Australian Dictionary of Biography

Professor David Myers, Vice Chancellor, 1976

La Trobe University Archives

David Milton Myers (1911–1999), electrical engineer and university vice-chancellor, was born on 5 June 1911 at Randwick, Sydney, younger son of New South Wales-born parents Walter Harold Myers, electrical engineer, and his wife Edith Muriel, née Matthews, daughter of a Church of England minister. His father became chief electrical engineer (1925–46) of the New South Wales Department of Railways. In 1925 David saw (Sir) George Julius demonstrate his automatic totalisator, which sparked an enduring interest in computing. Educated (1922–27) at Sydney Church of England Grammar School (Shore), he won two general academic prizes and a prize for mathematics in his final year.

In 1928 Myers followed his grandfather, father, and brother by enrolling at the University of Sydney (BSc, 1931; BEng, 1933). He graduated with first-class honours in mathematics (1931) and the university medal in mechanical and electrical engineering (1933). In June 1933 he sailed to England for work experience at Metropolitan-Vickers Electrical Co. Ltd, where he assisted Douglas Hartree, professor of mathematical physics at the University of Manchester, in developing a mechanical analogue machine called a differential analyser. From October 1934 he was a member of New College, Oxford, and conducted research in the University of Oxford’s engineering laboratory.

Returning to Sydney in October 1936, Myers was employed briefly by the Radio Research Board of the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR, later CSIRO), before taking up a research fellowship (1937–38) in the department of electrical engineering at the University of Sydney. There he built an integraph, a mechanical analogue machine to solve problems of second order differential equations, for which he was awarded the degree of doctor of science in engineering in 1938. On 15 December 1937 at the Shore chapel he had married South African-born Beverley Annie Henrietta Delprat, a former science student of the University of Sydney and a granddaughter of Guillaume Daniel Delprat (1856–1937), the general manager (1899–1921) of the Broken Hill Proprietary Co. Ltd. They were to have three sons: John (b. 1939), Peter (b. 1940), and Rollo (b. 1944).

Myers rejoined CSIR in December 1938 as head of the electrotechnology section in the newly established National Standards Laboratory. In January he travelled to Britain and the United States of America to examine methods and equipment in electrical standards work. Returning to Australia in August 1940, his electrotechnology group switched to wartime work, helping to develop degaussing ranges to protect ships from magnetic mines, and an analogue computing device to increase the accuracy of artillery fire. Myers also invented an improved valve regulating the air pressure in Frank Cotton’s anti-G flying suit. After the war, he led a project to build an Australian differential analyser. In this period, CSIR built mechanical computers with both analogue and digital installations; the Myers differential analyser was completed around the same time as Trevor Pearcey and Maston Beard developed a digital computer, CSIR Mark 1. Both machines were exhibited at a conference on automatic computing machines at the University of Sydney in 1951.

Appointed to the P. N. Russell chair of electrical engineering at the University of Sydney in 1949, Myers later became dean (1956–58) of the faculty of engineering. He was also a member (1949–55) of the CSIRO advisory council and a fellow of the Institution of Engineers, Australia (president 1958). In 1960 he was recruited as dean of the faculty of applied science at the University of British Columbia, Vancouver. While in Canada he was appointed to the Canadian Research Council and invited to join the advisory council guiding the establishment of the British Columbia Institute of Technology. Interested in the practical application of scientific theory, he later recalled that experience as ‘one of his proudest achievements’ (Myers 2000, 108).

In 1965 Myers was selected as the first vice-chancellor of La Trobe University, Melbourne. The planning committee had proposed a substantial break with Australian university traditions and believed he had the kind of vision they wanted in a foundation vice-chancellor. Myers enthusiastically endorsed a reformist agenda which centred around two issues. The first involved the creation of a more student-oriented learning environment, based largely in residential colleges, to which all students and staff would be attached. An associated reform involved grouping related disciplines into schools, rather than traditional faculties, to encourage the development of interdisciplinary courses. The second proposal was the democratisation of the operations of the university. La Trobe introduced a three-tiered structure of governance, which included a university council consisting of both academic and community members; an academic board, which replaced the traditional professorial board and included non-professorial academics; and school boards composed of elected representatives of the academic staff in each school.

Myers presided over an ambitious academic experiment, and not all of his reforms were effective. On his retirement in December 1976, he identified the more democratic structure of governance and the more flexible teaching environment provided by the schools system as genuine successes. The college concept, which he later described as ‘our ambitious plans for the integration of academic and collegiate life’ (Myers 1989, 37), had failed by 1969 primarily because of the tendency of Australian students to remain in their home city and to live at home. Myers also noted that La Trobe still lacked major professional schools such as medicine, law, and engineering, though it had earned ‘a reputation for excellence in some areas’ (Myers 1976, 4). In the task of building a new university, he was greatly assisted by his wife Beverley, who ‘did much to contribute to the congenial atmosphere of the university’ (Wardrop 1999, 25).

In 1974 Myers was appointed CMG and awarded the Kernot medal by the faculty of engineering at the University of Melbourne. ‘A kind man marked by a modest style’ (Record 1976, 2), he was awarded the honorary degree of doctor of the university by La Trobe in 1976. The next year he received the Peter Nicol Russell memorial medal of the Institution of Engineers, Australia. In retirement he continued as chairman (1969–84) of the Federal government’s Committee on Overseas Professional Qualifications. Appointed to head a Federal inquiry into unemployment benefits in 1977, his recommendation of increased dole payments tied to the minimum wage was rejected by the Fraser government. He also served as chairman of State government committees examining the fluoridation of Victoria’s water supply (1979–80) and mental health legislation (1981–82).

Beverley Myers died after a series of strokes in 1993. Her sister Moyna Lien Delprat, a retired librarian who had helped David to care for Beverley, subsequently married him on 12 March 1994 at the Shore chapel. Survived by his second wife and three sons, he died of prostate cancer on 10 November 1999 at Manly, Sydney, and was cremated. La Trobe named a building and a research scholarship in his memory.