Professor Stewart Asquith

Born: 1 April, 1948, in Brechin, Angus.

Died: 13 April, 2009, in Edinburgh, aged 61.

PROFESSOR Stewart Asquith was a leading academic researcher and international activist in the field of children's rights. He combined intellectual brilliance with a passion for the welfare of children rooted in his own experience. A person also of many practical talents, he will be remembered above all for his concern, courage and human sympathy.

Stewart Asquith was the youngest of six children. His mother was a cinema usherette who took in lodgers to supplement her wages. Stewart never knew his father, nor even clearly established his identity, although he was believed to be a Polish soldier. This combination of childhood deprivation and unresolved questions about his personal origin were to prove driving forces throughout his life and career.

During school holidays, he would work on local farms and he retained a lifelong affection for the life and ways of Angus, not least Brechin's football team.

Asquith graduated in philosophy from St Andrews, then briefly worked as an unqualified trainee social worker in Lanarkshire. Failing – fortunately, he often used to say later – to get a place to study social work, he proceeded instead to a PhD at the University of Edinburgh.

His doctoral thesis, under the supervision of the late Sir Neil MacCormick and Alex Robertson, compared constructions of juvenile offending and ideologies of treatment in the Scottish children's hearing system and the English juvenile courts.

It was published in 1983 as Children and Justice, and its theme of the tension between "welfare" and "justice" in the treatment of juvenile offending has remained a dominant concern of public policy.

Following a brief spell as a research officer in the Scottish Office, Asquith was appointed to a temporary lectureship in law at the University of Edinburgh in 1978 and in the following year to a lectureship in social administration.

His academic interests continued to straddle the boundaries of legal philosophy, criminal justice, social policy and social work, as marked, for example, by the publication with Michael Adler in 1981 of Discretion and Welfare.

To all appearances a promising academic career had been strongly launched. His decision in 1988 to take voluntary severance, with partial re-engagement, was therefore met with much surprise. Asquith had felt a growing unease with aspects of academic life and decided, following a visit to Brazil, to pursue a part-time career as a photographer and use images to draw attention to policy issues affecting children.

Asquith eventually returned to the academic mainstream. In 1992, he was appointed to the newly founded St Kentigern chair for the study of the child at the University of Glasgow. This was to prove the ideal position from which to pursue his abiding passion for the promotion of children's rights.

He published Justice for Children with Malcolm Hill (1994) and Children and Young People in Conflict with the Law (1996).

From 2000 he was professor for the European study of the child, while from 1997-2002 he was head of social policy and social work. He characteristically placed the good of his department and the security of his colleagues above his own immediate academic and personal interests.

Asquith continued to be extremely active in research and consultancy on children's rights and welfare. As special adviser on children's issues to the Council of Europe he travelled widely, notably in eastern Europe, to report on conditions for children and to contribute to local policy-making. He served as a consultant for Unicef, UNDP, the NSPCC, the Scottish Executive and the Oak Foundation. He witnessed extreme poverty and deprivation, brutal institutions, child soldiers and the effects of sexual exploitation and trafficking and he advised on the development of many policy and practical initiatives.

His work was always moulded by strong theoretical principles and moral values, and he was equally appreciated for his personal skills as negotiator, adviser, trusted colleague and friend.

He was appointed a member of the National Commission of Inquiry into the Prevention of Child Abuse and an adviser to the Council of the Baltic Sea States Children at Risk project.

In 2003, following several years of indifferent health, Asquith was diagnosed with multiple myeloma. He partly retired from the University of Glasgow to concentrate on his consultancy work, facing the inevitable myeloma rollercoaster with openness and courage.

That he often appeared quite well despite the underlying seriousness of his condition was testimony to his determination and positive focus on his family, friends and colleagues and on his projects and undertakings. He shared his experience of the positive and negative effects of a drug trial in a blog for the charity Myeloma UK.

Despite the burdens of illness, Asquith continued his work and among other things lately achieved notable success in masterminding the creation of a Centre for Rural Childhood for the University of the Highlands and Islands Millennium Institute.

Asquith always found time in a life replete with many obligations for personal enthusiasms and projects. He and his wife, Elspeth, extensively renovated two cottages – one on the Berwickshire coast and, later, another in rural Angus – with much of the labour coming from his own hands. He bought and sold old cars, camper vans and bikes with gusto, repairing them on the way.

He admired traditional boats and fulfilled a lifelong ambition to own a boat by owning two in succession. Asquith enjoyed folk, rock and classical music and played the sma' pipes as well as numerous stringed instruments that came and went. A keen adopter of new technology, Asquith also enjoyed mastering old crafts and skills. And throughout his life he continued to support Brechin City.

Stewart Asquith had an abundant quick aptitude and deep perspicacity, not a little flavoured by reaction to an environment of Scots Calvinism. This was combined with rare moral courage and honesty to face difficulties that others might shirk. His friends will remember his selflessness, acute perception and sensitivity, warmth and concern as well as the speed of his wit, which no-one could better.

While he achieved international eminence, he never lost touch with his origins or distanced himself from the ways and lives of the wider community. Though sadly cut short, his was a full and well rounded life.

Professor Stewart Asquith is survived by his wife, Dr Elspeth Turner, two sons from a previous marriage and a stepdaughter.