Bali victims include historian who went abroad to teach tolerance

Among the Britons killed in the Bali bomb was a young man who had dedicated his life to multi-cultural understanding.

Jon Ellwood had met some Australian friends in Bali for a few days' rest before attending an International Baccalaureate Organisation conference on the island.

Yesterday it was believed that several of them may have been killed in the car bomb which tore through the Sari Club in Kuta on Saturday night, although only Mr Ellwood, 39, was confirmed among the dead.

A history teacher, who had moved to Vietnam two years ago, Mr Ellwood grew up in a family of international educationists where tolerance and understanding were paramount.

Knowing her son was missing presumed dead, Caroline Ellwood went out yesterday morning and honoured a commitment to lecture on Islamic history and culture at the Workers Educational Association in Kings Langley, Hertfordshire.

When she returned she received a call to confirm that her son had been killed in a blast said to be the work of Islamic extremists.

"It was easier to do something. It just so happened that that was the theme yesterday," Dr Ellwood explained last night.

The terrible irony of how her son, who she described as caring with a sense of humour, met his death – at the hands of extremists – had yet to sink in, she added.

Her voice dull with shock, she said: "I have not dwelt on it. It is not something I can comment on at the moment. I am not feeling wildly vengeful. I understand something of why these people are what they are. Fundamentalism is not something unique to Islam."

Mr Ellwood's sister Totty, a teacher at the International School in Malaysia, travelled to Bali to join the hundreds of distraught relatives searching for the dead and wounded on Sunday.

And yesterday afternoon, it fell to her to make the fateful call home to her mother in the village of Aldbury, Hertfordshire, and confirm Mr Ellwood's death.

Mr Ellwood – whose father, Peter, is a UN worker and his mother a teacher – attended the International School in Vienna before gaining an MA from Oxford Brookes University.

After a brief stint teaching in Berkhamsted, he moved to the International School in Bavaria, Germany, before taking on a job as Director of Studies in Ho Chi Minh city. "Because of the way he was brought up, it was natural to him. He was enjoying his job in Vietnam. He was very committed to his job and had reached a high level," his mother said.

A family friend, Jennifer Henley, said: "The dreadful irony is that Jon was part of a service that works for cultural understanding and respect."

A fellow teacher, Carol Thearle, said: "It was in his soul, the whole business of understanding different cultures, showing that conflicts are not man made they are politically made.

"When you get to know people, you develop a greater understanding of where they are coming from. Jon believed that was the only way to ever get world peace."

Last night the International Baccalaureate Organisation announced that its Asia-Pacific regional conference, due to start in Bali on Thursday, had been postponed.

His mother had yet to decide whether she would still be speaking at the European Council of International Schools conference in November. The topic of her lecture was to be the best ways to understand and teach Islamic history and culture.