Robert Fryer, who has died aged 76, was an Oxford schoolboy who went on to play an important role in re-shaping education nationally.

He was made a CBE for his contribution to adult and community education, particularly to under-represented groups, and was also prominent in research projects and modernising trade unions.

Known as Rob or Bob to family and friends, he was born in Solihull in the West Midlands in September 1944 to motor mechanic Harold Fryer and his wife Edith, a nurse.

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After moving to Weymouth and Banbury, the family settled in Oxford, with young Robert attending South Oxford School and the City of Oxford High School.

Living in Norreys Avenue, off Abingdon Road, he joined the local Cubs and was praised one year for raising most money in Bob-a-Job Week.

He also joined the Boys’ Brigade attached to St Matthew’s Church and often talked of playing the bugle and of happy times at summer camps.

At High School, he developed a keen interest in rugby and captained school teams.

He studied medieval and modern languages at Christ’s College, Cambridge, specialising in French and Spanish.

After graduating in 1966, returned to Oxford to take a diploma in social and administrative studies at Wadham College.

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He then joined a research team at Imperial College, London, looking into the workings of the Post Office before becoming a lecturer at Manchester University.

His next post in 1971 at Warwick University, as part of a team looking into the workings of trade unions, led to a request to study the National Union of Public Employees (NUPE).

The resulting ‘Warwick Report’ was widely regarded as a framework for change not only in NUPE but in the wider trade union movement.

In 1983, he became principal of Northern College, a residential college for adults near Barnsley, South Yorkshire, where his inspirational leadership and commitment to education were widely recognised.

In the early 1990s, he played a key role in steering three unions, NUPE, NALGO, representing local government employees, and COHSE, representing health workers, towards a merger and the formation of Unison.

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As a lifelong Socialist, he was in regular contact with ministers in the new Labour Government from 1997 and was asked by Education Secretary David Blunkett to chair the National Advisory Group for Continuing Education and Lifelong Learning, leading to a number of new initiatives.

Another move in 1998 took him to Southampton University as director of New College, where his focus was on extending staff training, work he continued with the NHS until he retired in 2009.

Mr Fryer, who was awarded his CBE in the 1999 New Year Honours list, met his future wife, Ann Wheeler, on the towpath near Folly Bridge, Oxford, in May 1959 and they married in Wadham College chapel in September 1967.

He leaves his wife, three children, Dominic, Tim and Kate and four grandsons.

Tributes from family and friends were read at his funeral at Beaconsfield.