Roger Abbott died in February 2002. Lawrence Haines collated an obituary from various members for the RW:

Roger Abbott, who contributed greatly and generously to ringing, especially in Oxford, died of a heart attack when aged only 60, leaving his wife Clare and sons Ben and Tim.  This brief memorial draws on contributions from many who knew him.  He will be sadly missed.

Roger learned to ring in 1952. The bells at his home town, Frome in Somerset, were too unwieldy for learners, so Roger was taught at Whatley.  His teacher was Eunice D. Overend, who has taught many people in the area and still does. Peter Wycherley, another of Eunice’s pupils at the time, recollects, “We were enthusiastic cyclists and cycled to meetings in our own district and other districts in the Bath and Wells on most Saturdays. Our 'longest length' was to cycle (in a day) from Frome to camp in the Norfolk Broads, and ring at St. Peter's Mancroft. We attempted numerous peals, mostly doubles, mostly unsuccessful.” But among the successes was Roger's first as conductor - Grandsire at Whatley in 1956.

Roger came up to St Catherine’s in 1960 to read Engineering, and went on to take a doctorate.  He did not ring much in Oxford as an undergraduate, but became more active later.  By the late 1960s he had settled in the area and was ringing with both the OUS and the OS.  Cars were not very common amongst the resident members in those days: on Saturday outings Roger’s less-than-youthful Ford Anglia would usually be teeming with grateful non-cyclists. 

Roger enjoyed peal ringing, and took part in many of the peals rung for the OUS, OS and eventually the St Thomas Society during the early 1970s.  Steve Whittleton remembers, “Roger was always prepared to drive peal bands to towers. He would meet us at about 5pm in St Giles with his battered car.  Four of us would cram into it and off we would go.” Another undergraduate in the band, Peter Giles, says, “Although Roger was never one of the lads - hardly surprising since he was grown up and we weren't! - he often enjoyed coming for a curry after the Thursday peal, and was known by the waiters in the Bombay as the Boss Man.”

When Roger married Clare, he cut back on his peal ringing, and when he took up flying his opportunities for ringing weekend peals were reduced.  Even so, he rang in total something over 250 peals.  Most were of Surprise Major or Royal, and over a quarter were rung at St Thos.  With his early experience on the heavy-going bells of Frome, Roger much enjoyed ringing the tenor to peals.  Amongst other feats, he carried off the tricky task of tenoring to spliced Caters and Royal, and it was the St Thos tenor that he rang to his last peal, in January 2002. 

Roger rang a good deal with the Oxford Society - at practices, for Sunday services and festivals, and in peals.  He was Treasurer of the Society for 12 years.  Roger gave generously to bell appeals, and donated a new treble for St Mary Mag.

The OUS rang a peal of Bristol S Major in Roger’s memory at St Thomas’s on Saturday, 9th March, conducted by Mark Bell. Ben and Tim both rang in a quarter peal of Grandsire Triples, conducted by Stephen Ivin, at St. Thos on the day of his funeral.  Another quarter peal was rung at Whatley on 12th March by people who had rung with him in the early days, including his teacher Eunice (well into her eighties).

There was a great deal more to Roger than his ringing.  His interests ranged wide: and as his colleague David Rowles remarked, “He always seemed to genuinely know something about nearly every topic that came up in conversation.”  Yet he was no butterfly: whatever he tackled, he wanted to do wholeheartedly and to the best of his ability. 

Roger was an accomplished organist. Latterly, he was more likely on a Sunday morning to be playing the organ at Wheatley Parish Church than ringing. He gave several organ recitals, including a number in Germany and at SMV.  With his characteristically meticulous and intelligent preparation, he was a fine performer in continuo and accompaniment, as shown in a recent performance of Charpentier’s Little Mass in the Holywell Music Rooms.  He also composed music, including a Fanfare for St. Nicholas, which was played at Roger’s funeral service.

Roger had in recent years been doing an increasing amount of singing. He enjoyed playing a Gentleman of Japan in The Mikado, and travelled to Menden, near Dortmund, in October 2001 to sing in Brahms’ Ein Deutscher Requiem; where he used his immaculate German to exchange Adolf Hitler jokes with his hosts.

For many years, a much appreciated start of the Wheatley Carol Service was the tune ringing on handbells by Roger and his sons, Ben and Tim.

Roger was a pioneer in the study of the workings of insect muscle at the molecular level, and was among the first to use computers in biology.  His doctoral research was carried out in the ARC Unit in the Zoology Department, where Professor Pringle was interested in finding out how insects can move their wings at a frequency higher than that of the nervous impulses that stimulate them. Roger, an engineer, studied the mechanics of the insect flight muscles using fibres from the giant waterbug Lethocerus.  Belinda Bullard reports that Roger was extremely good at the intricate manipulations needed to fix small bundles of fibres to the apparatus.

Roger was ahead of his time in controlling and recording his experiments by means of an early computer.  As there was no suitable software, he had to write it himself.  Besides specific software for his experiments, he created an extended form of the Algol programming language, known as Abgol, for the University’s Computing Department.  Soon afterwards, he was marketing extensions to the FOCAL language used on the PDP-8 computer that was very popular in scientific circles.  He began to carry out programming and computer consultancy as a freelance. He formed his own company, RHA (Minisystems) Limited, and from then on most of his working life was spent in some form of computing. 

Flying was one of the passions of Roger’s life.  He set about it in his usual thorough and intelligent fashion.  For 20 years he flew from Wycombe Air Park and for many of those years he was a part-time instructor.  He generally flew single engine Cessna 152s and 172s.  He was also licensed for multi-engined planes and held a night-flying rating. His strong dedication to flying was demonstrated when he failed a routine medical because of high blood pressure.  He immediately set about a programme of long road runs and other exercise to overcome the problem, persisting for fully two years before he was again permitted to fly.

Roger never replaced anything he could repair - cars, washing machines, cameras. He could have bought new, but he liked the challenge and the chance to use his engineering skills.  This characteristic was reflected in the quotation on the order of service for his funeral, "He must be a good chap, running a car like that and buying new bells". 

He was interested in photography, and when still a teenager, made money out of commissions to take photographs.  He was very knowledgeable about wine, particularly German wine.  For a time had his own vine in his garden at Horspath. 

Above all, Roger was a loving husband and father.  Nigel Orchard, a frequent guest, said, “Staying at Roger and Clare’s home, one recognised the closeness and mutual support of the family. Roger and Clare were devoted parents. Roger was known to say that his family was the best thing in his life. At Roger’s funeral, Ben spoke a loving eulogy and Tim contributed a moving guitar rendition of a piece by J.S.Bach.” There could not have been a more fitting epitaph.