Professor Alistair Kerr

Good Friends in Christ.

Ian Wilson and Sascha (my wife) have very kindly set up a blog for me. This (for the un-technological like me) is a facility that will enable me to write about what is going on in the Church as I visit Presbyteries and congregations etc. These messages will be available to you to read on the website of the UPCSA. I will try to keep these as current as I can.  But first, I need to backtrack a little and tell you some of the things I have been doing since the General Assembly.

Tuesday 5 October 2010

 

Sheila (my chaplain) and I travelled down to Grahamstown to attend the funeral of Professor Alastair Kerr. I was invited to say a eulogy at the funeral and chose to share memories from the fifteen years I had known ‘Prof’.

Alastair Kerr was born in Biggar, Scotland, the second son of Dr. Alexander and Mrs Mary Kerr. His father was the first principal of the South African Native College which later became Fort Hare university. Dr Kerr was also one of the handful of elders to become Moderator of the General Assembly. Alastair grew up at Fort Hare and was sent to Grey High School in Port Elizabeth for his high school education. In 1941, he graduated with a BA at Rhodes whereafter he spent the remainder of the war years on board a submarine in the Royal Navy and later as a meteorological officer in South East Asia. After the war, he enrolled at Wits university for the LLB degree because it was felt that those who sought to work for the upliftment of Black South Africans really needed trainer lawyers. He worked for  5 years in the department of Native Affairs and even acted as a magistrate before jointing Rhodes in 1954.

Professor Kerr distinguished himself in two main areas of law, namely customary law and the law of contract. The former became the subject of his masters degree (achieved in 1960) and the later his doctorate in 1972). His books ranged from customary law to the law of Agency, the law of Contract and the law of Sale and Lease. He served as head of department of law and as dean of the faculty on many occasions.  In 1993, he was appointed honorary Senior Counsel by State President FW de Klerk (there are only 10 academics ever to receive this honour) and awarded the honorary Doctor of Laws by Rhodes university in 1995.

In the Church, the Alastair Kerr we knew was always a humble servant with not a hint of arrogance. The Manual of Faith and Order of the UPCSA will stand as a monument to his work.  He served on the Manual committee of the former PCSA since 1974 and in the UPCSA since union.  He was Presbytery Clerk in the former PCSA for 10 years before union. He was a member of the Committee negotiating union and worked tirelessly in creating the Court of Assembly system. He was an elder of Trinity, Grahamstown for more than 50 years.

I have seen him ‘ruled out of order’ a few times and every time, he sat down saying “thank you, Moderator”. I wonder whether they still make elders like that.

The UPCSA has lost one of its great fathers and faithful servants. We say “Farewell old friend!”

The funeral was well attended by members of the Presbytery of Central Cape and by ministers from far and wide, also by members of the Rhodes university fraternity.

(Just) George