Dr Stephen Alexander Barwick (Fr 1968)
1950 - 2023
The Principal, Council and St Andrew’s College community honour the life of Dr Stephen Alexander Barwick (Fr 1968) who passed on 13 September 2023, aged 73.
Stephen (Steve) Barwick was born on 27 July 1950 and grew up on the family farm at Gravesend. The Barwicks are a very well-known, highly successful farming and grazing family from the area.
Steve was the youngest of four brothers who attended Farrer Memorial Agricultural High School at Tamworth. At Farrer, Steve was a Prefect, excelled academically and was an outstanding sportsman. He was in the First XIII for three years, starred in athletics and was also a good tennis player. In 1967, Steve graduated from Farrer with flying colours, being awarded the Borthistle Prize for the student showing the best all-round character, sporting and academic qualities. At the school’s 75th anniversary dinner in 2014, Steve was recognised as one of the school’s high achievers.
In 1968, Steve commenced a Bachelor of Agricultural Science degree at the University of Sydney and resided at St Andrew’s College where he was a much-loved colleague. He again excelled in rugby with the College First XV (he was awarded a College Blue) and in Grade for University. He was also a member of the Squash subcommittee.
Steve graduated with a BScAgr (Hons) in 1972. His first career position was as a Sheep Livestock Officer with the NSW Department of Agriculture at Glen Innes and then as a research scientist at the Glen Innes Research Station. His initial research developed a system for grading lamb carcasses to increase sheep breeding efficiencies for meat production. Steve was awarded an MSc from the University of New England in 1979. Then in 1985, Steve was awarded an Australian Meat and Livestock Industry Scholarship to undertake a PhD in animal genetics at Ohio State University, in Columbus, Ohio, USA.
In 1986, Steve returned briefly to Sydney to marry Elizabeth McKenzie, herself a research cereal chemist with the NSW Department of Agriculture at Tamworth. Following their marriage, Steve and Elizabeth returned to Columbus for Steve to complete his PhD. Then, in 1989 Steve and Elizabeth returned to Australia where Steve became the Leader of NSW Agriculture’s Beef Breeding and Evaluation team located at the University of New England at Armidale. Here, he undertook research, supervised graduate students and published more than 170 papers.
Steve’s research colleagues have written glowing tributes of his research ethos and of the outputs of his work. He led research developing breeding objectives and selection indexes for the national and international application of BREEDPLAN, a genetic evaluation system for beef cattle. Perhaps the best-known outputs of Steve’s research are the BREEDOBJECT software, and web-based delivery systems, that provide greater accuracy for determining estimated breeding values for beef cattle. This is now used for all major Australian beef cattle breeds and is also used in New Zealand, the UK, South Africa, Namibia and Argentina. According to Steve’s research colleagues, his research “… has been pivotal in improving the efficiency, profitability, and sustainability of Australia’s livestock industries” and “… the resulting genetic gain has been calculated to be worth hundreds of millions of dollars to the beef industry”.
Through his outstanding research and publication record, Steve was promoted to Principal Research Scientist in 2009 and in 2019 he was inducted as a Fellow of the Association for the Advancement of Animal Breeding and Genetics.
Steve was the quintessential quiet achiever. In one of many tributes, his research colleagues wrote: “Steve was a man of the long game; a tortoise seeing and going far beyond the scatter-brained, attention-seeking hares; and a person for whom doing things right, and doing the right thing, were two sides of the same coin – and usually with a twinkle in his eye.” What a wonderful career – the core of which always came back to his humanity, his humility and his persistence; he did his best for the betterment of others.
From an early age, Steve was fascinated by racehorses. But what interested Steve more than picking a winner, was the breeding and the lineage of the horses. He could tell you the race history of many horses, and he could often tell you their sires and dams as well. In hindsight, his early interest in racehorse breeding most likely inspired his future professional interest in animal genetics.
Steve maintained life-long friendships with many of his Farrer classmates and his St Andrew’s colleagues. Although he continued to live in Armidale after his retirement, Steve returned to Sydney regularly to visit his son Alex (Fr 2009), and to attend reunions at St Andrew’s and with the Sydney University Football Club. Steve was also an ardent cricket fan who could usually be found in the Ladies Stand with Alex during the New Year Test matches. After the day’s play, he could sometimes be tempted into the upstairs Members Bar where he would catch up with his St Andrew’s friends.
Steve passed away on 13 September 2023 following a battle with a rare neuro-degenerative disease (Progressive Supranuclear Palsy) that took some time to diagnose. He is survived by his wife Elizabeth, son Alex and daughter-in-law Clare.
Stephen Barwick was a brilliant scientist, a charming, generous person and such a wonderful friend to many. The Barwick family is held strongly in our thoughts and our dearest sympathy is extended to all who knew Stephen.
We thank Andrew Leys, Rod Francis and Stuart Miller (all 1968 Freshers), for providing the College with Stephen's Obituary to share with the St Andrew's community.
Stephen and the winning 1970 Rawson Rugby Team.
