LEO editor

Joe Crouch – Died 2018.Joe Crouch joined LEO as a trainee programmer and quickly rose to Senior  Programmer/Consultant Status, working at Hartree House.  When Ilford Limited acquired a LEO II Joe headed the LEO team helping to establish the computer’s systems.  Subsequently he joined Leo Fantl in South Africa as head of the Programming  group. (noted by Norman Witkin) 

Leo Fantl writes “A key area (in our operations)  … was production, which covered our operating, data preparation, and local mine data capture.  Joe Crouch took the lad here. ….In many ways Joe was another Derek Hemy, incredibly quick to grasp a new point, clear thinking, and a good writer. His direction of the preparation and subsequent management of operations was outstanding.  I had chosen Joe to succeed me but this turned out to be not to his liking.  Later he did much difficult design work for the larger group, notably Sage Life, the group’s insurance company” Joe married a local Afrikans girl.

John Godwin writes; “I remember them (Bob Day and Joe Crouch) as being among the pioneers of computers in South Africa.  In the nineteen sixties LEO III/2 at the Johannesburg bureau was the first commercial multi-processing machine in the country.

Along with Leo Fantl and their colleagues they changed the way the Mines and other large companies ran their businesses. Today everyone is a computer expert, but then they really were. I am glad I knew them, true 1930 trail blazers.”

Ian Stewart Crawford.  Born 20^th March:  Died 20^th August 2018.

Born in Eltham, Taranaki, New Zealand.  Oldest of 3 born to Dan a doctor and Kathleen a nurse. Excellent sportsman and chess player. Won the Auckland chess championship. At 16 he left New Plymouth Boys High and worked for a travel company. When he was 21 he did a Bachelor of Science at Auckland University in Mathematics.  He had his heart set on learning computers. He travelled to Sydney and approached IBM for a job but they required a PHD or an actuary. This would take another 5 years so Ian decided to leave Australia. Went to England in 1956 and joined LEO Computers and then joined PA Consulting as a computer consultant https://www.paconsulting.com/about-us/ before returning to NZ beginning of 1966 after getting married. He became an independent management consultant in NZ and had approximately 100 assignments in his 30 years before retiring in 1996. He set up the Long Range Planning Society in NZ but this organization does not appear to exist any longer. When he retired he began work on a computer program written in PROLOG  on Natural Language Processing which he continued to work on until his health began to fail at the beginning of 2018. He is survived by his wife Virginia Crawford, his daughters Sue Crawford (Independent IT consultant), Kate Everett (Chemical Engineer) and Joanna Crawford (English teacher at Massey University). He had 7 grandchildren. His brother (a doctor and leprosy researcher) still resides in London.

Mike Daniels  – died March 2018, worked in Service Bureau, Hartree  House  in Programming and Support 1962-1966. He went on to work with several companies, including UNISYS, RCA (in America), III, an American Company back here. He worked on computer systems all his working life, all over the world. He was mainly involved in print/newspapers but also programming with Concorde. That said, he never forgot the early days.
He was a super guy, always cheerful. I’m so glad you had good memories. Please pass on to anyone who knew him       (From Betsan Daniels).

Mary Josephine (Jo) Davies , maiden name McCann), D.O.B. 1961 – ?? Started as a LEO II Programmer at Wills, married Keith Davies a member of the Wills programming team, but left Wills to become a LEO lll  Programmer and later LEO marketing.  Became partner of Colin Tully until his death. Peter Byford remembers her on his own LEO III programming own  LEO lll programming course in 1961.

Bob Day – Died 2018. Bob was recruited in 1960 by Leo Fantl to join the newly formed LEO/Rand Mines collaborative venture in Johannesburg, South Africa.  Bob, of Afrikan descent, was one of a handfulrecruited, all of high quality joining within that first period.  Bob stayed in a senior role until his retirement. 

