John Robert Wahl

John Robert Wahl (19**-19**) was an academic and lecturer,

More generally known as J.R. Wahl or Robert Wahl

Biography

A descendent of the 1820 Settlers, he was born in **, the son of a well known Cape Town teacher,

He studied at Rhodes University and at Balliol College, Oxford University, on a Rhodes Scholarship, where he completed a D. Phil. thesis called Two pre-Raphaelite Poets in 1954. He also spent time at Harvard University during this period.

Over the years he built up a substantial international reputation as a specialist on the Pre-Raphaelite poet and painter Dante Gabriel Rosetti[1], his publications including the annotated edition of Rosetti's poem Jan Van Hunks (Issue 3 of Arents Tobacco Collection, 1952), an edited version of The Kelmscott Love Sonnets of Dante Gabriel Rossetti (Balkema, 1964) and ultimately the four volume edition of the Letters of Dante Gabriel Rossetti (Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1965-67), on which he worked with Oswald Doughty ().

Wahl became a lecturer in English at Rhodes University and later professor and much admired head of the English Department at the University of the Orange Free State in Bloemfontein, where he and his wife inspired numerous scholars, researchers and authors over the years they spent there.

He married Joan Cicely Haworth, the daughter of Professor Haworth of Rhodes University, in the Anglican Cathedral of St Andrew and St May, Grahamstown, on 2 July, 1955. She too would became an English lecturer in Grahamstown and Bloemfontein.

Tragically Wahl died by his own hand in Bloemfontein in 1969/70.

Contribution to theatre, film, media and performance

Generally referred to respectfully as "Professor Wahl" by students and as Robert Wahl by friends, colleagues and the press, his term in Bloemfontein was short, but remarkably influential. Besides inspiring a number of his students to further study in the English language and literature, among them a number of authors, he had a particular interest in theatre and not only supported local theatre and the projects of the dramatic society at the University, but directly inspired a number of individuals who would later feature in the performing arts. Among them the actor and arts critic Braam Muller and the theatre researcher, playwright and lecturer Temple Hauptfleisch.