Trevor Tarring (OB 1943-1950)

Trevor Tarring died on 29th April 2023. He was a boarder in Newnum House between 1943-1950. He went on to graduate in English at Brasenose, Oxford where he displayed his sporting prowess as a member of the football team and also earned a half-blue in the rowing eight. Following Graduation, he played cricket with other Brasenose alumni in a team called the Hornets for many decades, breaking an ankle in his 70s with a particularly enthusiastic bit of fielding.

Trevor began his journalism career in 1953 when he joined “Metal Bulletin”, following in the footsteps of his father, who had served as the company’s editor and managing director from 1920 to 1964.

Trevor rapidly rose through the ranks, becoming non-ferrous editor in 1964 and then managing director in 1978. He was instrumental in the company’s growth from a small publishing company to a plc with multiple international offices.

His 46-year career at Metal Bulletin was distinguished by his expertise in many markets, including being one of the foremost experts on the cobalt market since the 1960s. He played a pivotal role in enabling Metal Bulletin to establish the price benchmark for cobalt more than 60 years ago, which has become an even more critical commodity today for the rapidly expanding electric vehicle industry.

He was awarded an MBE for services to the Metal Industry in 1993.

Outside of work, his great passion was vintage and Edwardian cars. Having dallied with vintage motorcycles with his brother Roger in his youth, he progressed to vintage cars and, during the last seven decades, he owned a Morgan, two Fraser-Nashes, a Delage, two Austin 7s, a Napier, a Talbot and a Ford model T!

He held a competition license until 2022 and was beating fellow Club members less than half his age at driving tests and hill climbs well into his eighties.

He was very proud of being elected as Captain of the Fraser Nash Club from 1984-1987, and co- wrote the biography of Archie Frazer Nash, published in 2011.

He was married to Marjorie for 64 years and they both indulged in “Raids” with their Fraser-Nashes throughout the World, including to New Zealand and the Arctic Circle.

They lived in Weybridge, where he became involved in the local community as an active committee member of The Arts Society Weybridge and also the Weybridge Society. He was pleased to find several other OBs in the vicinity, including Richard Marshall (1949-58), Brian Davies (1946-54) and Roy White (1949-56).

In recent years he was an enthusiastic Member of the OB Wessex Lunch Group, regaling the members with his reminiscences of the School.