Vale - Peter James Headlam

On 22 February, a near capacity number of guests gathered in St Mary’s Cathedral to farewell Peter Headlam. Peter had lived a very full and successful life and finally succumbed to cancer on 10 February 2024. Eulogies were delivered by Damian Bugg and Peter’s four children, Rebecca, Nicole, Martin and James.

Peter hailed from Jericho and commenced as a boarder at St Virgils in 1958. Peter represented the College in Rugby and Rowing, and had an involvement with the Young Christian Students, Junior United Nations and Debating. He was a prefect in his final year.

Peter attended UTAS and gained a Bachelor of Agricultural Science. The following profile was found on the UTAS website. 

Peter Headlam graduated in 1968 with a Bachelor of Agricultural Science and used it to carry on the legacy of his family's six generations of sheep farming. “I am unsure that my success and enjoyment of farming resulted entirely from my years at university, but the resulting knowledge enhanced my skills, particularly in animal breeding, crop and pasture management and generated a scientific attitude on farm experimentation and innovation,” he said.

Peter looked back on his time at university and fondly remembered the friendships and field trips. “We all enjoyed the camaraderie generated by the field trips we did for animal production with Alan Bray and agronomy with Jim Yates over a number of years of the course and the lesser field trips associated with botany and geology taught by Professor Jackson, especially the time at the Cressy Ag Research Station,” he said.

Peter said he was an early adopter of agricultural science as both a student and a farmer, as he dabbled in truffles, venison, wool processing and group breeding. “Over that time the Department of Agriculture, as a farmer’s educator, consultant and researcher has virtually disappeared but has been replaced by private enterprise who very successfully filled the gap and became valuable businesses contributing to our improved technologies and progress in agriculture,” he said.

After a number of years solely on the family farm, Peter decided to try his hand at teaching. “The knowledge I learned allowed my enthusiasm to apply for a part-time role as a lecturer at Tasmanian State Institute of Technology in the course business in agriculture, which not only diversified my income but which I thoroughly enjoyed doing,” he said.

Peter's consuming desire to travel has taken him to many countries across the world. “I constantly observed both the good and the bad that farming has on the environmental outcomes all over,” he said. “I feel that the increasing need to improve production has led to many positives, advanced machinery and plant varieties and culture but negatives of lack of diversity leading to unnecessary and destructive clearing of forests and replacing them with monocultures, such as palm sugar and salmon aquaculture.”