A university’s ongoing journey to remember – and repair

Stellenbosch University (SU) in South Africa has unveiled a permanent installation in honour of the late Walter Parry (1913-1966) – a brilliant science teacher who was denied an academic career under apartheid – as part of an “ongoing journey of restitution and transformative social impact”.

The ceremony took place on 22 May in the Old Lückhoff School, a building steeped in historical meaning. Once the heart of Die Vlakte – a predominantly ‘coloured’ neighbourhood near the centre of the town of Stellenbosch – the school building was given to SU a few years after this close-knit community fell victim to forced removals in the late 1960s under apartheid’s Group Areas Act.

In 2007, the building was symbolically rededicated to its original community under then SU rector and vice-chancellor Professor Russel Botman, and in 2019, it became the site of a ceremonial return of school benches under his successor, Professor Wim de Villiers.

This launched the Lückhoff Living Museum as “a space for memory, healing and dialogue” – an initiative that continues under SU’s current Vice-Chancellor, Professor Deresh Ramjugernath.

The unveiling event brought together members of the Parry family, alumni of the school, community members, and SU representatives to reflect on the life and legacy of a “neglected genius”.

The installation is the latest in a series of steps by SU to honour Parry. In 2024, the inaugural annual Walter Parry Memorial Lecture was held and, in January this year, the university named a new student residence House Walter Parry.

Layered tribute

“We wanted to honour Walter Parry, not just as a scientist, but also as a man, a father, a teacher – someone who lived with integrity and served his community in a time of deep hostility and injustice,” Renée Hector-Kannemeyer, the deputy director of SU’s Centre for the Advancement of Social Impact and Transformation (CASIT), said at the unveiling ceremony.

The three-panel installation dedicated to Parry’s legacy consists of a biographical overview and an artist’s illustration of him, as well as scenes from the inaugural 2024 lecture. It was designed by Monique Biscombe, a PhD candidate in Visual Arts at SU and daughter of the late Stellenbosch author and activist Hilton Biscombe, with input from the Lückhoff Alumni Association and the Parry family.

“My aim was to create something timeless, dignified and visually striking – an image that conveys movement and energy, and honours the layered nature of Walter Parry’s story,” she told University World News.

“The phrase ‘District Six nuclear genius who never was’, published in a news article after his death, felt unbearably sad to me – it suggested a life cut short. But his legacy is ongoing. So I chose to work with the idea of layers – of history, of memory, of meaning. His legacy cannot be limited to what he was denied. It continues to inspire.”

Who was Walter Parry?

Walter Hazell Parry was born in District Six in 1913, an area of Cape Town known for its multicultural character. It was declared a ‘whites-only’ zone under apartheid in 1966, leading to the forced removal of more than 60,000 residents.

Long before the destruction of this vibrant community, Parry completed his MSc in Physics cum laude at the University of Cape Town in 1934 after receiving special permission to enrol.

Despite his academic brilliance, apartheid laws denied him the opportunity to pursue a formal academic career. He became a mathematics teacher instead, and taught at Lückhoff High School in Stellenbosch from 1952 until his untimely death in 1966.

“Teachers at the school who were taught by him when they were learners remember him for always being well prepared for his lessons,” said Chris Jooste, the current principal of Lückhoff. The school still exists today, but is now located in the suburb of Ida’s Valley on the outskirts of Stellenbosch.

Parry’s passion for science reached beyond the classroom. Though never formally appointed, he quietly assisted staff and students at SU – often tutoring students behind closed doors and collaborating with physicists, including then head of department Professor Piet Zeeman, on early experimental projects linked to the Southern Universities Nuclear Institute (which has since become iThemba LABS). This was at a time when SU was a whites-only institution.

The injustices he was subjected to left their mark. “Apartheid hurt Walter and all of us,” said Wilfred Daniels, the vice-chair of Lückhoff Alumni. “He was sometimes frustrated and unhappy, but he remained committed to teaching.”

In an interview after helping to unveil the installation, Parry’s daughter, Elizabeth Vergotine, now 82, remembered the warmth of her parents’ home – a house full of books. Walter and his wife, Winifred Edna Heneke, had eight children, five of whom became teachers. “As long as there are children to teach, there must be teachers,” Vergotine recalled her father saying.

Restitution in practice

She said she was moved to see SU, not only honouring her father, but transforming itself: “Last year at the first lecture, I was pleasantly surprised – there were so many academics and students who would not have been there in the past. It made me so happy. SU is making a real effort so that children from Stellenbosch do not have to go elsewhere.”

Professor Nico Koopman, SU’s deputy vice-chancellor for social impact, transformation and personnel, described the installation as a tangible expression of SU’s restitution statement, adopted in 2018 when the university marked its centenary.

In it, SU “acknowledges its contribution towards the injustices of the past,” and states: “For this we have deep regret. We apologise unreservedly to the communities and individuals who were excluded from the historical privileges that Stellenbosch University enjoyed …”

Speaking at the unveiling ceremony, Koopman said restitution must “go beyond contrition, confession and conversion” to also lead to “reparation, reconciliation and rejoicing”.

The old school building hosts a range of community organisations and educational activities, and plans are under way to hand over the building to a community trust.

For Hector-Kannemeyer, the memorial is part of bigger process. “It’s about the history of the ground we walk on – and about what it means to be a university that not only remembers, but repairs,” she told University World News.

Universities “must build an academy that no longer treats intellectual inclusion as exceptional, but as foundational,” she added.

“This requires us to listen deeply to the living archives among us: the teachers, the elders, the displaced, and the alumni whose stories and wisdom continue to illuminate the silences in our institutional memory.”

In 2021, SU adopted a Visual Redress Policy, describing it as an “attempt to right the wrongs of former and current powers by removing hurtful symbols (eg of apartheid), social injustice and misrecognition and by remedying the harm that has been caused by these visual symbols through compensation with new visual symbols that allow for the inclusion of a variety of expressions, stories, identities and histories aligned with the restorative processes of healing at SU.”

Education is light

The unveiling ceremony concluded with the lighting of a candle by Parry’s granddaughter, Portia Brown – an act that evoked the school’s motto: Opvoeding is lig – Education is light.

The second annual Walter Parry Memorial Lecture took place later the same day at SU’s faculty of theology. It brought together scholars from physics, theology, education and the community for a discussion titled, ‘Academic Disciplines in Dialogue: Leveraging science and theology for social justice and societal impact’.

It was moderated by SU’s Dean of Science, Professor Bertie Fielding.