Victor Serebriakoff
Victor Serebriakoff (born October 17, 1912 in London ; † January 1, 2000 ) was a British author and long-time chairman of Mensa International as well as responsible for the global expansion of the IQ society.
life and career
As an Englishman with Russian ancestry, Serebriakoff was always the best student at school, but was extremely unpopular with his classmates because of his eagerness to learn, so that he left school without a qualification and worked in a sawmill because of bullying . In an aptitude test for the Second World War , he was awarded an extremely high IQ (the value of 161 cannot be compared well with the IQ tests customary in German-speaking countries).
The English lawyer and scientist Lancelot Lionel Ware and the Australian Roland Berrill, also a lawyer, founded the Mensa association in 1945 under the name "High IQ Club" as a crazy idea and with clear political ambition in England. But the matter did not want to get out of hand, no politician wanted to be taught by them, the number of members bobbed around.
Serebriakoff was made aware of the then tiny association by his first wife, who had read something about it in the newspaper in 1949. In 1950 one of the two founders, Ware, had left the company, and the first meeting that Serebriakoff attended was attended by only four people, including himself and his wife. At this point she became very ill and died in October 1953. She happened to be cared for by Win Rouse, a lady who was also a cafeteria member. Serebriakoff and they got closer, he married her. Such experiences later prompted him to say: "Mensa is where the egg-heads get laid."
When the chairman at the time, Jo Wilson, openly flirted with the idea of closing the association because of the sadness he felt at the meetings, which were nothing more than dinner events with friends, Serebriakoff protested violently. Wilson said that it would then be up to Serebriakoff himself to make something out of it, which he spontaneously accepted and became chairman in 1953. He remained a full-time manager in the sawmill, also invented innovative cutting machines and wrote a book about this business (under the name Viktor Serry ). He also wrote works on raising children, puzzle books (often under the cafeteria logo) and a theory of thinking "Brain", of which he was particularly proud.
From then on, however, his main zeal was directed at the club, which he transformed from a completely insignificant small club into a world-famous club that is active in many countries (e.g. in the USA, now the largest national association, since 1960 or 61, depending on Quelle) and has over 100,000 members. He also persuaded L. Ware to re-enter after Berrill's death in 1961, even if the co-founder never played a leading role again. In the 1960s to 1980s, he had numerous television and radio appearances in various countries, he organized the infrastructure for carrying out tests and recruiting new members. He renounced political ambitions that were in his view unworldly.
So he may not be the founder, but the actual maker of Mensa in its current form. He was honorary president since 1982. He died of prostate cancer. Jan Goodenough wrote a biography about him.
Works
(Data refer to German editions)
- Intelligence Counts (The Test of IQ and Creativity) (Date?)
- The IQ Self-Test (1983)
- Mensa (riddle for gifted students) (1985)
- Refectory Square (brain teasers for gifted students) (1989)
- Test Your IQ (1992)
- Thinking training for super brains (2002, posthumous)
- IQ (intelligence matters) (2002, posthumous)
Web links
- Literature by and about Victor Serebriakoff in the catalog of the German National Library
- Biography, English
- His son tells English
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Serebriakoff, Victor |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | English chairman of Mensa International |
| DATE OF BIRTH | October 17, 1912 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | London |
| DATE OF DEATH | January 1, 2000 |