SIR Maurice Shock, who has died aged 92, was a university administrator and educationalist dedicated to developing academic institutions.

As well as being Rector of Lincoln College he also served a estates bursar at University College for many years.

He was knighted in the New Year’s Honours List in 1988 for his commitment to education.

Maurice Shock was born on April 15, 1926, in Birmingham.

He was brought up in the city with younger brother Colin until they were evacuated to Measham, Leicestershire at the beginning of the Second World War.

He was educated at King Edward VI Aston School in Birmingham and - after military service in the Intelligence Corps - read philosophy, politics and economics (PPE) at Balliol College, Oxford.

Shortly before his move to Oxford he had married Dorothy Donald, whom he met at a sixth form conference, in Birmingham in 1947.

The couple would live in Oxford for most of the lives, and had four children: Julia, Deborah, Phoebe and Matthew.

They moved to Oxford the following year and Mr Shock , as he was then, obtained a first class degree in 1951.

After a period of research at St Antony’s College he held temporary posts at Christ Church and Trinity - it was around this time he was one of the team of assistants to Sir Winston Churchill in writing his historical works.

In 1956 he was appointed fellow and tutor in politics at University College, where he was also estates bursar for 15 years.

During this time he oversaw several new developments and reorganised the college’s property holdings.

In between two spells as a visiting professor at Pomona College in Claremont, California in the 1960s he was a member of the Franks Commission on the administrative structure of Oxford University.

He would later become one of the youngest people to serve on the university’s governing Hebdomadal Council and was senior treasurer of the Oxford Union for 18 years.

In 1977 he left Oxford to be Vice-Chancellor of Leicester University, a role he held for a decade amid funding problems felt by all universities during Thatcher’s first administration.

The university’s medical school – which would discover DNA fingerprinting in 184 – was later named the Maurice Shock Building in his honour.

He also sat as chairman of the Committee of Vice-Chancellors and Principals and later the General Medical Council.

He returned to Oxford as Rector of Lincoln College in 1987 and, continuing his interest in developing institutions completed commercial projects with the college in High Street and Bear Lane.

Despite retiring in 1994 he remained chairman of the Nuffield Trust until 2003, on the review panel of the Machinery of Government until 2000 and the health of board not-for-profit organisation RAND until 2008.

Aside from his dedication to the university and other organisation he enjoyed the theatre, watching cricket and gardening.

After 50 years of marriage, Mrs Shock died in 1998, and Mr Shock would later develop a close friendship with a woman named Helen Callaway before she also died.

He died on July 7 and is survived by his four children and three grandchildren.

A service of thanksgiving will take place in Balliol College Chapel today at 2.30pm.