OBITUARY

摘要

Ted Megaw was a major influence in the field of ergonomics, educating and inspiring generations of students at the University of Birmingham. It is a testimony to the esteem and affection in which he was held that so many friends, colleagues and students gathered at his funeral last October. Ted was born in Hampstead into a prestigious, academic and cultured family. His father (Dr Eric Christopher Stanley Megaw, DSc, MBE) was the first amateur to send and receive radio signals between Ireland and New Zealand. As a key radar scientist, Eric's crucial development work on the cavity magnetron in 1942 utterly transformed the potentiality of radar - it was one of the most important inventions of World War II. Ted's mother was Dutch and from Jewish extraction. She grew up in Amsterdam and was a promising young actress. She left the Netherlands before the deportations of Jews from her home city began in July 1942 - although her parents were less fortunate and died in concentration camps without the knowledge of Ted's existence. Ted's paternal grandfather was a Belfast solicitor and published numerous best-selling anthologies of poetry and prose. Given his heritage, it was unsurprising that from a very early age Ted learned the importance of humanity and social justice and to appreciate the Arts and Sciences in equal measure.