Editing Geoffrey Vickers (section)

==Biography ==

===Early life===
Geoffrey Vickers was born and grew up in [[Nottingham]], where his father Charles Henry Vickers ran a successful lace business, Vickers & Hine Ltd.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.geocities.com/Heartland/Fields/1404/notts.html|title=Vickers Lace Company of Nottingham|access-date=2008-01-18|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090801011217/http://geocities.com/Heartland/Fields/1404/notts.html|archive-date=2009-08-01}}</ref> He described his first day of school as "school introduced me to the anguish reserved both for the non-conformist who wishes to conform and the awkward who long to excel in dexterity".<ref name=MF/> He attended Bramcote, a preparatory school near Scarborough and then [[Oundle School]]; a [[Independent school (UK)|public school]] before entering [[Merton College]], Oxford where he briefly studied Classics from 1913 until the start of war.<ref name="MCreg">{{cite book|editor1-last=Levens|editor1-first=R.G.C.|title=Merton College Register 1900–1964|date=1964|publisher=Basil Blackwell|location=Oxford|pages=98–99}}</ref>

He later described his home as "a place of unalloyed happiness. The only stresses of the time came from the external world of school or the internal world of awakening conflict and confusion ... I remember nothing desired that was satisfied by spending money of mine and nothing that was denied for lack of money  ... we moved by bicycle and bus, played in each other's gardens and stayed in farmhouses". He described his father as "the best and most lovable man I ever knew; and he seemed to combine the two superlatives without the slightest effort".<ref name=MF/>

===World War I===
[[File:Captain Charles Geoffrey Vickers.jpg|thumb|left|Vickers during the war.]]

[[Image:VCCharlesGeoffreyVickers.jpg|thumb|right|Photo submitted by Martin Hornby - (Gallaher Cigarette Cards).]]

His education was interrupted by [[World War I]]. He and his brother William Burnell Vickers volunteered for service in the army. Geoffrey joined the [[Sherwood Foresters]] (7th Robin Hood Battalion) and was in France before the end of 1914<ref name=MF>{{cite book|title=My Family – Memories of four generations before my own|year=1972|author=Geoffrey Vickers}}</ref> first as a second lieutenant, promoted to temporary [[Captain (land and air)|captain]] in 1915 and then to [[Major (rank)|major]] and as second in command, 1 Bn, The Lincolnshire Regiment in 1918.{{sfn|Batchelor|Matson|2011|p=236}} Explaining his thoughts about going to war, he later wrote

{{Quote|In August Germany invaded Belgium, we had a treaty with Belgium, so we all stopped what we were doing and went off to war. It was as simple as that.<ref name=MF/>}}

He was awarded the [[Victoria Cross]] (VC) for action in October 1915 and the [[War Cross (Belgium)|Croix de Guerre]] (Belgium) in 1918.<ref name=MCreg /><ref name="OO 71">[https://archive.today/20121223060506/http://libraryarchive.open.ac.uk/ead/search/?operation=full&recid=gb-2315-gv Biographical History] Reprint from the Institute of Internal Studies, University of California Berkeley. Also includes photocopy of the article taken from "Human Relations". Volume 24, number 5, 1971.</ref> The citation for his VC, appearing in ''[[The London Gazette]]'' in November 1915, reads as follows:

{{Quote|For most conspicuous bravery on 14th October, 1915, in the [[Hohenzollern Redoubt|Hohenzollern redoubt]]. When nearly all his men had been killed or wounded, and with only two men available to hand him [[Grenade|bomb]]s, Captain Vickers held a barrier for some hours against heavy German bomb attacks from front and flank. Regardless of the fact that his own retreat would be cut off, he had ordered a second barrier to be built behind him in order to ensure the safety of the trench. Finally he was severely wounded, but not before his magnificent courage and determination had enabled the second barrier to be completed. A critical situation was thus saved.<ref>{{London Gazette|issue=29371|page=11448|date=16 November 1915|supp=y}}</ref><ref name=wfrm>{{cite web|url=http://www.wfrmuseum.org.uk/vcwinners.htm |title=WORCESTERSHIRE AND SHERWOOD FORESTERS REGIMENT -VICTORIA CROSS WINNERS |publisher=Worcestershire and Sherwood Foresters Regimental museum |access-date=2008-01-18 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080118145503/http://www.wfrmuseum.org.uk/vcwinners.htm |archive-date=18 January 2008 }}</ref>}}

His brother Burnell was killed in action on 21 June 1917 while serving with the 184th Siege Battery of the [[Royal Garrison Artillery]].<ref>[http://www.cwgc.org/find-war-dead/casualty/143408 CWGC entry]</ref>{{sfn|Oldfield|2015|p=423-424}}

In June 1918 he commanded a composite battalion in the [[Second Battle of the Marne]] for which he was awarded the Belgian Croix de Guerre.{{sfn|Oldfield|2015|p=425}}{{sfn|Batchelor|Matson|2011|p=236}}

===Inter-war years===
After the war he returned to Oxford and took a pass degree in [[French language|French]], [[European history]] and [[law]] in 1919.<ref name=MCreg /> He qualified as a solicitor in 1923 and by 1926 he was a partner in the leading London law firm of [[Slaughter and May]]. He specialised in the legal aspects of large financial operations, many of which had international dimensions. In 1930 he was one of the first to take the five-day [[Imperial Airways]] commercial flight from the UK to India<ref>{{cite book|title=The Vickers Papers|page=9|isbn=0-06-318270-X|quote=In 1930 he made a five-day flight to India during the first year of commercial airline service between Britain and India|last1=Vickers|first1=Sir Geoffrey|year=1984}}</ref> and during the 1930s he was also involved in negotiating the extension of the German debt.<ref name=RtF7>{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Jv7pAost3hUC&q=%22Association+for+Service+and+Reconstruction%22&pg=PA2|title=Policymaking, Communication, and Social Learning|isbn=978-1-4128-3100-0|access-date=2008-10-10|last1=Vickers|first1=Sir Geoffrey|date=January 1987|publisher=Transaction Publishers }}</ref>

