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Vivienne Bogle Obituary
A tireless advocate for many Wellington causes
Dominion Post
24/12/2011
KITCHIN Peter
Vivienne Mary Bogle: b Taihape, September 11, 1925; m Gilbert Bogle (dec), 3d, 1s; d Wellington, October 29, 2011, aged 86.
VIVIENNE BOGLE, of Karori, took common-cause matters to heart and, in a way which is increasingly rare, acted on them. She took the view that it was a duty of ordinary citizens to be involved in community governance, to keep a weather eye on decisions by politicians and their delegated authorities, to join interest groups and lend a kindly ear to neighbours.
Mrs Bogle was a graduate of Victoria University College, with an honours degree in history, and had three daughters and a son by the time she was 38. She remained a committed activist until she died. A life-long socialist, she had the tools for organisational work from early in life, particularly while the student women's vice- president at Victoria.
Fearless and considered, she was not rancorous. Instead, she preferred a measured way of getting her point across. They were qualities under which shimmered a sharp sense of humour. Being concerned for others was doubtless learned at home.
Her father, Eric Rich, was vicar of Masterton's Anglican Church, and would later move to Wellington with his wife, Ivy, on his appointment as assistant bishop of Wellington. The Rich family was like many other Depression-era households. Charity was often an economic necessity, and thrift a survival tool. The daughter carried those life lessons into adulthood, where she revealed a well-grounded set of ethical values.
After graduating from Victoria, she travelled to London, arriving in 1948. She was a teacher in a private academy for young women, and at one of Britain's new secondary modern schools. Britain was slow to recover from World War II and rationing was still in place. Socialism was the acceptable face of state-run reconstruction, and Vivienne Rich joined the International Voluntary Services for Peace and spent her holidays clearing bomb sites across Europe with friends. She also joined the socialist Fabian Society.
Other changes were afoot. She once dreamed of being a missionary to Africa but, after a time with the Quakers, found God wanting. Years later, in Wellington, she joined the Humanist Society.
Romance was on the horizon, too. She married Rhodes Scholar Gilbert Bogle, a graduate of Victoria University College and one of its brightest scientific minds. They returned to New Zealand in 1952, where he was a lecturer at Otago University before accepting an appointment as a physicist at the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation at Sydney. He died on January 1, 1963, in tragic circumstances that have never been fully explained.
Mrs Bogle and her children settled in Karori the same year, where there was family help and valued friendships to be made. The 1960s presaged an era of civic change in Wellington, and she was in the thick of it. When the Crown chose the cemeteries route for an inner-city motorway in Wellington, the plan ran plumb through the capital's historic cemeteries. A campaign to properly account for the constructors' redistribution of graves swung into action. Some 3700 cemetery burials were accounted for by a team of volunteers, among them Mrs Bogle.
In the field of education, she made history. She was a board member of Wellington Girls' College, and its first female chair. She worked on dozens of city projects and was a member of the Karori Progressive Association, school committees, the United Nations Association, the anti-Vietnam War campaign, Amnesty International and civil defence. She put her historian skills to work at Old St Paul's and the Museum of Wellington City and Sea, and she was a Wellington Hospitals and Health Foundation volunteer.
Mrs Bogle was active in the Defence and Aid Fund For Southern Africa, which contributed to the legal fees of African defendants in the apartheid republic's courts. She joined anti-Springbok tour protests in 1981, among them the Molesworth St altercation. Her political allegiances changed in the 1980s when Labour launched its privatisation programme. She tore up her membership card.
She played tennis and was a keen walker; she played, coached and refereed hockey, and was a life member of the university's hockey club. She raised four youngsters with great care and was an inspirational grandmother.
PETER KITCHIN Sources: Bogle family, Fairfax Media library, and others.
A Life Story tells about a New Zealander who helped to shape their community. If you know of someone whose life story should be told, please email obituaries@dompost.co.nz.
A tireless advocate for many Wellington causes
Dominion Post
24/12/2011
KITCHIN Peter
Vivienne Mary Bogle: b Taihape, September 11, 1925; m Gilbert Bogle (dec), 3d, 1s; d Wellington, October 29, 2011, aged 86.
VIVIENNE BOGLE, of Karori, took common-cause matters to heart and, in a way which is increasingly rare, acted on them. She took the view that it was a duty of ordinary citizens to be involved in community governance, to keep a weather eye on decisions by politicians and their delegated authorities, to join interest groups and lend a kindly ear to neighbours.
Mrs Bogle was a graduate of Victoria University College, with an honours degree in history, and had three daughters and a son by the time she was 38. She remained a committed activist until she died. A life-long socialist, she had the tools for organisational work from early in life, particularly while the student women's vice- president at Victoria.
Fearless and considered, she was not rancorous. Instead, she preferred a measured way of getting her point across. They were qualities under which shimmered a sharp sense of humour. Being concerned for others was doubtless learned at home.
Her father, Eric Rich, was vicar of Masterton's Anglican Church, and would later move to Wellington with his wife, Ivy, on his appointment as assistant bishop of Wellington. The Rich family was like many other Depression-era households. Charity was often an economic necessity, and thrift a survival tool. The daughter carried those life lessons into adulthood, where she revealed a well-grounded set of ethical values.
After graduating from Victoria, she travelled to London, arriving in 1948. She was a teacher in a private academy for young women, and at one of Britain's new secondary modern schools. Britain was slow to recover from World War II and rationing was still in place. Socialism was the acceptable face of state-run reconstruction, and Vivienne Rich joined the International Voluntary Services for Peace and spent her holidays clearing bomb sites across Europe with friends. She also joined the socialist Fabian Society.
Other changes were afoot. She once dreamed of being a missionary to Africa but, after a time with the Quakers, found God wanting. Years later, in Wellington, she joined the Humanist Society.
Romance was on the horizon, too. She married Rhodes Scholar Gilbert Bogle, a graduate of Victoria University College and one of its brightest scientific minds. They returned to New Zealand in 1952, where he was a lecturer at Otago University before accepting an appointment as a physicist at the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation at Sydney. He died on January 1, 1963, in tragic circumstances that have never been fully explained.
Mrs Bogle and her children settled in Karori the same year, where there was family help and valued friendships to be made. The 1960s presaged an era of civic change in Wellington, and she was in the thick of it. When the Crown chose the cemeteries route for an inner-city motorway in Wellington, the plan ran plumb through the capital's historic cemeteries. A campaign to properly account for the constructors' redistribution of graves swung into action. Some 3700 cemetery burials were accounted for by a team of volunteers, among them Mrs Bogle.
In the field of education, she made history. She was a board member of Wellington Girls' College, and its first female chair. She worked on dozens of city projects and was a member of the Karori Progressive Association, school committees, the United Nations Association, the anti-Vietnam War campaign, Amnesty International and civil defence. She put her historian skills to work at Old St Paul's and the Museum of Wellington City and Sea, and she was a Wellington Hospitals and Health Foundation volunteer.
Mrs Bogle was active in the Defence and Aid Fund For Southern Africa, which contributed to the legal fees of African defendants in the apartheid republic's courts. She joined anti-Springbok tour protests in 1981, among them the Molesworth St altercation. Her political allegiances changed in the 1980s when Labour launched its privatisation programme. She tore up her membership card.
She played tennis and was a keen walker; she played, coached and refereed hockey, and was a life member of the university's hockey club. She raised four youngsters with great care and was an inspirational grandmother.
PETER KITCHIN Sources: Bogle family, Fairfax Media library, and others.
A Life Story tells about a New Zealander who helped to shape their community. If you know of someone whose life story should be told, please email obituaries@dompost.co.nz.
