The 31st Lanchester Lecture Lanchester-The Man

Abstract

From the first, let me nail my colours firmly to the mast by quoting Beethoven’s eventual dedication of the “Eroica” Symphony. For this particular Lanchester Lecture we are “to celebrate the memory of a great man”. My meaning here, I hasten to add, has none of that bitter intention of the Republican Beethoven who, so the story goes, having ripped out his earlier dedication to Bonaparte then substituted those words to commemorate the man once revered but who had recently proclaimed himself Emperor of the French. My intention is that we celebrate the memory of a man whose thinking remains as alive, as vital, as the day he set pen to paper. Each day of our lives we see his vision made manifest reality in the vapour trails of the Big Jets high overhead. And to borrow such a dedication seems appropriate since, not only was Lanchester a great admirer of Beethoven’s music, but also Lanchester’s largeness of spirit, his grandness of vision, his capacity for unremitting sheer hard labour put him in the heroic mould.

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