LEO editor

Chris Tyson – Born 1941 in Scotland, died 1970. Joined LEO at Hartree House as a trainee programmer in September 1963.

Wallace Weaving – Born 1931, died 6^th November, 2012. Wallace joined EELM in the UK but was transferred to EELM in Australia early in 1963.  An account of his career was published in the Australian All Stars (ICL) magazine in 2013 and Can Be Viewed at CCH
Pam Garnsey (with some added and fond reflections from Neil Lamming, Mike Benton and Kent & Sheilagh Brooks)

Mike Webb – Died November 2015 at his home in Anglesey.  Joined LEO as a mathematician and operational research specialist.  After leaving LEO became an academic, first with the LSE and subsequently as head of business studies at Manchester Metropolitan University

 David John Wheeler FRS  (9 February 1927 – 13 December 2004)

David Wheeler, a member of the team at Cambridge University which built EDSAC under Maurice Wilkes, had the distinction of being the first person to be awarded a PhD in compute science in the UK in 1951.  He played an important role in the collaboration between Cambridge University and J. Lyons in the period starting in 1949 when the Lyons Board made the decision to go ahead with the design and construction of the first LEO computer.  In particular much of the systems software including the initial orders, the use of subroutines and relative addressing owe much to his invention and tuition. But he also experimented with Derek Hemy in drafting a payroll program to be tried on EDSAC.  He went on to have a distinguished career in Computing, became an FRS and held in international esteem.  He is included in the Dictionary of National Biography (ONNB), his profile written by Martin Campbell-Kelly published online 3^rd January 2008 and in print 5^th March 2009.  He is remembered in many obituaries and tributes including a biographical sketch on page 211 of  ‘LEO: The World’s First Business Computer’ by Peter J. Bird. His Oral History is held in the Babbage institute. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Wheeler_(computer_scientist)

Wilkes.html

Sir Maurice Wilkes  – 1913-2010  Maurice Wilkes, played a leading role in the design of the Cambridge University EDSAC Computer in the late 1940s and in return for some funding for that project from J. Lyons & Co, allowed the Lyons team to use the EDSAC design as the basis for LEO I, cooperating with the LEO team and helping in the selection of J. Pinkerton as the chief LEO Engineer.  He will be remembered as a good friend of LEO. His obituary was published online January 2014 by the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, (ODNB), online written by Martin Campbell-Kelly/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maurice_Wilkes
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2010/nov/30/sir-maurice-wilkes-obituary
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/technology-obituaries/8171435/Professor-Sir-Maurice-Wilkes.html

Alex Williams.    (Words from Robert Timms)  — A number of Alex’s LEO and ICL colleagues were among the gathering of family and friends who celebrated Alex’s life in Melbourne on 28 March, a beautiful sunny autumn afternoon. Maurice Roberts gave a moving Reflection alongside the warm family tributes.
Alex was a great work colleague and a great friend to me, highly professional and well-liked by all including our clients, successful as a technician, then in project management and later on in sales. He became a staunch Aussie while remaining a passionate Welshman, a Rugby Union fanatic and a great family man.  
To quote part of the conclusion from his son Gavin’s fine eulogy:- “So Alex – a sports mad, tight-arsed, beetroot-hating, workaholic, cynic.  A brilliant childhood, a lovely wife, two lovely kids and 6 marvellous grandchildren.  A lucky life.   Some one who was just lucky. …. No dad, you embraced the opportunities that came your way with enthusiasm, hard work and integrity. Sure you had a lucky life, Dad, but you made your own luck too”.
See more on CCH

John Frank Winterbottom (1928-2017)

John Winterbottom spent almost 10 years working for LEO through its various reconfigurations, incorporating English Electric and Marconi, until further consolidation of the industry led to the merger with ICT and formation of ICL.  He joined LEO in 1960, working at Minerva Road as a Design Engineer under John Pinkerton.  He was involved in a wide range of research and development projects and regularly attended meetings of ECMA and later IEE standards committees.  Although John was an engineer by training and at heart, he was fascinated by the business opportunities that computing technology offered and the potential of improved interface design and speech recognition in facilitating interaction with machines. 

Along with a number of colleagues, John left Minerva Road in 1969, shortly before the site was closed following the creation of ICL.  He became General Manager (Engineering and Manufacture) with Farrington, an American data processing company which had a UK base in Havant, Hants at the time and whilst he enjoyed the many opportunities to spend time in the US that came with the job, they were short-lived as Farrington closed its UK operation in 1971.

John graduated from the University of Durham in 1952 with a BSc in Electrical Engineering and spent the following six years working in the motor industry, first with Joseph Lucas and then with the Motor Industry Research Association (MIRA) as a research engineer before his time at LEO.  He also completed an MSc at Birmingham University during this time.

After almost ten years in the computing industry, John moved into Higher Education, joining Portsmouth Polytechnic as a Senior Lecturer in Management and progressing from there to become Head of the School of Management Studies in 1979 at a time when it was moving into a new premises, purpose built to provide a base for residential programmes as well as established management programmes.  He was responsible for setting up and managing a series of bespoke programmes for the MoD, mainly concerned with Project Management and Defence Procurement, and another for the construction industry.  During the 1970s he was also active as a consultant and served on the IEE S6 Committee which dealt with Engineering Management.

John retired from full-time work in 1987 but continued to share his experience and enthusiasm for engineering by teaching a management module to first year engineering students at Southampton University until he and his wife, Joy, retired to their final home in Swanage, Dorset in 2000.  Even after their move he continued to maintain contact with professionals in both management and engineering through his involvement in various committees associated with his fellowships with the British Institute of Management and the IEE. 

John and his family have many fond memories of his time at LEO, including occasional visits to Minerva Road, and became particularly good friends with Ernest Lenaerts and his wife Gladys.  “Uncle Len”, as he was known to us, provided us with a supply of coloured paper tape to make into paper chains and delighted us all by somehow punching onto tape a repeating Happy Christmas message to us all one year.  Joy Winterbottom, John’s widow, has recently written to the society to say that John looked back with great pleasure to his days with LEO; he had many lasting friendships with colleagues from those days and thoroughly enjoyed the early LEO reunions.

John died in January 1917 after a long period of illness.  He is survived by his wife Joy, as well as their three children and their families.

Anne Moggridge, eldest daughter of John and Joy Winterbottom

Peter Wood – 1918-2013, who has died at the age of 95, was given a good send-off in June, well attended by family, old boys and members of his bowls club. Peter was very modest about his war, but it was revealed that he was evacuated from Dunkirk, trained as a commando, fought in India on the North-West Frontier, was captured by the Japanese – and escaped! He ended the war as a 27-year-old Lt-Colonel, still in the Far East. An England-schools rugby international, he became a pillar of the Association, and a leading member of both the cricket and rugby clubs. He was Ground Secretary for many years, and a vice-President of the Association and those clubs. After the war he was responsible for the first commercial computer in the country, the LEO I, as DP Manager for the Lyons Organisation.  A biographical sketch can be found on page 212 of Peter Bird’s  LEO: the World’s First Business Computer

Anatol Zak – LEO III engineer, 1934-2015 See LEOPEDIA – Computing History