Remote Sensing, Photogrammetry & Society News Archive
KENNETH KEIR BEQUEST IN MEMORY OF BILL BARLOW
Bill Barlow in the early 1960s
AS ALREADY NOTIFIED through the medium of his Obituary (Anon., 2009) Kenneth Keir left a very generous bequest to the Remote Sensing and Photogrammetry Society. In his Will, Mr Keir expressed the desire that the Photogrammetric Society (as it was at the time) should use this bequest “to further its principal activities in such manner as will keep alive the name of William A. Barlow who was during his lifetime a member of the Photogrammetric Society”. Ken Keir was a founder member of this Society in 1952 and proposed his Hunting Surveys colleague Bill Barlow for membership the following year.
Members will be pleased to know that the sum of £30 000 was received by the Society in August 2009. Council is therefore now in a position to consider the uses to which this sum of money may be put. This decision will not be made hastily, and Council is hereby inviting members to offer suggestions. Guidance from our Honorary Treasurer, based on his correspondence with the Executors of Kenneth Keir’s estate, is that any proposal should include the names of Keir and Barlow as well as the word Photogrammetry.
Suggestions should be sent to: rspsoc@rspsoc.org FAO: The Honorary Treasurer.
Present-day members of the now merged Remote Sensing and Photogrammetry Society may be interested to learn something about Bill Barlow’s life, including his service during the Second World War and his career at Hunting Surveys over almost 37 years.
William A. Barlow was born at Brigg in Lincolnshire on 14th August 1920. He obtained a place at the local grammar school but his parents could not afford to send him there and he went to work in the local butcher’s shop at the earliest opportunity. At seventeen he joined the Royal Marines where his abilities were quickly recognised and he was singled out for training in surveying. This included a course in photographic interpretation at Farnborough, followed by service on the cruisers HMS Effingham, Danae, Curacoa (sic) and Belfast. On 21st November 1939 HMS Belfast struck a magnetic mine in the Firth of Forth, which put her out of commission for three years. Bill simply said “I left the Belfast soon after an enemy torpedo joined her”. He was posted to the newly formed Mobile Naval Base Defence Organisation with the task of defending Suda Bay in Crete. After another rapid evacuation, he was sent on various survey operations in South Africa, Syria, Palestine, India and Ceylon. After the war he was seconded to the Directorate of Colonial Surveys and Military Surveys to do research work.
In 1947, after ten years service, he was released and joined Hunting Aerosurveys Ltd as a photogrammetrist/surveyor. Besides map compilation tasks in the office at Borehamwood, he also undertook field work in Cyrenaica, Jordan, Iraq, Egypt and Turkey. Ten years later he became chief photogrammetrist. When the Hunting Group acquired an interest in a Portuguese company, TECAFO (Tecnica Aerea e Fotogrametria), Bill was appointed Technical Director and moved to Lisbon. Around 1970 he moved on to Tehran as Technical Director of Dastoor, an Iranian company in the Hunting Group.
Bill was married and his daughter Christina was born in Lisbon. He enjoyed painting and drawing and was quite an accomplished knitter. He retired in 1984 and died on 7th January 1990.
His family were absolutely delighted to hear of this posthumous and unexpected recognition of Bill’s contribution to surveying and mapping and of Ken Keir’s generosity to the Society. One of the things that they are certain Bill would have supported wholeheartedly would be opportunities for education and training which were not initially available to him.
REFERENCE
ANON., 2009. Obituary: Kenneth MacKenzie Keir. Photogrammetric Record 24(126): 202–204.