In 1938 he established and chaired the 'Association for Service and Reconstruction.<ref name=RtF7/> The above initiative put him in touch with a number of people who met regularly in a group called '[[Oldham's Moot|The Moot]]' that also included [[Joe Oldham]], [[Karl Mannheim]], Reinhard Niebuhr, [[Paul Tillich]], [[John Middleton Murry]], [[T. S. Eliot]], [[Michael Polanyi]], [[Walter Hamilton Moberly|Sir Walter Moberly]] and [[Adolph Lowe]]. The Moot itself grew out of a conference on Church, Community and State held in Oxford in 1937.<ref>{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Jv7pAost3hUC&q=%22the+moot%22&pg=PA2|title=Policymaking, Communication, and Social Learning|isbn=978-1-4128-3100-0|access-date=2008-10-10|last1=Vickers|first1=Sir Geoffrey|date=January 1987|publisher=Transaction Publishers }}</ref>

===World War II===
Vickers served in [[World War II]]; he was re-commissioned as a [[Colonel (UK)|colonel]], and was seconded as Deputy Director General at the [[Ministry of Economic Warfare]], in charge of economic intelligence.<ref name=MCreg /> From 1941 to 1945 he was a member of the [[Joint Intelligence Committee (UK)|Joint Intelligence Committee]] of the [[Chiefs of Staff Committee|Chiefs of Staff]].<ref name="BL">[http://www.aim25.ac.uk/cgi-bin/frames/fulldesc?inst_id=1&coll_id=213&full=1&template=1 VICKERS, Col Sir (Charles) Geoffrey (1894–1982)] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160109140509/http://www.aim25.ac.uk/cgi-bin/frames/fulldesc?inst_id=1&coll_id=213&full=1&template=1 |date=9 January 2016 }} British library of political and economical science, retrieved 2007.</ref>

He was also a member of the [[London Passenger Transport Board]] (1942–46) and of the Council of [[Law Society]] (1938–50).<ref name=MCreg /><ref name="BL"/>

===Afterwards===
After the war, Vickers had a successful career in management and administration before becoming a prolific writer and speaker on the subject of social [[systems analysis]] and the complex patterns of social organisation. He wrote many books including The ''Art of Judgement'', ''Freedom in a rocking Boat'' and ''Human Systems are Different''. He introduced the concept of 'Appreciative Systems' to describe human activity. His work was taken up by researchers at the [[Open University]] in particular.

From 1946 to 1948 he was also first Legal Advisor to the [[National Coal Board]]. At the time of creation on 1 January 1947 when some 750,000 workers from 800 different private companies<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.rhondda-cynon-taff.gov.uk/stellent/groups/public/documents/hcst/content.hcst?lang=en&textonly=on&dDocName=01630| title=Coal Industry Nationalisation – 60 Years On|access-date=2008-01-18}} {{Dead link|date=November 2010|bot=H3llBot}}</ref> became part of the largest employer in the western world<ref>{{cite web|url=http://systems.open.ac.uk/page.cfm?pageid=resourceVickers|title=Geoffrey Vickers|access-date=2008-01-18|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20050313213539/http://systems.open.ac.uk/page.cfm?pageid=resourceVickers|archive-date=13 March 2005}}</ref> where he worked alongside [[E. F. Schumacher]].<ref name = "OO 71"/> Afterwards he became a member of National Coal Board in charge of manpower, training, education, health and welfare (1948–55).

From 1952 until 1960 he was member of the [[Medical Research Council (UK)|Medical Research Council]] and was chairman of the Research Committee of Mental Health Research Fund from 1951 to 1967.<ref name=MCreg /><ref name="BL"/> In 1977 he was president of the Society for General Systems Research, now the [[International Society for the Systems Sciences]].

Between 1955 and 1958 he took part in the 'Round Table on Man and Industry', a project sponsored by the School of Social Work at the University of Toronto, the conclusions of which were published in ''The Undirected society''.<ref>{{cite book|title=The Undirected Society|page=Preface}}</ref> On the inside jacket cover he muses 'The Industrial band-wagon rolls ever faster onwards, remaking the world we live in and with it ourselves. Are we in the driving seat or merely passengers – or even under the wheels? What part does human decision making play in directing or controlling the process?'.

His second wife, and close companion, died in 1972. His manuscripts for 'Western Culture and Systems Thinking' and 'Autonomy and Responsibility' were constantly rejected for publication.<ref name=RtF14>{{cite book|title=Rethinking the Future – Correspondence between Geoffrey Vickers and Adolf Lowe|page=14}}</ref>

In 1977 he moved to a retirement home, on the same street in Goring-on-Thames on which he had lived for many years.<ref name=RtF14/>
 
Geoffrey died in 1982; however, the influence for his work is still alive. The International Society for the Systems Sciences presents the [[Sir Geoffrey Vickers Memorial Award]] each year in his memory.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.isss.org/projects/vickers_award|title=Vickers Award|publisher=International Society for the Systems Sciences|access-date=2008-01-18|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080325062141/http://isss.org/projects/vickers_award|archive-date=25 March 2008}}</ref> His military medals were left to the Sherwood Foresters Collection and are on display in [[Nottingham Castle]].<ref name=wfrm/> His papers relating to systems thinking are archived at the [[Open University]].<ref name=Archive/>