Charles Geoffrey Vickers
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Charles Geoffrey Vickers (VC, Croix de Guerre (Belgium), Presidential Medal of Freedom) (13 October 1894 - 16 March 1982) was an English recipient of the Victoria Cross, the highest and most prestigious award for gallantry in the face of the enemy that can be awarded to British and Commonwealth forces. He was knighted in 1946, becoming Sir Geoffrey Vickers. In the later years of his life he became a prolific writer and speaker on the subject of social systems analysis and the complex patterns of social organization.
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[edit] Education
Attended Oundle School. Read classics at Merton College, Oxford.
[edit] Military career
[edit] First World War
He was 21 years old, and a Temporary Captain in the 1/7th (Robin Hood) Battalion, The Sherwood Foresters (The Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire Regiment), British Army during the First World War when the following deed took place for which he was awarded the VC.
On 14 October 1915 at the Hohenzollern Redoubt, France, when nearly all his men had been either killed or wounded and there were only two men available to hand him bombs, Captain Vickers held a barrier across a trench for some hours against heavy German bomb attacks (the 'bombs' of the citation were early grenades). Regardless of the fact that his own retreat would be cut off, he ordered a second barrier to be built behind him in order to secure the safety of the trench. Finally he was severely wounded, but not before his courage and determination had enabled the second barrier to be completed.
[edit] Second World War
Served in the Second World War.
Later Sir Geoffrey. He later achieved the rank of colonel.
[edit] The medal
His Victoria Cross is displayed at the Sherwood Foresters Museum (The Castle, Nottingham, England).
[edit] Systems practice
After the war, he had a successful career in management and administration. In the later years of his life he became a prolific writer and speaker on the subject of social systems analysis and the complex patterns of social organisation. His work was taken-up by researchers at the Open University in particular. In 2004 a collection of archive papers, mainly relating to systems analysis and his publications, were donated to the Open University Archive
He developed the term "Appreciative System"
[edit] Books
Rethinking Public Policy-Making : Questioning Assumptions, Challenging Beliefs : Essays in Honour of Sir Geoffrey Vickers on His Centenary (Hardcover - September 1995) Edited by Dr. Margaret Blunden and Dr. Malcolm Dando. (In print)
Rethinking the Future : The Correspondence Between Geoffrey Vickers and Adolph Lowe: Edited by Jeanie Vickers (Hardcover - June 1991)
Policymaking, Communication, and Social Learning: Edited by Guy B. Adams, John Forester and Bayard L. Catron (Hardcover - July 1987)
The Vickers Papers Edited by the Open Systems Group (Paperback - December 1984)
Human Systems Are Different (Paperback - December 1984)
Responsibility Its Sources and Limits (Paperback - June 1980)
Making Institutions Work (Textbook Binding - January 1973)
Freedom in a rocking boat: changing values in an unstable society (Paperback - April 1972)
Value systems and social process (1968 - Republished 2001) (In Print)
Towards a sociology of management (1967)
The Art of Judgment : A Study of Policy Making (1965 - Republished December 1995) (In Print)
The Undirected Society. Essays on the human implications of industrialisation in Canada 1959
[edit] References
- Monuments to Courage (David Harvey, 1999)
- The Register of the Victoria Cross (This England, 1997)
- VCs of the First World War - The Western Front 1915 (Peter F. Batchelor & Christopher Matson, 1999)
[edit] External links
- The Victoria Cross Awards to the Sherwood Foresters (photos, site includes other articles on SF)
- Location of grave and VC medal (Oxfordshire)
- Liddle-Hart Centre for Military Archives
- Video clips of Sir Geoffrey Vickers filmed in 1978 by the BBC for the Open University.
- Geoffrey Vickers Archive at the Open University
