OLD TEMPLARS - notable people who have lived in Temple Street 2

Mr Robert Dick 

Lived at 37 Temple Street c1910-13 

From the Sussex Daily News, 18 July, 1913

DEFENDER OF THE VATICAN

ADVENTUROUS CAREER OF AGED BRIGHTON RESIDENT

Those who have been familiar these many years with the arresting personality of Mr Robert Thomson Dick will find it hard to realise that he has passed beyond their ken.

For although his life had extended far beyond the allotted span, no one could ever think of him as an old man, so firm to the last was his hold upon those faculties which govern the intellect and the frame.

The end to a long and adventurous life came, however, in that manner which suggests but a general transition, at his Brighton residence, 37 Temple Street, at 1.30pm yesterday, at the ripe old age of 89 years, Mr Dick having been born on 16 November 1824 during the reign of George IV.

There are many people still living who can remember his coaching establishment at 80, Montpelier Road, when he was known as Dr. Dick.

Mr Dick as a young man

Among those who came to him at Brighton for special tuition were the Hon A.J.Balfour, the sons of the Rt.Hon W.E.Gladstone and Sir Courteney Warner, MP.

The deceased was very proud of being a Scotsman, his native place being a small village near Dunbar in East Lothian, and still more proud was he of his intimate association with Thackeray and Charles Dickens with whom he was a contemporary.

Many and interesting were the tales he could recount of evenings spent with these brilliant 18th Century (sic) luminaries at the old Evans Supper Rooms in London.

He was eventually engulfed in the political whirlpool, and under the regime of Lord Palmerston, became a Fenian in the pay of the Government. He was also at the command of the late Lord Beaconsfield, when Mr Disraeli, during the time when that statesman sought to prove that the disestablishment of the Church of Ireland had no connection with Fenianism.

The late Mr. Dick was a wonderful linguist, and was conversant with the manners and customs of every European people, for he had travelled Europe over

Deeply interesting among his recollections was the exciting adventure of being taken prisoner by brigands, for which outrage the British Government claimed and won him £3000. Out of this sum he paid Garibaldi £1,000, in return for which Garibaldi made him a Captain in his company.

Guiseppe Garibaldi, Italian general and politician

It was this very company that saved the great library of the Vatican, which Captain Dick himself defended, standing with others upon the steps of the building with a pistol in each hand, threatening with his fellows to shoot the first man who threw a torch.

Mr Dick in later life

Mr Dick has left the memoirs of his colourful life in the hands of his daughter, Mrs A.C.Greenwood, to whom the sympathy of many friends is extended today.

Mr Dick's death was front page news in 1913

OLD TEMPLARS – notable people who have lived in Temple Street 1

Professor Patrick Rivett 

Lived at 10 Temple Street 1967-89

Professor Rivett, third from right, with his peers

Operational research - the use of scientific methods to

solve organisational problems - came to the fore during the

Second World War under the influence of distinguished

scientists like Patrick Blackett, Charles Ellis and Charles

Goodeve. The unique contribution of Patrick Rivett was to

provide the focus and drive necessary to transform a

military activity into one widely used in UK industry and

governments.

Although he was born in Shropshire, Pat Rivett's family moved to London when he was only three months old, because an older brother had obtained a place at King's College. Their father was an inspector with the NSPCC, covering the Old Kent Road. Pat Rivett himself was a dedicated Christian

and politically left of the centre until his mid-forties.

Prof Rivett gained a first in Mathematics at King's, Cambridge

In due course, he followed in his brother's footsteps, with the intention of becoming a schoolteacher, but a first class degree in Mathematics resulted in his being drafted in 1943 into a statistics group within the Ministry of Supply. Rivett was assigned to a team working on the quality control

of ammunitions production, and the transformation of the mathematician to a practitioner interested in real problems was quickly made. His natural talent for communication was first put to the test when explaining control charts to operatives who had left school at 14.

The ending of the war changed the nature of the work and

Rivett was transferred internally to the Ordnance Board,

working directly to military officers on fragmentation

patterns of shells and bombs. He could not see the point of

it, but kept himself very busy by first obtaining an MSc at

Birkbeck College and then lecturing two nights each week at

Battersea Polytechnic. The extra money that he earned

enabled him to marry, as it so happened into a South Wales

mining family, and that produced a strong emotional desire

to work in the coal industry.

In 1951, he became head of the National Coal Board's Field

Investigation Group, which he built up to what became the

largest operational research group in the UK. High

recruitment standards were set and staff then taught each

other about new developments through a formalised learning

process. The excellence of the work carried out became

widely known, and Rivett was delighted when his staff went

off to other jobs, so spreading operational research (OR),

with many subsequently obtaining professorships.

During this period, he became the honorary secretary of the

Operational Research Society when it was first formed from

the OR Club. Working from his desk in the Coal Board, Rivett

set about transforming the club into a learned society, with

a quarterly publication which has since become a leading

international monthly journal.

At Lancaster University, Professor Rivett became the first Professor of OR outside the US

Whilst at the Coal Board, he had visited the United States

and even taken a two-week course at the Case Institute of

Technology, where he had struck up a close friendship with

Russ Ackoff. When Lancaster University was founded, its

first Vice-Chancellor decided that Operational Research

would be one of the first two departments to be formed and

Ackoff recommended Rivett to Charles Carter. Thus in 1963 he

became the first professor of OR outside the US.

In 1967 he moved to Brighton. He was

thoroughly miserable

Once again, he was in at the beginning of something new and

set about the work with enormous enthusiasm. The foundations

were laid for the highest regarded OR department in a UK

university. Close relationships were established with

industry. Both teaching and research had a strong

applications flavour. Other universities quickly noted its

success and Rivett was approached by Sussex, which at that

time had a glamorous image. Making what he later described

as a great mistake, in 1967 he moved to Brighton. He was

thoroughly miserable. The university did not like his

contacts with industry, there were demonstrations against

what he was trying to do and his filing cabinets were broken

into. When his wife died and he was left with a young

daughter, he worked part-time, before retiring in 1988 when

the opportunity presented itself.

Shortly after retirement, he found great happiness in his

second marriage. A move to Cumbria enabled him to renew his

contacts with operational research at Lancaster. With more

time for research, he worked with health authorities in

Lancashire on the delivery of health care for the frail

elderly and the preventive management of coronary heart

disease, because he firmly believed that OR was to improve

the human condition.

He also replied to the 50 or so letters that he received

each week, for his natural affability had made many friends.

Indeed his eloquence could make any topic sound exciting,

not least when he was talking about football, in which Pat

Rivett had a passionate interest, and he sentimentally

supported Millwall to the end.

Alan Mercer

The Independent

18 August 2005