OBITUARY of Dr. Lancelot L. Ware, OBE, Fons et Origio of MENSA; Born June 5, 1915, Died August 15, 2000.
Scientist, barrister and polymath, Dr Lancelot Lionel Ware will perhaps be remembered best as the founder of Mensa, the high IQ society. In 1945, a chance meeting on a train between the young scientist and the Australian Roland Berrill, an eccentric enthusiast qualified in Law, led to the formation of a society which today boasts over 100,000 members around the globe.
Dr Ware died unexpectedly at a Surrey nursing home at 7.00 am on Tuesday, 15th August 2000. He leaves a widow, fellow barrister and Mensa member Francesca Quint.
Lance, as he was know to his friends, was born in Mitcham, Surrey, the firstborn of a business man father and musical mother. His father invented a type of artificial leather but lost out in a take-over of the company, leading to Lancelot having to move schools from Steyning School to Sutton Grammar School. A bright young man, he became a Royal Scholar at the Imperial College of Science and Technology, London reading Mathematics and followed this with a PhD in Biochemistry. Medical research with Sir Henry Dale at the National Institute of Medical Research, Hampstead followed as he became a non-clinical medical researcher and lecturer in Biochemistry at St Thomas Hospital, London.
The war interrupted his career and Ware found himself at Porton Down, the secret research establishment. But not for long. He found a way to do in three days what was taking three months, 'so parted company with them'.
Leaving the Official Secrets Act behind, Ware continued working as a scientist at Boots, Nottingham and it was around this time that he became aware of IQ tests - he had a sister Elaine, ten years younger, whom he had to educate, and he took his responsibility very seriously.
In 1945, when war ended, Ware went up to Oxford, to Lincoln College, to read Law. It was here at Oxford on 1st October 1946 that Mensa was formed.
Originally, the intention was to include only the top 1% of the population, but an error in computing standard deviations on tests later led to the 98 per centile becoming the sole qualification for membership of Mensa, as it remains today.
In 1949, Ware was called to the Bar by Lincoln's Inn and he practised in the Chancery field, specialising in intellectual property, copyright and patent matters. He was also very interested in Conservative politics, becoming an alderman of the old London County Council in 1960s, at a time before the GLC was formed. In particular, he was interested in the local authority influence on education. While an alderman, he was appointed as the council's representative on a number of different charity governing bodies, including Imperial College, St Thomas' Hospital, LSE, the City Lit, St Olave's and St Saviour's Grammar School Foundation, the College of St Mark and St John and Wye College. He was also a trustee for many years of the Shakespearean Authorship Trust, concerned with finding out who wrote the works of Shakespeare and at one time, kept the library of works at his flat in Lincoln's Inn. The group is still active.
By 1950, Ware had left Mensa - mostly because he was very busy with his politics and law. However, after Roland Berrill died in 1961, he was persuaded to rejoin the society, though he remained inactive until the 1970s. In 1980, he married Francesca Quint, whom he met when she advised him and his trustees on one of his charities. She is a specialist in the law of trusts and charities.
In 1983, he joined the Athenaeum Club, a meeting place for distinguished intellectuals and bishops. At this time, he was awarded an OBE for services to the Institute of Patentees and Inventors, of which he was Chairman for many years. Francesca Quint says her husband would have thoroughly approved of the new 'global ideas factory' recently announced and licensed by International Mensa to use the Mensa name, which seeks to put inventors in touch with financial backers to realise their dreams. 'He was fascinated by the use of the mind for creative and inventive purposes,' she added.
Ware retired from the Bar in 1985, at the age of 70 and went into an active retirement, living in Surrey, London, Exeter and Surrey again, where he liked to spend time gardening. He was a practical man, keen on doing his own domestic repairs. He built up a collection of useful bits of wood.
In 1987, when a new international constitution was introduced, Lance Ware was given the title Fons et Origo, in recognition of his claim that he had the original idea of the high IQ society. His wealth was books and he had a great collection of them. 'Two things were very important to Lance,'
Francesca Quint said, 'He always believed one should not be ashamed of being ignorant, only in doing nothing about it, and he always assumed that women were completely equal to men.'
Ware loved to meet other Mensans, particularly from other countries, and he travelled extensively through Mensa, visiting Malaysia, Canada, the USA, Bulgaria, France, Slovakia, Hungary, Ireland, Finland, Portugal, Germany and Austria. He visited the latter several times, including most recently and at the age of 84, the 1999 Mensa Austria Charming event. He generally travelled alone. He was a Fellow of the Royal Asiatic Society, a learned society which specialises in the East. "We hope that Mensa will have a role in society when it gets through the ages of infancy and adolescence," said Ware in 1996 while on a trip to the USA to celebrate the Society's 50thanniversary,"But at least it has satisfied its members."
The last honour Dr Lancelot L Ware received was in 1999, being made President of the Mensa Foundation for Gifted Children, a body which combined two of his great interests - education and charities.
Ware had the intellectual versatility one would expect from the founder of such a society as Mensa. Almost until the last, his mind was wonderfully agile - it shone through the ageing process of his body. He played chess, real tennis and rackets and loved classical music and the countryside. One opinion he changed in later life was his feeling towards animals. In early years, he was clearly quite clinical about the experiments he had to carry out on animals in the pursuit of medical research. He later saw animals with more humanity and as deserving of respect.
Ware wanted to leave his body to St Thomas' Hospital for research, but regretfully that wish could not be granted, as his sudden death required that an autopsy be performed.
As Lancelot Ware was the founder of Mensa, Victor Serebriakoff, who died on January 1st, was surely the builder. There had been a difference in outlook between the two men over the years, which at times was quite visible.
However, they did make up their differences in the end, with Serebriakoff inviting Ware to lunch at his home at the Paragon, London, from which trip Ware came back well disposed towards his old rival. It is ironic that both of the grand old men of Mensa died in this Millennium year. Mensa will never be the same without them.
The cremation will take place next Wednesday 23rd August at Guildford Crematorium, at 3.30pm. No flowers by request and donations should be made to an animal or environmental charity of choice.
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