the origin of place names, many of which had become corrupted and unrecognisable over the centuries. In 1988 he was awarded a research fellowship at the Australian National Library and in 2006 they published his book Was Australia Charted Before 1606?
In 2018, at 94, Bill started on his last piece of research.
‘We received a letter from a researcher in France who was working with a manuscript book from the 1480s. It was a French pilot book that contained sailing directions to the western coastlines of Europe and contained many place names,’ Bill says. ‘She was having difficulty identifying features in the British Isles, and asked if I would be willing to help. I agreed.’
Bill was in hospital at the time and says it was a wonderful distraction for him to keep his mind busy while he was there, and during the following two years.
Keeping active
In 2022 the couple moved from their 10-acre property at Macclesfield to a retirement unit at Mount Barker. With assistance from Resthaven they live there independently, enjoying visits to the gym and social activities with friends, many of whom live nearby. Bill continues to read widely and keep his brain active.
Happy Birthday Bill! We hope you enjoy your 100th birthday, celebrating with friends and family.
