| Donal Smith | |||||||||||||
| Full Name: | Donal Ian Brice Smith | ||||||||||||
| Birth Date: | 4 February 1934 | ||||||||||||
| Birth Place: | Auckland, New Zealand | ||||||||||||
| Children: | 3 | ||||||||||||
| Module: |
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| Country: | New Zealand | ||||||||||||
| Sport: | Track and field | ||||||||||||
| Event: | Middle-distance running | ||||||||||||
| Pb: | 800 m: 1:48.52[1] | ||||||||||||
Donal Ian Brice Smith (4 February 1934 – 27 September 2023) was a New Zealand middle-distance runner and English literature academic. He represented his country at the 1958 British Empire and Commonwealth Games and 1960 Olympic Games, and was a professor of English at the University of Auckland from 1973 until his retirement in 2000.
Smith was born in Auckland, New Zealand, on 4 February 1934, the son of Bruce and Judy (née Jaffray) Smith.[2] He was educated at Auckland Grammar School and at University of Auckland, taking a BA in 1954 and an MA the following year. After a brief period lecturing at Auckland, he was the inaugural recipient of the Eliot Davis Memorial Scholarship in 1956, which provided for three years of study at either Cambridge or Oxford.[3] Later that year, he matriculated at Merton College, Oxford, spending the next four years studying for his DPhil.[4] His doctoral thesis was titled An edition of The rehearsal transpros'd by Andrew Marvell, with introduction and commentary.[5]
In 1959, Smith married Marjory Jill Evans, with whom he later had three children.[6]
In 1958, Smith finished fifth in the final of the 880 yards at the British Empire and Commonwealth Games in Cardiff. At the 1960 Summer Olympics, he was eliminated in the quarter-final of the 800 metres.
After a period at the University of Toronto, Smith was appointed a professor of English at the University of Auckland in 1973.[7] [8] When he retired in 2000, he was accorded the title of professor emeritus.[9]
Smith died on 27 September 2023, at the age of 89.[6]