Gordon Herbert Waddell was something of a Renaissance man. As an international rugby player turned liberal South African politician turned leading industrialist and head of a multinational organization, he lived and worked on a global scale far ahead of his time.
Waddell, '64, died August 13 in Britain following a series of illnesses. He was 75.
Born in Glasgow, Waddell grew up in Scotland and was a keen rugby player. While attending Cambridge University he began competing at an international level—once having to choose between his university exams and completing a tour of New Zealand with the British Lions. He chose exams.
Waddell continued to excel in rugby, following in the footsteps of his father, Herbert Waddell. Both played fly-half for the Barbarians club team, for Scotland and for the British Lions. Waddell played for the Barbarians 12 times; won each of the 18 matches he played for Scotland, captaining five; and toured for a second time with the Lions to South Africa, his future home.
He received his MBA from Stanford in 1964 before returning to South Africa to marry diamond heiress Mary Oppenheimer. Although they divorced after six years, Waddell stayed with the family's Anglo American/De Beers group, rising in the ranks before turning to politics.
Waddell, a member of the multiracial Progressive Party, served in South Africa's parliament from 1974 to 1977. During that time as a liberal politician and as a captain of industry, he called for Nelson Mandela's release and the end of apartheid.
"Things happen in the modern world much more quickly than you think," Waddell told the Glasgow Herald in 1984. "You gather momentum then you set out on the direction of reform. Real changes might still be two or three generations away, of course . . . I would say that the most important changes have their origin in the economic development of the country."
In 1987, three years before the release of Mandela, Waddell moved his family back to Scotland and then to London, bolstering his career with stints at Cadbury Schweppes and with the Scottish National Trust.
Waddell is survived by his second wife Kathy May; daughters Victoria, Rebecca, Inca and Justine; and son Jaimie.
Casey Hollis is a freelance writer based in Oakland.
