The 2025 Golden Eagle Award is presented to Dr James Ridley (Nash 1958 | Sixth Form 1959), whose remarkable six-decade journey from St John’s College to international academic distinction and community service embodies the values of intellectual excellence, humility, and quiet leadership.

Dr Ridley’s connection to St John’s began in UIII and continued uninterrupted through Upper V and Sixth Form. As a Nash House Prefect and School Prefect, he participated in rugby, music, and numerous clubs and societies. His early inclination toward service was evident during the 1957 flu epidemic, when he volunteered as an orderly, taking temperatures and caring for his fellow students. This deep sense of responsibility and compassion, formed during his formative years at St John’s, would go on to define the character of his life and career.

Dr Ridley graduated from the University of the Witwatersrand in 1963 with first-class honours in Mathematics and Mathematical Statistics. He went on to complete his PhD at Queen Mary College, London, a launchpad to a distinguished academic career.

Returning to South Africa, he joined the University of the Witwatersrand (Wits University), where he served for over three decades as a Senior Lecturer and later as an Associate Professor, eventually becoming Head of the Mathematics Department. His influence extended far beyond the lecture hall. “James was a superb teacher in his role as professor at Wits. His curriculum was always well formulated and the concepts presented in a sequence accessible to students,” noted Dr Stephen Sproule, Head of Mathematics at St John’s College, and former colleague at Wits.

“His teaching of advanced maths classes offered an almost unique interplay between the highly abstract nature of the topics and concrete examples or applications that aided comprehension of challenging concepts," said Dr Sproule, praising his ability to make complex mathematics accessible, a hallmark of Dr Ridley's teaching philosophy. However, Dr Sproule also recalls with a smile, "James was known for his tough tests. With great teaching comes high expectations."

His research spanned pure mathematics, from group theory to combinatorics, and found practical applications in engineering, from control theory to neural networks. With over 45 published papers -- from botany to coding theory -- Dr Ridley’s intellectual legacy is diverse and far-reaching.

Dr Ridley's appointment as Head of Department represented a continuation of St John's College's profound influence on mathematical sciences at Wits. As a student, he was taught statistics by John Kerrich, an Old Johannian who matriculated in 1921 and the founding Head of the Statistics department at Wits. "James continued the profound impact of St John's scholars on the mathematical sciences at Wits, when he became the Head of the Mathematics department," said Dr Sproule.

As a departmental leader, Dr Ridley was highly regarded because of his academic achievements and publications, all the while respected for his leadership and administration capacity within the department. He was able to support and value the NRF-rated researchers in the department, while remaining committed to the teaching of graduate and undergraduate students."

What sets Dr Ridley apart is not only the breadth of his academic work but also his substantial investment in lifelong education. He has mentored generations of Mathematics and Science educators who have shaped national and international teaching. His engineering mathematics teaching materials, still in use today, were formally transferred to university ownership in 2018, ensuring his innovative methods continue to shape generations of learners.

True to the St John’s ethos of service before self, Dr Ridley has provided free tutoring through initiatives like the Christ Church Christian Care Centre and the Ignition Programme in Alexandra. Even in retirement, he continues to teach mathematics at Roedean School and mentors emerging talent through the South African Mathematics Olympiad programme.

His commitment to community extends into the arts and faith life. He served as Treasurer and Chair of the Symphony Choir of Johannesburg, combining his organisational skills and love of music. At St Francis Church, Parkview, he has served faithfully as organist and Parish Councillor, described by The Revd Diana Lawrenson as “a magnificent human being.”

Dr Ridley continues to nurture the Old Johannian spirit through the lunch club he founded, which meets regularly at The Johannian Club. This simple yet meaningful initiative reflects his belief that community is built through consistent personal connection.

At 83, he remains intellectually and physically active, running 5km Parkruns and attending Pilates. A polyglot and polymath, his zest for life, languages, and learning reflects a mind that is ever curious and a heart that is ever open.

The Golden Eagle Award recognises not just achievement, but impact -- and Dr Ridley’s impact is immeasurable. His legacy lives in the students he has inspired, the communities he has strengthened, and the values he has modelled.

