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Revision as of 18:00, 1 January 2023 by AnomieBOT (talk | contribs) (Dating maintenance tags: {{Who}})(diff) ← Previous revision | Latest revision (diff) | Newer revision → (diff) German scientist (1915–2002)Gerd Walter Christian Sommerhoff OBE (for services to education) was born on 13th February 1915, in Wiesbaden, Germany and died on 28th April 2002, in Cambridge, England, United Kingdom. He was a pioneer & lifelong advancer of theoretical neuroscience and a noted humanist.
A great-grandson of the German composers Robert Schumann and his wife Clara, Gerd was living in England at the outset of the Second World War leading to his internment for two years in Canada before returning to England, where he took up a post teaching science at the Dragon School in Oxford. While there, he used boxes of numbered cards, containing questions, answers, tutorial material, or descriptions of experiments, on a variety of different subjects. He became a Research Fellow in Systems Theory at University College London, and presented science programmes for the BBC from 1960 to 1962, before being recruited to teach technology in Sevenoaks School in 1963 by headmaster Kim Taylor.
Some of his students were Tim Hunt, and Alan Macfarlane.
Early life and family
Sommerhoff and his twin sister were born in Wiesbaden, Germany, to Elizabeth Ruher and Walter Georg Sommerhoff, a wealthy banker who was born in New York to Elise Schumann, the second child of Robert and Clara Schumann. The Sommerhoff family resided in Haarlem, Netherlands, until the loss of the family fortune in the Wall Street crash and the death of their father "in compromising circumstances". The two younger children moved to Ryde on the Isle of Wight in 1931 with their mother Elizabeth Sommerhoff when she married Major Bernard Francis Anne Vernon-Harcourt, while their elder brother, Walter Hans Sommerhoff, emigrated to Santiago, Chile.
Sommerhoff studied engineering at Zurich Polytechnic (now ETH Zurich) and philosophy, politics and economics at Oxford University. Although Gerda was exempted from internment as an enemy alien in 1939, Gerd was interned in Canada until 1942. Gerda, a model for Vogue magazine, sculptor and photographer, emigrated to Santiago, Chile, where she married Juan Eduardo Subercaseaux and had five children. Upon release from internment, Sommerhoff taught science at the Dragon School and presented science programmes for the BBC from 1960–1962 before being recruited to Sevenoaks School in 1963 by headmaster Kim Taylor.
Child sexual abuse
Alice Hemmings reported allegations of sexual abuse dating from 1976 in The Sevenoaks Chronicle. The assault was reported to the Kent Police force by Stuart Neilson in 2012. Gerd Sommerhoff was also alleged to have displayed pornography to pupils and to have made obscene remarks including boasts of bestiality. Sevenoaks School agreed to settle a compensation claim by another pupil alleging sexual abuse by Gerd Sommerhoff at Sevenoaks School when he was 12 years old. According to the plaintiff's lawyer, Tracey Emmett, "Sommerhoff’s abuse may have been suspected by those who worked with him." Several further witnesses and victims have subsequently been identified, indicating that Gerd Sommerhoff was a preferential paedophile attracted to pubescent boys.
Works
- Sommerhoff, Gerd (1950). "Analytical Biology". books.google.com.au. Retrieved 1 January 2023.
- Sommerhoff, Gerd (1974). Logic of the living brain. London,: Wiley. ISBN 0-471-81305-2. OCLC 1014323.
{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: extra punctuation (link) - Sommerhoff, Gerd (1990). Life, brain, and consciousness : new perceptions through targeted systems analysis. Amsterdam: North-Holland. ISBN 0-444-88436-X. OCLC 20634326.
- Sommerhoff, Gerd; MacDorman, Karl (1994). "An account of consciousness in physical and functional terms: A target for research in the neurosciences". Integrative Physiological and Behavioral Science. 29 (2): 151–181. doi:10.1007/BF02691012. PMID 7947330. S2CID 17193883.
- Sommerhoff, Gerd (2000). Understanding consciousness : its function and brain processes. London: SAGE Publications. ISBN 978-0-85702-649-1. OCLC 646067977.
References
- "Richard Brown Baker family papers". Rhode Island Historical Society. Retrieved 1 January 2023.
- "Intellectual Autobiography". Metaphysics, soul, and ethics in ancient thought : themes from the work of Richard Sorabji. Ricardo Salles. Oxford: Clarendon Press. 2005. ISBN 1-4237-8866-4. OCLC 70296478.
{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: others (link) - ^ "J Paul Morrison :: Biography". jpaulm.github.io. Retrieved 1 January 2023.
- ^ Scragg, Brian (1993). Sevenoaks School : a history. Bath: Ashgrove Press Limited. ISBN 1-85398-063-3. OCLC 1108920922.
- Autobiography of Nobel Prizewinner Tim Hunt
- Gerd Sommerhoff, Obituary, The Times, Friday 17 May 2002
- Hemmings, Alice (8 November 2012). "Dead Sevenoaks teacher Gerd Sommerhoff accused of sexual abuse". Sevenoaks Chronicle. Retrieved 8 November 2012.
- Doran, Sean-Paul (7 November 2013). "Sevenoaks School settles sex abuse case out of court". Sevenoaks Chronicle. Retrieved 7 November 2013.
- Doran, Sean-Paul (18 November 2013). "Sevenoaks School teacher had 'six more victims' of sex abuse, claims accuser". Sevenoaks Chronicle. Retrieved 23 November 2013.
- Review: Cole, Jonathan (31 December 2003). "Review of Sommerhoff (2000): Understanding Consciousness: Its Function and Brain Processes". Pragmatics & Cognition. 11 (2): 394–404. doi:10.1075/pc.11.2.13col. ISSN 0929-0907.
Further reading
- "Obituary - Gerd Sommerhoff (1905-2002)". Kybernetes. 34 (5). 1 June 2005. doi:10.1108/k.2005.06734eab.007. ISSN 0368-492X.