<div dir="ltr">Such sad news. For those of us starting to explore "computer history" as it was known in the 1970s and 1980s, he was one of few doing so. He was, therefore, a mentor by example. My readings on computing's history involved him, Martin Campbell-Kelly (so Martin not trying to age you as <i>an ancient</i>), and Bill aspray, among a half dozen folks. The earliest historians started out in some other field, eg I in sales, Martin was in computing, Bill although a PhD in history focused on mathematics which helped enormously when writing his biography of Von Neumann. Simon wrote well and clearly, at least who knew Zero when I came into the IT industry in 1974 (My history PhD was in modern European political history). So, I will always be grateful for Simon providing a glide path into this strange new history. <div><br></div><div>Jim Cortada</div></div><br><div class="gmail_quote gmail_quote_container"><div dir="ltr" class="gmail_attr">On Fri, Oct 24, 2025 at 12:24 PM James Sumner via Members <<a href="mailto:members@lists.sigcis.org">members@lists.sigcis.org</a>> wrote:<br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex"><u></u>
<div>
<p>Dear SIGCIS</p>
<p><a href="https://www.facebook.com/TNMOC/videos/it-is-with-great-sadness-that-the-national-museum-of-computing-tnmoc-announces-t/1171186234917349/" target="_blank">The
death was announced last week</a> of Professor Simon Lavington,
one of the earliest and most prolific of British computer
historians. </p>
<p>Originally trained as an electrical engineer, Simon Lavington was
a graduate student in the University of Manchester's emerging
Department of Computer Science under Tom Kilburn in the 1960s. His
historical research, mostly in the internal machine-history
tradition, developed alongside an academic career in computer
science and systems design at Manchester and the University of
Essex, and expanded after his official retirement in 2002. </p>
<p>His first book, the short illustrated study <i>A History of
Manchester Computers</i> (1975; 2nd ed., 1998), was followed by <i>Early
British Computers </i>(1980), a technical survey of the
hardware industry's development; <i>The Pegasus Story</i> (2000),
a machine history; and two detailed studies of British
manufacturers, <i>Moving Targets: Elliott-Automation and the Dawn
of the Computer Age </i>(2011) and <i>Early Computing in
Britain: Ferranti Ltd and Government Funding</i> (2019). He also
edited the multi-authored work <i>Alan Turing and his
Contemporaries</i> (2012, with Chris Burton, Martin
Campbell-Kelly and Roger Johnson). </p>
<p>His published articles include a description of the high-speed
text analysis machine Oedipus, developed secretly for the
intelligence service GCHQ in the 1950s and loosely descended from
the Bletchley Park Colossus project (<i>Annals</i>, 2006: <a href="https://doi.org/10.1109/MAHC.2006.34" target="_blank">doi.org/10.1109/MAHC.2006.34</a>)
and a short biography of Dina Vaughan/St Johnston, whose company
Vaughan Programming Services was a defining influence on the
concept of the independent software house (<i>Computer Journal</i>,
2009: <a href="https://doi.org/10.1093/comjnl/bxn019" target="_blank">doi.org/10.1093/comjnl/bxn019</a>). </p>
<p>He was also the digital archivist for the Computer Conservation
Society, where he co-ordinated the <a href="https://www.ourcomputerheritage.org/" target="_blank">Our Computer
Heritage</a> project. In 2024 he was awarded an honorary
fellowship of the National Museum of Computing, and he remained
active in research and commemorative activities to the end of his
life. <a href="https://archiveshub.jisc.ac.uk/search/archives/fcb6b66a-adc2-38f1-a409-0bc692de76f0?component=2f1282d0-2e2a-38ea-a320-00085dfe9aa4" target="_blank">His
papers</a> are held at the University of Manchester Library. </p>
<p>Best wishes<br>
James</p>
</div>
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</blockquote></div><div><br clear="all"></div><div><br></div><span class="gmail_signature_prefix">-- </span><br><div dir="ltr" class="gmail_signature"><div dir="ltr"><div>James W. Cortada</div><div>Senior Research Fellow</div>
<div>Charles Babbage Institute</div><div>University of Minnesota</div>
<div><a href="mailto:jcortada@umn.edu" target="_blank">jcortada@umn.edu</a></div>
<div>608-274-6382</div></div></div>