With humility, rigour, and compassion, Dr James Ridley has lived the Johannian ideal. We are honoured to celebrate him as the recipient of the 2025 Golden Eagle Award.

In his address in the Memorial Chapel on Gaudy Day, Dr Ridley shared insights on the joys of learning, inspiring students, and his lasting connection to St John’s College.

I’m extremely honoured and grateful to everyone responsible for this generous award, as I am keenly aware that even among my exact contemporaries, there are people who are far more distinguished than I am.

I am a pure mathematician, and during my time at Wits, I engaged in both research and teaching. I am sure that all of you have experienced the pleasure and satisfaction of solving a tricky problem, possibly in an Olympiad or an ordinary maths class, or even a Sudoku or a crossword or a Wordle. Pure mathematical research has the same satisfaction, but orders of magnitude greater, because not only are the problems trickier, but also the answers must be original, thus adding a scrap to the corpus of human knowledge, and revealing a bit more of the chaste beauty of mathematics as the Queen of Sciences.

Unlike many pure mathematicians, however, I do not disdain the practical value of mathematics as the Servant of Sciences, and I have also enjoyed collaborating with many others over the years to solve research problems in fields as diverse as Biology and Engineering.

On the other hand, I am proud to regard teaching as my prime vocation, as it has enabled me to serve future generations by sharing my knowledge with younger people. Like my research, my teaching at Wits was not only to pure mathematicians, some of whom have soared to heights far above me, but also to many, especially engineers, to whom mathematics was only a tool. Some of my engineering students forgot most of their maths as soon as they had graduated, though others have reached the top of their professions in academia or high-tech companies.

Many people, and there is one prime example nowadays, regard life solely as a competition, in which there are winners and losers, and sometimes it seems that such people obtain even more satisfaction from seeing someone else as a loser than from being a winner themselves. The wonderful thing about teaching, on the other hand, is that it is not a zero-sum game: both the teacher and the learner can be winners together. This has always been my great joy.

Even more satisfaction comes when a former pupil remembers a teacher with gratitude. I have received a few such tributes, sometimes many years afterwards, and they are incredibly heart-warming. So, if you realize at any time, whether after six months or 25 years, that you are grateful to one or more of your teachers, don’t hesitate to tell them. It will mean worlds to them and they don’t get a lot of other recompense.

I might add that my dear wife Jenny and I first became friends when I was giving her extra lessons before her matric, so teaching can have other unexpected but life-defining spin-offs.

In conclusion, I’d like to mention a few small contributions I’ve been able to make to SJ since I left over 66 years ago. One is that in 1971 I was the first person to teach Zulu here, even though I had only started learning the language about five years before, because I felt that it was time for SJ to acknowledge that it was an African school. So that year I gave free Zulu lessons to the VI^th Form in the Community Room on Tuesday evenings. Unfortunately, family and university responsibilities prevented me from carrying on for more than a single year, and it then took many years for Zulu teaching to become a permanent feature here. Kodwa manje uMnu Gwala uthi kunothishela abane wesiZulu esikoleni. SJ nowadays has four Zulu teachers, and the school’s acceptance of its Africanness is manifest in this inspiring Mass we are attending.

Another contribution is that in 2017 my brother-in-law, John Alexander, and I successfully nominated Hugh Lewin for the Golden Eagle award. That led subsequently to the naming of the History Block after Hugh and later to the annual Hugh Lewin lecture on Human Rights, fitting tributes to a really great man.

A third contribution is that in 2020, near the end of James Gordon’s life, I obtained copies of some of the choral pieces he had composed during his years as Director of Music here, which then existed only in his beautiful handwriting. To save his works from oblivion, I typeset and posted them on ChoralWiki for free download, and I am very pleased that one of them, O Rex Gloriae, is being sung at this service.

I have been blessed to have had a peaceful and happy life and to belong to wonderful families: the one I was born into (and my sister Susan is here), the one Jenny and I brought up together (who are all here), and also the family of this great school of which we are all part and to which we all, and especially me today, have so much to be grateful for.

Thank you.