Peter Rawlins
Class of 1968
Peter Rawlins (Cowells, 1964 – 1968) died at home on 28th May, 2022 aged 71.
He was born in April 1951 to Jane and Kenneth in Herne Bay, Kent. He was the eldest of four children and, after his father’s sudden death when Peter was only 14 years old, he became the family patriarch – a role he played with pride and generosity right to the end.
Peter had a brilliant mind. Everything he did he wanted to do better than anybody else – or else he didn’t want to do it at all. He had a sharp intellect and ability to cut straight to the heart of any problem, which served him well at Teddies and then at Keble College, Oxford where he read English.
These were probably the happiest years of his life, with hardly a lecture in sight but all his time dedicated to treading the boards with OUDS and touring the country with their revue show. He even appeared in front of Princess Margaret in the College’s centenary production of Pre-Raphaelites. Peter had an unrivalled passion for Keble and for many decades after he came down, he devoted himself to its continued success, becoming a member of the Warden’s Court.
After Oxford, he went to Arthur Andersen, where he became a partner, before going to Lloyd’s of London, where he helped its CEO, Ian Hay Davison, deliver the reforms required to allow the world’s oldest and largest insurance market to survive. He then became managing director of Sturge, the largest underwriting agency group at Lloyd’s. All in his 30s. The many friends he made along the way lasted a lifetime.
In 1989 he was appointed Chief Executive of the London Stock Exchange. The newspapers ran the headline “Bruce’s Baby Makes It Big,” in reference to his turn on The Generation Game Christmas Special 1974. It was a winning turn, of course – with Peter not only beating his mother in order to take the solo seat behind the legendary conveyor belt, but then proudly memorising every single item on it.
Peter’s time at the helm of the Stock Exchange was something of a curate’s egg. On the one hand he proved a swashbuckling visionary who successfully revolutionised an institution he rightly thought had lost its way. On the other he was forever burnt by the City grandees who, having reluctantly taken their medicine, then decided it was time to savage the doctor. It was an injustice which he bore with remarkable grace and equanimity.
He sat on the boards of many arts organisations and for ten years chaired the Michael Palin Centre for Stammering in Childhood, a charity especially close to his heart.
In 1990, Peter was hugely honoured to be invited by Warden David Christie, to return to Teddies and present the prizes at Gaudy. He spoke of his passion for a broad, liberal education and advised the class of 1990 to try everything, “for a wasted youth is better than doing nothing with it at all.”
At his best, he was magnetic, sparkling and charismatic – a perpetual life force who lit up rooms with the sheer vitality of his personality, his sense of fun and his boundless energy.
For the past 15 years, Peter bravely battled Multiple Sclerosis with courage and without complaint. His life motto – you snooze, you lose – was put into full effect as he hurtled around, not letting a life-limiting, degenerative illness stand in the way of anything.
Despite his MS, his brain remained as sharp as ever and he took great personal and professional joy in the coaching relationships he developed over this time, finding intellectual rigour in mentoring the next generation of leaders and helping them blossom and succeed.
He is greatly missed by his wife, Christina, and his six children, Juliette, Oliver, Georgia, Sam, Kit and Joe.
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