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The Rose & Portcullis Emanuel School Alumni Magazine 2020
OBITUARIES It is with sadness that we inform you of the death of the OEs on these pages. Whilst the e-news carries full obituaries, we regret that some have had to be shortened for the purposes of this magazine. If you would like to see complete obituaries, please contact the Development office on oe@emanuel.org.uk. Terence Barton (OE1941-45) Keith Briars (OE1964-68) Keith joined the school later than most at the age of 13 and went straight into Lower 4 Arts. He enjoyed sport, particularly rugby and tennis, and was a member of the rugby under 16XV team from 1965-6. After leaving school in 1968 with 2 A levels, Keith went to Kingston Polytechnic where he studied geography. Keith then gained a postgraduate diploma in Town & Country Planning and became a town planner with Lambeth Council before moving into private practice and then to Wokingham Borough Council. He later became a town planner for Croydon Council for 22 years. After Keith left Lambeth Council, he pursued his lifelong interest in travel by spending 6 months with an overland expedition travelling around South America. Subsequently he went on holiday to a number of exotic locations including Zanzibar. Even when he had been diagnosed with terminal pancreatic cancer, he still planned to travel to Vietnam but his plans were thwarted by the current pandemic. Keith continued to pursue his geographical interests after university. He became a member of the Royal Geographical Society for some years. He also continued to have a lifelong interest in sport. He became a regular tennis player at the local tennis club where he lived. Keith married comparatively late in life and became a stepfather. After retirement, Keith continued planning his travel trips in minute detail and also worked as a volunteer for the National Trust Keith was a gregarious character and kept up with many friends from school as well as those he met in later life all of whom will sadly miss him. Jeremy Briars (OE1964-68)
Tony Brooker (Former staff1935-40) Tony Brooker invented the first practical computer programming language. He left Emanuel in 1940 and won a scholarship to study mathematics at Imperial College, graduating with a firstclass honours degree in 1946. Tony took up his first academic post in 1947 at Imperial College, during which time he helped to build their ‘computing engine’. In 1949, Tony took up the post of research assistant at the Cambridge University mathematical laboratory where he was responsible for its analogue computer. In May 1949, the laboratory completed Edsac, the world’s first electronic digital computer. Tony helped to produce a scheme to simplify mathematical programming of the computer. His interests at Cambridge progressed from building computer hardware to addressing the problem of how users would tell the computer what they wanted it to do, effectively developing what we now call computer software. Tony became a lecturer at Manchester University in 1951, where Alan Turing was deputy director of the laboratory. There he created simplified programming systems for the department’s complex computers. Tony then went on to create the machine code for the most powerful computer ever at the time, ‘The Atlas’, an early (and massive) predecessor of our home PC. In the 1960s, Tony had a key role in the creation and early advancement of Computer Science as an academic subject and helped inaugurate the UK's first Computer Science degree at Manchester University and later Essex University where he became the founding Chair of Computer Science. He also encouraged
free thinking and experiments in interconnected subjects such as robotics and experiments into artificial intelligence. Tony died on 20 November, 2019 at the age of 94.
Dennis Godfrey Bunce (OE193540) Dennis passed away at the age of 95 after an appendectomy. Dennis won a Foundation Scholarship to attend Emanuel where he flourished and is referenced in several Prize Day lists. Dennis was in Clyde and played rugby for the house, was a cross-country runner and like many of his contemporaries was in the Junior Training Corps. Whilst in his final year (5M) Dennis was a member of the Dorset Club which engaged in debates, music, and other cultural activities aimed at older pupils. He was briefly evacuated to Petersfield and later donated to the memorial fund which was given to the local hospital in Petersfield as a ‘thank you’ gesture from Emanuel School. In his youth, Dennis was a staunch Chelsea fan and regularly cheered them on at Stamford Bridge. However, cricket was his main sporting love and he often visited the Oval to support Surrey. He did well at school, but left at sixteen and joined Sun Life Insurance where he worked for some years. In 1963 Dennis took the plunge and went it alone, starting his own insurance company which was very successful. On being called up in 1942, Dennis joined the Reconnaissance Corps and later a Tank Regiment before being sent to Sandhurst to train as an Officer. He often said to his family that he had a “good war” after three great years in Italy. Dennis’s love of Italy lasted all his life and indeed his last holiday was in the northern region of the country in July of 2019.