Leo Fantl writes “Bob Day was a typical South African. With an outstanding secondary education record, he joined the Post Office as a technical apprentice, and completed his training as the top performer for the whole country. Bob is mainly Afrikans but  totally bilingual .  When he took our appreciation course, he had never done any programming, but I still remember his hostile stare during my lectures –and how I leaned over him while he was writing his test, to see if he was actually writing sense. He got 100 per cent.’ (User-Driven Innovation, p.300)

John Godwin  writes: “In the nineteen sixties LEO III/2 at the Johannesburg bureau was the first commercial multi-processing machine in the country. Along with Leo Fantl and their colleagues they (Bob Day and Joe Crouch) changed the way the Mines and other large companies ran their businesses. Today everyone is a computer expert, but then they really were. I am glad I knew them, true trail blazers”.

Leo Fantl – 1924-2000 Came to UK in June  1939 as a refugee from Czechoslovakia.  Joined RAF age 18 and received technical training. Recruited by Lyons as Technical Trainee in the Planning Department in 1949, but was transferred to the LEO enterprise in 1950 to join Derek Hemy as a pioneer programmer.  Despite a lack of formal training became a first rate mathematician involved in developing mathematical software and doing ground-breaking work in the problem created by rounding errors.  Played major role in most of the early LEO applications including the tax tables for the UK Inland Revenue. In 1960 he was seconded to work on LEO’s first overseas venture, the joint establishment with Rand Mines of a LEO III computer bureau in Johannesburg.  He spent much of his remaining career managing the computer operations of Rand Mines by then the sole owners of the bureau.  A brief biographical sketch can be found on page 202 of Peter Bird’s LEO: the World’s First Business Computer.
Leo Fantl

Pat Fantl, (Cooper), born in USA, came to England, joining LEO Computers as a programmer in 1955 the third women to join the LEO group after Mary Blood and Betty Newman (who became her sister-in-law). As part of LEO Fantl’s  payroll team, contributing to a series of applications including those of Ford Motor Company, Stewarts and Lloyds and Kodak. Joined Leo Fantl in South Africa becoming his wife after Leo lost his first wife Frieda in a motoring accident. 

Gordon Foulger – 1942-2011 After graduating from Queen Mary University with a degree in General Science he became a LEO programmer seconded to work on GPO programs, including the Giro and telephone billing.  He became a database specialist and consultant as his career evolved.
http://www.gordonfoulger.co.uk/obituary.php

Bob Gibson – born 1927, died August 2016. He trained as electronic engineer as part of National Service.  After working as an electronic research engineer in Civil Service, recruited by LEO as trainee maintenance engineer.  Took responsibility for training customer engineers and rose to oversee all LEO training as well as managing engineering maintenance services, and personnel.  Briefly left LEO to become a management consultant but returned to become head of customer support services for EELM. Completed career with ICL as manager Large Projects before setting up his own consultancy.  Retired 1988 and published book on Project Management. Gained a reputation as a safe pair of hands for complex and difficult assignments.  One of the stalwarts whose contribution played a key role in the success of LEO.

John Gosden – 1930-2003 Joined LEO as a programmer in 1953 after taking a degree (pass) in Mathematics at Cambridge University and made rapid progress with his understanding of software.  Played a key role in the design of systems software for LEO II and LEO III.  Left LEO in 1961 to emigrate to the USA for a sterling career in computing including acting as advisor on computer matters to the US Government.  An obituary was published in The Times newspaper in the Lives in Brief  Section on January 8^th 2004. John Gosden, computer programmer, was born on March 9, 1930. He died on December 18, 2003, aged 73. John Gosden had a long and distinguished career in computer technology and applications, in the United States and Great Britain. After studying mathematics at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, in 1953 he joined the J. Lyons organisation as a trainee programmer. Its small Lyons Electronic Office (LEO) team was engaged on the final trials of the payroll programme for the Cadby Hall bakeries. The LEO system was then equipped with only the most rudimentary systems software, which gave the programmers little assistance. The group of experts were the first to harness emerging computer technology to practical business management, and LEO became known as the world’s first office computer. https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/lives-in-brief-3hlnmnxmvj9  Resurrection, Issue 33. Spring 2004, published an obituary written by David Caminer, http://www.cs.man.ac.uk/CCS/res/res33.htm#f  A  biographical sketch of his career can be found on pages 203 and 204 in Peter Bird’s LEO: the World’s First Business Computer.       http://www.leo-computers.org.uk/gosdenobit.html