Obituary: Bill Cotter

By MURRAY WILTON*

Dilworth Trust chairman. Died aged 79.

For a remarkable 34 years, Bill Cotter personally interviewed and selected virtually every boy who entered Dilworth School between 1961 and 1995. It was a labour of love, because he was an old boy himself and he took this aspect of his Dilworth trusteeship very seriously.

Donald Frederick (Bill) Cotter had a less than promising start to life. His father was wounded at Gallipoli and then gassed in France, and died when Bill was 4.

He was admitted to Dilworth School in 1932. In his final year he was a school prefect, captain of an undefeated 1st XV, prominent 1st XI cricketer, gymnastics champion and runner-up to the swimming champion.

His first job was with the Auckland Savings Bank in 1938, the institution co-founded by James Dilworth, the founder of Dilworth School.

After the war Cotter looked for greater opportunities and challenges in commerce and finance by gaining accountancy qualifications. He left the bank to join Morningside Timber as an accountant, the first of a variety of Auckland enterprises he worked in. In 1952 he started his own practice as a public accountant.

Cotter wanted to live out the Dilworth dream, to be, in James Dilworth's own words, "a good and useful citizen". He threw himself into voluntary community projects, including Boystown (now Youthtown) and the Eden Garden Society, both of which gave him life membership.

His work for the Anglican Church included membership of the New Zealand Advisory Council for the Anglican Church in Melanesia for 22 years and of the Melanesian Trust Board for 10 years, including a term as its chairman. He was a regular parishioner at St Aidans Church, Remuera, and served on the vestry.

Cotter often said that he never really left the school that had provided his first real home. As soon as he left he involved himself with the Dilworth Old Boys Association, serving as secretary/treasurer for many years and eventually president.

He played cricket for Dilworth Old Boys and rugby for College Rifles, where he was also a committee member and youth coach.

He led the Dilworth Old Boys' appeal to provide the organ for the new school chapel in 1958.

In 1960 his fellow old boys made him a life member and in 1987 appointed him their patron.

In 1960 Cotter became the first Dilworth Old Boy to be elected to the Dilworth Trust Board. He replaced Bishop John Simkin and quipped that a bishop had been replaced by a pawn.

In life, as in chess, such things are indeed possible, although Cotter was no mere pawn, more a knight in shining armour.

He served for 35 years as a trustee and for 26 of them he was chairman, a span unequalled in the 107-year history of the trust. Those years correspond to one of the trust's most productive periods.

Practically everything now visible on the main Epsom campus was added during Cotter's tenure and the new Junior Campus was opened in 1994, just before his retirement as chairman.

Following his visit to Northern Ireland in 1986 to find a way to replace the failed programme of educating Irish boys at Dilworth, the highly successful Royal School Dungannon Scholarship and Tutor exchange programme was established.

It created a valuable cultural exchange with Northern Ireland, the birthplace of James Dilworth.

The award of the OBE in 1982 was a fitting reward for the manner in which Cotter devoted his life and talents to education and the community. It was also a source of great pride and satisfaction that the medal was bestowed on him by his fellow Dilworth old boy, Sir David Beattie.

Yet he was at pains to state publicly that he was humbled by the award and considered it was Dilworth that had been honoured, not him personally.

Bill Cotter was married to Lynsie for 54 years. They formed an inseparable partnership, prominent at every school and board occasion.

He is survived by Lynsie, their three children and seven grandchildren.

* Murray Wilton is a former headmaster of Dilworth School