24 March 1930 - 5 February 2024
John Barrett John is a Mensan from Victoria.
With the death of Jeff Whittle, Australian Mensa has lost its
founding Chairman. Along with his wife Ruth, Jeff was one of
the founding members of Australian Mensa — his membership number
was 7; Ruth’s is 28.
Jeffrey Whittle was born in Aspull, Lancashire, UK, the only child of Herbert Henry Whittle and Dorothy Wanda Whittle (nee Taylor). As a child he learned a lot about physics from playing with a Meccano set. For many years in school, Jeff was largely deaf due to inner ear infections which, today, would be cleared up in a week with antibiotics. Others thought he was mentally retarded, and he was bullied intensely. (So many Mensa members report something similar!) However, he had a mathematics teacher who influenced him significantly. In 1947, he started the Honours Physics course at Manchester University and graduated with second-class honours in 1950.
In early 1951, Jeff started his National Service basic training at Honiton on the edge of Dartmoor in Devon. Later in 1951 he did officer training at Eaton Hall near Chester in Cheshire and was granted a Commission in the Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers (REME). He completed his National Service in early 1953 and started work in the Health Physics department at the Atomic Energy Research Establishment (AERE) at Harwell in Berkshire.
Early in 1954, Jeff met Ruth Kendrick, who worked in Administration at AERE. When they met, Jeff had already obtained a copy of the book Teach Yourself French. Ruth, a linguist, had recently bought Teach Yourself Physics. Jeff was an only child, and Ruth, with two very much older siblings, had grown up like an only child. They married on 9 October 1954 and subsequently raised a family of five sons and one daughter, most of whom became Mensa members.
In late 1961, as the Cold War in Europe worsened, they moved swiftly to Melbourne — Jeff with no job and Ruth six months pregnant with their fifth child. Before moving to Australia, Jeff was intrigued by advertisements for a high-IQ society called ‘Mensa’, run by one Victor Serebriakoff. He took the supervised Mensa test in London on the day he flew to Australia.
Australian Mensa was launched after ABC TV broadcast an interview
on People ‘64 in October 1964 with Marjorie Meakins, Tom Sandeman,
and Jeff — all expatriate "poms". Following the broadcast,
more members were recruited, including Ruth. Regular
gatherings were organised at members’ homes, with Jeff and Ruth
hosting many of them as well as holding a range of Mensa
positions.
Jeff’s first job in Melbourne in 1962 was at the Defence
Standards Laboratory at Maribyrnong, working on the Physics of
Xerography. Subsequent work on Monte Carlo programs led him
to work with computers.
In 1967, he established and headed the Computing Contracts Group at Monash University which, amongst other things, provided a complete service to the Victorian Universities and Schools Examination Board for the Higher School Certificate results. Jeff’s automatic scaling program for the Higher School Certificate marks in Victoria, scaling all subjects to 'equal difficulty' is still used today.
In 1977, under the name 'Whittle Programming', Jeff began working on various projects as an independent consultant. During a nine-month contract with the mining company Newmont (now Newcrest), he identified a problem which the industry believed was too difficult. Confident he could handle it, Jeff took several weeks off work to develop the software, as a private venture, then returned to Newmont where it was used in a real-life mine.
The automation of the Lerchs-Grossmann algorithm for optimal pit design enables companies to save millions of dollars in development costs, and with proven results, Jeff and Ruth set up their own company, Whittle Programming Pty Ltd. Jeff worked on further development full-time and Ruth took over the marketing of the software, working initially from home and later, as more staff was taken on, in rented local office space.
The Whittle software became the industry standard and the name became a verb in mining circles. Financiers would require a prospective mine to be 'Whittled' before it would be financed.
Around 2000, the company was replaced by Whittle Consulting Pty Ltd. with enterprise optimisation providing integrated strategic planning for the mining industry.
In 2007 Jeff and Ruth were awarded life memberships of Australian Mensa. In 2018, Jeff was made an Officer in the General Division of the Order of Australia (AO) in recognition of his distinguished service to the information technology sector and the mining industry.
Jeff read every Scientific American and New Scientist magazine from cover to cover. Likewise, he read the newspapers daily. He liked to read science fiction novels, especially Isaac Azimov and detective novels. He loved nature documentaries, especially David Attenborough's. He loved Hamish, their beloved Golden Retriever and he also kept a tidy vegetable patch.
In his last decade, Jeff loved the computer game, Forge of Empires. He spent hours a day building his empires across many periods of history and he made great online friends through this game.
But most of all, Jeff especially loved his time with Ruth, particularly ‘drinks and nibbles’ — a fine tradition that happened every single day, any time after 5.30 pm.