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Figure 4.1.
w. ross ashby. (by
permission of jill ashby, sally
bannister, and ruth pettit.)
on Regent Street—and between 1932 and 1935 they had three daughters, Jill,
Sally, and Ruth.
From 1936 to 1947 Ashby was a research pathologist at St. Andrew's mental
hospital in Northampton, an appointment he continued to hold while serv-
ing from 1945 until 1947 as a specialist pathologist in the Royal Army Medi-
cal Corps with the rank of lieutenant and later major. From June 1945 until
May 1946 he was posted to India, in Poona and Bangalore. Returning to En-
gland, he became director of research at another mental institution, Barnwood
House in Gloucester, in 1947 and remained there until 1959, when he was ap-
pointed director of the Burden Neurological Institute in Bristol, succeeding
Frederick Golla and becoming Grey Walter's boss. In January 1961, after just
a year at the Burden, Ashby moved to the United States to join the University
of Illinois (Urbana-Champaign) as a professor in the Department of Electrical
Engineering, primarily associated with Heinz von Foerster's Biological Com-
puter Laboratory (BCL) but with a joint appointment in biophysics. He re-
mained at the BCL until his retirement as an emeritus professor in 1970, when
he returned to Britain as an honorary professorial fellow at the University of
Wales, Cardiff. He died of a brain tumor shortly afterward, on 15 November
1972, after five months' illness.
