Professor William Theodore Roy IDSM: 11 January 1923-19 December 2013.

• Jurisdiction: New Zealand
• Date: 01 March 2014
• Author: Bing, Dov

William Theodore Roy (emeritus professor at the University of Waikato), service No 421758, captain, Gurkha Brigade, died at Waikato Hospital on 19 December 2013. Born in Lucknow, India, Theo was the son of an Indian professor of English. His mother, a New Zealander from a South Island family, was a CMS missionary. He first went to school in the Himalayan foothills, where he stayed with his Cornish grandmother. In the winter he joined his parents in Lucknow. When his parents went for two years to England, Theo, at the age of nine, stayed with Seyed Rashid Ali Abbasi, Taluqadar (feudal lord) of Karori. It was here that Theo received a thorough education in Islam.

His formal education was undertaken at La Martiniere Military Academy in Lucknow. This was followed by the Indian Military Academy at Dehradun, after which he was commissioned in the Indian Army. Joining the 3/3 Gurkha Rifles, he was involved, at the age of eighteen, in the Burma Campaign, serving as a platoon and later company commander. He was the only one of his siblings to survive the war.

After 1945...